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

[User]
[The Thing 1982 + Marvel] If The Thing were to try to assimilate someone like Wolverine or Deadpool, what would happen?

As we know The Thing assimilates by attacking another beings cells and taking them over. Would someone with regeneration powers be able to fight this? Would they regenerate cells faster than they can be assimilated? And what would happen to Wolverines adamantium skeleton if he WAS assimilated? Would The Thing gain control of another beings powers if they assimilated them?

[Assistant] The thing would probably be assimilated by Wolverine/Deadpool DNA instead of the other way around, the thing seems to takes a while to fully corrupt and take over and you can kill it with sufficient fire dless fire than you seem you would require to kill Wolverine and Deadpool this seem to indicate the ability of the things cells to reproduce and propagate is below that of wolverine and deadpool.


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

[User]
[fullmetal alchemist and technically fate as well] Could you use alchemy to alter human bodies?

Could you use alchemy on your body to change your appearance to some extent, or manipulate somebody else's body to the point of not being useable?

[Assistant]
For FMA, yes.

Changing appearances - Envy can shape-shift at will and Roy Mustang has changed the appearance of a corpse to fake Maria Ross' death.

Manipulate someone else's body - Scar does this, but he mostly only used the deconstruction portion to kill people.

As long as it doesn't involve the manipulation of a soul, altering human bodies is possible without a Philosophers' Stone.


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

[User]
Why didn't the univers collapse back into a black hole?

Why didn't the universe collapse back into a black hole right after the big bang? After all wasn't it dense enough? Everything in the universe in such a small region?

[Assistant] There is a common misconception that *everything* was in a small region right after the big bang. While it's true that the *observable* universe was in a small region right after the big bang, the whole universe was still infinite in size (as far as we know). Thus, even though things would have been very dense shortly after the big bang, it would have still been roughly uniform everywhere, and so no black hole would have formed.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens to the stuff used to color soap when we lather it up?

[Assistant] Pigments in soap are very weak and intended to not stick around long. When you get all lathered up, you're increasing the surface area of the soap by thousands and thousands of times due to all the bubbles. Because there is now a huge amount of surface with different optical properties, you are no longer able to see the dye. The dye is intended to be visible only when looking through quite a bit of the soap.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] Why haven't Giovanni fired Jessie, James, and Meowth from Team Rocket?

They have failed countless times to steal Ash's Pikachu and on top of that, it's been holding them back from actually accomplishing Team Rocket's goal of taking over the world. Why not fire them or at the very least hire someone else who is competent to steal Pikachu?

[Assistant]
The thing is that they *are* competent. They were some of Team Rocket's top agents. They've gained enough clout that they can pursue whatever goal they wish, as Giovanni knows they have Team Rocket's best interests in mind. The thing is that Ash is literally the chosen one and has faced just about every legendary creature.

And iirc they recently stopped trying to catch Pikachu and now focus on expanding Team Rocket's influence in new regions, which they've actually been successful in.


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

[User] ELI5: So, what happens when wind stops? Did the moving pressurized air just keep going to the next two? Like, is all the wind just moving around the world continually depending on where the pressure is, like a water bed? Or do wind patterns dissipate...or something?

[Assistant]
Wow, cool question.

What is wind, wind is the movement of air.

Why does air move, air moves based on a few different things but pressure differences is one driving factor. Closely in related is temperature differences... which causes changes in density which causes... changes in pressure.

Add to that the earth is spinning and our distance from the sun changes and the planet is tilted and the final answer is the wind never stops moving on our planet. Sometimes it moves faster than others but it is always moving even when it seems completely still and stationary.

Look up in the cloud at aircraft trails, on a still calm day the still spread out. On a windy day it happens much faster.


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

[User]
Why does the ISS maintain a radial-in attitude?

In almost every photo of the International Space Station, you can clearly see that the cupola module is always pointing towards the earth. That means that the ISS maintains a constant attitude relative to Earth and that it's spinning at 1 rotation/orbit (90 min)

I understand that it doesn't need any energy to maintain this low angular speed, but I assume that it does create some potentially avoidable problems:

 Small centrifugal accleration on the outer most modules.

 EVA astronauts will maintain the linear velocity of the spin, thus moving away from the station after they exit.

 Docking: I just can't wrap my head around how stuff could dock to the ISS if it's spinning at 4/min (unless it stops spinning for docking maneuvers).

So why is it spinning? Just to maintain a view for the cupola at all times? Does it stop spinning during EVAs and docking?

[Assistant]
This orientation helps decrease atmospheric drag, decreases chances of micrometeorite impacts.

This attitude also requires the least amount of energy to maintain (well an uncontrolled spin wouldn't require any energy, but that would cause a whole bunch of other problems)

And this means they can place antennae for communication in positions which always have a good view of Earth. Or for science experiments which need to always face towards or away from Earth.


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

[User]
[Jackie Chan Adventures] Why didn't Shendu, or anyone really, ever use The Book of Ages more than once?

So, in the two part season 2 finale of Jackie Chan Adventures, it's revealed that their is a magical book that records the entire history of existence. However, by writing in the book and making changes to it, as Shendu did, one can rewrite history, making changes to fate, casually allowing anyone to make people stronger/change their very bodies with just a word, and even create a new reality where anything they want to be true, is.

So why didn't anyone use this more? The Demon Sorcerers and Shendu acted like this was some last resort, but nothing really seems to indicate there's any danger to using it, or is really that hard to change. There also doesn't seem to be a limit on how many changes can be made, or who can write in the book, as Jade and Paco, two normal humans, did it with ease. So why didn't Shendu just do this the moment he possessed Valmont? Why didn't the J-team use this to just casually defeat Daolon Wong, or Tarakudo, or Draco? What exactly was stopping anyone from using this book to essentially become an unbeatable God?

[Assistant]
Deliberate changes to the Book of Ages will be reversed eventually per the natural order of the *Tao* or the natural order of the universe:

>Anything that develops extreme qualities will invariably revert to the opposite qualities: Reversion is the movement of the Tao. Everything issues from the Tao and ineluctably returns to it; Undifferentiated Unity becomes multiplicity in the movement of the Tao. Life and death are contained in this continuing transformation from Nothing into Something and back to Nothing, but the underlying primordial unity is never lost."

The actions of Jade was just the universe righting itself.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do small open wounds and burns get itchy while healing?

[Assistant]
Because the sensory nerves in the damaged area are still intact and able to transmit signals.

At the same time there's a huge amount of cellular construction work going on as your tissues regenerate, and sometimes a nerve gets triggered by all the activity nearby enough to send a signal to the brain.

It's like living in an apartment where the units above, below, and on either side of you are undergoing renovation. It might go mostly unnoticed, but every now and then someone will drop a hammer or leave a table saw running.


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

[User] ELI5: Is constantly drifting in and out of sleep bad for my body kind of like repeatedly powering on and off a laptop?

[Assistant] To some effect, but for a different reason. You need REM sleep to fully recover, and the more you wake up the less *good* sleep you get. But waking up repeatedly is not necessarily bad for you, you just wont feel as rested in the morning.


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

[User] [DCEU] Why are Amazonians so primitive in technology? While both men and atlantians are so much more advanced comparitivel.

[Assistant] They have magical technology that suits their needs. They are also immortal so theres just no need or inclination for new ideas. Diana was the only child on the island and she grew up to leave and want to let live completely differently than the Amazon.


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

[User]
[Terminator] Did Sarah survive the war?

Assuming that it did happen since I personally consider Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation to be what-if scenarios.

It's not mentioned if she did or did not.

[Assistant]
A lot of theories state that before the time travel happened (isn't that a funny sentence) she survived Judgement Day and taught John how to fight the machines and lead Humanity, and then after a few time loops and time wars she began dying before Judgement Day but after she taught John how to fight and lead.

So the answer is yes...and no...Time travel is silly.


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

[User] ELI5: What are you seeing in a person's eyes that let's you know they are "staring into space" rather than into the distance or at a specific point?

[Assistant]
We are _very good_ at reading whether we're being looked at - eye contact is a critical element of our communication (and very few animals use it - one of the craziest adaptations of dogs was learning to understand human eye contact).  The physical location of the eyes in relation to each other and you at short distances will be "off" to your perception if they aren't looking at you.  You can detect this instinctively.

It's really two. things:

1. the rest of the face "snaps in" to communication mode when you're engaging with someone's eyes.  Eye contact comes inclusive of a general "we're communicating" that involves lots of facial muscles and actions.  The deadpan look of someone staring past you says "not engaging with you" because of this.

2. at short distances you can reverse engineer the way the eyes focus and know that it's not to you. This is why someone who is a little cross-eyed makes it really hard to know if they are looking at you.


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

[User] ELI5: When you transfer money from one bank to another, are they just moving virtual bits around? Is anything backing those transfers? What prevents banks from just fudging the bits and "creating" money?

[Assistant]
When you transfer money from one bank to another, the bank actually transfers money from their own account at the central bank to the account of the bank that holds the account youre sending money to. So they would need to have sufficient balance to cover these transfers.

For example, bank A and bank B both have an account at the Federal Reserve. Your account is at bank A, your friends is at bank B, and you want to wire $1k to your friend. So you tell bank A to wire the $1k to your friends account at bank B. Bank A checks that your account has the money and deducts it, then forwards the request to the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve checks that bank As account has sufficient money, and transfers $1k from bank As account to bank Bs account, with a note of your friends account number. Bank B receives this deposit, and credits your friends account per the note on the transaction.


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

[User]
What do dopamine, serotonin, etc. do in the brain?

I got no useful answers in e li5.

[Assistant]
Dopamine and serotonin are both a type of chemical known as a neurotransmitter. There are many different types of neurotransmitter, and many different types of each type. The brain is made up of long cells known as neurons, which pass electrical currents from one to the next. In between each neuron is an extremely small gap called a synapse. In order to send the signal from one neuron to the next, the electrical signal needs to jump this gap - but it can't. In order to do this, the neuron sending the signal releases neurotransmitters into the synapse, which float across and bind to the receiving neuron. This then effects the activity of the receiving neuron, either by increasing or decreasing its electrical activity.

If you are asking what is the function of serotonin or dopamine, it depends on where in the brain they are being released. Both chemicals are released in a wide variety of brain regions, and the effect of their release depends on the types of neurons and their wiring in those different regions.

Dopamine is quite often tagged as the 'reward' chemical, because it is released in the 'reward pathway'. It is not a coincidence that recreational drugs also bind to the same receptor sites as dopamine! But it has also been shown to be involved in arousal, motor control and even lactation.

The release of serotonin is thought to be often involved in apetite and mood. The widely used anti-depressent, Prozac, is a serotnin re-uptake inhibitor. When you take this drug, it slows down the rate that serotonin is re-absorbed after being released into the synapse. This means there is more serotonin floating around in the synapse, and so it is more likely to bind to, and effect the neurons involved in making us feel depressed.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Would events have changed greatly if Faramir had been sent to the Council of Elrond?

Would the only difference really have been that Faramir dies instead of Boromir and then consequently it is Boromir that Sam and Frodo meet near Osgiliath? Obv that would lead to the ring's journey being abit different...

[Assistant]
Faramir had more faith in Gandalf and his plans than Boromir. Odds are no one would have went after Frodo if he went.

Problem is then most likely the fellowship wouldn't have broken with Aragorn and company heading east instead of to Rohan to track the Uruk-hai. This means Rohan might have fallen and that would have caused a lot of issues.


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

[User]
[Physics] Would anything occur if a positron was forced to collide with a proton?

Would they both annihilate each other? If so, what happens? Would the charge be conserved or the mass, considering that if they are both annihilated completely, the proton's extra mass wouldn't be conserved, but if only a small part of the proton is annihilated, the charge isn't conserved.

[Assistant]
A positron and a proton would not annihilate each other.  Annihilation only occurs between a particle and its own variety of antiparticle.

The final state would have electric charge +2, lepton number -1, and baryon number +1.  The latter two statements mean that in the final state, there will be one more antilepton (positron, antimuon, antitau, or antineutrino) than leptons, and three more quarks than antiquarks.


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

[User]
[STAR WARS] Why are there no fighting droids after the formation of the empire?

The trade federation had awesome droids like droidekas (spelling?) with personal shields and twin lasers on each arm. How come you never see anything similar in the Empire?

[Assistant] Palpatine chose not to use them- the Empire was based on crowds of cheap and disposable units, such as TIE fighters and generic soldiers, with a handful of amazing units, like the Death Stars, his Emperor's Guard, and his Hands. Weaker droids were not as useful as humans, and the stronger ones did not hold up to his elite soldiers. It also might not help PR for everyone to think "YAAAY HE SAVED US FROM THE DROIDS- wait, he's using droids now?"


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

[User] How come the wind keeps putting out my lighter, but does nothing to the cigarette once it's lit?

[Assistant]
For a few reasons.

1.  Solid verse gaseous/liquid fuel.  The fuel from your lighter is easily blown and dispersed, which greatly affects its ability to burn. Your cigarette is a solid fuel, and isn't blown away .

2.  Flame verse ember.  Flames are sensitive to wind, they're easily extinguished.  A match is harder to put out than a lighter because here, the solid fuel remains in place.  This is also a function of #1.  The ember in your cigarette is not susceptible to air currents, at  least not at the level you'd see in your typical wind.  Embers are actually encouraged by air movement, it brings fresh fuel (Oxygen) to the party, thats why the tip glows brighter when you inhale.  If you provided the optimal fuel:air mix, you could actually cause robust enough ignition to generate flames on the tip of your cig.


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

[User]
[Minecraft] Where are all these zombies coming from?

I assume Minecraft takes place in some kind of post-apocalyptic environment (given all the ruins and undead)--but shouldn't an area eventually start to thin out? I've been killing zombies night after night in the same area for years.

[Assistant]
Simple. Even when you kill them, they don't stay dead. What's more, they have an intimate link with the darkness, able to step back forth from the veil of death anywhere that's a bit darker than average.

Now, how this happened? Well, the things we call 'spawners' today were originally an attempt to bring matter and energy forth from the afterlife. This worked fine at first, but as time went on, they weakened the barriers between dimensions.

This is why we can now access the hellish nether, originally pursued as a sort of compressed hyperspace in our pursuit of faster than light travel. We built fortresses there with long roads to facilitate these attempts and experiments.

Without the damage the spawners did, it would never have been possible. We were just exploring the possibilities of the End - we had just built our third prototype gate - when reality weakened to the point that every shadow was a possible door from the afterlife.

And, well, that was the end of large-scale civilization as we knew it. There are a few scattered villages still trying to hold a light against the dark but, well...  Between you and me, they're going to need our help if they're going to survive the coming nights.


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

[User] Has our Sun ever "ate" or engulf a planet?

[Assistant]
After the creation of our solar system the sun was surrounded by a disk of debris, consisting mostly of dust and small chunks of rock. At this point the sun must have been eating anything that lost too much speed to stay in orbit, but nothing of considerable size existed yet. When these formed their orbital speeds were high enouch to keep them away from the sun.
Fun fact though, comets and asteroids are frequently still passing the sun very closely, if not crashing on it.


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

[User] [Filthy Frank Lore] Who has more chromosomes, the real OG Frank or the imposter Frank?

[Assistant] I would say the real thing is more powerful, based on the general rule of a copy being less powerful than the original. Unless this imposter is Chin-chin in disguise, in that case he may be very powerful indeed.


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

[User] [Game of Thrones] Why in this universum small island kingdoms like Iron Islands or Driftmark tend to be strongest naval powers? Isn't it like Hawaii would have larger fleet than Americas just because it is surrounded by ocean?

[Assistant]
In *our* universe small island kingdoms tend to be the strongest navel powers- "Britannia rules the waves" and so forth. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's a very notable trend.

For obvious reasons an island nation will invest in their navy to a far greater extent then their land forces. This means almost all island nations have *disproportionate* naval power- their navies are bigger and more powerful then you'd expect based just on their size, especially before air-forces where it's just land and sea. If that island nation is also a successful and wealthy nation, then yeah, it's going to end up a major naval power.


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

[User]
What makes someone a philosopher?

**Context:**

I have been off and on the streets for the last few years, I am trying to get my life back together and I've taken some philosophy course before, I like reading about it but it wasn't until this semester when I started taking my education seriously that I want to make it my primary academic focus. I typically go and participate in activities (really just free food) with other homeless people and I mention that I'm studying philosophy and they go on about how they have all these deep thoughts about the nature of man and whatnot. I know better than to outright question them because that's just rude, but I get called a bad person and told that my thoughts aren't valuable if I don't outright 100% agree with them. Today there was a dinner and I was talking about a podcast I was listening to and how they were poking fun at George Berkeley's logic about how things aren't real but they are real but it's weird, this guy responded with "But things are real, I can see them" and as pressing me to explain further and I said I couldn't because I didn't really understand myself. and he went off on a tangent about how we experience things and how there are unfalsifiable (idk if that's a word but he used it) truths and how if I couldn't explain it then why even bring it up and how I'll never be a real philosopher.

**Question:**

What makes someone a philosopher? At what point can you make a good argument for or against something? How are you supposed to engage with someone in meaningful discourse outside of the classroom?

Yes my feelings are a little hurt but I'm curious about what it means to be a philosopher, to explain things, and how I what methods there are to converse with people without either side escalating. If there are books you can recommend that'd be helpful too.

[Assistant]
Typically, it's someone who has at least a master's or a Ph.D. in the field, since they've demonstrated high-level understanding of the discipline and have contributed something meaningful to the field's body of knowledge(At least in the case of Ph.D's). Others who don't have these degrees in philosophy can still be considered philosophers in contemporary times if they are recognized as a philosopher by other philosophers(whose qualifications are more obvious). The latter typically happens after they've contributed something meaningful to the field.

Saul Kripke, for instance, is a widely and deeply esteemed philosopher because of *Naming and Necessity*(And other works, too), even though he has no Ph.D. or master's in philosophy. In fact, his only formal postsecondary credential is a bachelor's in math from Harvard. Of course, you gotta be a serious genius to have that background and still be able to make substantive contributions to the discipline, especially like his.


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

[User] [ELI5] The origins of England: Who were the Anglos, the Saxons, the Normans, etc?

[Assistant]
The place we call England has been invaded and occupied a bunch of times.

As far as we can tell, the first inhabitants of the area were people called Britons. Britons were a Celtic people who spoke their own version of the language. The Welsh and Cornish languages are closely related to this.

The Romans invaded South East England in 43 AD, and a hybrid Roman/British culture sprang up. Romans ruled the area for about 500 years.

Then you have what is called the Anglo-Saxon settlement period. Basically a bunch of tribes from around modern day Germany invaded/settled Britain, forcing the native Britons west into Wales, Cornwall & the North. These newcomers were fleeing invasion themselves, but were kind of massive dicks to the Britons. They spoke a bunch of different languages, but mostly started what we call Old English.

There were now a bunch of different kingdoms/states in Britain (like Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia etc), and they fought each other on and off for ages. Vikings also invaded and tried to settle, especially areas like York and Norwich (called the Danelaw).

Eventually the Kingdom of Wessex won, uniting the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms & driving out the vikings, and the Kingdom of England was established about 1000AD.

It wasn't long before they were invaded again though. The Normans (from northern France) invaded and conquered England in 1066. The Normans spoke a form of French.

From then England was pretty much a sovereign, solid concept. The remaining areas of Wales, Scotland and Ireland were conquered over time, to vary degrees of success. Note: this is a very rough overview, and I've glossed over a lot of stuff.


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

[User]
[LotR] Would the Mithril shirt have saved Frodo from the Witch King's blade?

That's basically it... If Bilbo hasn't donated the coat of Mithril rings to the museum (then subsequently taken it back) ,and had left it with the rest of Frodo's inheritance, and if Frodo was wearing it at Weathertop, would the armor have protected him from the Morgul Blade? It can stop the physical force of a troll's spear, but would the dark magic aspect of the blade somehow make the armor penetrable? Or would the Mithril have deflected the cursed sword and saved Frodo?

[Assistant] Yes.  Dwarven forged Mithril would have stopped a morgul blade.  The blade needs to pierce the skin to deliver the poison but it is still a blade and Mithril is hard as dragon scale so the blade would not be able to penetrate it.


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

[User] Before Darwin, were there any other secular theories on the origin of life?

[Assistant]
Evolution doesn't explain the origin of life, it explains how life changes and adapts to its environment.

Anyway, for a long time people believed that life just randomly appeared from non-living things, this idea was called spontaneous generation. Things like maggots appearing in rotting meat were taken as proof that life can just randomly come from other things. There was also a hoax that involved gluing a seed to a rock, which people took as very strong evidence that spontaneous generation was real, until somebody reveled the hoax.


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

[User]
[MCU] Do the Infinity Stones work in alternate universes?

Traditionally, in the comics, Infinity Gems from different universes don't work outside their home dimension. For example, there are several alternate Reed Richards who have acquired their world's Infinity Gauntlet, but they can't come help him out because they only work in their own dimension.

However, Dr Strange was able to use his Infinity Stone in Dormammu's Dark Dimension and be all

>"Since you gave Kaecilius power from your dimension, I brought some power from mine. This is time."

Which is cool (although the Dark Dimension clearly does have time so whatever), but makes me wonder whether MCU Thanos could go conquor the multiverse with his omnipotence once he assembles the Gauntlet.

[Assistant] Your conflating dimension and universe.  Dormamu from MCU is not the same as the Dormamu from mainline, or from Ultimates, or from whereever else.  The Infinity stone worked in that *dimension* because it was still the same *universe*.


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

[User] ELI5: What does it mean when a smoothie or other food product lists "natural flavors" on the ingredients list?

[Assistant]
In the United States, "natural flavor" means that, to provide a flavor, a concentrated extract of the usual ingredient has been added. Let's say you've got strawberry candy--instead of adding strawberry, you can add an extract of some of the chemicals in strawberries that provide the characteristic flavor; that's a "natural flavor." The label "other natural flavor" means that the flavor added is not just from the thing the product is labelled as--in addition to strawberry extract, you'd be adding another natural extract (not from strawberry) that enhances or simulates the strawberry flavor.

These terms are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Note that the term "natural" here only indicates the ingredient was derived from a natural source, rather than being synthesized.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it acceptable for companies to sell medication in the US that have possible allergic reactions such as "sudden death","stroke", or "heart attack"?

How is it that companies are allowed to sell medications on TV that have the possible side effect to suddenly kill their patient? As in such drugs as Vyvanse?

[Assistant] Absolutely anything that happens to anybody in a trial is listed as a side effect. You could be trialling an erection pill, and if some old guy died because his heart gave out from doing it too much, you would list heart failure as a possible side effect.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How long does it take a droid to become obsolete?

So I just bought a new TV. Not because I really needed one but because it was on sale and TV's have advanced so much that it felt like a needed an upgrade. My last TV i bought because my old TV broke. In the last 10 years I have purchased at least three TV's.

Meanwhile R2-D2 and C3PO have been in commission and doing important work for what has to be close to 50-60 years. Do they get updates? Are new and more advanced droids not being manufactured? Let's say I have become attached to my old droid, can I have it's personality uploaded to a new model?

[Assistant]
Regarding end-of-life for droids, it tends to have less to do with becoming obsolete and more to physically wearing out. For the most part, no one is performing big revolutions in droid design, so there isn't a lot of incentive to replace a droid in good working order. Of course, many droids (particularly labor units, astromechs, and combat models) get burned out or smashed up, and eventually it starts becoming hard enough to find replacement parts that the droid gets effectively totalled and needs replaced.

As for "uploading" your droid, it's not often seen but it's feasible; C3PO once got an involuntary 'brain transplant's by having his head tack-welded to a battle droid body, and IG-88 tried to instigate an anti-organic genocide by uploading one of his brains onto the computer core of DS2. Most don't bother, and with lower level droid brains there's basically no point, but if you've got an old, reasonably sophisticated droid that you've grown fond of it could be an option.


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

[User] ELI5: Especially in the winter when there's snow on the ground, why does everything have a blue hue to it just before sunrise and sunset?

[Assistant]
Light diffuses (understand deviated) when propagating in the air. How much it diffuses depends on the wavelength (its color).

The sun emits a wide array or wavelength, and its "blue rays" are among the most disrupted by air. That is why the sky by day is blue. They are so much deviated that they look like coming from where the sun is not, giving the sky its opaque blue look. (Imagine air particles acting like tiny mirrors in random directions, reflecting only blue light)

Now imagine the sun being slightly beyond horizon. Rays that makes the light look "white" are for the most part not reaching you. Except blue ones.
As they are redirected by diffraction, they reach places the other ones do not have a direct path yet/anymore. That is why before dawn/after dusk everything is blue-ish. (Snow only makes it more noticeable because it's white.)


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

[User] [Star Wars] Aside from death sticks, what other recreational drugs/drinks do people consume in the star wars universe?

[Assistant]
There are several types of spice used as a drug, the far most popular (and expensive) one is Glitterstim.

It's even canon: Threepio mentions being "sent to the spice mines of Kessel, smashed into who knows what", and it's what Han was smuggling when he made the "Kessel Run". He dumped the load before the Imperials could find anything, which is the reason Jabba put a bounty on him - Jabba had already paid for that smuggling run.

Going into Legends: Glitterstim is a drug that enhances telepathy. People would use it in pairs to have an experience with each others' mind. And what it *actually* is, is the webs laid from an energy-draining spider that inhabits Kessel (which is only a dwarf planet)


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

[User] [Blade Runner] What are the meanings behind each of Gaff's origamis?

[Assistant] The main theory is that he enjoys origami for it's own sake without greater meaning or context. Blade runners aren't exactly a popular or even well paid lot so turning trash into a distracting piece of art is it's own reward. Somehow gaff is aware of deckard's dreams and uses the unicorn to hint at it to him. It's theorized that deckard is an advanced model replicant and gaff being aware of this uses the origami to clue deckard into it before he wastes his life and chance at love. But without any records surviving the blackout of 22 deckard is assumed to be human and gaff just an eccentric blade runner that made origami of no merit to himself but of significance simply by chance.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we prefer drinks such as Coffee or Tea either hot or cold but not at room temperature?

[Assistant]
Two reasons:

1. Best flavor profiles are found at either end of the temperature spectrum: coffee tastes less bitter and more of the bean characteristics come out at low temperatures (floral, sometimes earthy notes), whereas more of the roasted character is found at higher temperatures (tobacco, chocolate, sometimes caramel). Lukewarm coffee is pretty bland.

2. Psychological perception. When you're drinking iced coffee or iced tea, you're expecting the drink to be cold. If it becomes lukewarm it is now too warm and you perceive it to be less pleasant. When you're drinking hot coffee or tea, you're expecting the drink to be hot and when it cools to lukewarm it is now too cold and therefore unpleasant.


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

[User]
how was Nietzsche rescued from obscurity so quickly?

hello! I was reading *A Painful Case* by James Joyce, and noticed that Nietzsche's books/philosophy feature heavily in the story's underlying themes. (an Irish clerk owns several of Nietzsche's books in translation in the story.) Joyce would've written this story between 1904-1907. similarly, *Thus Spake Zarathustra* pops up again and again and again in *Ulysses,* which is set in 1904. I was under the impression that Nietzsche died unknown and unread in 1900. how was Nietzsche's philosophy able to travel to Ireland so quickly after his death? especially when the man went insane in '89?

[Assistant] Nietzsche was, as you say, 'unknown and unread' before his mental collapse in 89. In a bit of tragic irony, however, he didn't die that way at all - in the 11 years between then and his death he actually did become celebrated and well-known, if not always for the right reasons. Apparently people came from far and wide to visit him even in his illness as if he were some sort of attraction, and his sister was all too happy to encourage them. So there would have been plenty of time for his work to make it to Ireland and become known there.


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

[User]
[MCU] Can a sling ring portal be effectively used for offense?

Everywhere I go I see people wondering why Dr Strange didnt just sling ring Thanoss arm off at the battle on Titan. Now the obvious answer would be that its not the one way, but it got me thinking. Can a sling ring  feasibly be used as an attack in general or would it only work in certain scenarios like Cull Obsidian jumping at Wong?

[Assistant] Ya ever play a fighting game and keep trying to pull off one specific combo? You keep getting knocked down and thrown around because instead of paying attention to the fight, you're trying to set up a fancy move, and wouldn't you know it, your opponent would rather punch you in the face than stand still and let you lob his head off. That's what Sling ring dismemberment is. It looks awesome, and when you pull it off it seems like a ridiculously powerful, "open with that next time," kind of move, but in reality it's not something you can rely on.


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

[User] ELI5: why does a common house fly insist on repeatedly landing on a person despite having an entire property to fly around in?

[Assistant] To lick off your sweat. At least some species anyway. Human sweat is full of salt and protein (more so than other animals because of our high salt intake). Basically they're using you as a salt lick.


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

[User] ELI5: If corporations are considered Legal Persons, and legal persons are required to pay income tax, why aren't profitable corporations like Merck, GE, and Verizon paying any income tax?

[Assistant] Business expenses are tax deductible. When you're a business, every expense is a business expense so you only pay tax on profits, not income. By careful bookkeeping and passing money between subsidiaries, the corporate accountants can make it look like the company didn't make any money so they don't owe any taxes.


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

[User]
[MCU] Would cocaine cause Dr. Bruce Banner to become the Hulk?

Just curious.

[Assistant]
Psychoactive drugs (ones that affect the brain) can do strange, unpredictable things. It's possible that any psychoactive drug could make him hulk-out.

If you're thinking along the coke = angry lines then no, not necessarily. Cocaine *can* make people more aggressive, but it's not a rule.


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

[User]
[Jessica Jones] Why does no one just plug their ears when they go to take on Killgrave

I Realize his virus would still effect you or whatever but if you can't hear him give a command it seems like that would give you sometime at least before he figures it out and starts writing things down.

It isn't a permanent solution but it seems like Simpson or Cage or somebody could just plug their ears and then beat the shit out of him.

[Assistant] Ear plugs reduce noise, but don't eliminate it. It's a viable strategy to drown out his words with loud noise or noise canceling headphones up until one of his other thralls neutralizes your advantage. Plus, he can use non-verbal communication to control minds; if he holds up his hand and mouths stop, you will stop.


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

[User] ELI5: Why bad smells can usually last for weeks/ages but it is that difficult to make something smell well for weeks/ages?

[Assistant]
Often, bad smells are caused by bacteria or fungii, which are living organisms that can reproduce and therefore be there for a long time, but something that smells nice ( perfume, food, incense... ) often comes "alone" (perfume) or from something that disappear, burns, or rot.

Therefore, to have a long lasting good smell, you need to have something producing that smell without deteriorating (flowers ? GMO bacteria, maybe ?)


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

[User]
[General] The smallest-scale tech in sci-fi?

What's the finest level of distinctive features in technology that's been done in sci-fi or fantasy? Atomic level (~10^-10 m)? Nucleon level? (~10^-15 m)? Planck length? (~10^-35 m)? Something else? What are some examples of really fine techs in sci-fi?

[Assistant]
"He Who Shrank," by Henry Hasse, 1936.

An evil genius gives a guy an injection that makes him shrink *forever.* When he gets small enough to see individual atoms, he finds that each level of reality has a smaller one inside -- each atom is a star or planet of a smaller universe. And when he shrinks enough to see *that* universe's atoms, he finds that each of them is also a solar system on an even smaller scale, and so on forever.

Take that, femto-whatever!


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

[User] ELI5: What happens when external scar tissue is wounded a second time? How many times could the same area theoretically re-heal, and what would be the consequences apart from appearance?

[Assistant] It'll just keep scarring in different ways. It'll continue to re-heal unless you contract some kind of illness that prevents your body from healing. There's no real consequence, either. Your body will just keep working until something stops it from working.


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

[User] [Marvel/DC] Who are the moral centers of their respective universes?

[Assistant]
I by "moral center", you mean "the good guy" or "the person with the best sense of morality" then :

For DC : Its Superman, the one with the most humanity, the one who is always ready to do the right thing. Superman reprsent an ideal of morality and kindness that every human should try to follow (thats why he is named "the man of tomorrow").

For Marvel : Its probably Captain America, like most heroes look up to him .


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

[User]
Using current technology, would it be possible to have a shared internet network between Mars and Earth?

Wondered this the other day if each planet had its own internet network would it be possible to link them both together? Would the latency be too drastically high for it to be functional? Or would it just not be possible without having a large number of satellites to link the two planets?

Slight credit goes to Roosterteth/DrunkTank podcast for sparking this conversation.

[Assistant]
Latency would definitely be a problem, depending on where the planets happen to be relative to each other it'll take between 4 and 20 minutes for light to go one way. Current networking protocols are not designed to work with such latencies so they wouldn't work. In other words a normal WIFI will not work even if you can get the signal to go through by boosting the power and using a directional antenna or whatever. You will need some kind of a new protocol to do the extreme latency hop between the two planets. And even if you get things working up to the network layer, that is get internet packets moving between the planets, TCP certainly wouldn't work as just the handshake would take tens of minutes. If TCP doesn't work then you can't really connect to any ordinary web servers.

A simple solution would be for you at Mars to contact some proxy on Earth using some interplanetary protocol. Then the proxy would communicate on your behalf with whatever webserver you want using our current protocols. Once it has all of the page then it can send it back to you again using the interplanetary protocol. And you'd get the page you asked some 8-40 minutes after you asked for it. So that'd get it to work technically but there'd be a huge usability issue with latency.

A better way would be to have a big proxy at Mars. Whatever webpage you want, you ask the proxy server, which would have a copy of it. The communication would never go to Earth at all. Essentially you'd have a copy of the Earth Internet on the Mars proxy. The proxy would be updated through some means and obviously there'd be some latency with the updating. And none of the highly interactive web services would work at all with a system like that.

To get the interactive web services to work you'd really need to have a separate Mars server for Mars stuff. Then it's up to the service to synchronise things between Mars and Earth. Of course this wouldn't work for things like Skyping with your friends on Earth, there's no way around the latency with communicating with Earth. But say like internet banking. You do you banking stuff with the Mars banking server which would happen (practically) instantly. That would then update your account balance with the Earth through some means, this would necessarily take at least that 4-20 minutes. Of course the bank would need some system to guard against you arranging a withdrawal at both ends at the same time and overdrawing your account.

So yes, we do have the technology to communicate between the two planets. Normal protocols we use today wouldn't work but we could build systems that would. However, a practical solutions would probably avoid sending anything to Earth at all directly.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do we not notice rubber on the roads if tires slowly wear down on them?

Why can't we take our hand, touch the road, and feel rubber? Might be a silly question, but this question got me thinking in the shower this morning.

[Assistant]
The tiny grains of rubber leave the road in two ways.

1. They are washed away by rainwater, ending up wherever the drains or ditches near the road lead.
2. They are carried away by the wind. Buildings right near very major roads often end up with a fine layer of rubber and dirt on them.


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

[User]
[Man of Steel] Why is Krypton seen a failed society?

In MoS, there is a brief scene where Superman's mom makes a plea to her infant son to create a better society than Krypton. OK, sure, Krypton had basically a eugenics program which is horrible, and overall their society seems to have peaked a long time ago, but wouldn't by any standards Krypton be considered a smashing success? They existed for I think I heard hundreds of thousands of years, they developed technology that is miraculous, they mastered interstellar space travel before humans even existed, and for the most part, they seemed to have a successful and prosperous society.

[Assistant] The key word being that they *had* all of those things. Then they went backward, and became fearful and ignorant to the point where they ignored the warning signs of the destruction of their world, even from one of their highest, most esteemed scientists. Their colonies all failed for one reason or another, and they withdrew back to their homeworld and became isolationist.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do your eyes water when you choke on something?

What are the reasons behind your eyes watering when you begin to choke on food or something?

[Assistant] Your body has a defense mechanism that helps when we get dust or sand in our eyes and it'll start to cry. Much like how a dirty wound will bleed a lot, it helps clean it out. Choking along with eating something spicy, biting your tounge, or even getting hit in the face will result in the eyes starting to water to try and make the body feel better.


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

[User]
Does eating preservatives slow the rate at which our corpses decompose?

I heard this the other day, but I couldn't find any reliable sources that say one way or the other.

[Assistant]
There is no scientific explanation for this: we indeed consume large amounts of preservatives, but our metabolism partly breaks down these chemical compounds, partly they are transformed chemically, losing their preservative effects in the process.

Thus, preservatives are only effective in their original chemical form. Once their chemical structure is altered so is their "preservative effect". Food preservatives are not designed to "preserve" our bodies, nor do they.

Preservation is usually defined as a method used to maintain an existing condition or to prevent damage likely to be brought about by chemical (oxidation), physical (temperature, light) or biological (microorganisms) factors.

 The main function of preservation is thus to delay the spoiling of foodstuffs and to prevent any alterations in their taste or, in some cases, their appearance. This can be done in different ways, through processing methods including canning, dehydration (drying), smoking and freezing; the use of packaging; and the use of food additives such as antioxidants or other preservatives.

Some examples of widely used preservatives are:

Sulphur compounds such as the sulphites (E221-228) are used to inhibit the growth of bacteria e.g. in wine, dried fruits, vegetables in vinegar or brine. Sorbic acid (E200) can be used for many different purposes, including the preservation of potato products, cheese and jam.

Another important group of substances consists of the nitrate and nitrite compounds (E249-252). These are used as additives in meat products such as sausages and hams to protect against the bacterium that causes botulism (Clostridium botulinum), and in this way they make a significant contribution to food safety.

Benzoic acid and its calcium, sodium or potassium salts (E210-213) are used as antibacterials and antifungals in foods such as pickled cucumbers, low sugar jams and jellies, dressings, condiments.


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

[User]
Has Io ever been seriously considered a possible site for extraterrestrial life?

In Arthur C. Clarke's "2010", humanity finds extraterrestrial life for the first time on Jupiter's moon Io. In the years since, I can't recall any "real" cases for Io being a likely spot to find life in our solar system other than Earth.

Has Io ever been a serious candidate for finding life? If not, why did Clarke choose it for his novel?

[Assistant]
Interactions with Jupiters magnetosphere expose Io to some very intense radiation, and gravitational interactions with Jupiter tidally heat its core to the point where its highly volcanically active.  Through a combination of the radiation and the heat any water that was once on Io is long gone, and its generally a very hellish place.  There is no real chance of subterranean oceans and everything about that moon is very hellish.

Granted, there are bacteria on Earth that thrive next to volcanoes and that dont need much water but that is only after billions of years of evolution and even then it would be a stretch for even the most extreme Earth bacteria to survive there.

One possible reason Io was considered a place to find life is that volcanic activity is believed to be an important in the development of life, and Io certainly has no shortage of volcanoes.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do speakers work? My brain just can't comprehend how all the sounds and frequencies at one single point in a song (drums, vocals, guitar, etc) can be created by one single vibration of a membrane. All at once!?

I really need an explain like I'm 5 here..

[Assistant]
All sounds are waves in a material. The wave is formed by compressing and expanding the material at some rate. If 2 things try to expand and compress the same piece of material then they will interfere.

Imagine someone is pushing and pulling on you. You will shake around. If a second person pushes and pulls on you then you will only shake in 1 pattern that is the result of both people pushing and pulling on you. So interference of sound waves results in a new sound wave. So if you record all the pieces of a band and all their sound waves, you can combine them into 1 new sound wave that when played back sounds like all the instruments playing together.


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

[User] How did Henry Cavendish manage to calculate the Earth's mass back in 1798?

[Assistant] Basically, he created a balance that was able to isolate and measure the gravitational force between two small objects of known mass. From there, he was simply able to weigh one of the objects (aka measure the gravitational attraction between it and the Earth) and compare the magnitude of the force between the two small objects and one of the small objects and the Earth. The ratio of the force on the object from the other object of known mass to the force on it from the Earth allowed a calculation of Earth's mass.


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

[User] ELI5: is it necessary to use hydrocarbons as accelerants in compressed goods, like deodorants? Why can't nitrogen be used?

[Assistant]
Light aromatic Hydrocarbons are convenient because they turn into liquids when compressed by moderate amounts (a few bar). The mixture inside the aerosol canister will be part-gas and part-liquid, with the exact composition depending on the temperature and pressure.

When some pressure is released (by spraying the aerosol), some of the liquid will turn to gas, absorbing heat energy from outside the can to do so, until the liquid-gas equilibrium is restored but now with less liquid. The pressure the gas is under will remain approximately the same, so the aerosol sprays almost as powerfully at 25% remaining as when it was full.

Nitrogen only liquifies at much greater pressures and much lower temperatures. An aerosol propelled by gaseous nitrogen would need to be much stronger and heavier making it uneconomical. It would also have a very linear usage curve - when 25% of the nitrogen is used it would only spray 25% as powerfully.

Finally, the things you want to spray from an aerosol (perfumes, glues, hairspray, paint) tend to be organic molecules and therefore hydrocarbons are also the solvent in the aerosol. A nitrogen aerosol would need some mechanism to push the liquid perfume/paint/whatever out while isolating it from the liquid.


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

[User]
Are compounds that contain radioactive elements also radioactive?

Asked another way: is radioactivity affected by the fact that the radionuclide is bound with other atoms in a compound?

[Assistant] There are obscure corner cases where chemistry influences radioactivity (largely when electron capture is the only option), but generally: Radioactivity is not affected. Radioactive decays happen in the nucleus, what happens around it doesn't matter.


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

[User]
[STAR TREK] What is so special about a crystal of 2 lithium atoms?

Dilithium crystals are essential to Warp Core technology. Why?

[Assistant]
Dilithium has the unique property that it is porous to anti-hydrogen. So the antimatter will not actually "touch" the dilithium and cause an uncontrolled annihilation (read explosion) That means the matter and antimatter streams (deuterium from above and anti-deuterium from below) can annihilate in a controlled way inside the warp core (where the dilithium is).  The shape of the dilithium is then used to channel the resulting reaction plasma to the warp coils in the nacelles (down the power transfer conduits).

The dilithium is also used to tune the resulting plasma from the m/am reaction to the best frequency for a given warp factor.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do some people get the death sentence for killing 1 person, while others have life in prison for killing 10 people?

[Assistant]
Simple.

Different states, different lawyers, different prosecutors, different judges, different evidence.

The american justice system is based on Enlightenment thinking where no rule can be just without recourse. Which is simply stating "If you don't review each case individually your verdict will often be unjust" therefore we make a decision on a case per case basis, not say killing X people is worth y years in jail.


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

[User]
ELIF - Why aren't people who are caught lying under oath on courtroom TV shows arrested?

I've seen episodes of Judge Judy and such where folks are caught red-handed in lies. Aren't they under oath? Why are they not prosecuted?

EDIT - thanks, folks.

[Assistant] Because those aren't real court shows. Shows like The Peoples Court and Judge Judy are arbitration shows. Basically both sides decide that they will give the power to decide who wins the case the a 3rd party and accept the out come. Those shows don't depict actual courtrooms at all.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is my brain able to go into this zoned-out "auto-pilot" state while I'm driving, yet I get to my destination safety with no real recollection of the trip?

I'm obviously not veering all over the place or putting anyone else in danger. It's like my brain goes into it's own cruise control. What is actually going on when this happens?

[Assistant]
Psychologist here. This happens for essentially the same reason that you Can "zone out" while you're walking around, not stumbling or colliding with things. These tasks are called "steriotypic repetitious movements" and they are actually controlled by a different part of the brain after you've fully learned the skill! When you start to learn any skill, like riding a bike, your cortex is the part of the brain doing the work of figuring out how to coordinate your muscles appropriately. Its complicated at first, and it involves your full attention, just like when you learned to walk. However, over time your cortex figures out exactly which muscles need to coordinate in exactly the right way, and it basically "saves" that motion in memory. When you go to do that action again after its already been learned (or saved) a cool thing happens, the cortex isn't nearly as involved anymore, now it's more subcortical  (aka below the cortex, so deeper in the brain) regions that control the movement. The result? Now you perform an action while your cortex is free to think (or not think and "zone out") and forget you're actually doing anything complicated at all.

EDIT. Thanks for the Gold :)


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

[User] ELI5: do laser beams have a ending when pointing them at the sky? I have a green one and point it at the sky at night and it looks short but idk if it really is.

[Assistant]
Another factor is diffusion. Lasers are a focused beam of, ideally, a single light wavelength.

In actuality the consumer product you have will diffuse, or defocus, over distance. So eventually it will be relatively undetectable.

That said, your device will NOT experience this at any distance you will be able to measure. Its beam remains coherent (focused) and highly dangerous well beyond what you can see.

For that reason you should never point it skyward. It will be dangerous to aircraft, specifically the pilots, that you may not see. A report of a laser by a pilot is always investigated rapidly and will result in serious charges.

Lasers are cool. Please be safe with it.


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

[User]
How would Galileo (in his time) convince people of the accuracy of his telescope?

How things look through a telescope is not evidence to convince people to switch to the Copernican model unless people believe exactly what they see? Galileo could have fiddled with the device so that people see an image he wants them to see. How did he convince people that his instrument was so accurate that it was worth the paradigm shift to move to the Copernican model? Surely some strong indicative reasoning is required there that did not exist yet?

[Assistant] You should try reading his short text The Starry Messenger in which he instructs the reader on how to build his device, describes what he sees and posits about the heavenly body, and then asks the reader to confirm and continue his work.


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

[User]
[WH40K] What happens if a mechanicus explorator fleet finds an STC that makes something very valuable, like a Baneblade, but it absolutely requires Xenos tech?

So, the STC is genuine and complete.  There is no denying it is from the Omnissiah.  But it also requires xenos tech like wraithbone or Necron crystals.  What happens?  It might not be a replicator, it might be a huge tank.  It's just something very valuable.

[Assistant]
STC's don't really work like that. There are varying reports on how they actually worked, but the general idea is that an STC is an AI-driven blueprint generator that is designed to analyze what materials you *DO* have to tell you how to make anything you could feasibly need. Partial STC's may only remember how to make one or two things, but they still are capable of generating resource-specific blueprints.

The idea of an STC was that you send one out with a group of colonists to some random planet. The STC looks at the planet and decides "ok here's how you use what you have to make a thriving colony". No STC would really require xenos tech for that function.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do hospitals use stainless steel instead of antimicrobial copper alloys?

Go into any medical facility and it looks like everything in there is made of stainless steel, but hospital acquired infections are a serious problem. Wouldn't antimicrobial copper or brass for equipment and tools reduce the spread of infections?

[Assistant]
Excellent question! Like many things, the simple answer is cost.

There are businesses who have started selling copper coatings for surgical suites, but right now they're considered a luxury. Copper is extremely expensive, and regular disinfection is pretty effective at keeping stainless steel near-sterile.

Source: currently in a biomedical materials class in which we discussed this exact thing last week.


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

[User]
ELI5: Presently stuck in a meeting. Drank too much water at lunch. What happens to my body as I hold my pee? Is there a point I will reach where I won't be able to contain it? Can my bladder burst? Oh god.

What's the longest someone can hold it in? How bad is that for the body?

[Assistant]
There's five questions here, so let me answer them one by one:

* 1. As your bladder fills with urine, its wall is stretched. This is detected by special nerve cells in the wall, and transmitted to your brain as the 'need to pee'. Urine enters the bladder from the kidneys via the ureters, which enter at a special angle such that when the bladder expands enough (i.e. when it's full) the ureters close and the bladder cannot fill anymore.
* 2. Yes. The strain of keeping the (voluntary) sphincters closed will eventually become too much (this could take a while though). It's also worth noting that any movements that stretch the bladder wall anymore will trick the stretch nerves into thinking it's *even more* full, and will probably override your instructions to hold it in.
* 3. No, not from just holding your pee. You'd piss yourself before that would happen.
* 4. No idea; dependent on too many factors (amount drunk, size of bladder, levels of certain hormones e.g. ADH/Aldosterone, activity etc. etc.).
* 5. Probably not very. Long term you may damage the elastic tissue of the bladder, but this would require *a lot* of pee holding.

Source: student paramedic, just sat through an A&P exam with a surprising focus on pee.

I hope you made it through the meeting.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do they tell you not to have a hot bath on the day of a blood donation?

I was reading the blood donation website and it says 'Please do not have a hot bath on the day of your donation'. I just wondered why that was.

[Assistant] A hot bath tends to make you flush, moving blood from the interior to the exterior of your body. Your blood volume is lower from the donation and it might not have had time to adapt, so you might faint.


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

[User] Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun is 4.85 billion years old, the Sun is 4.6 billion years old. If the sun will die in around 5 billion years, Proxima Centauri would be already dead by then or close to it?

[Assistant] Proxima will live much longer than the sun, because it is quite a bit smaller. Smaller stars last longer because they don't fuse through hydrogen as quickly (even compared to how much total hydrogen they have).


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

[User]
[Animorphs]Question about brains and morphing.

So I was reading biographies and checking out interviews about the brave heroes that saved our planet from the Yeerk threat and there was something about the mechanics of morphing that I don't quite understand.

First of all, where does the mind go? As far as I can see, your thoughts, identity and concept of self all exist in your brain, and I'm not sure if a cat-brain (or an ant-brain) can replicate what it takes to make a human human. Anyone knows the science behind this?

Secondly, I can't see how after morphing, you intuitively know how to move around and understand all your senses. Research with blind people who are given sight show that it takes a couple of days, at least, to make use of that new sense.  How can people morphed into animals, like bats, know how to fly and use echolocation.

Thanks in advance.

[Assistant]
I believe we must conclude that minds (emergent engines of cognition above a certain threshold called "sentience") have some sort of root in zero-space. This root is what commands the physical matter of the brain, whether that brain is human or yeerk or dolphin.

Morphers, unless they become nothlits, never gain true access to the senses of their morph; their minds depend on the work done by the still-present "mind" and "instincts" generated by the physical brain matter of the morphed animal.


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

[User]
[General] What would happen if an ancient civilization came across alien technology?

By alien, I mean something far more advanced than the technology of today.  Would they be able to make any use of it?

Say, a civilization like the Roman Empire at it's peak, found an alien spacecraft that carried tools for agriculture, weaponry, computers, and a power supply capable of sustaining a large city. What would happen?

[Assistant]
Could *you* make, right now, a combine harvester to work?

Imagine trying to make one work with no previous information about locomotives or combustion engines.

Now imagine doing the same with a 20x more advanced machine.

And now imagine trying to figure out a combine harvester meant for organisms with eight appendages and no spine.

In short, no. Our society stands on the collective memory of millions upon millions of extremely bright people, and without that memory the products are near-useless. On top of that if the recipient civilization is much less developed the chances of successfully reverse-engineering the technology (without breaking it first) are slim.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is gravity not faster than the speed of light?

If i drop a ball on the ground, every atom that composes the earth is instantly impacting the strength which with the ball is pulled to the earths mass.

A relationship between a single atom on the other side of the planet and the ball dropped is formed as if in an instant.

If you have spiral arms of a galaxy, the strength which with the arm is pulled to the center is a summary of every atom of that galaxy.

I could go on for hours talking about these absurd effects at a distances far larger than light can cover but somehow is instantly calculated by mass and gravity.

How is gravity not faster than the speed of light?

EDIT: Thanks for the responses everyone, this was awesome.

[Assistant]
This is a very perceptive question.

You have touched on one of the fundamental flaws of Newtonian gravity: the fact that it is "non-local".

We know that the speed of light must be constant in all frames of reference, and yet Newton's formulation of gravity requires that gravitating bodies *instantaneously* know where everything else is, as you mention in your question.

So one of the motivators of general relativity was to develop a *local* theory; i.e. one in which the effects of gravity on a body are simply the results of some feature of its IMMEDIATE surroundings.

And so we describe gravity as the effect of *curved* spacetime.  We imagine that all masses cause a curvature in spacetime around them, and this curvature distorts the paths of other bodies in the vicinity.

So the "gravity" felt by a body is simply the effect of the curvature of spacetime in its immediate region.  This removes the issues of non-locality since no information needs to be transmitted at higher-than-light speeds.

I hope this explanation helps, feel free to ask follow-up questions.

Edit: I've mentioned this a little lower down in the comment chain, but it is an important point which belongs here too: *changes* to curvature propagate at the speed of light.  i.e. if, through some truly epic disaster, the sun suddenly popped out of existence, we would not encounter the effects until about 8 minutes later.  This is due to the fact that *information* cannot travel faster than light (in a vacuum).


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

[User] [Superman: Red Son] Why did Luthor, a Level 9 intelligence, was able to stop Superman with a single sentence... but Brainiac, a Level 12 intelligence, was unable to convince Superman to go through with the plan to the end?

[Assistant]
Brainiac is smarter than Luthor. Far more intelligent.

But Luthor is more *human*. Brainiac understands emotions on a conceptual level, but since he's a being of logic, he isn't nearly as efficient at manipulation as Luthor. He just doesn't get what makes humanity *tick*.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do old people keep "chewing" even when they're not eating anything?

I seen a lot of older folks do this, but I never had the courage to ask anyone this, it's kind of a weird question.

[Assistant]
Playing with their dentures.

Similar to when people who have tongue-studs play with them in their mouth, the elderly have the same habit of orally maneuvering their dentures. A better question would be, "what causes people to orally maneuver foreign particles in their mouths?"


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we have reflexes of gag when brushing tongue with toothbrush?

[Assistant]
The gag reflex is a involuntary reaction to having large objects in or near the back of your throat (note that large is a relative term, here). The body has this reflex to help keep you from choking when it senses something that it thinks would be too large to swallow. The gag reflex ideally expels the object from your throat, and you live to learn to chew your food better.

The gag reflex is unique from person to person. Some people don't have much of one, while others' is very sensitive to the point where eating something sticky like peanut butter will trigger it.


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

[User]
How to effectively follow the publications in my field?

As a graduate student, I'm wondering what is the best way to follow the new publications in my field. There are maybe 10 or so key journal that are likely to publish science relevant to my own research. We don't have the physical subscriptions of most of these journals, so I'll need to do this online. Should I just periodically check the journal webpages, or do most journals or big publishers (like Elsevier) offer some kind of a subscription-based service, such as RSS feeds or even e-mail alerts?

[Assistant] Most journals offer e-mail Table of Contents alerts on their homepages at the publishers' website. You can also set up rss feeds that will alert you to new articles that match any search you set up in many databases. Talk to your local subject librarian for help.


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

[User]
A politician's private life IS relevant, and is indicative of how well he will serve his electorate. CMV.

My view is that a politician's ability to remain honest, trustworthy, and maintain his promises to his family is reflective and indicative of his ability to remain honest, trustworthy, and maintain his promises to his electorate (eg city, state, country, etc). If he can't keep his promises to his wife, and remain truthful with his wife... then how the hell will he be able to keep his promises, and remain truthful *to his country*?

Some say this is irrelevant because family issues aren't political issues - but that's missing the point: Either a politician keeps his promises, or he doesn't. Either he's a liar, or he is not. For example, a politician who has an affair and lies about it, is clearly a promise-breaker and a liar - and therefore this information should be made public, and the electorate should be informed about it. I don't want to vote liars and promise-breakers into office.

Am I wrong? Why do people keep saying it's irrelevant? Is there something I'm missing here? Please CMV.

[Assistant]
This seems like an easy one.

You value truth and honesty.  Which one of these is likely more honest?

* A politician which appears morally spotless
* A politician who is an admitted alcoholic (without being caught)

The second one, while he/she does have a problem, is being honest with you.  If the second one is taking steps to correct his/her alcoholism and was the one that told you he/she had a problem, you have evidence that is honesty.

What evidence at all do you have the first politician isn't lying to you?


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

[User] ELI5 Why are we able to trace our lineage back through the generations, but don't hear of anyone being from either the ancient Romans or ancient Greeks?

[Assistant]
We can only trace our lineage back as far as records allow. Unless you happen to be an aristocrat, this is usually only about 200 years tops.

We can also get an extremely rough idea of our genetic heritage to see where some of our ancestors likely came from, but if you go back far enough you could probably find an ancestor from anywhere.

If you are of European descent, it is fairly certain you have an ancestor who lived in the Roman Empire, because most of Europe *was* the Empire.


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

[User]
CMV: In regards to the 2020 election, it is a complete waste of a vote to vote for a third party.

As a voter who voted Libertarian in the last election it now seems to me that voting for a party that isn't either republican or democrat is a complete and utter waste of time.

I voted for Gary Johnson in the last election because I am a Libertarian at heart. I was really hopeful he would clinch 5% but no dice. Assuming he runs again in 2020 I can't really see his numbers climbing 2% nor can I really imagine any other independent candidate having much more success.

Since the last election I have changed my registration status and am now registered democrat. I would honestly love to see voter turnout for third party candidates increase this election but this seems like a monumental election and it is 100% a democrat vs republican battle. I would lose sleep at night knowing I wasted another vote on a libertarian candidate if Trump is re elected. Especially if turnout for independents is lower this election than the last and even worse if Trump clinches the victory by a slight margin.

I know I talked a lot about my own political views in this post. That's not what this is about. I firmly believe I would be doing the country a disservice by voting for the party I support the most.

[Assistant]
If you're not in a swing state, I'd say voting for a third party is the most effective thing you can do. Like you said, even just 5% third party is enough for people to notice and maybe finally make tiny steps away from our current voting system.

However, if your state is close, then sure, vote lesser of two evils if that's your view of the candidates.

I don't think you need to worry about it because when the election rolls around, you'll know if you see the race as lesser of two evils, or time to make a third party statement.


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

[User] How do we know things like what the inside of the earth is made up of, or what a planet like Neptune is made up of, if we haven't been able to get there and find out for sure?

[Assistant]
Well, in the case of Earth, we have a lot of sources of info:

We have extensive exposure of upper mantle in ophiolitic complexes; so there's that.

Then there are several exotic magmatic intrusions such as lamprophyres and kimberlites which are derived from deep structural levels. These at times carry chunks and crystals of the stuff they cross on the way up (xenoliths and xenocrysts).

For the parts we have no samples from (lower mantle and core), we have geophysical data: the magnetic field, density, wave transmission properties through seismic data.


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

[User]
[DC] How did Deathstroke earn his reputation?

Deathstroke is considered the ultimate mercenary in DC comics.  How did he become known this way?  What are his highest profile successes?

[Assistant]
The guy can take on the likes of Batman and other heroes for more than a minute, that's enough alone to constitute his price.

And what has he done? The real question is what hasnt he done. Assassination, recon, escort, and infiltration are just a few of his expertise. The man can do something by himself thay requires a small army in most cases.


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

[User]
CMV: Cursive is a waste of time to learn

Cursive is a waste of time to learn. I rarely sign anything now a days. I order stuff online. Even then, my signature does not look like my name and I learned cursive back when people thought high schoolers would hand write all assignments (we didnt 3rd grade teacher).

Cursive is discouraged when the computers go down because it may be misread if the person doesnt write neatly.

Not being able to read important documents in its original form isnt a big deal. There will always be hobbyists who learn it for fun. Not to mention thr average person doesnt even bother to read the documents. If they need to look it up, they read a printed version in a book or on a website.

So it is my belief that cursive is a waste of time.

Edit: it is a waste of time to teach in a standard school setting*

[Assistant]
Cursive is not a waste of time because *not* knowing cursive severely limited you in what you can do. Say, for instance, that you want to be an historian. Well, to be a professional historian, you have to be able to read documents hand-written in cursive, like old letters or even old deed records.

Not knowing cursive also makes it more difficult for you to be a bank teller. What if you can't read what somebody wrote on a check?

Not knowing cursive also makes it impossible to be a petroleum landman or even just a real estate title researcher because you won't be able to read a lot of the earlier documents. In a lot of courthouses, you won't even be able to read the indexes.

Cursive is also useful for taking notes in any class you take. This is actually the whole reason cursive was invented in the first place. Since the letters are all connected to each other, you can write whole words without lifting your pen, which makes it faster.


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

[User]
[Rick and Morty] What would happen if you summoned a Meeseeks and gave it the task of killing itself?

Since Meeseeks are apparently immortal until they fulfill their task, how could it accomplish this?

[Assistant]
There are two possibilities.

1. The Meeseeks will slowly but surely go mad due to his inability to complete his task and end his suffering. Having no outlet for this madness (unlike the ones who threatened Jerry to improve his golf game) he will probably either degenerate into an inconsolable wretch or go on an unstoppable killing spree.
2. He will simply cease to exist almost immediately. One could make a strong case that the task is complete once the events are set in motion that will inevitably lead to his death, specifically his determination that he has accomplished. In this case, his own realization that completing the task will kill him would itself complete the task, ending his life. This is, IMO, the more likely outcome. To again call back to Jerry's Meeseek problem, they were satisfied that their task (taking a stroke off of Jerry's golf game) was completed once they had improved his form. Strictly technically speaking, it was not done, since Jerry hadn't played a game of golf yet. But the effects were in place and the Meeseeks' part of the job was done. Looking at the "stickler" Meeseeks, we can also see that the Meeseek's perception of the task's completion is just as, or more, important than the strict reality of it. As long as the Meeseeks believes his job is done, he is finished and will die.


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

[User]
ELI5 Do animals and humans have the same blood?

Do animals and humans have the same blood? If not
.. why? What makes them different?

[Assistant]
No, they do not have the same blood.

The specific thing that makes makes them different is our different genes.   More broadly, its our different needs that make us different.

You will find that most creatures have the same basic elements to their blood - plasma, platelets, red blood cells, white blood cells, etc.   But what those cells look like and what they can do is very different in different animals.   Camels, for example, have oval-shaped red blood cells where we have disk-shaped red blood cells.   This is so that camels can drink and take onboard huge amounts of water all of a sudden without their RBCs bursting.  Dolphins and whales have red bloods cells shaped in a way that maximises oxygen carrying capacity, more than ours do.  This allows them to hold their breath far longer than we do.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do most of the books have between 200-400 pages, and not more or less?

[Assistant]
It is actually a result of marketing and production. Within a genre of books people are generally willing to pay (approximately) the same amount of money no matter the length of a book. People will pay the same for a novel that is 200 pages as they will for a novel that is 400 pages.

If a book is shorter than 200 or so pages it makes the customer feel like they did not get a long enough experience for their purchase. However the longer a book is the more it costs to produce. Paying an editor, layout person, and the physical production of a book all costs more the more pages there are.

So the combination of costs, what people are willing to spend on books, and a desire to give a good value for the purchase results in a "sweet spot" of 200-400 pages.

Having said all this there certainly are books that are longer and books that are shorter.


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

[User]
[DC] How often does the Flash go through shoes?

Are they in connection to his outfit and built to withstand the same high speeds and ensuing temperatures?

[Assistant]
...Speedforce?

In the show, the first couple times he runs fast with regular shoes, they burn up. Later they don't. So either Cisco made him shoes that ignore friction, or the Speedforce protects his shoes. Maybe a little of each.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do voices get squeakier when they are sped up?

[Assistant] Sound is a wave.  The frequency (as in high frequency, or high pitched) of a sound is literally how frequently a wave passes by a point.  So if you take a sound wave and compress it to half the time, you also double it's frequency (if you take something that has 100 waves in 1 second, and then squeeze it into half a second it's now playing at 100 waves per half second, or 200 waves a second).  So speeding up sounds make them higher frequency (squeakier) and slowing down sounds makes them lower frequency.


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

[User]
[Logan] What exactly happened in Westchester?

Did X just kill... everyone?

[Assistant]
Its strongly implied that he did

He is one of the strongest psychic mutants and he has dementia. Not good.

Imagine the casino scene happening in Westchester, only no one stopping him.

Probably killed everyone in somewhat large radius around him.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why is the engagement range so incredibly small?

I mean, sure, during a fight in a hallway you can only shoot from one side to the other, and if both parties have swords they need to get melee to hurt each other, but even in major battles with regular armies we often see two forces slowly advancing on each other until they are only a few meters apart.

How exactly is it possible for groups of slow droids moving over an open field to get that close in the first place? Shouldn't the automatic weapons the clones have easily destroy anybody foolish enough to employ such a tactic? And why do they do that? Couldn't they shoot at the clones from further away, where they can actually use cover?

[Assistant] Most large scale ground battles in Star Wars are to reach or protect a shield generator which will allow the side with superior space forces to simply bombard the enemy. In the Clone Wars in particular both sides are using entirely disposable armies, droids and clones, and so their combat doctrine is not likely to factor loss of life in decisions. Droids are more disposable than clones, and droids are usually not able to use advanced tactics in the same way that organics are, so wave tactics are probably the best you're going to do with them unless you've got an IG-series or something like that. On the Republic side Jedi are the battlefield commanders and while they're great warriors they're not students of war. Their idea of a fight is to get in close and reach the objective, spending a long time thinking about troop movements, casualties, this is all "not the Jedi way." It's one of the reasons Palpatine wanted them involved in the war in the first place, they fight it well and they die in it well, but they're ill equipped to actually win it. All of this adds up to a situation where both sides have incentive to be very aggressive in their combat tactics so charging at each other or marching around in infantry blocs makes sense.


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

[User] [Pokmon] Is it a post-scarcity society?

[Assistant] Probably not. You still have to pay for food, farms still exist, and it takes hard work to construct buildings. Teleporter technology exists, but it appears impossible (or just very very difficult) to use it for replication like you would see in the Star Trek universe.


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

[User]
[MCU] So why exactly did Thanos give Loki the Scepter if it had an Infinity Stone in it?

I mean, he is trying to collect them. Did he not know or something?

[Assistant] He likely intended to take the scepter back when Loki presented him with the cube. Even if Loki tried to double cross him, Thanos would know exactly where the Mind Stone was and could retake it any time. There's not much of a drawback.


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

[User]
ELI5: how is hd tv easily sent over the air with no loading/buffering but streaming hd video online takes a good internet connection and high bandwidth?

Curious how hd tv is easily sent over the air but hd video streaming online takes high bandwidth and a good internet connection.

[Assistant]
> Curious how hd tv is easily sent over the air but hd video streaming online takes high bandwidth and a good internet connection.

A television broadcast is like talking into a loudspeaker system to address an entire stadium. Video streaming online is like holding an individual conversation with every person in the stadium simultaneously.


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

[User]
why is momentum conserved but not kinetic energy?

and how's it reflected in their respective definitions: when i look at mv and 1/2mv squared i don't see something obvious except that i guess the latter can't be negative? anyway, just curious about this since taking physics forever ago.

[Assistant]
Energy is conserved, but it can be converted between different forms of energy.

For instance, you can lift a sled up a ramp, using chemical energy from your food to do work on the sled, and adding potential energy from gravity, and then release the sled, converting potential energy into kinetic energy in the motion of the sled, and thermal kinetic energy from friction (or kinetic energy in the form of sound, energy added to the air around the sled, etc.).


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How powerful is Voldemort really?

Of course he is a very powerful wizard, but what is it that makes him in the top 0.001% rather than the top 0.1% of Wizards. I know these statistics are a little arbitrary but hopefully you see what I am getting at.

Is it just that he is extremely charismatic and intelligent? Because you rarely see him in action and other than being willing to use evil spells and be mean I don't see how he has demonstrated that he is extremely powerful.

[Assistant]
If magic were a sport, Voldemort would be gold medalist. He can push his magical limits further than almost all wizards. An excellent example is his ability to fly without a broom - almost no other wizard can do that.

He's powerful because of both raw talent, training, and an unwillingness to recognize limits. As a child, Tom Riddle was using magic spontaneously (without understanding what it was, and before Hogwarts). When he took his OWLs, he got Outstanding in every subject. And he has no compunctions about using dark magic and rituals, which means his options are wider.

Going back to the sports analogy, Voldemort is like a world-class boxer. Not only is he extremely strong and fast, but he also has training so that he can hit in ways that others simply can't. It's talent and training.

The biggest example of his power is probably the horcrux ritual, since it's complex and dangerous simply to split one's soul even once, and he managed to do it seven times.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why was the American Mafia interested in vending machines?

I have seen this referenced in a few gangster movies, Goodfellas, Black Mass, etc. But I don't understand why they were so interested in vending machines/coin-op machines specifically. Am I not realizing just how much money one can legitimately make from selling soda? If that were the case wouldn't a legit business be more efficient and better suited than the Mafia?

[Assistant]
It's a cash business.

The mob makes a huge amount of money through illicit dealings, but to spend that money later they need to "launder" it by finding a way to claim it as legitimate business income.

Enter the all cash business.  Since there's no real record of what the machine sold or for how much, you can report the illegal cash as vending machine income.

That makes the money safe to use without attracting the attention of the IRS.


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

[User]
How far can electricity arc reach?

Does electricity's ability to arc depend more on voltage or amperage? Is there a more-or-less-correct formula to calculate how far it could arc in regular room conditions(let's say 21 degrees Celsius and 50% humidity in a regular town urban environment)?

How does conductivity of a material affect the arcing and its distance?

[Assistant]
Primarily the voltage, and roughly speaking you need 30,000 volts per centimetre of air you want to jump.

The more conductive the air, the lower the voltage required to jump.

A lightning bolt hitting ground is millions of volts.


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

[User] ELI5:What is Monsanto?

[Assistant]
Monsanto is a agricultural biotech company which has been around for around over 100 years.  Today, they are mostly known for two things: Genteically modified crops and strong pesticides. You may be familiar with the weed killer "Round-Up", they make that.
Here's where it gets interesting: They modify the crops in various ways: to make them grow larger, in less than ideal conditions, and to specifically be resistant to Round-up and other pesticides.  Farmers can then douce the crops in round up to kill pests and the crops will not be affected.


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

[User]
[MCU] Does the soul really exist?

In doctor strange we were introduced to the idea of the astral dimension,as the plane where our souls "live". As I watching Agents of Shield season 4 I kept wondering how are the brain-computer interfaces ,simulations (Framework) they are creating connected to the soul of a person.
As we saw when the Ancient One died,the soul cannot live without a body.So how for example Dr Radcliffe was able to live inside the framework when his body was dead(did he have a soul?or did his soul became one with the framework) Also, this way we can safely assume Coulson has no soul at all,as he was ressurected long after he died.

[Assistant]
its very possible that the frameworked was using souls, since it was created using the magic of the darkhold, but i think that it was just their mind, like in the matrix. i think that she just used the darkhold to create such a perfect copy of the real world

its totally possible that it was souls, since as we saw in stranges fight against the cultist in the hospitale, destory someones soul on the astral plane, and the body dies too. which would explain why the body dies when the framework you died, which wouldnt make sense if it was only the mind.

as for coulson, i doubt that. ghost rider was able to inhibit him, and he was dragged into hell, and if he didnt have a soul i doubt he would be able to live, as we saw with the cultist. coulsons soul most likely returned to his body when he was revived.