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[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is the Holocaust remembered as such a tragedy, while the Japanese invasion of China (with similar casualties) is almost forgotten?" ]
I live in China currently and it is a really big deal here. They will never forget.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How did Enigma cracking machine know it cracked Enigma?" ]
There was known plaintext it was trying to match against. I seem to remember they used weather reports which were broadcast each day in the morning, and always had the same initial letters. Once you crack the settings for that one, you could then decode all the messages sent the same day (until they change the codes again the next day).
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do Americans always cheer when they hear their hometown/state?" ]
Psychological tribalism. You associate with a group, so attention paid to that group can be seen as attention paid to you. You may not have strong association with your city/state, but what about your local/favorite sports team? If a comedian did a set on the same day a local team was playing, wouldn't he immediately get a positive reaction by positively acknowledging that team? Doing so breaks the ice and makes the audience more receptive to his jokes
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why does building a robot like the mars rover cost so much money?" ]
Are you talking about the Curiosity rover that is said to have cost $2.5 billion? If so, some clarification might be warranted. NASA spread the $2.5 billion figure over eight years. The money spent went into salaries of engineers, programmers, managers, and independent contractors in over twenty states across the country. And even some from out of country. Things like the cost of rocket to launch it to Mars are included in that total, too, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the amount alone. If you you just divide the total cost by the number of years NASA has saved for it, you come out with about $312 million per year. This works about to approximately 1.8% of NASA’s yearly budget. That’s about $1 per year for every American. When put into context of the federal budget, it's actually quite cheap.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What's the difference between Meth and Adderall?" ]
[Aderall](_URL_0_) is a mix of different types of amphetamine salts and methamphetamine is another type of amphetamine (not present in Aderall). There is a difference in their chemical structure and how fast they work. What's in Aderall works a *lot* slower than methamphetamine which has a way of fastly working its way past the blood-brain barrier (the fluids in your brain isn't directly connected to your blood system so "stuff" that needs to get in has to past this "barrier").
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why can't we use physical tests to detect mental illness?" ]
We don't understand the brain nearly as well as we understand the circulatory system, though for some mental illnesses we are starting to be able to detect them with brain imaging technology. For instance, Schizophrenia. _URL_0_
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What makes the japanese market so different from the western one? Why japan has all these special edition albums, games, mangas, electronics, gadgets that are never released elsewhere?" ]
High import taxes force them to produce their own version for domestic market only. Plus, despite their efforts, they're fairly English illiterate so internationalized marketing doesn't work quite well there and needs to be localized heavily. Being a cultural galapagos also means they have unique tastes and demands unlike the western world which is more or less homogenized either being America-centric or Euro-centric.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What makes debts you owe be removed / halved in what you originally owe from Debt Collectors?" ]
Often times the original company you owe the money to, sells the debt for less than the original and writes it off as a business loss. For some businesses this is a better choice then spending money trying to collect the debt from you. The company that buys it will try and get you to pay them more than what they paid for it, but that is often less than the original debt. Other times, if the company doesn't active try to collect the debt for a certain period of time, the debt is cancelled. You no longer owe the money to the company. However, be careful, because the federal government considers cancelled debt as income and will tax you on it.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What are trust funds and how do they work?" ]
Basically money that someone invests for some specific purpose or persons. A rich dude will create a trust for his 3 kids, or a scholarship fund, or charity or something... the trust will then have rules on how it may be invested, and how much will be paid out, when and to who. Many trust funds are set up to avoid taxes, and put money in limbo basically. If you just gave your daughter $50 million, the taxes are higher than if you made a trust and it paid her an allowance. For many trusts one of the ideas is to pay out the earnings, or a portion of them, without ever depleting the trust so that it continues on indefinitely benefiting people or some charity for a long time.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do certain \"noises\" (i.e., a fingernail scratching a chalkboard) irritate us so much?" ]
Certain sounds at particular frequencies are very unpleasant to the human ear, the sound of that falls into that range. However it isn't something that effects all humans the same, some tolerate the sound more so than others or are not bothered by it at all. I fall into the category of not being bothered by it at all, the sound of folding paper however, that drives me mad.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What is the purpose of electric motion detecting hand towel dispensers in public restrooms when we have cheap, mechanical, spring loaded dispensers which have no circuitry and always work?" ]
It's a hygiene thing too, I think. It means you don't have to touch the handle on the towel dispenser, which might conceivably be contaminated with someone else's fecal matter.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why are programs allowed to use 100% CPU ?" ]
We bought the CPU to be used, not to sit idle. If one program wants all of the CPU and no other programs want any, why would the program that wants it not be given it? The CPU doesn't have inertia. If someone else comes along and asks for CPU, it can be taken away from the first process in a tiny fraction of a second.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "why do bombs and missiles explode in the air above their target? Instead of hitting the ground/target and exploding?" ]
With a ground burst, a lot of the explosion energy is used up by the ground/material very close to the explosion center. An air burst can cause damage over a larger area, but causes less destruction at the explosion site than a ground burst. It becomes a question of strategy. Does the attacker desire to damage an entire city or level a single block?
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Besides cannabis, are there any objects that naturally contain THC?" ]
Almost all living multicellular organisms produce THC as a part of the regulation of the metabolism. THC receptors are also present in all of these organisms. Species as different as the simple nematode and the mighty redwood tree all have THC receptors, and produce THC as part of their normal metabolic cycle. This is why organisms can benefit from THC therapy. Because they already have THC receptors, and the THC provided in addition to their existing levels can have thereputic effects.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do people puke when they over-exert themselves?" ]
It's a derivative of the flight-or-fight response. When you are exercising your sympathetic nervous system starts to take over the same if you were really scared. This makes sense from an evolutionary stand point, any time you would have been running you would have been in danger. The sympathetic system diverts energy away from your digestive system and towards your muscles and heart. You don't want a full belly with a stalled digestive system when you're fleeing from a jaguar so you toss your lunch and that allows you to run faster. Since it's the same system that is in control when you exercise, you get the same response.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "The Russian military's current capabilities" ]
In terms of what? They are (arguably) the second most powerful nation on earth. WAY behind the US of course but still significantly powerful. The real trouble is that they are fully geared up to fight wars of 40 years ago.. They have lots of tanks, aircraft and ships but not much by way of stealth abilities (more than other nations, but nothing like the US). If you want a more detailed list, check out this website _URL_0_ But none of that includes nuclear abilities. Russia has missiles that can hit any place on the globe. Russia has subs that carry nuclear ICBMs and can be launched from anywhere on the globe. Once a nation gets to that point, it really does not matter what their other military abilities are. They have the power to destroy the world if they want, so we don't engage in open warfare with them.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How do G force suits work?" ]
The compress the body in an attempt to keep the blood from leaving your head, which is what causes blackouts at high Gs.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does fostering kids work?" ]
You sign up. Social services does some routine investigations to qualify or disqualify you. Then then place a child with you...and you get a monthly stipend of $600-800/mo plus some amount of foodstamps to feed the kid. Theres a caseworker assigned to you that has waaay too many foster kids to pay proper attention to each case. When theres a complaint or problem they respond and evaluate whether there is an actionable issue or not. Abuse happens sure. BUT most foster parents take good care of the kids they foster. Most kids in foster care are a lot better off than they would be in group homes. Like anything you hear more about the failures and flaws than the success stories.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "The different \"grades\" of gas, and how much it really matters." ]
The short version: Use whatever grade your called for in your car's owner's manual. Using a higher octane than required will typically result in no benefit or even a slight negative impact, but using a lower rating that specified can cause performance issues and engine damage. All the rating actually indicates is how resistant the fuel is to self-ignition. High performance cars are designed around high-octane fuel because they can exploit its resistance to ignition to produce more power, but if the engine isn't specifically designed with that in mind, there's no benefit.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why did they need to close the airspace over Sydney because of the current hostage situation?" ]
It happens all the time during critical incidents. Usually the goal is to keep media aircraft back so they do not interfere with law enforcement operations.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What are the potential health risks to humans of pervasive plastic contamination?" ]
Plastic filaments and particles can interact with receptors on the outside of cells, and can freely enter cells by moving through the fatty cell membrane to disrupt processes inside the cell. The downstream effects are poorly understood, and could be anything from nothing, to interfering with hormone cycles and metabolism, to causing cell death, or to affecting DNA replication and repair, depending on the type and size of the plastic particle. Here's an NIH article on how they (and other substances like drugs) can affect your hormones (endocrine system): _URL_0_
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is stock only traded 6hrs/day, 30hrs/week?" ]
In general, limited hours help the market remain stable.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "do workout supplements (such as pre-workout that claims to increase the ability of your blood to deliver oxygen to muscles) actually work, and if so what actually happens to your body?" ]
Somewhat. They work by increasing levels of nitric oxide in the body, which regulates blood pressure by relaxing the blood vessels. You can't supplement nitric oxide directly, but two amino acids, L-arginine and L-citrulline, cause the body to produce it. While L-arginine is a popular product, it is poorly absorbed by the body, so L-citrulline is the better choice of the two.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What causes stains to become permanent?" ]
Color compounds are usually fairly large molecules, and the fabrics in your clothes are made of even larger polymer chains. Big molecules like this can interact [non-covalently](_URL_0_) (so no chemical bonds, just atoms sticking to each other through Van der Waals forces, charge groups, and other weak forces). Non-covalent interactions can add up to be pretty strong, but also are reversible. Detergent in particular is very good and inserting itself between the molecules and removing their attraction for each other. But the longer you let the staining molecules sit around and the hotter you get them, the better the chances are that the colored compounds covalently bond them to the fabric. At that point, there isn't anything that can break the bond that wouldn't also break the bonds of the fabric in general.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If sound is typically vibration travelling through air, how can I hear someone through a wall." ]
Wall vibrates too, but less than air, then transers the vibrations to air around you Edit: grammar
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why does bacon sometimes get that green shimmer?" ]
Are you talking the same [shimmering color sometimes seen on roast beef?](_URL_0_)
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do we pronounce \"colonel\" as \"curnel/kernal?\"" ]
The same reason we in Britain pronounce "Lieutenant" as "Leftenant". That's the way the word was said when we stole it off the French.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Karl Marx's Manifesto" ]
The communist manifesto was a short pamphlet authored by Marx and his colleague Friedrich Engels. It briefly summarized key concepts of communism, outlined the differences between communism and socialism, and pointed out the flaws with contemporary capitalist societies. The most important ideas put forth by the manifesto were the concepts of the proletariat (working class) struggling against the bourgeois (ruling class), and this struggle would most likely result in socialist revolution, and eventually communist revolution. The pamphlet also put forth a list of ideological "demands", in essence, suggestions for how societies could adapt more communist and socialist policy. While the communist manifesto has earned a reputation as Marx's most prolific document, it was by no means his most exhaustive and those seeking further education on the ideals of communism and socialism should read his other works.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is it that people from the United States call themselves American when they aren't the only country located on the north and south continents?" ]
Because United Statesian sounds stupid. It's really the only logical and easy shortening.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why am I \"Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law\", but only found \"not guilty\" and not \"innocent\"?" ]
You (and your lawyer) are under no obligation to prove your innocence, nor your "not-guilty mess." The onus (burden) is on the prosecution to prove that you are guilty, and your job is to refute their accusations and show, if possible, that they can't be true. That's what presumption of innocence means. If nobody shows that you're guilty, then there's no reason to believe guilt; you're "not guilty." The prosecution has to prove you are guilty well enough that you can't poke holes in their accusations, otherwise we default to our presumption.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is reading good for the brain?" ]
I can think of two important reasons. First reading and comprehension increases vocabulary and your understanding of language. Second is what you learn from the material. Even fiction can train your brain to make connections or think in ways that you hadn't before.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What is revisionist history and why is it bad?" ]
Revisionist history is when somebody has an idea he or she wants to support and then goes back and reinterprets historical events to create that support, sometimes interpreting events to mean the opposite of what an objective analysis would conclude.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do we call Earths moon \"The Moon\", when every other moon in the solar system have their own separate name?" ]
We started calling it the moon before we had discovered what a moon really was, or that other planets had their own moons.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why and how is the middle east in such chaos in the past decades?" ]
Put simply, at some point the western powers carved out Middle East into several countries without asking the actual people living there. This created issue as suddenly tribe A and tribe B are national brothers even though they don't get along well in the first place, causing issues like egoistic corruption and lack of empathy
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is it my jaw (below the ear) hurts after I blow up a balloon that's tough to inflate?" ]
The eustachian tube is what is hurting; it was stretched by the air pressure used to inflate the balloon, and is sore. The reason it feels like it is coming from your jaw below the ear, is a phenomenon called *referred pain*. The same nerve branch that brings pain signals to your brain from your jaw, there, is the same branch that brings pain signals from your eustachian tube. The eustachian tube is so rarely in pain that the brain never learned to differentiate between the two sources, and so interprets pain from it, as being pain from your jaw instead. Referred pain happens often, usually in cases of sinus pain, toothaches, and abdominal pain. It can also happen in heart attacks, where the person experiencing the heart attack feels pain in their left arm instead of their chest.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How did Seth Bling manage this code injection in Super Mario World?" ]
This is a really dumbed down explanation, compared to the other answers. The live memory in older video games (like the NES) is very simple. Think of it like 10 boxes, the first one is your score, the second is your current level, third one is your lives, and so on. Now, let's say the maximum score was 999. Seth made a glitch that will make his score 1000. Now, the box to hold the score was only made to hold 3 numbers. It was done to save memory, so another number can be added in a different box. Where does the extra character go? It goes to the next box. Now the level is 0, which is impossible and the game glitches out. Think of the flappy bird code to look like "[1][43][49][6][3][23][4]" (very over simplified). At some point, he would do the score glitch so many times, it's going to have this code that he made in the memory, and he can execute it. This isn't exactly how seth did it, but it's the same concept).
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is it Creationists disbelieve in evolution? More so, is there something in the bible that disputes evolution? Could God not have \"created\" evolution?" ]
If one believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible, then there's really no room for evolution. It is certainly possible to believe in evolution and God, if you don't take a literal view of Genesis. The theory of evolution involves random mutations that were beneficial and therefore bred true in offspring. Someone who believes in a higher power may see the hand of God where traditional science sees chance.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why are the republican/democrat debates called debates? There's hardly any debating going on." ]
They're mostly called debates to lend some gravitas to the situation. What they are these days, however, is joint press conferences. It would be nice to have actual debates, but that would require politicians who are willing and able to think on their feet, and argue in defense of a position, rather than requiring an army of writers to create pre-prepared statements for them to memorize. There aren't many who are willing or able to do that.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How come I'm not related to people that have the same last name as me?" ]
Last names didn't always exist. So when they did start existing, sometimes unrelated people chose the same last name. (It's also been long enough since the development of last names that you might be related really far back.)
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If you melt a penny or rip up a dollar, are you combating inflation, since that cash is no longer in circulation? or is inflation less straightforward?" ]
Yes, you are combatting inflation, but the amount of new currency that is added to the economy everyday is so massive that unless you were to orchestrate a huge money burn, you couldn’t make any sort of difference
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "I've read that quantum computers can easily break all our current security protocols. How do they do this?" ]
Quantum computers are good at following several "paths" to a solution at once, essentially doing calculations in parallel rather than sequentially. One of the applications for this quantum superposition simultaneous search power is finding prime numbers, which is normally super difficult: if you want to find out if 277 is a prime number, you need to divide by *every* other number less than it and see if any of them go through. If I picked a number with 30 digits, it would take your computer *years* to determine whether it's prime or not. And the difficulty of performing a prime factorization of a number is the fundamental key to the security of every modern cryptosystem. If quantum computers can efficiently factorize a prime number, then all of our most sophisticated coding mechanisms are out the window. For an explanation of *why* prime numbers are important in cryptography, check out [my comment running through an example of RSA encryption and decryption](_URL_0_).
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is it called the \"Democratic People's Republic of Korea\" when it's not a democracy or a republic?" ]
Your mum wants to get you to eat some food you don't like, so instead of just calling it cabbage, she calls it delicious super tasty munchy fun time. But the cabbage is severe famine and human rights violations.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does a computer screen work?" ]
Your monitor has a grid of tiny little boxes called pixels (short for picture element). Each one of these can be controlled independently to display a certain color and brightness. Your computer figures out how to draw your screen by filling in each pixel and sending that information to the monitor. It does this usually around 60 times each second, so for instance, if you move your mouse, each time the screen gets re-painted, the mouse pointer is just the tiniest bit further along its path, creating an illusion of movement.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How come the suit (pants, shirt, jacket, tie) became the norm for formal dressing everywhere and not something else?" ]
After the French Revolution western men (including American men) rapidly abandoned the frilly flamboyant fashion characteristic of the Rococo era and adapted a much more conservative fashion of England. The modern suit was developed in the 19th century by an Englishman named [Beau Brummell](_URL_0_). He wore well tailored jacket, white shirt with neckcloth that eventually became a standard tie or bowtie, and fitted pants. The Great Britain also became the most powerful nation in the 19th and early 20th century, thus influenced formal attires around the world.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Student Loan Default and its consequences?" ]
Look, man, pay your student loans. If you can only afford $5 a month, send them $5 each and every month to stay current. At some point, they will want income verification, but if you keep sending them whatever you can afford you won't go into default. Even though they are not calling you every day, they still want their money. Penalties, interest, and collection charges are being built up. At some point either you will have to die or begin repayment. Trust me, the student loan people won't let you die until you pay off your loans. The collection charges and penalties can be written off if you can make payments for about a year, but the interest is still building up.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do many companies nowadays see tattoos as being \"unprofessional\"?" ]
Because in much of modern history the people with tattoos have been people very often associated with unsavory organizations, crime, and violence. I think you can understand why companies wishing to present a professional and safe environment would shy away from hiring those with tattoos. That general attitude has been passed down, even though it may not be as applicable nowadays as it was in the past, since many people with tattoos are in no way associated with violence or crime.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Sleep deprivation - If you have a sleepless night and then proceed to get the recommended 7.5 hours of sleep the following days, for how long will you be in a sleep deprivation?" ]
We just talked about this in my psychology class today. There's a case study about this guy who, as a high school student, wanted to break the record of longest number of days without sleep (which was 11 days at the time). He made it 12 days, probably with some "micro sleeps" here and there. He suffered all kinds of side effects, from headaches to irritability to hallucinations and more. When he finished, he slept about 12 hours a night for three or four nights and was right back to normal with no lasting effects and was able to go back to a regular sleep schedule. So really the idea of your body having to catch up isn't completely accurate. Your body just needs sleep in general to function properly and consolidate memories/repair itself. If you have one sleepless night you'll probably have a rough day, but if you get the recommended amount of sleep the following night you should be right back on track.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is cheese such a big deal to the French?" ]
Back before refrigeration, food either went bad or had to be preserved somehow. Meat and milk would quickly go bad. France is known for its sauces as a way to cover up the rancid meat. Cheese was a way to preserve milk so it wouldn't spoil as quickly.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "instead of fighting green energy, why don't coal and gas companies invest in it?" ]
Energy companies HAVE invested in 'green energy' and are doing so right now. However, the necessary capital to get green energy is too much and the profit margins from them are too slim. The main reasons Green Energy is attempted at the moment is due to the government forcing it and also the publicity these companies receive. This is not to say there will be a point on time when green energy becomes a more lucrative investment (either when it becomes cheaper to do or alternatives become too expensive due to low supply). Concluding: You will always hear people calling the energy companies evil (and in many cases they are). However, when people complain companies should drop fossil fuels it is necessary in keep in mind the extra cost YOU will be paying extra for it due to the extra cost the energy companies must pay.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What exactly is sous-vide? Isn't it just boiling the food?" ]
Here's how it works. You wrap your food in plastic and put it in a water bath set to a precise temperature. It turns out that for protein foods, it's not how long they cook that determines how done they are, but the maximum temperature reached. So sous-vide lets you control precisely whether a steak is rare, medium, or wherever *exactly* you want it. If you want a medium rare steak, put it in water at 130F. After an hour or so that temperature will be reached all through the steak, but you can leave it in for another hour if you want and it barely changes. This makes it very flexible for cooking when you aren't quite sure when you will be serving dinner.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why are some medications race-based?" ]
There's sufficient genetic difference between various human races to create different reactions to certain drugs, or increase the possibility of certain reactions in certain races. An example of one such difference is a genetic switch in some Asians that floors them completely when they have one drink because their metabolism very rapidly turns the alcohol they ingest into acetaldehyde, which is poisonous when in larger doses and gives them wicked hangovers. Some drugs are metabolized or take effect in different ways as programmed by race-specific genetics, and that can lead to bad side-effects such as cancer or a drug that just doesn't work at all.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does Publix (a grocery chain in the SE United States) make a profit when they offer so many buy one-get one (BOGO) deals?" ]
The store doesn't fund those sales - the manufacturer does. The manufacturer then uses this marketing expense as a tax write-off. Source: used to work in the industry.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do many large companies lease their office/retail space instead of owning it?" ]
There are a couple of reasons I can think of. 1. A lease is nearly a 100% write off as it is an expense. If a company gets a loan on the building only the interest would be a write off. 2. Buying a building with cash locks in a lot of capital to a single asset. Capital that could be used for other ways of increasing productivity. 3. Selling a building can be a long drawn out process depending on the market. So if a business decided to move they would have a difficult time scheduling that when compared to a lease where they know when the lease is up and can plan accordingly.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If Muhammad was \"just\" a prophet, then why do Muslims treat his persona at a level above what modern Christians treat Jesus Christ?" ]
Muhammad is considered by Muslims to be the final prophet in a long like of prophets beginning with the roots of Judaism, moving through Christianity and ending with the final updates from the Almighty coming through Muhammad. Muslims view Jesus much like how Christianity views Jewish prophets like Moses or Elijah, important but not most important.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do we clap for celebration?" ]
The truth is ... we did not evolve from apes. We evolved from Sea Lions.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How do you \"get\" depression? Do things that make life miserable alter the chemicals in our brains, are certain people more likely to be depressed?" ]
I'm afraid that there's no really satisfying answer to this. The brain is incredibly hard to study, for a variety of reasons -- you can't just go poking around in it at will, you can't raise human beings in ideal experimental conditions because it's cruel, studies on animals will never take into account the complexity of human emotion and thought, we haven't even been studying it for very long, etc etc. We're still totally in the dark about a *lot* of things regarding mental illness and behaviour. So there is no way anyone today can sit down and explain the simple direct causes of depression uncontroversially. What we do know is that yes, there are biological changes in the brains of people who suffer from it, and yes, there are a number of genetic and environmental factors that make a person more likely to suffer from it.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How can people function on only a few hours of sleep?" ]
As the short-tempered, sleep-deprived parent of a new 10-week-old, I am honestly not sure it is possible to function on only a few hours sleep.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is general anaesthesia so common for wisdom teeth removal, if it isn't necessary?" ]
It varies from patient to patient. But the general rule is to try and avoid exposure to general anesthesia for ~~unnecessary~~ procedures *that do not really need GA*. It is advised to remove wisdom teeth one at a time under local anesthesia (several weeks to months apart) instead of removing them all at once which requires the patient to go under general anesthesia. Unless there are some factors that suggest removing them all at once. Like 4 badly impacted wisdom teeth (quite unlikely). EDIT: phrasing. EDIT 2: When I mentioned/hinted that 4 wisdom teeth removal might require general anesthesia, I did not say that it cannot be done under a local one. It really depends on the patient, how badly the teeth are impacted (depth, angle; they have grades of impaction @dental diagnostic criteria) and dental centers preference (or school of thought).
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Most of my money is a number in a bank database. What is there to stop a bank artificially inflating someone's number?" ]
It is not just 1 number, it's the sum of a transaction history that is cross-referenced to the various accounts that put money in or took it out of your account. If you just made one number bigger, the whole thing wouldn't balance and that would be picked up by the auditors/accountants.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How can people with Down's Syndrome donate blood" ]
Red blood cells do not have a nucleus, and therefore no DNA. Assuming that there is not a separate mutation/issue that impacts RBC production, their red blood cells would be normal. Not sure about other blood products.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is Morrissey so popular amongst Latinos?" ]
Latino here, In my opinion Morrissey's style of singing is very similar to Mariachi style, including song lyrics and such. Having grown up with maricahi music, listening to Morrissey just feels very similar.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What do physicists mean when they say space is curved?" ]
Because spacetime behaves like it's curved by the presence of mass and energy. What does curvature mean? Let's say we have two points and we draw a straight line between them. Now let's say we want to increase the length of the line while keeping the endpoints fixed. How do we do that? We curve it so that it's no longer straight. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, so to increase the distance, we make the line no longer straight. If you have two points in empty space, there is some distance between them. Now put the same two points near a black hole, and you'll measure the distance between the points to be larger. The way physicists interpret this is that the space in between the two points near the black hole is curved (there is a larger distance between the two fixed points). > Why would an empty space have any shape at all either flat or curved? A completely empty universe would just have the Minkowski metric of Special Relativity, which is globally flat.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do problems and stresses that don't seem like a big deal during the day suddenly seem life threatening and world ending when you wake up at 2:30 AM?" ]
I'm not sure what 'stresses' you are taking about, but I'm going to take a guess at what you mean and work from there. You are at your most vulnerable when you are asleep. You are effectively unconscious and many of your senses are non-responsive or at least sort of 'muted' as it were. This means that when you wake up at 2:30 in the morning because you heard a bump downstairs, or a loud howl of wind, your mind goes into overdrive because the 'threat' could be quite a lot closer due to your unconscious state. You need to be ready for a fight just in case. Your brain isn't perfect and it can sometimes relay that fear to other, non threatening but still stressful situations.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do we just \"click\" with some people?" ]
Because our personalities relate in some manner. I figured this out by looking into it and wondering my friends were my friends. It really just came down to being weird, funny, spontaneous, talkitive and stuff like that. My brain just likes these people and gets a 'high' off of them. Sorta like a drug
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How are mathematicians and astronomers able to predict solar and lunar eclipses thousands of years in advance?" ]
Because it's simply a math problem involving physics equations. Consider a math problem from your school text book where there are a pair of train tracks leading from Chicago to St. Louis which is 250 miles away. A train leave Chicago at noon going at 50 mph while at the same time a train leaves St. Louis traveling at 75 mph. Where along the route would you need to be waiting to watch the trains cross each others path (an *eclipse*) and at what time would that happen? Solving such a problem isn't too hard, and since the planets follow a predictable path with a predictable speed too (as dictated by [Newton](_URL_0_)) you can solve for them too if you gather all the numbers about where they are and how fast they orbit.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do people's voices get super deep/groggy in the mornings?" ]
I looked this up because I was curious. Basically it's gunk (phlegm?) that builds up in your throat overnight from your horizontal position, then goes away once you're upright.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If every blood donation is screened for HIV, why is it dangerous to let a group with a higher rate of HIV donate blood?" ]
Window period of HIV testing: this is the time between when you acquire HIV and when an HIV test becomes positive. If you donate blood between those two time points, that unit of blood may transmit HIV. Imperfect testing: the tests used to screen the blood supply for communicable diseases are very good, but not perfect. A population with a higher rate of infection with a disease has a higher rate of false negative test results. Using medical terminology, I am referring to the dependence of negative predictive value on pre-test probability for a test with a given sensitivity.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What is actually going on inside your body when you \"get the wind knocked out of you\"?" ]
Your solar plexus is a bundle of nerves. If you are hit there, the nerves are shocked for a while, and cause your diaphragm to be paralyzed. This keeps you from breathing.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How can Libertarians oppose the militarization of police forces yet ardently support the 2nd Amendment?" ]
There is absolutely nothing at all hypocritical about the position. The difference is that police are agents of the state whose word and direction represent the will of the state. The more militarized a police force the more the state is able to control the populace. There is also NO Constitutional provision protecting the right of agents of the state to carry a firearm. An individual, by contrast, is not an agent of the state. They are a private individual citizen with a protected Constitutional right to protect their liberty, property, and family from force whether it be from another private individual or the unjust actions of the state.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why don't they package soda and beer the same? Like why do we have 30 racks of beer and not soda?" ]
There *ARE* 30 packs of soda. Walmart sells them. [Here's a link for 30 cans of Diet Mt Dew](_URL_0_) If you want to see other examples you can google 30 pack of soda, thats how I found that link.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is it that I visit websites and Facebook/Google automatically know that and give me targeted ads?" ]
When you visit websites that link to pages of interest, they send your pseudo identity and your interest profile to central ad servers. When you visit another page that has an ad spot for a remarketing ad, they pull your identity and interest profile and select those ads that are best matched to you. Your pseudoidentity is an id number that's generated and kept on your browser as a cookie.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do flies keep on landing on the same spot after scaring them away" ]
Because they have very limited mental capacity. They are like a very primitive computer programm. Find food source. Avoid fast moving thing on collision course. Breed. They can't process that there is an entity that doesn't want them to come to a certain spot.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Was there ever a \"wood age\"?What do we know about wooden(and other perishable) tools?" ]
No, there was never a point in human history where we could use wooden tools but not stone tools. The "stone age" is just a term used to describe when we used tools that were naturally occurring. We used fire hardened spears and flint knapped with stone. Edit- Flint knapping not flint mapping.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why are death row inmates housed separately?" ]
People care less about obeying rules when they are about to die. At this point what do they have to lose? Did Jerry over in cell D12 make a rude comment about your mother? Maybe Jerry should get stabbed 12 times with a sharpened tooth brush. What are the guards going to do about it? Kill you? lol!
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does the National Security Council differ from other federal agencies?" ]
The NSC is just a group of people, with other government jobs, to whom the President turns for national security advice and recommendations. They read the analysis (facts) written by experts and help the President evaluate public opinion and political factors (not facts).
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What are transcendental equations" ]
Transcendental equations usually lack analytical solutions. But a simple way to solve them numerically is to plot both sides of the equation and look where the lines intersect. For example * tan (x) = e^x You cannot solve this analytically, but plot both functions (see link) and you'll see that solutions still exist since the plots intersect each other at multiple places (for example at x ≈ 1.3). _URL_0_
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do we capitalise all words except conjunctions and some prepositions in titles?" ]
Convention, at heart. It used to be that writers capitalized all letters. Then, some time passed, and they capitalized only nouns and beginnings of sentences. Then, more time passed, and they started capitalizing only proper nouns. It's gotten to the point that we only capitalize more meaningful words in general and in titles. For instance, "the" isn't as meaningful as nouns and verbs are. EDIT: Teotwaki69 correctly says in the below post that the convention is based on parts of speech.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why are crickets so hard to find?" ]
It’s hard to pinpoint in on sounds that are loud enough to create an echo. Things like a smoke detector that beep, leave you clueless because it echos and the sound bounces all over and also it’s short. The beep only goes on for a few moments and then it stops. Sounds that are constant like for example a hissing sound of a leaking air line are easy to find because it’s constant and you can constantly adjust your perception of where it is. A cricket chirps and then it’s silent, leaving you with no ability to figure out where the noise came from and only for you to guess.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does machine learning work? Do computers experience cognitive dissonance where they have to weigh two conflicting ideas?" ]
There's a bunch of variations, but a lot of them look like this: The computer is given four things: 1. A bunch of pre-defined inputs that look like what it has to do (whether it's a medical diagnosis, the screen of an Atari game, or a Go board) 2. A program that processes the inputs 3. A bunch of knobs it can tweak on that program to change it's behavior. 4. A program that judges it and gives it a score based on the output. The computer will then run millions of simulations, and tweak the knobs to try to get the best score overall for all of the inputs it gets. There's a bunch of strategies the computer uses to try to figure out how to tweak the knobs. Sometimes, it does get stuck in a corner where tweaking any one knob makes the score get worse but tweaking multiple will make it get better. There are strategies to help the computer get out of that corner, but none of them are really "cognitive dissonance" because the computer still isn't really a brain.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "why do news channels consider Twitter a reliable, relevant, and serious source for different things?" ]
> Twitter was just for teens and young adults When reputable sources starting using it to disseminate information, that is no longer the case. Twitter is an easy way to reach a massive number of people, be it to share a major headline, or a photo of your dinner plate.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why are mice associated with cheese?" ]
Most mice prefer to feed on grains and nuts rather than cheese, but when they're hungry, they'll eat whatever they can find that is edible. Cheese tends to smell very strongly, especially when not refrigerated, and that makes it easier to find by mice, so when they're hungry, they'll go for whatever's easiest to find, i.e. cheese. Over time, this created the (incorrect) assumption that mice like cheese, and this in turn was used in cartoons and other media so often that some people assume that mice are inordinately fond of cheese.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is self-plagiarism an issue in academics?" ]
In academic writing, the assumption is that uncited ideas are a new contribution to the field, even if it was your idea in the first place. It's just a report for a class, but they want you to get used to the style. (And if you quoted and cited an entire paper, you didn't do any work for that class.)
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How are things sticky?" ]
Adhesives and other sticky substances contain protein molecules that bond with the molecules of the surface they are spread upon by entering the pores and spaces of the material. Therefore, smooth surfaces such as glass are hard to attach to because there aren't any pores for molecules to enter.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does honey never expire?" ]
Its acidity, the lack of water, and the presence of hydrogen peroxide are the factors that cause honey to be so incredibly shelf-stable for pretty much eternity. Here's some reading on it: _URL_0_
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If cigarettes contain things like arsenic, butane, cadmium, ammonia, and formaldehyde, how can people smoke then everyday for years without dying within the first few weeks?" ]
There is no such thing as lethal or safe substances. There are only lethal and safe doses. Water can be toxic if you drink enough of it.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "- Why taking long showers or brushing your teeth with the faucet open waste water?" ]
The source of your clean water and the location where your wastewater ends up are rarely the same. Water treatment plants can recapture SOME wastewater, but the rest is lost, dumped into the sea (where we don't get drinking water from) or downstream for the very reason that we don't want sewage in our water supply. It depends greatly on where you live, but commonly fresh water comes from snow melt and rainfall replenishing natural or man-made aquifers, and not being drawn from a river.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How are KFC's 11 secret herbs and spices still a secret?" ]
It's not worth it. At this point, KFC could probably publish the exact recipe on the walls of their restaurants and it wouldn't make a difference. No one is going to create a chain restaurant to make the exact same thing that another chain restaurant does with no changes at all. If someone wanted to make money selling KFC fried chicken, it would be far easier and more cost efficient to just franchise a KFC.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How come educational channels like history and discovery do not show educational things anymore?" ]
Educational shows no longer draw enough viewers to pay the bills for the upkeep of the channel.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How CDs/DVDs Store and Read Data, and Why a Scratch Can Ruin Everything" ]
CDs and DVDs are types of *optical discs*. The CD/DVD is covered with a large number of little holes, called pits. A tightly focused laser shines onto the surface of the CD, and depending on whether it hits a pit or a flat part, the intensity changes. A sensor reads that intensity change, and translates it into a 1 or a 0. That stream of 1's and 0's is then turned into music or video.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "what did ancient humans do with umbilical cords during birth?" ]
The umbilical cord is connected to the placenta, the interface between the fetal and maternal bloodstreams, which is given the folksy name 'afterbirth' -- because the woman ejects it shortly after the birth, within the hour. Thing weighs about a pound too. Isn't giving birth beautiful? Once that's out, the baby is entirely detached. The umbilical cord will fall off the baby's end in a few days, leaving behind the navel, or 'belly button', assuming you don't cut it. Edit: Did I mention [you can eat it?](_URL_0_) Not Safe For...well...anything. The real question is, is it vegan?
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do we use fresh water for our sewage?" ]
It's easier and cheaper to have a single delivery system to all buildings than it is to develop and install a second identical system for non-potable water delivery. You're also avoiding the inevitable mishaps when people confuse the two.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "I broke up with my GF yesterday, it was my own decision because the relationship was at a point we both were unsatisfied. Why do I want her back, even though my brain says it's better this way? (It lasted over 4 years)" ]
Sorry to hear that. Going through a break up is hard. Firstly, and its been mentioned is that love is a form of drug. I believe, going from memory its oxytocin but i may be wrong. Simply put, your body does get a 'high' from your partner and breaking up leads to 'withdrawal', unfortunately. There a lot of variables as well, ive read before that that when you form a relationship with somone, your personalities can start to blend to the extent where they become your other half so to speak. I personally found that i picked up a few traits, from my 5 year relationship, so that adds fuel to the fire. I definitely feel for you and you partner. Not a good place to be. If you (or anyone else) need help, we're all here for ya. Take it easy champ.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What happens after someone escapes prision" ]
The person who escaped tends to spend most of the time trying to get further from the prison while the police try and find them and then put them back in.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why can't I become the President of the United States (I was born in Canada)?" ]
The founders were nervous that a foreign power would attempt to control the country by getting one of their own elected president. Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers: > Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? Also, if we let, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger become president, and some Austrian rose to become a belligerent European dictator (unrealistic, I know), there'd be concern that he wouldn't necessarily act in the best interests of the United States.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does the rule of 3 work?" ]
[You're going to have to be more specific.](_URL_0_)
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Was there any form of birth control used at brothels in pre-moderrn times? How did women prevent getting pregnant?" ]
There have been known herbs that can be used to induce abortions - such as Pennyroyal, that would be mixed with wine / tea.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Does the shape of the Pentagon actually help the U.S. military?" ]
The design of it was to maximize office space while minimizing travel time on foot from one side to the other. The theory was for better reaction times and message delivery.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If I'm thinking in english, what were thoughts like before we developed language?" ]
when you say 'thinking', that is a big process, of which 'thinking in words' is a small part. kind of like confusing the commentator for the entire ball game.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why was 911 selected as the number to dial in case of emergency?" ]
They wanted a short, easy to remember number, but also one that was not as likely to be accidentally dialed. It also needed to be fast to dial during the era of rotary phones when the system was first designed. So a 3 digit number starting with 9 and then using the fastest to dial numbers of 1 was chosen.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How do selective hiring companies not get sued?" ]
Because their business model is built around having females. It's like how Hooters can hire only attractive women because they're technically hiring models who just happen to waitress, and being attractive is a job qualification for being a model. Or how a man can't claim discrimination that a strip club won't hire him.