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ELI5:why is it harder for weed smoke to set off my fire alarm compared to a little smoke from my burnt grilled cheese sandwich.

There are two types of smoke detectors: optical and ionizing ones. I don't know if ionizing smoke detectors have a harder time detecting weed smoke than sandwich smoke, so I'll focus on optical smoke detectors, which are more common in households anyway. Optical smoke detectors have a light barrier inside of them. If smoke particles enter the detector, they reduce the amount of light that reaches the end of the light barrier. The smoke from your burnt sandwich contains alot of soot, which has lots of big molecules. It's pretty easy for a smoke detector to detect these. Your weed burns relatively cleanly and doesn't contain as much big particles as the sandwich smoke.

Do we know anything about Neanderthal language capabilities?

There is high evidence they were able to speak because we share a specific gene (FOXP2) that is responsible for language. And because of Neanderthal anatomy we can deduce they had a higher pitched voice than us Homo Sapiens!

ELI5: Can Queen insects be born to normal versions of that species?

For example can a Queen Bee or Termite be born to a bee or termite? Or do the parents have to be Queen and King? Or can only Queens lay eggs??

I don't know about termites, but with bees, only the Queen lays eggs. If the swarm outgrows the nest, they will separate a female egg, and feed it a very specific type of honey called Royal Jelly, and not fed pollen or regular honey. That will eventually become a queen and lead half of the swarm to find a new nesting site.

ELI5: Why does tapping wood and tapping metal produce different sounds?

you know when you put a ruler on the edge of a table and push it down and let it go and it makes that woioioioinggggg sound? And if you vary the length of it off the table, the sound changes and the speed at which the end of the ruler goes up and back down changes? This is the natural frequency of the ruler when it is that length of the table and thus produces a certain sound. Now certain materials also will have a natural frequency such as wooden or metal tables and that's why they make different sounds. They make different frequencies because they also will only take in set amounts of energies.

[Star Wars] Jedi are essentially monks, as well as warriors and experts in hand-to-hand combat. How does this qualify Anakin or Obi Wan to be military generals?

It doesn't. But you clearly didn't pay attention in your Galactic History 101. You completely ignored the fact that Jedi are part of the Republic's judicial branch of government, specifically tasked with bringing gangsters, pirates, warlords, and even rebelling worlds to justice. That means Jedi spend a lot of time training in space combat and basic warfare so that they can aid Republic worlds with many types of threats. That's why Jedi were able to decimate the Mandalorians, Kaleesh, and many other highly militaristic species on the battlefield. And that's why they were put in charge of the Grand Army. They actually do know how to run an army. They would just rather not bc of how that's led to autocratic empires in the past.

ELI5: Why is it that the more annoying the tune, the harder it is to get it out of your head?

Annoying tunes are often so annoying because they're too catchy for their own good. Songs are catchy because they have a nice, and recognizable pattern. Our brains love patterns, so when we hear a really good one, they repeat it over, and over and over and over until something else distracts that part of our brains.

CMV Parties are for politicians, citizens should remain independent and register as such.

ill be using ‘we’ to refer to ‘we the people’ And ‘they/them’ to refer to those in positions of power. I don’t always talk politics... but when I do... I say screw both parties, and Usually the people I talk to agree, whichever way they lean. They might have reasons for why this party is ‘the lesser evil’ but I haven’t come across many people who are genuinely happy with either party. If you are happy with one of the two parties Id love to hear about it. Registering as an r or d is effectively voting ahead of time, and publicly. Your now in a category of person who is active politically and can be assigned a color. Your vote should be earned and you shouldn’t make up your mind ahead of time. Your also being factored into political data which is used to strategize how to win a state or district and has moved away from anything remotely resembling a genuine presentation of political policy. Registering as independent is a far more effective means of protesting the two party system rather than doing nothing. A rising number of independent voters would affect the political strategy of both sides. Elections are won by slim margins and a substantial independent voting block would make it harder to play the game, and harder to play around the party lines, they might even have to start saying what they really think but let’s not get carried away. Conservative and liberal values are both essential for a healthy society and we should all be more open in discussing what each side is good at and bad at, rather than blaming and demonizing the opponent. A third, and better yet unaffiliated, group would help to break up the back and forth. Instead of essentially asking the politicians to change through protests, we the people need to change how we interact politically and make them adapt to us. The red/blue binary has evolved around our opinions and we need to stop giving out free information. If you genuinely believe in your party and want to put your support out there I won’t tell you not to. But consider the tinge of inauthenticity that often accompanies public displays. Publicly displaying your religious affiliation without being asked or beating some drum is often an attempt to gain attention and acquire affirmation to gird your own lack of faith or some other motive. Keep your beliefs personal and private, what you believe is best shown through action and it will become obvious if your words contradict them. Ultimately this country was designed around the idea that democracy requires citizens to be skeptical of those in power. Skepticism should be your default, do not back a parties nominee simply because of their affiliation or because you’ll never vote for ‘the other guys’. We set the tone, and the blame for this political divide can be laid at our feet for playing into it for so long. If a substantial independent block came out of the woodwork, we would also have more independent politicians come out of that movement. Let’s change the narrative, rise above the binary, and claim independence from the two party system. Register independent, don’t give away your opinion too easily or atleast keep them guessing Edit: Trying to be a good op. I’ve read most and appreciate the feedback, wish I had more time to respond to each. I realize why we have two parties and how it developed... I realize registering is a way to engage with your chosen party and have your say in the primaries and work with what we have in place. It is my position that our willing participation is being used against us to stay one step ahead of public opinion, probably developed by trying to stay ahead of the other side or idk who or what started it but now both parties are deeply invested in controlling the narratives.(and no I dont think this is new phenomena). I’m not gonna dive into this you either see it or you don’t. What I’ve observed so far is that It’s pretty easy to guess where someone is at left/center/right by the comments alone. I believe this is mostly because the two parties while not homogeneous are essentially adapted to appeal to all that we hold sacred depending on your personality, a and b if you like. Both sides do it. It has been beneficial to my perspective and how I examine politics as a whole to say ‘I am independent’ and I will assume nothing as best I can, because I know nothing. I hear people assert republicans are by association or somehow inherently racist like it’s a given.. And plenty of people on the right think a lot of liberals are godless sadists who actually enjoy getting abortions. Whatever the example you want it’s all fucking wrong, extreme views are almost always wrong or oddities presented as common... that person across the aisle is standing there because they believe in something that matters just like you do but we can’t seem to communicate about it anymore. We’ve divulged into a state of total non-cooperation, the two parties are like the left and right brain, two brains one body and they can’t communicate anymore, that’s a problem. I choose to be independent because my conscience cannot allow me to be apart of this ‘pick your poison’ dilemma. I also cannot burry my head in the sand. This is a solution I see that helped me look at things with less bias and I’m not expecting it to be revolutionary or even new but we are all responsible for everything so just think twice about who you blame things on. The easiest way to be completely and totally wrong about something is to be convinced you are right. Also, Thanks for the insults toward my intelligence, live long and prosper

Registering for a party, is a prerequisite to vote in the primary in some states. Having say, not just in the election, but also in who even gets nominated, is power. Voting for Bernie (or Warren or whomever) in the primary, has impact. If more Republicans, were registered as such, Trump might not have even made it out of the primary. This is even more true in deep blue or deep red States like NY, where a candidate might only win 52 percent of the primary vote, but win 85 percent of the actual election vote. In entrenched states, one's primary ballet weilds far more power than the actual election ballet.

[star wars: legends] Who's the most powerful sith and jedi we know about?

(In Legends) Palpatine and Luke. They both have insane power in the force, Luke after killing the emperor of course, but they do some insane things. Like Palpatine can create Force storms in space that can consume entire ships or something, that level of power.

ELI5: Why can't they just instal a giant heat scanner (?) for all trucks to go through at Calais to easily detect migrants?

A infra red scanner can only look at the outside of the truck. Some trucks will have been out in the sun, others in the shade. Some cargoes will hold the heat more than others. So readings will be all over the place and it won't give any useful information.

ELI5: Why is fusion considered the holy grail of energy?

I have a degree in engineering and read a lot of science material, and my own reading has shown: "The power output of the core of the Sun is about 276.5 watts per cubic metre — that's almost three of the old 100W light bulbs. On a power/volume basis, it's a lot less than your body emits (about 100 W) and around the same as a compost pile." Basically the only reason the Sun yields so much energy is that it is so staggeringly large. So, that being said, what is the use in creating a reactor that - albeit will generate a net positive power - will only output such a piddling small amount? I feel we are wasting millions (likely billions by now) on this. Is there some basic conceptual scale up that I am not aware of?

> So, that being said, what is the use in creating a reactor that - albeit will generate a net positive power - will only output such a piddling small amount? The fusion output of the sun per given volume doesn't really apply to how it would be performed in a reactor as our designs aren't reliant on what will naturally occur. Consider the difference between a fission bomb and a fusion bomb, the fusion bomb has a far greater output. A practical reactor will be generating far more energy per cubic meter than the Sun does. While fission of uranium releases about 17 times the energy of deuterium and tritium fusion, the key difference is the availability of the fuel. There is enough deuterium in a gallon of sea water to produce an equivalent energy output of about 300 gallons of gasoline. Instead of refining trace isotopes of an already rare mineral into fuel we can just essentially dump water into such a reactor and create huge amounts of energy; that we need 17 times more water than uranium isn't really a problem. Edit: Consider that U-235 has a natural abundance of 0.72% and there is about 40 trillion tons of uranium on Earth. That means there is conceptually about 288 billion tons of U-235 on Earth. On the other hand deuterium has a natural abundance of about 0.015% and there is about 1.36 million trillion tons of water on Earth. That means there is conceptually 204 trillion tons of deuterium on Earth. This means fusion fuel is approximately 708.3 times more commonly available than fission fuel. Oh, and the waste products are far less hazardous.

[Star Wars/MCU/General Sci-Fi] Why don't more characters have weapons and equipment unusable by their foes?

In most universes, characters exist that happen to possess superior devices and weapons giving them an edge as a hero (or villain). Their opponent disarms them somehow, or stealthily acquires use of the weapon or tech while the hero is distracted. Of course, sometimes like with James Bond (his Casino Royale biometric signature lockable pistol) or Thor (anyone who is worthy) you'll have the powerful object rendered inert when out of the owner's possession. But far too often like with Syndrome and his Omnidroid remote (The Incredibles) or Tony Stark and his Iron Man suits (MCU) you'll have the opposing side taking control of that key *thing* that gives the other person power, and using it against them. Even in cliché villain headquarters we see a self destruct button or command (why would you even have one so easily accessible?) used by a hero who has a casual 10 seconds to spare in their escape. Surely you'd employ some kind of safeguard like a fingerprint scanner or password at least. Like with lightsabers, combatants routinely get theirs knocked out of their hands. Sometimes they are used to the lightsaberless person's advantage (Han cutting open the Tauntaun or Finn *something something spoilers*), but a lot of the time it's either lost (see Empire Strikes Back, or any of the Prequels) or collected to be used against their allies (see General Grievous). Why aren't more heroes and villains protecting their equipment and weaponry with safeguards? Are there any cases (besides those mentioned) of safeguards being implemented to ensure such a scenario doesn't occur? Even with the Lightsabers, you could employ a fingerprint scanner connected to an internal database that recognises who can and cannot use the weapon, remaining in the default dead man switch "off" mode when released from control by an authorised user (with the authorised users being updated at a Jedi or Sith facility terminal depending on the allegiance of the owner). I get that it's more R&D, resources and time required to get the Prometheans from Halo kitted out with Promethean only gear, but surely it's worth it to prevent any random evolved ape from the other side of the Galaxy from salvaging your weaponry when theirs is depleted far from an allied ammo cache. The Dark Lord Sauron couldn't have crafted the One Ring of Power to make the wearer emit a traceable signal to the forces of darkness whilst also paralysing the individual? There's always going to be ways around safeguards, but it seems seasoned combatants and "intelligent" super-geniuses lack some common sense in the "let's make sure only I can use this" department.

Adding those kind of security on a weapon is one more thing that can stop you from using it. What happens when you're ambushed, really need to shoot back, and darn it, fingerprint didn't register, hang on, I'll jus- Dead. For weapons you want them to work every single time. Reliability is the name of the game. Any sort of safeguards puts that at risk. (Also, Tony Start *had* restrictions on his suits, he added Rhodes to the approval list of Mk2 and Pepper for at least Mk42)

[Star Wars] When blowing up Alderraan, how did Tarkin ensure there were enough witnesses to tell the story and spread terror?

It seems all the witnesses died so how would people know that the death star destroyed Alderraan. Would destroying a planet with a large population​ on its moon be a better show of force? Maybe like Mandalore?

Alderaan was a core world with a population of billions - there would have been a stream of traffic to and from the system continuously that would have witnessed the destruction. The station then stayed in the system and used its tractor beam to bring in any new arrivals to 'question' the crews and ensure that they knew the Imperial version of the event.

If Santa existed, what would be the most efficient route he could have taken to visit every home in the world?

This is known as the Travelling Salesman problem and it is in a very difficult class of problems called NP-hard. To answer this question would take an amount of time, in any units you like, some constant multiple of 2^(number of homes in the world).

What happens to information after the heat death of the universe?

Presume the heat death is the ultimate fate of our universe. If so, my understanding is that there are no "nodes of lower entropy" to do work. Does this also mean that there is no way to tell one location from another? Wouldn't all points in space have the same particles at the same energy level? If so, wouldn't locality cease to be relevant? What about temporality? Ultimately, I am curious if this means that all of the information in the universe gets spread out uniformly. If so, wouldn't this annihilate the information (or make it irrelevant)? TL;DR If you looked at some point and moment in/after the heat death, could you reverse the clock and reconstruct the universe as it was before? Or, is the heat death a kind of point of no return for information?

>TL;DR If you looked at some point and moment in/after the heat death, could you reverse the clock and reconstruct the universe as it was before? Or, is the heat death a kind of point of no return for information? You could theoretically do this, but you would have to know literally every piece of information in the universe. In practice you never could because you can't measure all of that data without changing it, which is another way of saying that you're part of the universe. Clearly you couldn't store all of the data of the universe in a hard drive, because the hard drive doesn't have enough space to describe itself as well. The information is all still there, it just isn't usable because it's so scrambled. Every bit of energy interacts with everything near it and you'd have to keep track of the entire process in order to reverse the universe to a more usable state.

ELI5: Why does our eyelids form crystal like substances while we sleep?

Tear ducts lubricate the surface of the eyes occasional dust and other minute particles reach the surface of the eye, these are then blink washed away a bit like a windscreen wiper. This material then accumulates at the edges where some of the liquid evaporates leaving behind the solid material.

ELI5: How are we sure Challenger Deep is the deepest point when we have barely fully explored our ocean?

Basically the title, but I always wondered if the Mariana Trench was the actual deepest point on our planet

Mix of: 1. All science is always "...to the best of our knowledge". Thus, Challenge Deep is the deepest point in the ocean *to the best of our knowledge*. If we find out that we're wrong, then we'll have learned something new. 2. We don't need to *explore* the ocean floor to *map* the ocean floor. For example, radar can do the work for us.

[Invincible] What is the day to day governance of the Viltrum Empire like? Is there actually any benefit to being part of it as a subject species?

Omni Man at one point talks about how Earth would benefit from being part of the empire, is there any truth to that? They seem pretty totalitarian but assuming we complied fully and were ideal subjects would there be anything Earth or a planet like Earth would actually get out of the deal? Like would they build us advanced infrastructure or give us medicine or would they just show up looking for tribute every now and then and otherwise not care what we were doing?

In the comics, Anissa (a high ranking legbreaker for the Viltrumites) justifies the idea of Viltrumite occupation by saying that the people of Earth would be kept fat and happy for as long as it took the Viltrumites to strip mine everything of value from the planet. While she admits that humanity would inevitably go extinct after that, she believes that humanity would last longer as a species under Viltrumite supervision than they would if left to manage their own ecosystem. In the comics we see a few worlds under Viltrumite rule, and the main tangible benefit is that there's a Viltrumite living on your planet defending it from spaceborne threats. The big downside is that the Viltrumites tend to press-gang tributes of slave-soldiers from any planet that's at all good at military stuff, to the point that most Viltrumite invasion forces consist of one or two Viltrumites and a zerg rush of expendable slaves in power-armor. Complicating matters is the specific resource they were hoping to extract from Earth: >!People. Mark was proof of concept for breeding an army of nearly-genetically pure viltrumites to rebuild their numbers after a number of devastating setbacks.!< This might mean that they have a higher-than-average incentive to keep the planet livable than they otherwise might have.

If humans were to die out could natural geologic processes completely erase all traces of our civilization or will there be something left behind that could last billions of years?

Plenty of things would last billions of years. We have preserved bacteria mounds that are almost 4 billion years old. Tons of them. We have preserved raindrops and dinosaur poop that are hundreds of millions of years old. We have preserved leafs, footprints, insects, worm tunnels, jelleyfish, and so on. Now look at what humans have done: We have carved through mountains all over the globe to build roads and mines. We have strip mines which can actually decapitate entire mountains, or create gigantic pits in the ground. We have collected many common and rare minerals (and elements) into solid refined chunks unlike anything found naturally. We have spread our trash throughout the oceans and through much of planet's landmasses too. We have diverted rivers, built dams, spread radioactive isotopes around the soil layers of the planet - we create a new-endless stream of junk that we collect and bury into massive dumps which will leave unmistakable evidence behind. Until the planet is obliterated, strong evidence humans were here will be present to anyone that looks hard.

ELI5: if everything is registered in computers and databases, why do fake passports still work? Should they fail on arrival when read thru the machine? Like a 404?

Because as example the US customs does not have access to the "British citizen passport database". The data on the passport is the same as the written one, including error correction keys and nowadays some biological data as well (such as fingerprint). It also depend on the issuing country and how old your passport is. All they can do is check that it's correct and matches you as a person. And cross reference with their own data of persons denied entry etc. TL;DR; there is no secret world wide database with everyone's information for them to connect to.

Why is Marx irrelevant in economics but important in other fields?

Marx is omnipresent in sociology, very important in philosophy, important in anthropology, and influential in history. I am well aware of *why Marx is considered archaic* in economics (LTV, TRPF, etc); what I want to know is why is there such a disconnect between those other fields and economics? I realize this question may be read as passive-aggressive (I have noticed such tones with similar questions in the past), but I'm asking because I've always found it a strange disconnect and don't often get charitable answers, so I figured I'd ask economists themselves.

Other fields don’t necessarily want Marx for the same things that economists might use him for. (Although obviously there are some in non-economics fields who read Marx’s economics uncritically and without knowledge of modern work, but such is the nature of disciplinary boundaries) In sociology, for example, so much work is on stratification, and Marx introduces class as a unit of analysis. In contrast, economics doesn’t often consider class except insofar as that income is a constraint on behavior, rather than having any notion of class consciousness. (For better or for worse) Marx also for them introduced a lot of ideas about how economic constraints interact with social life, e.g. his concept of “alienation.” This is obviously exactly the domain of a sociologist! Obviously these things are very different from using Marx’s ideas on price theory or economic growth! Those are more relevant to economics, and they’ve largely not been deemed useful, which is why you don’t see Marx much in economics.

How does anesthesia work?

General anaesthesia has five components, required in various combinations. 1. The patient should be unconscious - hypnosis. This is usually achieved by inducing anaesthesia using an intravenous induction agent such as propofol and maintaining anaesthesia during the procedure using an infusion of propofol or an inhalational agent such as isoflurane or sevoflurane. 2. The patient should not recall what happened during the surgery - amnesia. This is usually achieved by using benzodiazepines such as midazolam. 3. The patient should not suffer pain - analgesia. Intraoperatively this is achieved by giving opioids such as morphine, meperidine, fentanyl, or remifentanil, or by administering a neural block using a local anaesthetic such as lidocaine, bupivacaine, or ropivacaine. 4. Unnecessary or exaggerated autonomic reflexes should be suppressed to prevent harm to the patient. There are multiple ways of doing this based own at reflexes you are targeting. 5. Sometimes the patients need to be paralysed with neuromuscular blocking drugs. This usually the case when a body cavity needs to be opened or when absolute immobility is required. When we do this, we need to take over the patient's respiration too. Multiple effects needed, multiple pathways. If on the other hand you are looking to find how any anaesthetic acts on the central nervous system, go to Pubmed and search for "molecular mechanisms of general anaesthesia".

[MCU] When Cap dropped a jet bridge on Spiderman, how did he know it was just enough to disable him?

I'm talking about [this moment](https://youtu.be/tTtT8DK2Gcc?t=143) in *Civil War*. Leaving aside the fact that Spiderman lost to Captain America: those two never met before. Had Spidey been weaker (say, able to lift under 5 tons), he'd have gotten crushed. Did Cap actually hope to kill the kid?

Spidey webs up Cap's arms earlier in the fight, so he's well aware that Spider-Man has super-strength. With that in mind even if he wasn't able to lift it, the jet bridge falling on him wouldn't have killed him.

ELI5... How can a infection like chicken pox trigger alopecia?

Imagine your body is a city that you have to protect from invaders. You have the city walls (the innate immune system) and the city guards (the adaptive immune system). Each of these city guards has been trained to look for a particular characteristic that no normal person in your city has, say brown hair with a ponytail (this could be something like the spike protein in COVID-19). Now suppose this guard arrests an intruder with brown hair and a ponytail. They are now on much higher alert than before, so much higher that they start arresting anyone with brown hair, or anyone with a ponytail, even if they are innocent citizens. This is how an infection in your body can cause autoimmune disorders. The T-cells in your body are sensitive to particular antigens but are also mildly sensitive to many other antigens, sometimes even self-antigens i.e. your body's own cells. What can happen is that during an infection like chickenpox, the T cell that is specific to a chickenpox antigen will be activated making it much more sensitive overall. It can then react to self-antigens that it was only mildly sensitive to before and begin attacking the body's own cells.

Do people still consider weekend emails unprofessional?

I’m a grad student trying to schedule a virtual meeting with a professor who asked me if I’m available early next week. I replied in a timely fashion (less than an hour) that I am and let them know that I’m basically flexible for any time. This is for an initial invitation I sent to have them come speak at our school next year (or virtually, depending) for an event. They haven’t gotten back to me and normally I’d wait a week to follow up but since this is regarding a possible meeting earlier in the week, is it rude to follow up with them on a weekend? I’m used to getting emails from professors at my school on weekends, but I don’t know if it comes off as unprofessional when it’s someone outside of your campus? Just need to know if I’m overthinking this.

An initial email over the weekend is fine because they can just do it Monday, but a reminder over the weekend can be both 1) annoying because it implies they should be working on the weekend and 2) counter-productive because if they are offline for the weekend, your email could be buried by Monday morning and they may actually get to it later than if you had just emailed on Monday.

[general sci fi] if an implanted computer could take care of a persons need for mathematical calculations, what would education look like?

assume the biological and electronic brains are completely integrated. So that it is one thought process, and not just an advanced calculator that is easy to access at the speed of thought. So one gains actual understanding of the math being done and if feels like an integrated part of your mind. how would we then educate our children? what got me thinking about it. http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Homo_Superior

I think it would be like how skills in EVE Online work. Base skills like How To Fly a Frigate are quick (like an hour), but as you increase the complexity (in EVE there are 5 levels for every skill) so that How To Fly a Frigate Designed for Interception at level 5 is 14 days. So basic math would be easy, but advanced statistics would be longer to learn and integrate.

What makes your mouth more sensitive to the cold after chewing on mint gum?

Whenever I chew on mint gum, then get a drink of cold water, my mouth will be very sensitive to the cold water. Why is this?

The oils in mint and other minty plants bind to the nerve receptors that detect cold (similar to the way that the capsaicin in peppers binds to the heat receptors), so your mouth already thinks it's cold. When you add actual cold things, the nerves fire even more, making your brain think that your mouth is colder than it actually is.

Why don't plants get sunburned or genetic damage/cancer being out in the sun all day?

When UV-B radiation and other solar radiation hits plants like trees or grass, why does it not cause genetic damage to the plants DNA?

It does and they do. Though as others here noted, many things help them defend against it. Leaves are disposable though, and the outer layers of bark are usually dead plant material that protects the rest. Most crucially, most plants don't have cells circulating like animals do, so they can't really get anything like metastatic cancer. They also lack vital organs that can become diseased and kill the whole plant. Plants get tumours of sorts for all kinds of reasons but they can't generally spread and kill the whole organism.

[Fallout] (Pre-War) My son just got his drivers license and a Corvega. I’m worried that he might get into an accident, I’ve heard it could result in a huge mushroom cloud if he gets totaled. Is there anything I can do to keep him safe? Is Power Armor training worth looking into?

There's only a danger if the nuclear containment is broken. Corvegas are designed to withstand head-on collisions at high speed and coolant completely surrounds the nuclear pile in the engine. They'd have to sit out in the elements without maintenance for a century before they become unstable.

[40k]How does Papa Nurgle feel about the Virus-Bombs?

Greetings and death to the false emperor, I know that every time the minions of the corpse find enough of our fellow cultists they cry Exterminatus and kill everything, of course that is all according to the plan. But something about how they go about doing it caught my attention. The Imperium of Man has in their arsenal a number of munitions that are called Virus-Bombs that kills everything on the planet and makes it rapidly decay. That got me thinking about the cultist I meet a while back while learning the mysteries of the void. They were worshipers of Nurgle, the great patron of disease and decay, whom in his fetid gardens brews the most potent and virulent viruses. The cultists told me that their Papa Nurgle loves all his fetid and slowly rotting children, and that's the part that catches my attention. His love is for slow rot, it is not what the Virus-Bomb does as what it does a sped up decay that is done in a matter of hours or days. But does the massive scale of virus born death please him? Does it balance out for him? Thanks, from your curious cultist

Nurgle is the patron of life and death. The cycle, whereupon the living die and feed new life, which itself dies and feeds new life, which itself... well you get the point. A virus bomb turns a planet into a barren rock. The cycle dies. There is nothing left for new life to feed upon. To Papa Nurgle, this is what he might call 'some class A bullshit'.

We know the universe is (very nearly) flat. Does this imply it is infinite and, if so, why?

Does the knowledge that the universe is flat make it more likely that it is infinite? If so, why and to what extent? Are we certain that it is infinite, or is it just an assumption that makes the math easier without deviating from the experimental evidence? I understand that flatness refers to a lack of geometric curvature and the euclidean nature of our universe and have taken an advanced undergrad course in topology. I also read through [this similar thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/i2uk9/how_can_we_tell_that_the_universe_is_flat_and/) hoping it might answer this question, but RRC and shavera answered the OP's questions by stating we simply assume the universe is homogeneous and that we are not in any 'special' part of it. I accept this assumption, but even with it I'm not seeing the connection between the universe's boundary and its geometry. Also, I am unsure of whether an infinite universe contains infinite matter, galaxies, etc. When a cosmologist refers to an infinite universe do they mean simply that there are points of space infinitely far apart or do they mean that there is stuff (matter, beyond that found in the vacuum due to the uncertainty principle) infinitely far apart? TIA.

It's not an assumption of math but one of philosophical input into our science. We choose to believe that physics doesn't change with location in the universe because to assume otherwise is unnecessary complication. We haven't seen any evidence that the laws of physics vary, and we philosophically choose to keep the scientific theory that takes the fewest number of unnecessary ideas. So working from the idea that physics itself doesn't change, let us assume that the universe could have a "boundary" in any meaningful sense of the term. You've suggested a few. One boundary idea means that space goes on and on and on, but it's empty. So we would have to ask ourselves... why is it empty? What physical process created matter and energy *here* but not *there*? Again this runs into our "unnecessary idea" problem. The assumption brings more problems than it solves (it doesn't really *solve* anything in fact, just says that there's a finite amount of matter/energy in the universe). Another boundary idea may be that there's a "hard" edge to the universe. Not just hard like diamond, but like... space doesn't exist past some point. But that too really is complicated. What if we shine a light on that edge? what happens to it? What if we throw rocks at it? Again, the laws of physics would have to change over location to determine why you couldn't cross that wall. So we don't think this boundary exists either. I can't think of any other boundary cases, but hopefully I've at least demonstrated why physics being universal implies a universe without boundaries. So next we ask ourselves, okay, no boundaries, what "shape" can the universe have. This has a lot of answers actually. But I'll boil the discussion down to the highlights. The error bars on our measurement haven't yet excluded a positive curvature. The universe could be *very slightly* positively curved, but the probability of this case is rather quite small. In this case the universe would curve over very long distances (like 200 some observable universes) until it came back to where it started. No edge, see? But let's take the data for what it seems to be pointing to. Flat curvature. There are several "shapes" of flat curvature that don't have boundaries. Some are things like the 3-Torus. A 2-D example would be a pacman or asteroids screen. Pass through one edge, appear on the other side, but the motion is all straight lines and normal geometry. Another example is a tesselation, suppose the universe had some shape that tiles its edges together, like a pentagonal dodecahedron. This universe is flat in its interior but again, the edges "wrap" back around, but in a more complicated pattern than the 3-Torus. So finally we get to the simplest geometry that fits the flat data, and that's the flat Euclidean plane without boundaries. And so what we mean here, is an infinite amount of matter spread over an infinite volume of space. Go to the edge of our observable universe and you'll find another observable universe that looks very similar to our own. and so on *ad infinitum*. Galaxy clusters and filaments filled with stars and planets. Forever and ever in every direction. --- (also, moderator hat on here for a moment, thank you for asking a model question. You demonstrated that you searched for information and asked for specific details about what you didn't understand in the text area)

ELI5: What is honey? I know honey comes from bees, and I know honey is delicious on toast, but what is honey, and does it harm the bees we harvest it from? Can you trace back a batch of honey to the hive it came from, or is all honey the same?

Many flowers secrete nectar as part of their biology. They lack the ability to move pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers so they entice bees and insects with nectar with the hope the while the bees collect the nectar they also move the pollen around allowing for the fertilization of the plant species. Honey bees have a special compartment in their body to hold nectar. This compartment (called the crop or honey stomach) is designed to allow the bee nectar storage while it is foraging. When the forager bee returns to the hive she passes the nectar to a receiver bee who puts it in a wax comb cell for ripening. Nectar has a high moisture content, perhaps 40+%, but the bees want to store the honey for future consumption. They regulate the humidity in the hive via wing flapping over fresh stored nectar and move air in and out from the entrances. Once the honey is at 17/18% moisture content it is ready for capping. The bees cap the cell with wax and that honey will stay in storage until they need it. If the season goes well, the colony may collect for example, twice the amount of honey they will need for winter. The beekeeper can take that extra and this harvesting does not harm the bees at all.

[Avengers] why did Thor hesitate in picking up his hammer?

After he's thrown out of the helicarrier and escapes the glass cell, he goes to find his hammer, finds it, goes to pick it up, then hesitates as if he's uncertain. Why?

Because he knows that if he picks up that hammer, the next thing he'll be doing is using it to fight and possibly kill his brother Loki. Thor still cares for and is somewhat protective of his adoptive brother, all throughout the movie he tries to prevent harm to Loki and wants only to take him back to Asgard where he'll stand trial (and possibly be rehabilitated?). It's the same reason he didn't simply call the hammer to his hand, Thor is considering his options and emotionally preparing himself for the fight to come.

[MCU] Did Tony use any of Stane's Iron Monger designs when working on the Hulkbuster suit?

No. Unlike in the comics, where Stane's hardware is distinct and seperate from Tony's gear (to the point of Tony once building himself a "Staneware" suit as a countermeasure in case someone finds a way to undermine his standard "Starktech" gear), in the MCU Stane isn't really contributing much to development. He's a businessman first and foremost, followed immediately by being a ham-fisted goon; his functional yet unelegant solution to the power problems with the Iron Monger was to burgle Stark's house for an arc reactor. Everything about the Iron Monger is plagiarized off Tony's "box of scraps" Afghanistan suit, with the only improvements being in the quality of resources available to build it. There's literally nothing for Tony to learn by studying Iron Monger, except perhaps the dangers of hubris.

[The Good Place] Spoilers

Why can't you curse in the real Good Place? It makes sense that you can't curse in the Bad Place... but the *Good* Place?

The rules that the Good Place operates on aren't fair by our human standards. Such as punishing the French just for being from France. So apparently, by the cosmic standards of Architects and Janets and the Judge and other cosmic beings, cursing is legitimately bad enough to be banned from the Good Place.

I'm currently watching The Big Short and they keep using the term "exposure". What exactly is financial exposure and what does it mean specifically in that context?

Exposure, generally speaking, relates to risk in a given investment - ie what proportion of the total money invested do you stand to lose if a given bet you make turns out to be the wrong one; or put another way to what extent are your expected earnings affected by certain factors

I believe that the advancement of technology has made money pointless and that capitalism is only holding the world back - CMV

As someone who graduated from college just in time for the worldwide economy to crash, I've been doing quite a lot of research regarding money and have come to a few conclusions: Humanity has the capability to automate almost all of our needs for a comfortable life. The few things that we cannot automate seem to be only *just* out of our reach and could be developed if given the necessary resources. Yet therein lies the problem. Money, by its very nature, encourages greed and inefficiency. There was a time when currency was the most efficient method to encourage people to exchange goods and services, but with the advent of computers and robotics, this is no longer the case. People and corporations *know* that technology and science are the driving forces behind human advancement, yet because all advancement requires the replacement of old practices, the people and corporations who stand to lose their personal investments fight tooth and nail to slow down that human advancement (See: Tesla [both the man and the car], oil and energy, scientific funding of all kinds, etc.). To my mind, the type of society humanity should be transitioning to is something similar to what organizations like The Venus Project ( http://www.thevenusproject.com/ ) and the Ubuntu Liberation Movement ( http://www.ubuntuparty.org.za/p/home.html ) suggest. Yet I realize that the shift I'm speaking of is unlikely to happen anytime soon and it is for that reason that I'm here. I've become so disdainful of money and its apparent hobbling of society that I've begun having trouble even motivating myself to contribute to the community around me when I consider that most of my job options would just be feeding into the cycle of greed. So, whaddaya say, /r/changemyview ? Care to rekindle my enthusiasm for capitalism? Update: Sorry everyone-- my plan was to sit down this evening to read and respond to these replies but I had an unexpected visit from an old friend which kind of threw that plan out the window. I will try to get around to this tomorrow.

Resources are scarce. We have monetary systems in order to allocate those resources to satisfy the most amount of wants according to their utility. Regulated capitalism is simply the most efficient monetary system available. Unless you can demonstrate that technology has somehow eliminated scarcity (it hasn't), then we still require money.

ELI5: How is it decided which gene is dominant and which is recessive? Does each gene have some sort of "score" and the highest one between a pair is expressed?

Let's say a gene is responsible for making a certain protein. The gene has two alleles - one that makes the protein and one that doesnt. Producing the protein causes a certain trait to be expressed. This makes the trait dominant - if you have one copy of the allele that can produce the protein, then you will have the trait. On the other hand, let's say there's a trait that is expressed only if you don't have that specific protein. This means that the trait is recessive, because you need both alleles that can't produce the protein in order to have it.

ELI5: Why does Scientology still have such a devout following, when it has been exposed to be such a farce?

One of the key reasons as to why they have such a devout following is because of blackmail. During the initiation process, applicants are advised to speak their deepest, darkest secrets in order to "free" themselves of the burden of carrying them. These secrets are logged, and if a person ever wants to leave the church, they are threatened to be exposed.

ELI5:why the two presidential term limit for americans?

I get its an ammendment but personally i think it is a stupid one, if the majority of people like the president, why cant he stay? If hes shit, he wont get voted for a third right? Im from canada and weve had a handful of prime ministers go more than 15 years cause they did such a good job. EDIT: I got two good replies right off the bat, i dont know why everyone else keeps repeating the same comment days later

The prime minister in Canada is much less powerful than the president in the United States. The U.S. president holds certain executive power which he has exclusively without oversight from Congress, and he cannot be dismissed by Congress if he loses its support. Prime ministers always have to keep the support of their party and parliament. They are also not the head of state. George Washington retired after two terms, and started a tradition that was followed until Franklin Roosevelt, who was elected to four terms. Roosevelt was very influential and greatly expanded the executive power during the Depression and World War 2. When he died, 8 of 9 justices on the Supreme Court had been appointed by him. Had he served for much longer it would have seriously perverted the separation of powers between the branches of government, an important part of the constitutional scheme in the United States. Term limits were adopted primarily in response to Roosevelt's long service.

Does it hurt to have publications outside of your field of study?

I am a recent graduate working as a research assistant under two PIs. One (PI A) works in my field of study, the other (PI B) does not. By the end of my tenure here I should have two or more papers out under PI A, but I also may have one or two from under PI B. Does it make a difference if some papers I am published on are not in the field I intend to go to grad school in? Or is it a more papers is better regardless of the field situation?

It absolutely does not hurt. Will it help in the short term in applying to grad schools? It probably depends how far apart the fields are. If they're, say, biology and physics, I'd say it's still a net plus to have the extra article. If, on the other hand, they're history and chemistry, then the practical benefits are not so clear. It's not something that'll get you into graduate school, but it might break a tie. In the long term, this is surely a good thing. The more different ways you have of looking at the world, the better off you are in any field of study.

[Star Wars] Are there movies or even radio shows of any kind in the Star Wars universe? Very very minor spoiler! No idea how to mark or tag spoilers!

I've thought about this before, but when I looked it up, there was only unrelated topics such as the actual cast of Star Wars or a Star Is Born crap. So is there any sort of filmography entertainment? Any sort of cinematic experience portrayed in Star Wars? We know there are plays and other performances like that which Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker were viewing in Revenge of the Sith when Palpatine was talking about Plagueis the Wise.

I dont have specific examples but found this on wookiepedia: Entertainment was a subdivision of the Corporate Sector Authority's Media Division. Entertainment produced almost all of the Authority's public entertainment programming, including dramas, comedies, music, and theater. Sports leagues were also managed by Entertainment, subtly manipulating inter-Authority competitions

ELI5: How do governments assess private companies for estate tax considering they are not bought and sold and thus the shares to not have a price?

Based on an discussion i had with friends, if its a large private company, but one which is not valued by the market how does the government assess it for inheritance tax purposes? cant i just sell/assess the shares for 100 dollars total even if its worth 100 million?

In the US private companies are assessed for the total value of their assets. The land, the building, every single peice of equpiment and furniture has a value assigned to it and they are taxes for it all. The longer that they have had the equipment the less taxes they pay on it, but for companies which have to stay up-to-date with their equipment that can be an issue.

How does the threat and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic compare with the H3N2 flu pandemic of 1968 and the H2N2 flu pandemic of 1956? (Death toll of H3N2: 1,000,000 people worldwide. Death toll of H2N2: 2,000,000 people worldwide)

Edit: I'm not downplaying COVID-19's severity, I think COVID-19 is a greater threat.

It's hard to say because Covid-19 is still ongoing and we won't know its full impact for years to come. What we can say is that SARS-CoV 2 is moving *fast*. Not only is it very contagious, it also emerged into a world with global mass traffic and supply chains. This speed combined with a relatively high rate of people needing hospitalisation (very roughly 20% of infected) means that Covid-19 overwhelms health systems. 1968, not so much. Far fewer people travelled by plane or between continents. The world's population was roughly half of what it is now, so a lot of places would have seen a lower population density. Also, medicine has moved on. In 1956 or 1968, ventilators were primitive pumps used for theatres. No long term sedation/anaesthesia with ventilator support like now, that only came in the 1980s or so. So maybe the death toll would have been a lot lower then with better medicine. In summary, comparing Covid-19 to other pandemics is sure very interesting from an intellectual standpoint but it doesn't offer much in the way of guidance. It is here *now* and we need to deal with it *now* even though we still don't know all the facts. Edit: Regarding health care, this is a perverse one: Since health care in 2020 is so much better, this also means that people are getting older. Conditions that weren't treated as well fifty, sixty years ago - COPD say, or cancer, or diabetes - now create a population at high risk. Then, people with those conditions were much more likely to die from that directly before a virus could reach them. So Covid-19 is a pandemic threatening to overwhelm our health care systems also partly because our functioning health care systems allow a subset of the population to survive for long enough to be susceptible to it.

Is there a psychological reason that people will look up when they're searching for the answer to something?

When people are looking for an answer to something, or trying to seek a centering moment, they will often look up. Is there a psychological reason for this?

Yes. It is a technique used to dedicate cognitive resources to the "thinking" by reducing the cognitive load of processing visual information. Our visual system uses a very large amount of our cognitive resource (brain processing power). You can reduce the resource demand of other functions by reducing the level of that stimuli. By looking up or at the ground. Or even off to the side at a non-moving /simple scene, you can essentially reduce your visual processing need. You can do this with other sensory systems as well. This limitation of cognitive resource is why people drive worse when talking. On the phone or with passengers. Because a lot of resource goes to listening and responding in language. Less to processing the constant changes in the environment. Same as whenever you need the environment to be quite so that you can concentrate better. It's all about reducing demand of other systems and devoting more resources to a specific task. We learn to do this at a very early age.

CMV: It is irrational to expect mandatory child support and be pro choice.

The issue of abortion from the pro-choice perspective is that of a woman's right to sovereignty over her body. The issue of child support is that of the welfare of a child. They are entirely different discussions, and one has very little to do with the other.

CMV: The general pro-LGBT rights attitude in the US could swing to anti-LGBT rights very quickly and soon

Cards on the table, I'm gay, so this belief causes me a decent amount of stress. On to why I believe this: 1. The current president, at best, doesn't care about lgbt rights. He gave some minor lip service to suporting them during his campaign, but has done nothing good for us and a lot of bad things. Choosing Pence as a running mate alone made his indifference at best obvious. His subsequent appointments and decisions to roll back protections seal the deal. 2. I realize that previous presidents weren't super on board either, but I think this is a bigger problem with Trump. Why? Trump has a bit of "cult of personality" feeling. He's bragged about being able to "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and not "lose any voters." Even *if* a significant amount if his supporters/conservatives agree lgbt rights are important, it seems like all it would take for them to change their minds/accept anti-LGBT legislation/actions would be Trump supporting them. This is something he could easily do. He changes his mind and acts against advisors frequently. 3. I don't think most people are as cool with lgbt folks as they claim in public (so as to not be branded a homophobe....even if they are). Reddit is a prime example of this. Homophobic nonsense everywhere with even the slightest amount of anonymity. _____ > *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

Politics are a lagging indicator of culture. The public changes first, and only when they've changed enough do the politicians start to adopt their positions. The attitudes "flow up" from people to politicians, they don't "flow down" from politicians to the people. I would argue that the gay acceptance you see in Washington now \(even if it's mostly from one team\) is an indicator that there is widespread acceptance in the public. Once an idea take wide root, it very rarely shifts back \(at least in the near term\).

ELI5: Why do I get bags under my eyes when I'm tired?

One of the biggest reasons people get bags under their eyes is because their parents have them. It's in your genes, and -- aside from plastic surgery -- there's not much that can be done about it. When you're young, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, a diet full of salty foods and water retention can also lead to bags. Sinus infections can cause them as well, by constantly stretching the skin beneath your eyes. If you notice that you have bags under your eyes early in the morning but they're generally gone by noon, it probably means they're being caused by fluid retention. You might be able to reduce their appearance by simply using an extra pillow to elevate your head while you sleep. As you get older, bags under your eyes will become a more permanent fixture. It's a natural part of aging and something we all have to come to terms with sooner or later. The reason is simple: We all have fat in our faces, and it's held in place by ligaments and muscles. As we get older, those ligaments and muscles weaken, and everything starts to sag -- making the fat more visible. A similar thing happens within our skin: Collagen levels decline with age, causing the skin to lose its elasticity and begin to sag everywhere, including the face. In either case, you may need some type of cosmetic procedure to treat the issue. Source: Discovery Health

ElI5 Why do city governments care when people have garage sales?

Had garage sale over the weekend and public security showed up and gave us a written warning saying we needed to have a permit to conduct a garage sale and we had 24 hours to get one. My question, why do they give a fuck if i'm selling my old junk on my property?

I expect that requiring you to have a permit helps them track how often you're having a garage sale Many cities have limits on how often you may have a garage sale because they do not want you having garage sales on a regular basis. You're living in a residential area, not a commercial area. They don't want you having a garage sale on a regular basis because that would be very much like you were running a business. Your garage sale brings more traffic to your neighborhood. The extra traffic can be disruptive to the neighborhood. If you had frequent garage sales then you'd be responsible for bringing a lot of traffic to your neighborhood and causing a lot of disruption. Your neighbors would not appreciate this. This is why cities regulate garage sales.

[Star Wars] If Ewoks were a primitive species on a remote world with no contact with the Empire, how did C-3PO know their language?

Assuming no contact with the Empire is a bit of a stretch given that the Empire selected that world for final construction of the second Death Star. More realistically, the Empire picked that world from the Republic archives, which means Republic scientists, and most likely anthropologists, had been to Endor and studies the local life forms in some depth. With over six million forms of communication under his belt, it's not hard to imagine that C-3P0 incorporated the data from the Republic archives concerning Ewokese.

ELI5: What is nuclear fallout/radiation and why does it make us so sick?

All the stuff in the universe is made of up of little tiny pieces called atoms. Atoms are like little balls of energy wrapped up, and over time they will "pop" and the energy will explode out. Many atoms are "stable" which means that it takes a very long time for the balls to explode, longer than the earth has existed even. But some are "unstable" and explode sooner. This happens all the time all over the universe, even right now in this room. But because atoms are so tiny you never notice the tiny little explosions. These little explosions can hurt you, a little tiny bit, like a very tiny bruise or cut. But just like your body can heal a cut or a bruise over time, it can heal the tiny cuts from these tiny explosions. Some clever people found out how to gather up a lot of "unstable" atoms in one place, and they can use the exploding energy for lots of different things like Nuclear Power, Radiation Therapy, or even make a Bomb with it. Things like Fallout happen because a lot of unstable atoms were gathered together in one place, and these cause a *lot* of tiny cuts and bruises if you get too close to it. More than your body is used to, and that's why you can get sick from it, it's too much for your body to fix all at once.

[JURASSIC PARK] Aside from outside interference, would the park security systems have been enough to keep visitors safe?

Probably not. Many of the park's security systems were designed for contemporary animals, not genetically engineered creatures who resembled the public's shared image of dinosaurs. And those meant to contain the most dangerous specimens were experimental at best, which meant there was always a chance for things to go horribly wrong before anyone realized a system had failed. We know the raptor enclosure was woefully inadequate even before the power failed. Something would have happened eventually when the park opened. In the novel, Hammond spared every expense he could (in contrast to his film counterpart who proudly declared he spared no expense) So his cheapskate nature undoubtedly paid for woefully inadequate systems somewhere in the park.

[dune] Why not use shields as sandworm bait?

I just got transfered to Arrakis, and this engineering disaster is driving me insane. If the shields draw worms and turn them to a killing frenzy, why not strap one on a solar drone that flies out of reach? Is it really preferable to risk dozens of lives and whole harvesters? Heck, I'll even rig a lasgun to fire into itself if it gets swallowed, blowing the worm apart with violent force. Is there any good reason not to?

It's the shield vibrations transmitting into the ground which attracts them. Having one on an airborne probe does nothing. As for a reason for not destroying the worms.... what do you think makes spice?

How to write a recommendation letter for a former professor of mine?

So, a professor that taught me during my undergrad years is up for a tenure track position, and I've just received an email from the committee requesting a recommendation letter. This professor made a large impact on my intellectual development and I have nothing but good things to say about her. So, I want to write the best letter possible. What things should I include in my letter? Thanks in advance.

- context for knowing one another - what set her apart - why she was so important to your intellectual growth - discussion of the particulars of her style that you think are special - discussion of your personal achievement or success that can be linked to her influence

Is it possible that we get cancer and then beat it without even realizing it?

Yes, it is far more common than you think. Your cells have dna checking system to make sure the replication goes well and destroys the vast majority of the errors. Then you have abnormal metabolism leading to cell lysis and your T cells coming in to check on surrounding tissue for known markers. Then you have benign and malignant cancers that may never be found or be destroyed on their own after forming. And then you have cancers that need intervention.

[THOR] If the dark elves are from a time before light, why do they have eyes?

If the dark elves are from a time before light, why do they have eyes?

The light was a metaphor for Asgard culture. Consider that we now call the European Middle Ages the "Dark Ages", a time before the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Asgard consider the authoritarian, ruthless time before they came to power and ultimately dominion to be a dark time. "Long before the birth of Light, there was Darkness," means that the Dark Elves were the power before the light of Asgard brought about revolutionary change in the realms.

[WH40K] How powerful is the Ork collective gestalt field?

I've seen it described from just nudging red cars to go faster to basically creating a blaster out of piece of wood and some nails with the power if imagination. So how much of an effect does it actually have?

It varies wildly. In some cases, Ork equipment is usable by others (albeit with a lot jamming and malfunctioning) - it only runs smoothly because of the WAAAGH's effect. In others, an Ork 'gun' can consist of a metal pipe with a belt of bullets fed in and a trigger assembly - no firing mechanism required, and the pipe may not remotely fit the bullets. Where it gets confusing is that there's no apparent correlation between size of the WAAAGH involved and how powerful its effect is. Certainly warbosses will pull off crazier stuff the more renown and followers they get, but some quite small (by 40k standards) Ork groups still had quite an effect, while the largest weren't noted as pulling any more overtly spectacular displays of psychic manipulation. A larger WAAAGH may manifest itself in other ways - for instance, more 'advanced' Ork technology being 'invented', rather than 'basic' equipment working in increasingly absurd ways.

[DC comics] Would Batman take on Billy Batson on as a Robin? Has he considered it before?

If he didn't know Billy was also Captain Marvel that is, seems like the kids moral compass is on point, even if he does lack a certain 'edge' or apparent detective skills.

Batson (heh) would make a good Robin for a few reasons. If he's really in danger he can turn into Captain Marvel. And he's basically good-hearted, so less reason to worry about him going bad. Captain Marvel is already one contingency against a rogue Superman, but a Batman-trained Marvel would be a contingency against *anything*, even Batman himself. In-universe, Batman doesn't trust magic or technology he doesn't understand, but that's not really a problem. He'd simply insist that Batson remain a kid while operating as Robin. Out-universe, [REDACTED]

Is mountain air really the healthiest/least polluted air?

Is there less polution in the mountains (for example the Alps in France) than in some desolate village at sea-level?

It's not so much the altitude as it is proximity to large cities and prevailing wind patterns. There aren't a lot of large cities with manufacturing and chemical processing plants near the French Alps, for example, and the higher you go, the smaller the population is - therefore, the air is much cleaner. In Hawaii, some of "most pure" air in the world is blown in from the Pacific, because although these winds originate in China, they travel over the pacific for approximately 3 weeks before making landfall in Hawaii which allows all the pollution to settle out.

Why can both X-rays and radio waves penetrate things that visible light can't?

Something about the energy being on the scale of eV so high adsorption there? Did we evolve to be able to see the energy range that is absorbed by everyday objects?

Light tends to interact with molecules whose size are either near its wavelength, or densely packed enough that an integer group is near the size of its wavelength. The visible spectrum covers a large range of molecule sizes, so its convenient for us to see in. Longer and shorter wavelengths only interact with high density or very large molecules. E.g. you'd want lead or thick HDPE between you and a gamma ray.

[Power Rangers] How do they control the megazords?

Like for instance, in Power Rangers Turbo, they use steering wheels to control the megazord. There are 5 of them controlling it, how does it work?

> Woolowoloololowooololowlwollwoolowoolowlowlooolwolooolowoloowlwolowlowololoool - Putty Patrol PP10485927 TRANSLATION: *They do not. The poor human children are but puppets of the evil wizard Zordon and his war machines. We fight to free them from his control. Wollowoolowooolowo.*

Do traits that humans regard as feminine appear in other animals?

Depends what you think of as feminine. There are numerous species in which the female cares for the young and takes care of the nest/den/home. There are also many species in which the female is smaller and less dominant in appearance than the male. When it comes to looks however the males are generally "prettier" than the females in nature. Most noticeably in fish and birds, males tend to have the vibrant colors and otherwise unnecessary adornments that human females use to gain attention from the opposite sex.

ELI5 Why do toenails become so thick and deformed when people get old?

And also, How to avoid it?

Usually due to wear and tear. Toenails are subjected to lots of stress and trauma over the years. Another contributing factor is neglect and fungal infections. To avoid: try maintain good hygiene, cut nails regularly and straight across, dry feet well especially if one is using communal showers or baths or swimming pools and make sure footwear fits properly. Hope this helps

ELI5: Why did USSR allow for Austrian reunification but not German?

Both Germany and Austria were divided into four occupation zones following World War II, and Vienna was divided like Berlin. So why was there an East Germany and a Berlin Wall for so long but there was never an East Austria and a Vienna Wall?

Austria was willing to sign an agreement that said it could never enter a military alliance with either side. This satisfied both the USSR and America and to this day Austria is just as neutral as Sweden. Germany was not given this option.

ELI5: Why the Spanish civil war drew so much influence from outside powers? What was its signifigance at the time?

It was a cause celebre for left-leaning Westerners because there was a democratically elected leftist government overthrown by a military coup. It was a matter of great public attention, kinda like how Kony or Darfur took off in the recent past. So, individuals and governments with sympathetic political leanings had a situation that pitted a like-minded elected government against a coalition of the traditional institutional enemies of the left: royalists, the military and the church. On the opposite side, the elected government was a European traditionalist's worst nightmare. They were opposed to the church and king, socially progressive and were viewed by many as a threat to the fabric of European identity. In essence, an internal Spanish struggle became an ideological proxy war in a very liminal period in history. The old order had just led to WWI and the Great Depression, and people were trying to decide in what direction to chart their future. Communists and Socialists flocked to the Republican cause, Fascists and Nazis to the Nationalists. It became a test by which three new powers, Stalin's USSR, Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, could test both their newly developed military hardware but also their global influence.

CMV: suspension of disbelief “plot armor” kills movies and TV shows.

Suspension of disbelief “plot armor” is having impossible situations occur or characters surviving certain death actions. Examples: characters surviving plane crashes without a scratch. Outrunning dinosaurs. Or other impossible actions. Please note: this occurs even in sci fi genre. Just because there’s a monster doesn’t mean Physics doesn’t work. I’m my view movies and TV that Break physics Break common laws or break any form of reality distracts the audience from the plot and makes it work. It is the result of bad writing and should be shunned. To CMV: you will have to explain to me the Rationale of plot armor, suspension of disbelief. Also convince me that for instance a character out running a dinosaur that can run 80 miles an hour is acceptable. TLDR: plot armor ruins movies and TV Edit: while I am talking about plot armor the main issue I have are characters who are able to break the already established rules in the series. For example while E coyote is able to walk on air I’m fine with that. If he randomly got the power to clone himself like agent Smith in the matrix that is breaking the rules of the series and that is the problem I have too many characters in popular movies and TV shows consistently do this.

Some plot armor is invented within the universe. If the universe says Thor can survive a plane crash because of superpowers, then he can. If it says dinosaurs are slow, then they are. If it says we have artificial gravity, then we do. The problem comes when the show breaks out of the rules of its own universe even if those rules have nothing to do with physics. In The Walking Dead, Daryl was established as the ultimate hunter, the one to fear out in the woods, silent and deadly, unstoppable. And then a couple random dudes manage to catch him by surprise out in the woods and capture him. No, that broke the rules of the show's universe. He should have heard them coming from far away and taken them out.

ELI5: Why can in-game gameplay not look like the cutscenes?

Cutscenes in video games look amazing, but the gameplay looks completely different. Why can they not make the gameplay look like the cutscenes?

Cutscenes are just videos, some really powerful computer already did all of the work, gameplay is rendered by your computer in real time, and its way less powerful than the computer that the game producers have

ELI5: Why is the skin on our palms lighter than the rest of our skin?

Stratum lucidum There is a fifth histological layer for palms and soles of the feet. Literally thicker skin and greater distance to the melanocytes. Less light stimulation gets through less pigmentation. Yada yada.

ELI5: When your body keeps "throwing up" when there's no more to get out, why does it fell like getting your chest kicked in by a horse?

Edit: This.. It's just a normal case of throwing up - ate something bad, drank to much, etc. Not a 3 week flu (or worse). 2nd edit: I might have made it sound like I'm vomiting for a week, but that's not the case. But when throwing up for half an hour, there's usually nothing left to throw up. Your body makes the reflex to throw up and when nothing comes up it feels like getting your chest kicked in.

Well, ELI5 version, your body doesn’t know how to fix itself so it keeps trying to get everything out. That “chest kicked in by a horse” feeling (or fell-ing, no judge I’m bad at spell check too) is your lack of anything to push out. So all you’re doing is pushing with no substance. Think lifting up a box you thought was going to be heavy, but then is empty. It throws you off and can really hurt, except instead of throwing the box to kingdom come with all your force going out the force goes to you. Which hurts! Sounds like you may be experiencing this now, if you keep getting sick with nothing coming out (or bile coming out) for over 12 hours please go see a doctor.

ELI5:Why is it called the Middle East? Why not the Middle West, or just "the Middle?"

Why is the geographical location named the Middle East? What is wrong with the Middle West, or even just "the Middle," as silly as that may sound? Is that just what English calls it?

It comes from old western European cultures, who when trading with Asia referred to it as the far east because, well, it was far away and east of Europe. the middle east was kind of in between, hence the name that has stuck around

[X-Men] What would have happened if Erik Lehnsherr and Professor Xavier had been born with each others powers.

Basically, the question is what would have happened if the Telepath had grown up in concentration camp, while the Master Of Magnets had grown up in the upper class.

Funnily enough Lensherr might not have become the villain we know him as. One of the reasons Xavier has such faith in humanity is because he is constantly hearing the thoughts of those around him, the good and the bad. Erik is naturally distrusting and while he may not change his view on Mutant supremacy, he would probably be more empathetic to the plight of homo sapiens.

If stars have more planets than previously thought, would this "add " enough mass to galaxies so we don't need dark matter for explaining their dynamics?

This can't explain astronomical observations. There is about 4-5 times as much mass as we can see in star form, and planets typically weigh at most a few tens of a percent of their stars, but often much less. If planets weighed more than stars, we wouldn't see the orbits that we do. There was an idea that the missing mass might be in the form of starless brown dwarf planets or other massive objects (the MACHO hypothesis), but their existence has largely been ruled out by the non-observation of microlensing.

ELI5- What is the static that plays when a radio is tuned to a number without a radio station?

The entire radio spectrum is "noisy"--there's interference in it from both man-made sources and natural ones (e.g. lightning strikes). If you tune the radio to a dead channel then all it will be picking up is that noise, which it amplifies and turns into the static that you hear. You still get the noise on actual radio channels, but it gets drowned out by the radio station you're tuned in to so you tend not to notice unless it's very bad.

I think I threw my thesis out of the window

The idea was to write my Master's thesis in a computational field, about a topic that I had barely touched upon before. So I spent a long time familiarizing with said topic and trying to fill my knowledge gaps (let's say for a couple of months), then I installed the model I was supposed to use and tried to apply it to my research subject, but with no success (this took a month, in which I also started working an almost full time job because I need to support myself). At a certain point I contacted the author of said model, who said that the original function I needed had been knocked off. I tried to ask him if it could be restored but haven't heard from him since. At this point my supervisor redirects me to another model, which seems to work better than the previous one, but I haven't managed to adapt it to my needs. It's been one and half months, and still nothing. I honestly doubt I have the skills and the knowledge necessary to do it, if it's even possible. I think I'll give up on the experimental thesis and ask my supervisor if I can go with a compilation one on the same topic since I have two and half months left if I want to graduate on the next available date. I honestly can't help feeling like an utter failure. It's been months and I basically *haven't even started, because nothing works!!* I guess I did learn something at least and some minor things worked out, but it's been such a waste of time and so many dead ends. I feel so crushed (I've been crying the whole day about this) but I honestly don't even care anymore.

Welcome to research! In all seriousness, this is why thesis-based graduate programs don't have specific timescales the way undergrad does. A masters may be "around 2 years" and a PhD may be "around 4.5 years" (less not in the US) but that really means "1.5-3ish" and "4-6ish" based on how your research is actually going

[Digimon,02] Davies puts himself in danger so Vemon has to Digivolve or he might die (he cuts a rope on a bridge well he’s on). This is a onetime thing for Davies, but what is a digimon supposed to do if they get saddled with an emotionally abusive partner who does this kind of thing regularly?

I think this is addressed in the first series with SkullGreymon. If the trainer starts doing stupid and reckless things to fake the necessary emotional response, the digimon will digivolve in extremely aberrant ways. This is a natural warning to the trainer, in case the digimon's protests weren't enough. There's a high chance each time it happens that the trainer will be severely injured or killed, either by the trainer doing something dangerous or the digimon going on a mindless rampage.

Eli5: Why is grip strength significantly worse when you first wake up? And why do hands feel so stiff in the morning?

When you sleep, your body turns turns off a lot of movement circuits so you don't act out everything you're dreaming. These may take a while to turn back on when you wake up, varying between people and which stage of sleep you woke up from (as others have pointed out, called 'sleep inertia').

ELI5 : How do medicines for asthma work?

I have asthma and I've always wondered how the "air" inhaled from the medicine works so fast and what it does precisely

Imagine you have a tunnel wide enough for two lanes of cars to drive through. When you have an asthma attack, the walls shrink and then you can only get one lane of cars through. The first line asthma medications will make the walls of the tunnel widen so you can fit three lanes of cars through instead. Lift your arm above your head and let it drop. Muscle go from tense to relaxed really fast - since muscles are making the walls of the tunnel shrink, you just need to make them relax and that can happen really really fast. If you want the ELICollege Student explanation: The first line asthma medications are what are called selective b2 adrenergic agonists (for example albuterol). Adrenergic receptors are receptors that are activated by the fight or flight response. Imagine you see a bear, your body get itself ready to run away from it. So it does things like kicking your heart rate up so you can get more blood to your muscles and it shunts blood from your organs to your muscles. It’s also important to get more air into your lungs so you can get more oxygen into your blood, so it does this by relaxing the tubes that bring air from your trachea to your alveoli. That last part is what b2 adrenergic receptors do. Since it’s a fight or flight response you want it to happen fast so it literally makes the smooth muscle cells in the wall of your lower airways relax, the bronchi/bronchioles widen and wider airways mean you can move more air into your lungs. The other medications that are commonly used: M1 muscarinic antagonists (ex. ipratropium): in your body you have fight or flight system that makes your heart rate go up, your airways dilate, etc. and a system that causes the opposite effects. That’s the role of the muscarinic receptors. So when so you block them muscarinic receptors you’re blocking airway constriction which causes airway dilation, if that makes sense.

Since friction originates from electromagentic force, does that mean that neutrons, Which are neutral to each other, can overlap?

Overlap = exist in the same spot in case it isn't clear. This question can be taken a step further, since the force that keeps protons together should be stronger than the force that repels them (otherwise there are no atoms). Would that mean that protons in an atom should be compressing into a single point so that the nucleus has the volume of a single proton?

Two neutrons can have the same spatial wavefunction as long as they have opposite spin projections. The nucleus is not a single point. Rather, it’s more like a liquid drop of approximately constant matter and charge densities. The spatial size of a nucleus is on the order of a few femtometers.

[X-men] specifically wolverine. How was it that his claws were perfectly sharp.

After he was infused with adamantium how was it that wolverines claws were perfectly razor shap? I mean he didn't sharpen them or anything they just were already there.

The blades, like the rest of the adamantium he carries, were bonded to his existing bone structure. The exact means that they came out razor sharp instead of jagged is unknown. As they are adamantium, once they were set they could not be sharpened further, so perhaps they had been molded with a very finely crafted mold, but frankly we don't have a solid answer beyond speculation.

Is there a way to do floor and ceiling functions using only 4 operators ( + , - , * , / )?

No. Each of the binary operators (+, -, \*, /) is a function from R^(2) to R (in the case of division, some subset of R^(2)). Furthermore, each of the operators is *continuous* on its domain. So any *finite* combination of them would also be continuous on its domain. However, the ceiling and floor functions are not continuous on their domain. (If we allowed *infinite* combinations of the basic operators, then there are ways to write the floor and ceiling functions, e.g. by Fourier series.)

[Star Wars] What technological progression has there been from the ancient Old Republic to the Post-Empire republic?

If you mean "technological progression" as in the development of new designs for technological devices, there have of course been a great many. Most of the ships, tools, etc. that are built in the modern era are quite different in many ways from those built in ancient times. If you mean "technological progression" as in the discovery of new *atoms* of design, there haven't been many. The exploration of the galaxy has been slow and almost every new civilization that's been discovered has had the same basic elements of technology already known. So there's really no way for such radically new game-changers to come along. It's a well-known theory that we've discovered pretty much all of the basic building blocks of technology that are possible, it's a waste of time to tinker with such fundamental things in the hopes of stumbling across something new. Just have the droids build you the parts and plug them together. The real creativity comes from the artisans who assemble those building blocks in new ways. Take the Death Star, for example. It was an unprecedented machine, but the basic building blocks are all very familiar. A hypermatter reactor, standard hyperdrive system, and a turbolaser with external focusing dish. They were just scaled up to unprecedented size.

ELI5: How come the human genetic code can fit roughly in ~1.5GB of data yet we turn out such complex organisms? Furthermore, the code that separates us from other mammals can fit on o floppy disk.

A few key differences between the genetic sequence and a computer sequence: 1. Computers run in binary. Genes run in quaternary (4 types of nucleic acids). That immediately increases the amount of data you can store exponentially. One step further, gene sequences build amino acids. There are 21 total amino acids that can form thousands of different proteins. 2. People are made of matter. Matter is comprised of 120-something (the number keeps changing) different elements, each with unique interaction with each other and interactions with groups of other elements, which is even more information than a simple quaternary system. Electricity, on the other hand, is not matter. There are various theories about coding data in different voltages or currents or whatever to allow electricity to provide more than a binary system, but we don't have the technology yet (and it may not even be possible).

ELI5: How does Humblebundle work?

Each customer pays whatever he feels like, lets say 10 <insert currency here>. That amount is distributed among all of the game creators + some charities and and some money go to huble bundle itself. For the most part it's a win-win-win-win situation. First win : you. You win by getting a butload of games for fraction of the cost. Second win : the developers. This is sometimes not such a big win, but some bundles could generate 10's of thousands of (~65% of total sales divided by the number of developers in the current bundle) <currency goes here> for each developer for games which otherwise may not sell so well or to serve as a sort of a kickstarter to an upcoming game. Third win : the charities. Charities like "Charity Water", get ~15% out of every purchase . Fourth win : Humble Bundle by default they seem to get ~20% of each purchase you make. N.B. Please take into consideration that all the estimates above might differ as you are able to change which party gets what amount of <currrency>

I don't think I should try to reduce my carbon footprint. CMV.

I DO think that we, as a species, should reduce our carbon footprint. But I think this change will happen over the next few years due to economic incentives (solar getting cheaper, gas getting more expensive, etc). Classic tragedy of the commons, but I don't see why I should reduce my carbon footprint when my personal contribution to atmospheric carbon is negligible. I could multiply it by 100 or reduce it to nothing and it wouldn't hurt or help anyone.

You individually will probably not have a significant impact, but if you convince a large number of other people to do it, that will make a difference, and taking part yourself would certainly help with that.

[Star Wars] What would’ve been the downsides of Qui Gon surviving to become Anakin’s master?

Obviously Obi-Wan did his best, and was a great master, but I usually hear that Qui-Gon was the master Anakin really needed. But considering that the two have completely different teaching styles, what would’ve been Qui-Gon’s “Obi-Wan should’ve been Anakin’s master” moments?

We don't really know his teaching style. People assume that he would allow Anakin to be less pressured to follow the rigid Jedi rules, but his two know pupils are the opposite of what people aspect. So he might have made the same mistakes.

[Ant-Man] If Ant-Man shrinks himself and gorges on cake crumbs until he can't eat anymore, when he reverts back will his blood sugar levels stay spiked or be normal?

Presumably, any food inside Ant-Man changes size along with him. Otherwise, he would explode if he were to shrink after eating a full meal So we can assume that when he reverts to normal size in your scenario, the cake crumbs, digested or otherwise, would grow proportionately. His blood sugar levels should be the same as they were when he was small.

39% of all american dollars were created in the last 12 months. Is that a problem?

Money printing is bad assuming there's no productive place for the money to go. The money you're referencing was created in response to a very unique situation in which a large portion of the economy was, by law, prevented from continuing production, but this had a cascading effect where they couldn't pay their bills and their workers couldn't maintain their consumption or pay their bills because they were laid off. However, a lot of the downside effects of this shutdown were mitigated because of the quantitative easing by the fed which encouraged credit to continue to be extended and the fiscal bailouts of companies and people so they can continue their consumption. This means there's not a lot of reason to expect an incredible amount of inflation or devaluation of currency because, for the most part, that money had a place to go in so far as it brought the economy closer to its productive capacity during a downturn.

CMV: Trickle-down economics is ineffective as a whole and only results in consolidation of wealth to the wealthiest 1% of individuals.

Many politicians have proposed tax cuts to wealthy corporations on the premise that they will use the extra money to hire more staff and give them higher wages. Based on this, the corporation's wealth will be passed down to the workers and the middle class. However, I believe that these corporations don't generally do this when given the chance. Instead, the money gets lost in bureaucracy and lines the pockets of top officials. Since tax loopholes have been increasingly exploited by corporations, we are now in a situation in which much wealth is consolidated at the top. Many economists also agree that wealth and growth are created by innovation, not by corporations and wealthy people "trickling" it down to the poorest. Free-market economics should not be ruled by few, and tax cuts to large corporations make monopolies and oligopolies a little more wiggle room to develop, crushing many of the small businesses attempting to rise up. In the newly proposed tax plan, tax cuts are planned to wealthy individuals, so this issue is becoming relevant yet again. Is this view misguided in your opinion? What is the case for trickle-down economics/tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy?

'Trickle-down' is a slur used to refer to Supply-side economics. All of economics is determined by the meeting pints of various supply and demand curves, and Supply-side economics is based on policies that make it easier to increase the supply of goods. Supply-side policies are a good idea *if* supply is insufficient or overly limited in relation to demand, especially if that limited supply is due to market failures or inefficiencies that can be easily corrected with economic or monetary policy. This situation *has* been true in the past, especially during and after the Great Depression; supply side policies were instrumental in bring the country back to the relative bounty and higher standards of living we now enjoy. However, supply side policies are only appropriate when supply is too low. Right now, and probably for the last 30-40 years, and moeny has flowed away from consumers and into the financial sector and to the rich, and we have been suffering instead from low aggregate demand. Demand-side policies (like minimum wage hikes or UBI or higher corporate taxes or etc) would thus be more appropriate, and supply-side policies are likely to only make things worse. So, while supply-side policies are a bad idea now and have been for a while, it would be wrong to think that they're *never* a goo idea, and can *never* raise the standard of living for the average person.

ELI5: How is oxygen regulated in a submarine?

We store it in tanks and bleed it off as we need it. We also have special candles that, when burned, generate oxygen, so that if the tanks are empty or the oxygen generator is down we can still make O2.

Why is the kilogram the 'base unit' of mass instead of the gram?

The SI sytem of units would have been more elegant if the gram instead of the kilogram had been chosen as base unit of mass. Why and when did they choose the kilogram as base unit?

Are others actually reading his question? Yes when using metres of things they are more likely to weigh kilograms but why define a gram as 1000 times less than what would be used with other base units? The original kilogram was 1 dm^3 of water. So why not define *that* as a gram?

CMV: Western white people treat minorities better on average than any other race treats their respective minorities.

The topic of my CMV is pretty straightforward: White people(in current history) treat minorities better than any other race treats their respective minorities. **EDIT**: I am speaking on current forms of government and culture. So we are talking about countries in their post 2000 form. As a minority in a predominantly white western country you generally given: * welfare * freedom of religion * freedom of speech * if you give birth to a child, in some countries that child is a citizen * free primary education * free access to health care(other than America) * very little violent oppression(if any) from the government. I will try to give examples from other places of the world and how they treat their minorities and give examples as to how they don't give people these basic fundamental rights. **China**: China routinely oppresses and massacres the Ughuyrs: https://qz.com/993601/china-uyghur-terrorism/ http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/06/china-uighurs-claim-cultural-gen-20146165946224857.html **India**: India has a long history of oppressing Muslims since independence. Their current PM Modhi is in the process of enacting laws to hurt Muslims. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/05/05/attacks-indias-minority-muslims-hindu-vigilantes-mount/100951514/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/06/28/as-indias-muslims-are-killed-modi-keeps-silent/?utm_term=.2e4a8320adae In Bangladesh, you will have the opposite where the Muslim majority imposes heavy oppression upon the non Muslim minorities. **Saudi Arabia and other gulf states**: In Saudi Arabia you need to be part of a certain tribe to be a citizen. In addition, Saudi Arabia and other gulf states like Qatar use a sponsorship method of visas that is essentially indentured servitude for the minorities: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/sunday-review/indentured-servitude-in-the-persian-gulf.html **Middle East**: Almost all Muslim countries in the Middle East have discriminatory policies towards non Muslims. Christians in Iraq are massacred routinely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Iraq The Hazara people have been persecuted since the late 1800's in Afghanistan. It continues to this day: http://minorityrights.org/minorities/hazaras/ **Sub Saharan Africa**: Most Sub Saharan African countries draw their ethnic demographic lines along what tribe people belong to. Their is also a lot of religious discrimination as well. http://www.polity.org.za/article/the-treatment-of-minorities-in-africa-a-case-study-of-pygmies-in-central-africa-2013-04-30 The Congo is pretty much in civil war due to ethnic clashes: "The Bana Mura militia, which has been linked to the government, had carried out a string of ethnically motivated attacks in recent weeks, cutting off toddlers’ limbs and stabbing pregnant women, Zeid told the council." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/30/congo-violence-fuels-fears-of-return-to-90s-bloodbath This is just a brief overview. There are many other countries but I don't have time to cover them all. Feel free to comment and CMV. _____ > *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

Because all of the standards you choose to measure are just social programs that exist in first world liberal democracies. They have exactly nothing to do with how western white people behave. Western white people are not the same thing as their governments. If you're asking about how people treat each other, then you need to differentiate between our social technologies like freedom of religion, speech and the other tools of sophisticated democracy and white people.

If the human body stores 2 hours worth of glycogen and considerably more than 2 hours worth of fat, why do people get tired before 2 hours of jogging?

What is the biological nature of physical exhaustion? Especially after low intensity aerobic exercize - jogging, or even walking for a long period of time?

Glycogen is mobilized quickly. Fat needs some extra processing to become available as muscle fuel. Additionally, it's true that most people have ample reserves of "fuel", but their bodies are not prepared to mobilize and burn vast amounts of it quickly. A large part of endurance training involves changes in the body that just increase its ability to process and burn energy reserves. An easy measure of that is the amount of oxygen burned in a given time (or the amount of CO2 released - same thing). An athlete can burn a lot of O2 per minute; a couch potato, not so much.

[Predator] What happened to Anna after they got back to base?

She was a communist guerrilla extracted from a hostile foreign country by the US military. She saw her entire camp, including Soviet advisors, murdered by Dutch's covert team and she was an eyewitness to an alien visitor. Based on her background and everything she knows, she seems like somebody they wouldn't want to just let go. Was she imprisoned in the US, returned to her country's authorities, or something else?

Saying she witnessed an Alien Hunter fight a convert American Spec Ops would make her look like a lunatic. The Soviet would either think she went crazy after surviving an Enemy Attack or would think she snaped and killed them herself. Her best Bet would be to ask the US for Protection as a Witness to avoid her Supervisors.

(Star Trek) Why do the species and individuals in the alternate universe have such opposite personalities to those in the prime universe?

I understand that humans are different because of some past event went differently for them but why are all the species in the alternate universe the opposite of their prime universe counterparts. Was there some sort of universe wide event that changed all this?

I assume you're speaking of the "mirror universe" experienced by the crews of two Enterprises as well as station DS9. If that's the case, the timeline had its primary divergence at First Contact between the humans and the vulcans (the event you referred to as the past event). Instead of having a meeting of peace, the first interaction between Vulcans and humans was tainted by Zefram Cochrane shooting the Vulcan with a shotgun, inciting the humans to raid the Vulcan ship. It was the character of that interaction that would forever taint interactions between humans and every other interstellar race. Humans were propelled forward technologically through the raiding of the technology on the Vulcan scout, but other species would be less willing to share technology, driving the "Terrans" to a hostile campaign of enslavement. The result is that in the 100 years or so between the different first contact and the species you've seen, at least an entire generation of many species you are familiar with was born and died under the yolk of slavery. Their cultures destroyed and their outlooks tainted by being completely dominated by the Terran Empire, many species may look "opposite" to you. But the incident that changed them was the interaction with the humans over an extended period. Peaceful species who survived the first attacks became warlike over a generation, as it was the only way to survive. Species known for their aggression were either destroyed in the first attacks and forced into captivity (and thus the next generation would be one born away from the warlike influence of their previous culture), or learned to fight differently as a way of surviving. So, in conclusion, it isn't that some event changed every species, turning some "evil" and some "nice", it's that the massive spread of the very violent Terrans forced a number of changes over the years. In 100 years of conquest, a lot can happen, and the cultures that one would associate with species in our "prime" timeline became warped or outright destroyed.

[Superman] why is he ripped

So for the strongest man in the world why does he look jacked? What could he lift that makes him look so bulky. Wouldn't it be more correct if he looked like he did in Flashpoint?

In Flashpoint he was skinny from being malnourished by artificial red light (red sun light has more vitamins than the artificial stuff). And that's just it, red sun light is like water for a Kryptonian. It keeps them alive with the minimum nutrients. Think of yellow sun light as being a super steroid. Packed with proteins and vitamins that a red sun just can't get match. Steroids do all sorts of things including healing your body and muscles. Everyone produces steroids naturally and everytime you walk or move your arms there are micro tears on your muscles which take a while to heal. You see these gains very slowly. The extra steroids that Superman gets heals these tears quickly, couple with him always jumping ten stories at a time or lifting airplanes and islands, he's getting a great workout every time he stops pretending those glasses hide anything. Superman is the ultimate powerlifter and because he only "eats" radiation from the Sun, he doesn't take in any carb.

ELI5: Does the Quran's language seem old fashioned to modern Arabic speakers? The King James Bible seems old fashioned to modern English speakers (e.g. thou vs you).

More specifically: For someone who knows [Modern Standard Arabic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Standard_Arabic), is the Quran (written in [Classical Arabic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Arabic)) hard to understand or seem old fashioned?

Not in the same way. You see the Quran, as any book, is written in Arabic "Fus'ha", kind of like a proper form of Arabic. It's what you study at school in grammar class and stuff like that. However, each Arabic country tends to have a dialect of Arabic that can be really different than Fus'ha (completely different words and sentence forms sometimes). Now, technically, the Quran is written in "Classical Arabic", but since it is similar to Modern Standard Arabic, and since both of them are dramatically different than each country's dialect, people don't really differentiate between the two and they don't consider Classical Arabic more old fashioned than Standard Arabic, because they both sound the same. Therefore, the Quran sounds as "old fashioned" as any other book, just with some fancier words. And yes, you will get laughed at for speaking Fus'ha in public.

ELI5:What is drophacking?

Ever have a 3rd person try to talk over you when you're talking to someone else? Now imagine if they didn't stop, but kept getting louder and louder until neither you nor your conversation partner can hear anything except Guy #3's exceedingly loud voice. You eventually quit trying to hold a conversation because his shouting is so loud nothing is getting through. You and your friend in the example are you and whatever you're trying to connect to. Guy #3 is the drophacker, flooding the connection with a bunch of random shit.

[Hamlet] Is there indication what Denmark will be like following Fortinbras' rule?

With Denmark's royal family now dead, how will things turn out for the royal palace?

He's generally more capable than anyone else. Definitely a better option than the mentally unstable Hamlet would have been, and less conniving than Claudius was. His reign is probably a good thing, which is why Hamlet named him heir. His accession was also a lot less bloody than things would have been had Claudius remained on the throne (because of the war that would have been pursued).

Should I go to a PhD program I'm not excited about, or apply again next year/in later years (computer science)?

I am applying for Fall 2018 entrance into grad schools for theoretical computer science. I have been accepted into one "safety school", and rejected by a number of other schools. There is a fair chance I won't get any other acceptances, and I want to be ready if that happens. Basically, I'm not very excited about the school I've been accepted to. It's a fairly good school for CS and I've been recommended for a fellowship. However, there are a number of I'm not that interested in going there (location, people I've met from there, aesthetic). I'm somewhat interested in the work I'd be doing, but there are plenty of things I'm more interested in. I also feel like I should be technically qualified to get into better schools, and maybe I've just been unlucky with which professors are looking for PhD students. Additionally, I didn't have time to apply to as many schools as I would have liked. This makes me think I should try again next year. But will there be a big difference next year in which professors are looking for more PhD students? I'm just not sure what I'd do in the gap year. A lot of CS hiring has already been done. I could probably find some kind of job, but I'm not that into industry, and I'm worried I'll hate it. Any thoughts on whether or not I should reapply next year if this happens? Just looking for new things I should consider or personal experiences from people in similar situations. I'd like to determine this soon so I can start applying for jobs ASAP.

Everyone is different, but if it's a good school, you're interested in the work, and you're getting a fellowship for it, "location, people I've met from there, and aesthetic" seem like really terrible reasons to turn it down. Very few academics get to pick where they live and being best friends with everyone you work with isn't going to happen. If those things are super important to you, it might be a better idea to go a different route than academia.

ELI5: How do embers stay burning for hours, even while buried beneath soot/ash?

The oxygen in the air is burning the fuel in the wood. Imagine the oxygen as a thirsty person, and the wood/charcoal/whatever as a glass of water. If the embers are completely open to the air, the oxygen can just drink it all up quickly. When the fuel is covered up with ashes and soot, it is more like trying to drink through a cocktail straw, as there is a much smaller path for the oxygen to get to the wood. So, the fuel takes longer to burn (and doesn't burn as hot)

I find myself in my spacesuit floating in space next to a space station. Is it possible for me to somehow "swim" to the space station from a standstill situation?

*Zero gravity. *Zero speed (relavite to the space station). *100% vacuum. *No strings attached. *All I have is my body and it's normal ways to move. Or am I doomed forever?

You're doomed forever. If you have something to throw, you can change your momentum but it's very, very difficult to do by hand and it would probably lead to nothing or worse. If you're in EVA and you're not attached, you're dead.