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[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What happens in the engine if you put diesel in a petrol car?" ]
If you have some petrol in your car and put diesel in it, it will start but smoke heavily through the exhaust. Damage will not be great to the engine though. However, if you fill in an empty tank of a petrol car with diesel fuel it will never start. If you've ever compared gasoline to diesel fuel, you know that they smell different. They also feel different -- diesel fuel is oily. Like oil, diesel fuel doesn't evaporate like gasoline does. Plus, diesel fuel is heavier. A gallon of diesel is about a pound heavier than a gallon of gasoline. There is the requested summary of what's happening in the engine: The fuel injectors in your engine would inject the diesel fuel into the engine's cylinders. The spark plugs would fire, but nothing would happen after that. Because the diesel fuel doesn't evaporate very well, the spark plugs would have nothing to ignite, and the engine would never start.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How could a star be forced to explode?" ]
Maybe injecting it with a giant ball of iron. Stars supernova when their core turns to iron iirc.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How is it possible that I copied a file without copy all of its content?" ]
I would make another copy, and get the user to try to put more data into the file as they had done before - see if it shows up. My brain goes to PICNIC error first here. If your system said the file copied successfully, then it most likely did (unless you mean that computer 1 died during the transfer?). It's extremely unlikely (probably impossible) for a copy operation to keep a file in a readable format, but leave out some data.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why does it hurt getting water up your nose when swimming, yet having a runny nose isn't the least bit uncomfortable." ]
First of all, if you think a runny nose "isn't the least bit uncomfortable," you've not had a real runny nose! It can be *extremely* uncomfortable. Now, your nose is designed to let liquids drop out, not to take them back in. When you get water (or whatever) up your nose, it goes into all the nooks and crannies that nothing's supposed to go into, and where if something's flowing *out*, it'll just glide over.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do dark-skinned or black people have their palms and soles paler than the rest of their body?" ]
Come on people what's with all the shitty answers? Don't be sarcastic or condescending if you don't have an answer, just let someone else answer the question.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Taxi Medallions, what is this system?" ]
There are large areas of NYC where only a taxi with a medallion can operate and they limit the number of medallions that they allow to operate in a given year. This registration system generates income for the city and ensures that there are not too many taxis on the roads of the overly congested city. Uber bypasses this system. This means that they are not only competing in areas that are reserved for the medallion taxis, but they are not paying the proper fees and taxes to the city for operating a taxis service. They also do not have the background checks to protect passenger safety that taxis do.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If English is a Germanic language, why is it so difficult to read texts/understand speech in other Germanic languages?" ]
English is the dirty bastard of Germanic languages. It is not German, it is rooted in the same early language group that gave us modern German/Dutch/Icelandic and the rest. English was heavily influenced by the Romance language group, particularly through old French, when the invading Normans brought it along. Toss in some Gaelic influence, more Latin for the 'scholarly' types, and you end up with a language that bears only a passing resemblance to its Germanic cousins.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What would happen if the Earth suddenly started spinning the wrong way?" ]
If the earth stopped suddenly and started to spin the other way it would not matter because we would all be dead anyways.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do cigarettes have so many chemicals in them, why not just tobacco?" ]
most of the dangerous chemicals come from the incomplete burning of the tabacco. Because you dont burn it with enough oxygen there are hundrets of side reactions which make polyarmatic rings carbenes and other nasty stuff. tabacco is a natural product thats why it contains a multitude of chemical building blocks. If you burn wood you get ash and CO2 mostly but when you heat it without air you get coke and a nasty liquid called cresolite oil. thats similar to whats happening when you smoke a cigarette.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Do Alcoholic Anonymous (and its variations) meetings only involve standing up and sharing your story?" ]
As a medical student, we were required to attend several alcoholic anonymous meetings My impression as an outsider is that attendees shared experiences as a way of explaining how to apply the 12 steps in their lives. Voss their personal stories were more of an instruction on how to follow the system. The steps themselves are not necessarily intuitive and I found this level of instruction helpful in understanding the program. Overall, I found the meetings educational and helpful even for somebody like myself who does not have an alcohol use disorder. I highly recommend that everyone attend a couple, if only to gain better insight into a common problem that is difficult to understand otherwise.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What happens to all the confiscated drugs, such as marijuana, that the cops collect?" ]
Specifically, Marijuana in B.C., Canada - I worked at a lumber mill. They have a ["hive" burner - where scrap wood is burned in a 60ft burner](_URL_1_). Late at night, a few times a year, they load bales of marijuana on the conveyer and let it burn. This takes a few hours to complete. As a side note: One of the clean up crew on shift went missing one of these times. They found him in the lunch room, mid shift, eyes beyond bloodshot and face so red it looked like he was working on a 2 day sun burn. This was late fall, no sun, he worked only graveyards and was pasty white earlier that night... I guess he was checking how the burn was going... close up... for an extended time...
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How do garbage collection services get caught up from taking federal holidays off? Same amount of weekly trash, collected in fewer days: they work longer hours? they run more trucks?" ]
In our city, they work 4-day weeks generally. (M-T-TH-F) For Monday holidays, they move M-T collections to T-W
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is it that big semi trucks last for hundreds of thousands of miles, but some cars start breaking at just about 100,000?" ]
I myself work in the mining industry in australia. Recently was at a site near coober pedy in the middle of nowhere. Maintenance is a big part of it. The road trains we had are tri-drive kenworth 908s or something but would do 6 trips a day so close to 600kms a day from site to rail siding and back a few times but every time they pulled into the yard they were checked over. Fluids, belts, tires, filters and signs of new or increasing damage/wear. One thing I noticed was different was service intervals. Regular light vehicle gets serviced ever 5000kms or 10000kms the trucks all get serviced based on hours worked like 250hrs they get fluid samples taken, 500hrs tires rotated and belts inspected or changed, 1000hrs hrs they have the oils and filters changed etc etc so each time certain hours roll around its due for something. A fair bit would come down to driver abilities/abuse I would imagibe aswell
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How can child-actors play in gruesome movies like Beasts of no Nation?" ]
There are two routes. Danny from The Shining did not know it was a horror movie. His scenes were edited so that he did not have an idea that he was supposed to be in a scary movie. In Beasts of No Nation they went the opposite way. They were clear with the actors and explained what was happening. They made sure to have the support structure in place to make sure the actors knew what was happening and why certain things had to be done for the story. Remember that Abraham Attah (Agu) was 13 when filming took place. The actors were able to tell what was real and what was fake and were able to distinguish between something bad and something acceptable.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do people in poverty stricken countries continue to reproduce even though they know their children are likely to starve to death?" ]
Because if you keep reproducing, maybe you will get lucky and some of your kids will grow up to adulthood, get a wife, and farm the scrap of land you own and provide for you when you are old and can't work anymore. You know, like how people did for pretty much all of recorded history.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What happened to all of the sweepstakes?" ]
They were replaced by online contests through web forms and social media, which are faster, easier, and cheaper to both organize and participate in.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do people not get electrocuted when touching a charger?" ]
There are two ways in which chargers prevent electrocution. The first one is that everything that can be covered in plastic or rubber is covered in plastic or rubber. Electricity can't flow through plastic or rubber. If something on the outside of the charger or device is metal, the charger (in Australia as the example) will have a third metal strip which allows electricity to be "grounded". Electricity flows on the path with the least resistance to the ground, so if is a choice between flowing through you or flowing through the metal wire to the ground, or will choose the wire and you won't be electrocuted.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why does real life randomly feel like a dream?" ]
What you are experiencing may be some kind of dissociation, most likely depersonalization or derealization. It's neither good nor bad in and of itself, depends on what you make of the experience. As long as you are aware that these dreamlike feelings are just that, only fleeting feelings, you have nothing to worry about. However, if these feelings increase in frequency and intensity, and you find it harder to regain your connection to the real world I would seek some answers as to why your brain is behaving that way. Whether counseling or otherwise.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is the word \"'nother\" so typically said after \"whole\"?" ]
This is an infix, a word inside a word to add emphasis (compare with prefix and suffix). It is placing "whole" inside of "another," a-whole-nother. The only other common infix in English is "fucking," e.g. abso-fucking-lutely and god-fucking-dammit.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is deforestation such a large problem if it only affects the country where it takes place?" ]
First, it doesn't only affect that country; the entire earth benefits from having a healthy ecosystem. Second, the health of countries is intertwined; a desolate country that is economically desperate is going to affect adjacent countries.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "how and why animals age differently to humans, and how we are able to calculate their age equivalence?" ]
If by "Age equivalence" you mean something like "dog years" that's simply a rough approximation. If a human lives 10 times longer than a dog, on average, then 1 'human year' is 10 'dog years.' It really has no particular accuracy beyond a rough demonstration of lifespan, and tends to be wildly off on things like 'maturity' or what not.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why don't invisible rays like wifi and satellite hurt humans or animals?" ]
Does shining a flashlight at you give you cancer? Because visible light is actually on the "more dangerous" side of radio waves. Radio waves, like Wi-Fi, are the same thing as beams of light. The only difference is that we have special chemicals in our eyes that react with the electromagnetic waves we call "visible light". On the "less power" side of visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum we have infrared and radio waves. These are harmless. On the "more power" side of visible light, we have ultraviolet radiation (which is what gives you sunburn), X-Rays, and Gamma Rays (which can kill you).
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What causes my brain to associate metal music as good but pop music as bad, even though pop music is designed to sound good to the majority?" ]
Metal is also designed to sound good. A lot of sound engineers work to make the music pleasing to listen to for hours as opposed to fatiguing you with harsh frequencies. The lyrical content can appeal to you. The groove of a certain musician can speak to you. The vibe created by the band can move you. The aggression may be what you like. The chords used for metal are different than those typically found in pop. But metal is designed to sound good. Some albums suck and some don't, like pop.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "RobinHood: SolarCity and Tesla merged. My SCTY shares vanished." ]
Your SCTY shares will be replaced by Tesla shares (TSLA) at a rate determined by the conditions of the deal. IIRC it's 0.11 TSLA for every SCTY but I might be wrong.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do sitcoms have laughter tracks?" ]
People tend to laugh more when they hear other people laughing. Laughter is a pretty social phenomenon. Most people are more likely to laugh at a show if it has a laugh track. I don't know how that equates to viewership, but it obviously has some effect or they wouldn't do it.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why does this appear to move?" ]
It's an illusion that happens because we're constantly moving. Our eyes are jumping around the page while our body is twitching. If you stop all the movement and just stare at the picture, you'll notice it stops moving, too. (It's also got to do with the colours. The combination of putting dark shades next to lighter shades in a sequence strengthens the illusion.) Pretty sure it's a myth that the picture will move faster if you're stressed though. They probably say this because people sometimes make more rapid movements when they are stressed.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do we have that uncomfortable feeling when sleeping with limbs uncovered or hanging out of the bed?" ]
Evolution. People who didn't get that weird feeling when dangling their limbs from the trees they were sleeping on were killed by cheetahs.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "why can't we have something to measure chemical levels and then make them what they should be in cases of mental illness?" ]
Because mental illness is quite subjective and differences in chemical levels of one person may not/May do more to another person
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "why are most of the animals born with good enough insticts to survive at birth while humans are so helpless?" ]
Humans are building a biological supercomputer, that takes time. Our great ape cousins are also pretty useless at birth, as are a lot of other mammals and birds. They're developing complex brains and behavior systems that can't be completed as quickly as basic body development.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "what do \"C\" executives (CEO, CIO, etc) do on a daily basis and why do they make so much money?" ]
My mom is the Chief Operating Officer of a company and her days are filled with different things such as conference calls, meeting with her staff to make sure everything is on track, dealing with other companies she works with, and a lot more. She also has to travel about once a month to go to meetings with other companies that want to give her company their business and while there she gives presentations on what her company could do for them, and why they should choose them over competitors. Her average work day is about 10 hours, and she normally works 6 days a week with no overtime.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Early American territories and colonies. Who owned what, and how did they get it, and how/why did they lose it? ie: the Lousiana purchase. Florida and Spain, etc etc." ]
[This is a really good article, and quite readable.](_URL_0_) If, after you read it, there's something you don't understand, please reply and I'll help out.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How do police catch cars using false licence plates?" ]
if you get pulled over, they run your plate and its not listed/different than what your car is you get in a shitton of trouble. you have to be really smart about it, because getting caught with a fake licence plate is often worse than whatever crime you were hiding from
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Can someone please explain the general ideas behind Healthcare Reform and why it is so controversial?" ]
Some people think every citizen in a rich country ought to get health care, even if other citizens must help pay for it. That would require the government to collect money and then spend it on health care. Other people think it isn't fair to make one person pay another person's health insurance bill, or that the government will do a bad job and waste the money. Government health insurance is already happening, in programs called Medicare and Medicaid. Healthcare Reform would make *more* of it happen. But people who think government is wasteful would like *less* of it to happen.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What does a volume knob physically do inside a speaker to increase/decrease the volume when you turn it?" ]
You're actually controlling a variable resistor, a.k.a. a potentiometer -- which can control the amount current in a circuit. Lower current = weaker sound, higher current = louder sound. Basically, when you turn up the volume, you're allowing more electricity to flow through the circuit that leads to the amplifier.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do people live in Places like Barrow, AK" ]
Some of them might be Native or just have grown up there. For the most part, people live up there to harvest natural resources. Alaska produces a shitload of oil & has lots of mining. It's a rough place to live, so they make a lot of money. Many people that live in Alaska working those industries will work a few months at a time & then come down to the West Coast for a few months to enjoy their money before going back to work.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If homeopathy does not work, why are there so many people and organisations that claim otherwise?" ]
The science is 100% saying it does not work. You may have heard the term 'snake oil' at some point in your life. Homeopathy is a snake oil type product. People convince themselves that some product works because "the establishment" says it doesn't'. There is currently a large shift in Western thinking to go back to "natural" things because people often feel their lives are too artificial. Many different people took advantage of this by marketing products with that kind of tag line. Homeopathic shit falls into that category. How this happens is pretty easy. Product A comes to market, gets a few placebo induced evangelists to spread. If it reaches critical mass BEFORE the scientific community debunks it, then attempting to knock sense into people becomes nearly impossible. They are set in their beliefs, and nothing can tell them differently. It is the problem with magical thinking in general.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do processed food comes with tag saying \"xKcal\". How would a bottle of 500ml of fruit juice have 43,0 00 calories(43,12 kcal )." ]
Humans need 2400 Kcal per day This Food probably has 43 Kcal per 100ml Humans are lazy and tend to say "Calorie" when they mean "KiloCalorie".
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What was and is the purpose of the European Union and what happens when you leave it?" ]
The purpose of the European Union (EU) is to offer: - Economic stability and free trade between member nations - Safety and protection (other EU nations may be obligated to assist your nation in times of disaster/crisis) - Relaxed border restrictions between member nations (including the ability for EU citizens to easily move to and work in other member nations without going through a complex immigration process) - A universal governing body and standardized legal framework (e.g. the EU basically comes up with EU-wide laws and regulatory policies which each member nation then has an obligation to implement/enforce in their respective countries).
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What does DirectX12/11 etc. actually do? And what is Vulkan and what is its significance?" ]
DirectX (more specifically direct3D) provides a methods for programs to draw 3D graphics. Obviously, this is a great concern with most modern games since a good deal of them feature 3D graphics. Though DirectX is only officially available for Windows. If you want to write games that run on any operating system, you use DirectX's competitor, OpenGL. The problem is that previous versions of DirectX (before 12) and OpenGL didn't allow very direct access to graphics hardware, making it difficult to squeeze out all the performance that you can. In response Microsoft introduced more direct hardware access in DirectX 12 and the Khronos group (the consortium that controls OpenGL) released Vulkan which, again, allows more direct access to hardware. But again, DirectX is only supported by windows while Vulkan can be implemented for any operating system. Additionally, DirectX version is tied to Windows releases and I believe that DirectX 12 isn't available for anything other than windows 10, while Vulkan is.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why don't athletes who attack other athletes in the middle of games get arrested on the spot?" ]
Courts have a long standing precedent to let leagues & sports organizations police themselves and for good reason. Sports are physical activities, which means people can hurt each other during the game by playing dirty. Sometimes, the only way to keep the other team from continuing to play dirty is to either openly confront or fight them or play dirty in return. You see a hockey player get hit in the nuts by a stick... what you didn't see was the entire opposing team, for the last 40 minutes, whacking guys on the back of the calves whenever they skate past just because they can.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does Eye color play into attraction?" ]
Looking into someone's eyes can reveal a lot of information about how that person thinks of you. For example, if you look into your date's eyes and they dialate, you are *much* more likely to think they have pretty eyes. This is because eye dilation is a sign of arrousal in this context. Similarly, pupil dilation shows interest in other contexts as well.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "the difference between Tylenol and Advil and when you use them" ]
Tylenol's active ingredient is acetaminophen Advil's is ibuprofen, a NSAID They are similar, but NSAIDs help reduce inflammation. So if you your knee hurts due to inflammation, use ibuprofen
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why are AK47s and other Kalashnikov weapons so renowned? How do you make your weapons simpler and hardier than the other guy?" ]
No one has mentioned this in here, but all of the extra tolerances that make the ak47 more rugged also make it less accurate. This isn't an issue for most of the time. Edit. Sorry I really should have mentioned it's not just the large tolerances make it less accurate. Also to do with other design features.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Does FLAC compression have different bitrates?" ]
FLAC has different levels of compression but they relate to how much CPU/RAM is used in the compression rather than the target bitrate. Since FLAC is lossless, it's not really possible to target a bitrate. As far as file quality goes, FLAC is limited by the quality of the input. If you have a CD, the quality will always be 16-bit, 44.1kHz stereo - if you start with higher or lower quality audio, you can compress them.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why did people think Beanie Babies would be so valuable?" ]
Collector items tend to be valuable as they become rare. These where made almost solely to have this kind of economy where they can be traded and collected. Unfortunately for them though the economy wasn't handled correctly and they quickly became over populated and/or people moved on from them.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why are many manholes placed right in the path of a car's tire on roads?" ]
I don't know for sure but I'd guess it's because the tunnel is under the road and the ladder down is on the side of the tunnel. Which more or less places the ladder under your tire, apparently.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Do caterpillars know that they are going to become a butterfly? If so, how?" ]
It's a common mistake that people sometimes make to try to apply human levels of intelligence to insects. Insects are not self-aware. A caterpillar does not even know that it is a caterpillar. It is aware of the general shape of the surface it's on, and it feels hungry around things it can eat. That's really the extent of it's cognitive powers - it doesn't know things like how much it's eaten recently, or if there are usually predators in an area. And it certainly doesn't know what's going to happen to it after it's done with it's metamorphosis.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is Africa the least developed continent if humanity started there?" ]
Well, you can contrast Northern Africa from Southern Africa. For most of history, Northern Africa wasn't any less developed than the most developed parts of Europe or the Near East (although it fell behind in the early industrial period). In fact, Carthage and Egypt were among the wealthiest, most advanced civilizations in multiple eras right up through early modern times. The difference between North Africa and the rest of the continent? The Sahara Desert is a giant, awful sinkhole that killed 99% of cultural exchange or trade relations between most of sub-Saharan Africa and the outside world, except for some contact in and around the ports - which more often resulted in slave trading than productive cultural exchanges. Isolated cultures pretty much never do well on the scale of human development.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "\"State Police Aircraft Used in Speed Enforcement\"" ]
A few ways, the easiest is, sometimes you'll see white horizontal stripes on the side of the highway. Each one of those stripes are a mile apart. If you cross 2 white stripes in 1 minute, you are going 60 miles an hour. Under 1 minute, and you might be speeding. Some other aircraft are fairly slow, and can fly at 50-60 mph, so they match the car's speed, and from that they can measure the car's speed since it equals the plane's speed.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "When you're drinking from a bottle, what stops more water from flowing down through your throat until you swallow?" ]
It's the back of the tongue. If you are taking consecutive swallows (fill mouth, swallow, fill mouth, swallow) it is the base of your tongue. See this swallow study link. The liquid shows up black, and the person drinking holds the liquid in their oral cavity with the back of the tongue. _URL_0_ It's not the epiglottis or anything else. The epiglottis helps close the airway and direct the food down where it's supposed to go. And chugging is a different kind of swallow where the person consciously closes their airway, opens up their upper esophageal sphincter, and lets the liquid slide down. People who chug are just pouring it down. Source: I'm a speech language pathologist who specializes in helping people swallow after a stroke or cancer, and I give those X-Ray swallow tests (modified barium swallow study) all the time.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How are mAh (and amps in general) and voltage related in terms of batteries?" ]
You can think of voltage as a measure of electrical "pressure". Amperes are a measure of the number of electrons, and voltage is the concentration or "pressure" of electrons. Imagine water in a pipe. if you increase the size of the pipe, the "voltage" drops and the "amperage" stays the same. if you decrease the size of the pipe, the "voltage" increases.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What are the differences between a 12MP DSLR camera and a 12MP point and shoot camera in terms of quality of shots?" ]
A point and shoot camera's sensor is tiny compared to a DSLR's. The sensor's size more or less determines image quality, which is why a picture taken with a 12MP EOS 5D will be much more higher quality than one from a point and shoot, even though the settings may be the same. One of the biggest differences is noise performance; a full frame sensor will have much more cleaner looking shots at ISO 3200 than one from a point and shoot, which will have extremely grainy ones.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "why are mattresses so expensive?" ]
Middlemen. Let's say I make a pillow, and I want to sell it, but I don't know who I would get it to. So I tell my friend, Mr. Middleman, "Hey, find someone to sell this to. I require that **I** get $8 out of it. Okay?" He says "Okay." But he thinks to himself, "If *I'm* gonna be the one to find someone to sell this to, **I** better make some money too!" So he ends up selling it to Bed Bath & Beyond. He sells it to them for $20. (But he gives me the 8 I asked for) So BB & B wants to sell it to you, and they want to make a profit. So they sell it to you for $30. ____________________ If I sold it to you, It'd be $8. If Mr. Middleman sold it to you, it'd be $20. If you got it from BB & B, it was $30. ____________________ Now Imagine that I made a mattress. And imagine that there's a zero on the end of ALL those numbers.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why did Microsoft stop supporting/updating Internet Explorer for awhile, but then later decided to resume updates?" ]
Microsoft never stopped supporting Internet Explorer. There was a period from 2001-2006 where Microsoft didn't release a new version of Internet Explorer (and they released basically nothing from 2003-2006) but that was because they were doing a security audit of all of their software after things like the Blaster worm caused a lot of damage, not because they stopped working on them.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does sharing a facebook post help the person who posted it?" ]
Er...people like to think that others care about the stuff that they post. The fact that people like/share it shows that I guess? It's validation from others and adds to their self-esteem. Very toxic in nature though, when people rely on it to fuel their self confidence. IMO I find it really really pointless and sometimes annoying. I mean sure, there are posts that are really worth sharing, but most of the times people share redundant things. Look, I get that Facebook is a social media platform, but it feels more like a site for people to garner attention for themselves.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why, when presented with information contrary to their belief, do people tend to become more steadfast in their belief?" ]
What you believe is a major part of what makes you who you are. When certain core beliefs are threatened your identity is threatened and that is a terrifying thing that has destroyed many people throughout history. As such, when you are presented with highly contrary information, rather than finding it on your own by seeking it out your mind sees that as an attack on who you are and will often go into a defensive mode and "double down" on the belief rather than changing it. And despite what your "joke" says it is not something limited to conservatives and Trump supporters. Liberals are just as likely to do the same thing, and most assuredly did so during this election in almost equal numbers to conservatives.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "how do companies like Amazon buy consumer products to resell and still make profit?" ]
Why would you think Amazon buying them be any different than Wal-Mart, Taget, Walgreens, etc. buying those consumer products? You want the same pricing on a consumer product that Amazon pays... you'd better be able to place a $1million order for diapers, or order TVs 10,000 at a time. Now Amazon can often undercut a brick-and-mortar retailer because they don't have 1000's of stores. They can use a few giant warehouses, in cheaper areas, and better optimize staffing due to fewer locations, ability to shift orders to another warehouse if overloaded, etc. One Target might be swamped while another is dead, but both have to be staffed when opened. And fewer, bigger locations means less likelihood of being sold out -- say, 10 warehouses with 1000 TVs vs. 1000 stores sent 10 each.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How does what we eat and drink eventually become so much different stuff like skin, brain cells, hormones etc.? Are our fingernails really just remnants of dinners gone by?" ]
What we eat is essentially building blocks for our body. When we digest the food, our body breaks the pieces apart into individual blocks. Our body then reassembles the building blocks in a different order to create the parts it needs. Some of the food is used as energy for this reassembly to occur. But yes, you are essentially made out of the food that you eat.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What is the no true scotsman theory?" ]
It's where you make a statement, and someone finds an exception to what you just said, and so you come up with a non-reason why the exception doesn't count. [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) gives this example: Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." Person B: "But my uncle Angus likes sugar with his porridge." Person A: "Ah yes, but no *true* Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." It's a kind of circular reasoning. The example of Uncle Angus disproves the first statement, so person A decides that Uncle Angus isn't really a Scottsman and he doesn't count. I say "All X are Y" but then I go on to *define* X as something that's Y, discarding the generally-accepted definition of X.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why doesn't the ocean's water leak out the bottom and into the earth's crust/mantle? The ocean bottom can't be completely free of fissures, can it?" ]
* the water doesn't have anywhere to go. There aren't gaping holes for stuff to fall into. Any holes there are has stuff coming out (lava), not stuff going in. * any water that does actually make it to a hole gets turned to steam pretty quickly (by the lava), and starts going right back up. * rock is more dense than water. That doesn't just mean that rocks sink in water, that means that water _floats_ on rocks. The natural place that water wants to be in relation to a rock is above it, in the same way a beach ball wants to be above water.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why can diesel engines not rev as highly as petrol engines?" ]
The faster the revs on the engine the less time each piston has for a full travel of its stroke. Diesel fuel combusts slower than petrol and therefore cannot complete strokes much faster.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Where do nuclear power plants get their nuclear materials from?" ]
Similar to gold, it is in the ground. People dig it up, crush the rocks it is found in and collect it. Only a few countries do it. Once it has been collected, some other guys make sure it is pure enough and that it has the right amounts of the right isotope. Once that is done, they form it into pellets and ship it off to the power plants.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How is it that rich kids in can get into the best and presumably most exclusive (e.g. Ivy League) colleges, despite having average or poor grades in high school?" ]
Give an example of a rich kid getting into an Ivy League with poor High School grades... I think you will be hard pressed to find one. Sounds like you are trying to say that rich people don't have to have good grades to get into college, which is a not true generalization. That being said, many private schools take a few Legacy students each year. These might be the people you are talking about. Where they are accepted to keep big family donations coming. I don't think it's as big of a fraction as you think though. Those kids still don't get poor grades in most case. They may be average though.... Ivy Leagues like any other school want the smartest kids. Taking dumb rich kids doesn't help them advertise that they are the best school in the world.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "how do two brown haired people create a blonde baby?" ]
In addition to the previous replies, some people are born with very blond hair that darkens over time. They have genes for darker hair but they have not switched on yet.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How come you can put your finger in a bubble if your finger is wet, but not if it is dry?" ]
Water is made up of many tiny molecules. These molecules are too small to be seen with our unaided eyes. One drop of water is made up of thousands of water molecules. These molecules are attracted to each other (polar molecules) and they stick together creating a force called surface tension. Surface tension is one of water’s most important and salient properties. It is the reason why water collects in drops instead of falling apart. Surface tension also causes the water to have a dome shape when you fill a glass up to the rim. Soap weakens the surface tension of water. It also forms a very thin skin that is more flexible than water’s surface. When air is blown into the soap solution, air gets trapped under the surface of the more flexible skin, stretching it into a sphere shape and making a bubble. A bubble pops when the water trapped between layers of soap drys up (evaporate). Therefore, when your finger is wet, the bubble does not burst.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How can you time travel if you are going faster than the speed of light?" ]
There was a young woman named Bright Whose speed was much faster than light. She set out one day In a relative way, And returned on the previous night. ~ Anonymous
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How do you just lose a Boeing 777?" ]
Satellites and radar are notoriously poor at seeing under the surface of the ocean. Which is where that jet undoubtably is, unless a James Bond villain has it in his secret volcano lair. Plus there's a pretty large area to cover. There are special radars that can be deployed by ship (and sonar), but they still have to pass near the correct location to have a chance to spot anything.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "In chess, why do players resign when it seems like there is alot more of the game to play? Why not play to the end in case the opponent makes a mistake?" ]
Either you're in a situation (like king and rook vs king) where it would be an insult to imagine your opponent making the kind of mistake that would result in a draw, or you're in a situation where you can salvage a little bit of grace by recognizing an inescapable trap before it's completely obvious. It's saying, *I wasn't good enough to avoid it, but at least I'm good enough to recognize it when it happens.* You don't resign like that unless you're sure: it's extra embarrassing to resign, and then have it pointed out that you could have escaped by doing this, this, and this. And, in a whole other category, sometimes you just want to stop playing chess, and don't care about winning or losing any more.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How and when did capital letters become associated with screaming and loudness?" ]
Pretty sure that's inherited from comic books. The bigger the text, the louder the character is speaking. _URL_0_
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why are remote lock controls so common in cars, but not on buildings?" ]
well there are electronic locks now, some that can unlock by cell phone/wifi. some use bluetooth in close proximity. not sure why its taken so long though...
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do voters have to register their party affiliation, and what does that mean?" ]
IIRC: you only have to register your party affiliation if you want to vote in the primary. If you want to vote in the actual presidential election, you are not required to do this. The primary itself wants only their own people to vote in the primary, so people from across the political aisle won't be involved in putting forth who they are front-running candidate is going to be. But ultimately, the primary doesn't have any sort of political office to run for, it's just sort of an election to see who should be in an election.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What are the actual jobs of high ranking people in the armed forces? Generals, majors, colonels, etc." ]
They are managers. Money, manpower, etc. The higher the rank, the more you become a politician and the further you are away from the reality of "boots on ground" or "bombs on target", just like the civilian world.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do many doctors work in crazy 24-36 hours shifts?" ]
Most medical errors are made during the transition of care. So if a doctor works an 8 or even 12 hour shift, the care of a patient may shift 2 or 3 times in 24 hours. Miscommunication and not having a clear, full picture of whats happening with a patient are what lead to mistakes. The idea is that a person who may be a little tired, but knows everything about a patient is less likely to make a mistake than a fully rested doctor who gets all his info second hand.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If there is a past image of our world being projected through space, could we use technology to intercept those images and see what our world looked like millions of years ago?" ]
The only way we could see an image of the past earth would be if it were reflected back to us. If there was some gigantic mirror out in space then we could look at it to see what the Earth looked like in the distant past. But, for many reasons, this isn't practical. But, we can't directly catch up with the image of our world because it would be travelling at the speed of light. In order to catch up with it we would have to travel faster than the speed of light which is impossible.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do electronics get ruined by water?" ]
Non purified water is a wonderful conductor of electricity. electricity will follow the path of least resistance. In devices electricity is only supposed to go where it is designed to go. the water lets the electricity go places it shouldnt and the magic smoke escapes.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why can't recovering drug addicts have alcohol?" ]
Some recovering drug addicts do drink alcohol without abusing it. Though, the statistics seem to say that most recovering addicts cannot drink alcohol without also abusing it. Most recovery programs teach that if you are an addict to once substance, you have the increased likelihood to abuse other addictive substances. As such, their advice is to avoid those substances in general. The deal with nicotine (smoking tobacco) is this... while it is definitely addictive, its effects are not socially destructive, as the effects of alcohol, or cocaine, or heroin (or whatever). Nicotine definitely is hazardous to one's health (and even to others in the form of second-hand smoke), but its effects are mostly personal and take a relatively long time to show up. It is unlikely that no matter how many tobacco cigarettes one smokes, you are not going to be so intoxicated that while driving you will cause an accident resulting in the injury or deaths of other people.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "why there is so much \"US Only\" content on the internet" ]
You mean TV shows, like how we can't get on the Daily Show YouTube channel in the UK? It's largely because once you've made your programme in your native country, you can then sell the broadcast rights to channels in other countries. When you've got a show to sell, the price will be much higher if you can go to the negotiating table and say: "This is a very popular show, and nobody in your country will have seen these episodes. They are exclusive to you. People will tune in to your channel just to see it first." than if you say: "Our show is really good but your audience has already seen the best bits on YouTube."
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Where does the 420 in '420 Blaze It' come from?" ]
4:20 PM was popularized in the stoner community in California in the late 60's early seventies. A group of friends, I think they called themselves "the Waldos" always met and "blazed it" around that time every day. They began to use 4:20 as a code for smoking. One of them had an in with the Grateful Dead, like he was a roadie or something like that. They used the 4:20 slang around the band and crew, and it just stuck.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How did \"zzz\" become associated with sleeping?" ]
It appears to be trying to communicate the sound of snoring in letter form. The first use of the letter 'z' to indicate snoring seems to be from the 'American Dialect Society's Dialect notes, Volume 5, 1918'. It was then used in a 1919 book titled 'Boy's Life'. Then Life Magazine described it in 1922. > Snoring is indicated by "ZZZZZZZ." which often is supplemented by a. picture like this: Profanity may be conveyed by a series of punctuation marks and hieroglyphics, such as : ?;!f - Life Magazine, Volume 79. These seem to be the earliest uses of 'z' as a snoring sound. [Source](_URL_0_) Edit: Previous response wasn't detailed enough.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How the hell does gravity pull things through a vacuum?" ]
It doesn't pull, exactly. It may be easier to think of space as tablecloth pulled taut; if you put something on it, it makes a dent. The "dent" is the deformation of space by the mass of the object. This deformation literally bends space and results in the object still going in a straight line that has been deformed by gravity. tl;dr: you are a human tractor beam
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do my joints crack and click during random movements?" ]
Your joints or ligaments are filled with fluid and when you move it can create a partial vacuum. It expands and then rapidly collapses, creating a popping sound. Reduce the amount? Don't crack your knuckles. But there's no evidence that this can lead to arthritis or any other harm.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is it so hard to grip things tightly right after you wake up?" ]
While you sleep, your body makes a chemical that helps keep you motionless during your active dreaming. In some people this can take a few seconds or minutes to end when you wake up. This can sometimes do things like you are describing. In its scariest form, there are people who wake up paralyzed every morning!
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What would happen if the United States stopped paying toward the national debt?" ]
The US defaults on its debt. Several nations with abysmal financial systems have done this in recent years. If the US government defaulted and needed to borrow money in the future it would have to pay a significantly higher interest rate, since creditors would no longer see the debt as highly secure. The US pays a really low interest rate on a lot of its debt since it has a stellar record. Nations like Greece and Argentina have to pay staggering double digit interest rates due to their past (and current) financial woes.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is Russia attacking ISIS a bad thing? Why are not more countries fighting it?" ]
Russia has captured the moral high ground in framing their activities as "attacking ISIS," but its real interests are stabilizing Syria with Assad remaining in power. Likewise, the US and its allies in the region (Saudi Arabia, etc.) are more interested in toppling removing Assad than eliminating ISIS. There are a number of militant groups that are being funded and used in this proxy war. ISIS is simply one that got out of hand.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is the standard for songs 3.5-4 minutes?" ]
Because of vinyl. When records were the standard for recorded music, the standard size for a record of a single was just large enough for, at most, four minutes of audio. To make the records much larger would have made them more costly and thus the music industry would not have been able to sell as many due to increased costs to the purchaser. A lot of space was needed to mark the complex sounds of music on records, after all. So in the interests of music being affordable and thus ensure that records became widespread, they were kept to a maximum size that didn't allow for much more than 4 minutes of sound. At this point though, when recorded music can be downloaded easily and with relatively small file sizes. It's more tradition than anything now, though, since for so many decades 3.5-4 minutes have been the norm, nobody wants to change what works and what sells.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How do cops arrest one armed people?" ]
*The usual method is to cuff the existing hand to the rear, and then put the other cuff through the prisoner's belt. If they don't have a belt, it's preferable to use a belly chain. In an extreme situation where you needed to immobilize someone briefly, you could cuff the existing wrist to the prisoner's ankle.* ^Source: ^_URL_0_
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why is self-plagiarism a concept (outside of academia)?" ]
The author might not own their own work. If King had written those words in an essay and sold or given publication rights to a magazine, it would be self-plagiarization. Also, the audience generally has the right to know whether they are hearing an original work. A lot depends on what a reasonable expectation of originality would be. No one goes to an Elton John concert to hear his new stuff, but if you hired someone to be a keynote speaker, you'd expect they will write a new speech tailored to your event. Self-plagiarism in this sense is a more hazy concept and is usually in the real of ethics rather than law.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "why are people allowed to make copies of games like minecraft then survival craft or clash of clans to clash of kings- they all follow the same storyline/ objective but they still don't run into copyright troubles, thanks" ]
You can't patent game mechanics, pure and simple. That's why words with friends could be made despite Scrabble being around (though they would probably have issues if they copied the layout of the multipliers). Story archetypes have been around since the start of stories so you can't really make a story that isn't similar to an existing one. Look at how many competing first person shooters set in WWII there are. Who can claim ownership of that story or mechanics?
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Since the volume of ash released by the Krakatoa eruption in 1883 lowered the average global temp by ~1.8 degrees Celsius for the following year, what would happen if we did something similar today using a biodegradable substance to combat global warming?" ]
The power of Krakatoa was equivalent to 200 megatons of tnt; or the power of 4 of the most powerful atomic weapons detonated at the same time. 6000 times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed hiroshima and nagasaki. If we replicated this explosion with atomic weapons it would create a fireball 30+ miles wide. I don't know how else to get that much dirt (ash) into the air unless another Krakatoa occurred naturally. Would have some nasty side effects that wouldn't be worth the drop in temperature. Why don't you just take the bus to work instead!
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How animals seems to have the sense from birth that fire is bad but humans often have to get burned before realising?" ]
Humans have made a sort of evolutionary tradeoff: we are born with our brains much less-thoroughly developed compared to their adult state than other animals, with the result that we are more adaptable, but must learn all sorts of things that most animals are born knowing, such as how to walk.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do we say \"cold doesnt exist - its the absence of heat\"? Can I say it backwards? \"Heat is the absence of cold\"" ]
Heat is a form of energy. Cold is nothing, a lack of energy. You can supply energy to something, but you can't supply a lack of energy--you can only draw energy away to another place. The concepts aren't arbitrary; energy is something measurable that follows physical rules, just like matter.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Who are the \"famous\" redditors, and why are they famous?" ]
They have a LOT of Karma, and normally make good comments. They appear everywhere and they're normally at the top of the comments on the top posts on the front page. And as we all know, bitches dig karma = Famous.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do we get \"sand\" in the corners of our eyes when we sleep? And why do we not get it during the day when we're awake?" ]
The "sand" is actually dried tears. That is, tears are similar to salt water -- liquid with salts in them. Overnight, when the tears at the edges of your eyes dry, the salt is left behind as "sand".
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Does my breastmilk have healthier properties if I eat healthier food?" ]
Regarding healthy and unhealthy fats: generally speaking: the membranes of your cells always feflect the stuff you eat. Of course the body has its own fattyacid metabolism and can contribute here. but regarding the fats the general rule applies: you are what you eat. On the other hand: the milk you produce contains still certain healthy components eitherway. like omega3 fats that are important for the brain of the baby. Thats a propriety of breastmilk that should not be influenced by diet.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "If you jumped in a giant hole in the earth that was deep enough to reach the other side of the planet, what would happen to you?" ]
Let's say the earth is cold and there is no wind resistance that can heat you up. Also the earth is not spinning, this would result in you ricocheting of the walls. You would accellerate all the way to the center of the earth, there you will be traveling at your fastest speed. When you are past the center you will slow down until you would peek up from the hole on the other side. Then you would do the same thing again but the other way. [This video will explain.](_URL_0_)
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "what is \"Tilt table test\"" ]
When people stand up, their blood pressure often goes down (because the blood moves down more into their legs). When this happens, in most people your body senses the drop in pressure and compensates by increasing your heart rate and constricting your blood vessels using whats called your autonomic nervous system. If people have trouble with this system, or can't compensate, they can often have a big drop in blood pressure when they stand up, which can lead to fainting (people without this problem have a similar thing if they stand up suddenly and feel light headed - that what the start of fainting feels like). The tilt table simulates standing up by gradually tilting upwards from flat to straight. In this way the patient can be safely observed without the risk of them fainting, and under controlled conditions. Does that answer your question?
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "When a woman gets pregnant, the present \"physiological status\" of the parents affect the baby? [read the text]" ]
If the damage doesn't affect either parent's DNA or the baby in the womb (like if mom has a stroke while pregnant) damage to the parents won't affect the baby. For example if your left leg is blown off in an explosion your genes still have the code to grow a left leg - it's just not there anymore. When you have a child, they will grow a left leg like normal even though you don't have one because the genes you passed down to them still have those instructions. There are some experiences parents and even grandparents have that can change how their genes are expressed, but don't actually change their DNA code. This change happens through epigenetics, which is basically how your body chooses to turn a gene on or off. For example, if your grandparents lived through a famine (which is very possible if they lived during the great depression) their experience with hunger may have turned some genes on or off through epigenetics. This change was passed down to your parents, and ultimately you.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "Why do bubbles appear at the heated area of a boiling kettle?" ]
All matter can have three states: solid, liquid, and gas. Normally we see water as a liquid. When water is heated above 100 degrees C (at sea level), it becomes a gas. This requires a lot of energy to turn the liquid (which is a lower energy state) into a gas (steam). Energy comes in many different forms. The one that we care about is thermal energy, which in layman's terms is 'heat'. The bubbles you see are actually little pockets of steam (gas phase water) rising from the interface between the metal (which is where the energy is being transferred to the water) and the water. The heated area has the most bubbles because that's where the energy is being added.
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "How do Democrats and Republicans rationalize billions of dollars in tax breaks every year to oil companies?" ]
Without commenting on the merits of the argument or where I personally stand on this, the argument goes roughly like this: - Cheap energy is the cornerstone of a healthy economy. - Provide access to national lands and/or tax reduction for exploration and drilling in the US. - The more oil we get domestically, the less we have to import from dictatorial sewers like most of the Middle East and Venezuela. - The less we are dependent upon foreign oil, the more secure our nation will be. EDIT: Well I'll be hornswoggled. Gilded yet again. Thank ye kind stranger(s).
[ "Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum", "What is the evolutionary benefit or reason for the Tyrannosaurus' small arms? How did it succeed as a predator with this shortcoming?" ]
It's very unusual for a body part to evolve away completely. All land vertebrates are tetrapods - this means they have four limbs and a head. The only vertebrate I'm aware of to have completely broken that is the snake - other than that, everything has four limbs (although the rear legs fused in marine mammals like seals and whales). So in all likelihood, the evolutionary benefit for the small arms was merely that the tyrannosaurus didn't have to waste so much energy and food growing them in the first place. It's the equivalent of cave mice being blind but still having eye sockets - it's a vestigial remnant of a more-or-less unneeded body part.