Question: Where does the melted wax from a candle go?

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 Where does the melted wax from a candle go?

TLDR; the candle wax actually burns, keeping the wick from burning too fast. When you light a candle, you’re burning the wick in the middle. The fire from that wick melts, then boils the wax from the candle. The candle wax is then a gas, we call vapor. Candle wax isn’t usually flammable, but its vapor is. So the wick is on fire, and that fire heats up the wax until it’s so hot it turns into a gas, that candle wax vapor then burns, keeping the fire going without burning the wick too much. Try this little experiment: light a candle, wait a little bit, then light a match and blow out the candle. Put the lit match into the smoke from the candle - that’s the wax from the candle in that smoke! Your lit match will ignite the wax vapor in the smoke, which will travel back to the wick and relight your candle.


Question: Is booting off live Linux distros considered a high breach of security?

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 Is booting off live Linux distros considered a high breach of security?

If I have physical access to a computer, nothing you can do to the BIOS will slow me down by more than the minutes it takes me to remove your hard drive and plug it into a computer which I control. If you want data security, use disk encryption or just don't store anything on the local machine.


Question: why is it possible to see something break through the sound barrier?

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 why is it possible to see something break through the sound barrier?

That cloud is water vapour coming out of the air and it isn’t directly related to the sound barrier at all, that cone can form when you’re not breaking the sound barrier or it might not form at all even if you are. They key to these vapour cones is flying very fast through moist air, this causes part of the air around the aircraft to decrease in pressure till it’s below the dew point and water held in the air comes out as a vapour which is the visible cloud, then the shockwave from different parts of the aircraft hits this air and forces all the water back creating the cone shape.


Question: How is the price of a stock or bond decide in practice? I know about the principle of offer and demand, what I'm really looking for is how does the Bloomberg software decide to display the price it displays?

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 How is the price of a stock or bond decide in practice? I know about the principle of offer and demand, what I'm really looking for is how does the Bloomberg software decide to display the price it displays?

It's the last price it traded at. It's all done electronically and the stock exchanges have data you can tie into which outputs the actions being done on the market. In fact how fast as in nano second level you can get this info can make a difference to the computers that trade stocks. (Computer programs do nearly all of the trading in today's world)


Question: How do whales not die of dehydration? Do they drink salt water?

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 How do whales not die of dehydration? Do they drink salt water?

Whales and dolphins don't usually drink water. They can get enough water from breaking down body fat (metabolic water) or through the food they eat. Marine mammals in general do have kidneys that can extract salt much better than ours. Seals/sea lions for example can have urine that is many times more salty than seawater, allowing them to hydrate by drinking sea water. However, like I said before, marine mammals tend to get a lot fo their water through their food and fat.


Question: How does a random number generator randomly generate numbers?

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 How does a random number generator randomly generate numbers?

So, I'm not getting into logic gates for an eli5. But the basics are to apply some math based formula to a seed. For example, a super simple one would be to ask the person for a number, then calculate the nth diget of pi, with n being the number given squared Of course, that's not really ransom., Every time I gave 1 I would get 3. To make it more random, you need a fairly complex algorithm. There are several that can be given a seed and produce an impossible to guess answer. But then how random your output is depends on how random your seed is, asking people gets both tiring and isn't very random. But it turns out there are some really random ways to go. Measuring the exact number of bytes currently in use in the ram is a decent start. Or taking the frequency that the microphone is picking up works as well. Almost anything can be a seed, as long as it produces a large enough set of numbers to make the rng seem random (checking if the camera is on or off might be random, but it's only ever gonna produce 2 inputs, so your rng will only ever produce 2 answers). The only truly random seed we use that I am aware of ATM is radioactive decay, but that's expensive, and most people don't want radioactive materials in their computer.


Question: Why the “c2” in E=mc2?

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 Why the “c2” in E=mc2?

Contrary to popular belief, Einstein did not simply formulate the equation out of thin air, but it was built upon the work of previous scientists and Einstein manipulated existing equations to fit his ideas about mass and energy. He did not directly state "E=mc^(2)" but instead first stated "m = E/c^(2)". That is, the mass lost by an object is equal to the energy it radiates (in the form of light) divided by the square of the speed of light. Further, Einstein would come up with a rather complex equation to represent the kinetic energy of particles. Under Newton this was simply mass times the square of its velocity. Einstein came up with a more accurate equation based around its velocity relative to the speed of light. When you set the object's velocity to zero, much of it cancels out and leaves only: E = mc^(2) Which is why this is commonly referred to as an object's "rest energy."


Question: What's the difference between table salt and dishwasher de-scaling salt?

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 What's the difference between table salt and dishwasher de-scaling salt?

A few things: 1. size of the crystal/granule. 2. iodine is typically added to table salt (although not always, and often not in the fancy grinder salts) 3. a salt sold as food must be handled consistent with requirements for food (e.g. it's subject to regulatory controls around food safety, potentially tariffs and so on). A salt for your pool or for softening a dishwasher doesn't have to meet the same standards.


Question: What is anisotropy and isotropy in solids?

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 What is anisotropy and isotropy in solids?

if something is isotropic, it is roughly the same in all directions. if you got a huge group of people to stand around in a crowd, they would be isotropic in the sense that they would more or less be facing random directions, so on a large scale, no matter which direction you looked @ the crowd from, it would seem the same. conversely, if you got them to form rows like for a parade, they would look different head on than from the side. a good real-world (and common) example is meat. conventional wisdom holds that you should cut meat a certain way (across the grain) because it'll be more tender. since cutting in one direction is different from another, the meat is anisotropic.


Question: When water gets trapped in your ears, where is it specifically and why does this happen?

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 When water gets trapped in your ears, where is it specifically and why does this happen?

In the ear canal, water has some adhesive properties and it can get 'stuck' trying to get out, like jamming yourself into a door. You need to break the surface tension, drop a few drops of alcohol in your ear (or go up in altitude a couple of hundred feet) and it will break the tension and drain.


Question: Chemically, what's the difference between "nebulizing", "diffusing", "atomising", "aerosolizing", "aromatizing", "vaporizing", and just spraying?

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 Chemically, what's the difference between "nebulizing", "diffusing", "atomising", "aerosolizing", "aromatizing", "vaporizing", and just spraying?

Hopefully someone will give you a fuller explanation, but at least for some of these the difference is droplet size. So, for example, droplet transmission vs aerosolised virus. Droplets are generally bigger than 5 microns in size, where a micron is a millionth of a meter (a.k.a. a micrometer), or at least 0.000005m. Aerosolised particles are much smaller than this. This also means they can hang in the air for longer, and potentially travel further, than droplets. Droplets will fall to the ground pretty quickly, like within seconds. But aerosols can hang about for hours, and could end up in ventilation systems etc. So whether a virus can be carried by droplets or by aerosols can make a *huge* difference in how to handle it.


Question: Why does Rorschach hate Veidt's Plan while likes Truman's Hiroshima Bombing?

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 Why does Rorschach hate Veidt's Plan while likes Truman's Hiroshima Bombing?

Hiroshima's bombing has very few similarities with Veidt's plan at all. Hiroshima's bombing was done to end a war between two nations, and was exactly what it seemed to be: a strike used to end a war. Veidt *purposefully* caused disasters and pinned them on someone else in order to get people to unite against that "common foe" (which wasn't a foe at all). It was basically a trick. Rorschach doesn't think the deception is worth it.


Question: How does a Thorium nuclear reactor work?

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 How does a Thorium nuclear reactor work?

Aha something I know about finally. In 1932, a guy discovered something in nature called a neutron. It's a tiny little particle that you can shoot at stuff. People started shooting them at all kinds of stuff to see what would happen. By 1938 more people discovered that if you shoot neutrons at a particular mineral from the dirt called Uranium, it would occasionally straight up split an atom and release an ungodly amount of energy (for how small an atom is). In 1939 we discovered that when these Uranium atoms get split by neutrons, they also release enough secondary neutrons that they could go split other Uranium atoms if they were nearby enough, potentially releasing a macroscopically tremendous amount of energy in a short period of time. In 1942 the first man-made chain reacting nuclear reactor that did this in a controlled fashion was operated in a squash court in Chicago. By 1945 it had been weaponized into nuclear weapons. Wow. So, enter Thorium. As people shot more neutrons at more things, it was also discovered that if you shoot a neutron at another mineral called Thorium, the atoms don't directly split but they do change into something else (aka it *transmutes*). And if you then shoot in a *second* neutron, that new thing splits. So Thorium requires 2 neutrons to do what Uranium can do with one. Fascinating! Therefore, a Thorium reactor works like this: * Get a bunch of Thorium and fabricate it into some kind of fuel (solid pins or more awesome: molten salt) * Mix it with some fissile material that can sustain a chain reaction (usually enriched uranium) * Put a neutron source in (Californium-252 or Plutonium-Beryllium (PuBe, haha) or other fancy stuff) * Pull out control mechanism and start ramping up the power. Heat is produced as the enriched uranium chain reacts * Flow a coolant by to transfer the heat at the rate it's produced to a power conversion cycle that can change heat into something more useful (electricity, process heat, shaft horsepower, desalinated water, hydrocarbons, whatever) * Now the Thorium is in a neutron field, transmuting to the good stuff (actually called Uranium-233) * Once enough of the good stuff exists, it takes over from the enriched uranium * Now just feed in more thorium and let the transmuted thorium carry the weight (this is called breeding) * Now you can run this sucker for hundreds of thousands of years, carbon free, and generate not all that much nuclear waste. Congrats on your kick-ass power source Notably, Uranium-fueled reactors can do this breeding stuff too. Thorium is good at doing it with slow neutrons while Uranium is better at doing it with fast neutrons. There are lots of complex tradeoffs between the two but in both cases you have near-infinite world-scale carbon free clean air energy. In fact, even with traditional nuclear reactors you have a huge amount of 24/7 clean air carbon free energy that doesn't make all that much waste. And the 24/7 aspect is nice in hurricanes because people need the lights on to do rescue and survival stuff. Any questions?


Question: What is happening when we are trying to get ourselves to do something, but we also don't want to? Like we're arguing with ourself? How is that possible?

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 What is happening when we are trying to get ourselves to do something, but we also don't want to? Like we're arguing with ourself? How is that possible?

There's kinda two things you're referring to here. The first is just competing desires. For example most people would prefer to laze around and amuse themselves all the time, but we all have responsibilities that must be attended to that are hard work and/or not fun. Usually the consequences of neglecting our responsibilities are very bad, so we force ourselves to *not* laze around, to avoid the bad consequences. But we're doing some economic calculation in our head. We're weighing desires here. Do we prefer to play now and suffer the consequences later? Or do we prefer to work now and not have to suffer consequences? And then we choose one. This is life, this is consciousness, we weigh our preferences and make decisions on what will allow us to satisfy our preferences. But the second thing you're referring to is a little more abstract, the concept of an internal conversation. *Thoughts* are experienced as some kind of conversation between a speaker and a listener. But both the speaker and the listener are *you*. You're not two people, you're one. And yet your thoughts seem to be you talking to yourself, why? Scientists don't really know. Biology, linguistics and psychology are not advanced enough to fully explain what's happening.


Question: What exactly does it mean to die instantly?

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 What exactly does it mean to die instantly?

It's a phrase that doesn't have any medical meaning; generally cause of death is noted, but 'quickness of death' is not medically relevant. The media use it in instances where a sudden impact or injury caused a person to die in a way that was very quick. Typically though, the nature of these incidents (eg. Car crash fatality) is such that the time between the injury being sustained and the person dying isnt able to be accurately measured, due to lack of witnesses.


Question: Why does depression affect your memory?

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 Why does depression affect your memory?

A depressed brain is a less active brain. Your brain needs energy and neurotransmitters to do important things like regulate mood and form memories, but if it doesn't have the necessary energy or neurotransmitters, it can't perform those tasks as effectively. That's why SSRIs (selective-serotonin reuotake inhibitor) and NDRIs (norepinephrine dopamine reuptake inhibitor) are commonly prescribed for depression. A reuptake inhibitor stops your nerve cells from swallowing up 'extra' neurotransmitters floating around your brain before they have a chance to be used.


Question: What makes the cold so contagious in comparison to other diseases / illnesses?

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 What makes the cold so contagious in comparison to other diseases / illnesses?

The cold is so "contagious" because for most people it's not enough to "knock them out" and therefor stay home sick. Very light fever, mild cough and sniffles don't stop people from going to school work, shopping, or out in public in general. So it's not really any more contagious, just that more people are exposed to it


Question: how does bid rigging work and why is it illegal?

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 how does bid rigging work and why is it illegal?

Three construction companies bid to build a bridge that a government wants to build. The cost of the bridge would normally be $100 million, but the bidding companies work together Company A bids $215 million, Company B bids $210 million, Company C bids $200 million. Because the bids were fairly close to each other the government thinks if it allocates the work to Company C then it will get a good deal. Company C then hires Company A and B as subcontractors to build the bridge and they all share the $200 million between them. The government (the general public) have paid $100 million too much for the bridge.


Question: I understand very little about stocks so I am probably getting terms wrong. So T-Mobile and Sprint have just merged and I want to know what would happen if you previously owned 5 stocks in TMobile and 5 in Sprint. How much of the "head" company would you own in shares?

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 I understand very little about stocks so I am probably getting terms wrong. So T-Mobile and Sprint have just merged and I want to know what would happen if you previously owned 5 stocks in TMobile and 5 in Sprint. How much of the "head" company would you own in shares?

I am not familiar with the specifics of this deal, but one of two things (or a combination of the two) typically happens: - The purchasing company announces that all outstanding shares of the purchased company will be bought at $X/share. On the date of acquisition, all of the outstanding shares are bought for this price, regardless of whether or not the individual shareholder wishes to sell. - The purchasing company offers shares of their own stock in exchange for the shares of the purchased company. The ratio varies, but is disclosed well before hand. In both cases, the offers are put to either the board or the shareholders themselves for a vote (per the bylaws of the company being purchased). If the vote passes, it is binding on all shareholders.


Question: How does the Twin's Paradox work?

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 How does the Twin's Paradox work?

The Twins Paradox is an illustration of the process of Einsteinian time dilation. So, you start with a pair of twins, who are exactly the same age. One of them, Fred, remains on Earth, while the other, Wilbur, gets into a spaceship and embarks upon interstellar travel. Wilbur has a very powerful spaceship with immense acceleration (beyond present technology). He travels to Alpha Centauri, a star that is four and a half light years away, and it only takes him a week (ship-board time) to get there. Wilbur spends another week exploring the Centauri system and making fantastic scientific discoveries, but he doesn't want to stay away too long because he knows that his brother Fred misses him. He then travels back to Earth at high acceleration and again, it only take him a week, as measured by ship-board time. So he returns to Earth, 3 weeks older than when he left. However his brother Fred is now 9 years older. Time slows down in a spaceship travelling at close to the speed of light, relative to the rate at which time continues to pass on Earth. So the two twins, who were once the same age, are now paradoxically not the same age.


Question: How do neurosurgeons get to the middle of someone’s brain without damaging other parts of the brain?

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 How do neurosurgeons get to the middle of someone’s brain without damaging other parts of the brain?

In short, they don’t. Detailed imaging (pre-op MRI and intra-operative CT) are often used to create a robust surgical plan which includes trajectories, burr hole locations, and implant targets to minimize risk of bleeding, damage to important speech regions, etc. Unintended cognitive, personality, speech, and motor symptoms are not uncommon following major neurosurgery. These kinds of side effects are often temporary, but no guarantees. Source: neural engineer who studies deep brain stimulation.


Question: how to find the area between two curves limited by a y value?

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 how to find the area between two curves limited by a y value?

Another way you could do this, beyond what was previously stated, would be to reflect the red line over the line y=X and then find the area between the curves (both areas will be the same but you will be limited by the value of x=3 instead of y=3) So if you have the function y=x^2 /12 then the reflection is x = y^2 /12 meaning that you can find the area of the curve between y=x and y=(12x)^1/2 from 0 to 3 Both answers will be the same.


Question: How do bails bondsmen make their living?

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 How do bails bondsmen make their living?

You pay a portion of your bail to the bondsman and they put up the rest of the bail. If you put up the entire bail amount yourself, then you get it all back when you show up to court. If you don't have the entire amount, then you can give 10% to a bail bondsman. They keep the 10% and get their money back when you show up to court. So, if your bail is $10,000, you can give the bondsman $1,000 and they will put up the $10,000 to get you out of jail. They keep the $1,000 and get their $10,000 back when you show up to court. If you don't show up, the bondsman will likely try to track you down to avoid losing that $10,000 (i.e. hire a bounty hunter to find you -- the plot of many movies and whatnot).


Question: Why can you see reflections better off of darker surfaces if dark colors are supposed to absorb light?

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 Why can you see reflections better off of darker surfaces if dark colors are supposed to absorb light?

It's the difference between specular and diffuse reflection of light. Diffuse reflection occurs on rough surfaces, when light is scattered in many different directions. Diffuse reflection will give you roughly the same color of light from all perspectives. Specular reflection occurs on smooth surfaces, when light is mostly bounced all in the same direction. Specular reflection is closer to what you see in a mirror, where the light you see closely resembles the light source.


Question: How can Avicii die of alcoholism by the age of 28, but most of alcoholics I have heard about lived to their 60s or 70s?

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 How can Avicii die of alcoholism by the age of 28, but most of alcoholics I have heard about lived to their 60s or 70s?

Well it depends. there are varying degrees of abuse and functionality among alcoholics. Some may have an unhealthy amount ever night but don't drink and and drive or get drunk before work. Others are drunk more or less every waking hour. There's also genetics, he could have been predisposed to liver or pancreatic disorders. Then there is also the possibility of acute alcohol poisoning rather than long term disorders.


Question: When did drinking warm milk to help sleep become popular, and why if it doesn't work?

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 When did drinking warm milk to help sleep become popular, and why if it doesn't work?

Ask any newborn if drinking warm milk help them to sleep :) They won't answer because they can't talk *but if they could* they'd probably say that it does. The oldest mention of this practice that I am aware of is in the old testament in the story of [Jael]( URL_0 ). I'm sure there are probably even older references than that but the point is it's nothing new.


Question: Why is the Earth so warm, and the Space between us and the Sun so cold?

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 Why is the Earth so warm, and the Space between us and the Sun so cold?

Try this: Get a flashlight and point it at your toes. Why do your toes get brighter when a flashlight is shining on them but the space of air between the flashlight and your toes doesn’t get brighter? Light and heat are both just energy at different wavelengths. The heat from the sun is infrared (a longer wavelength than the color red)


Question: How do logic gates calculate their output?

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 How do logic gates calculate their output?

Yes, transistors are the building blocks of logic gates, which are the building blocks of computers. But they don't really 'calculate' their output: they're too simple for that. At its most basic, a transistor is a switch that lets electricity flow through it when it receives electricity from a "control" input. So for example: `power` `|` `T ----A` `|` `output` The transistor is labeled "T". If electricity is put in on input "A", electricity will flow from the power supply to the output. If "A" is off, nothing will flow to the output. So if we hook two transistors up in a chain: `power` `|` `T----A` `|` `T----B` `|` `output` electricity will only flow all the way to the output if there's electricity coming in on both input A **and** input B. This is an "AND" gate. But if we create two parallel paths like two lanes of a highway, and have A and B each control one "lane", then electricity will flow through if either A **OR** B is on. This is an OR gate. (Unfortunately I can't draw this with ascii art on Reddit.) ... and that's the starting point for all of computers.


Question: How come a remote with batteries that are almost dead, starts working when you slap it ?

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 How come a remote with batteries that are almost dead, starts working when you slap it ?

The ends of batteries get oxidized of time. This causes a 'coating' that doesn't transfer current between the battery and remote. When hitting it, or just fumbling with the battery. The battery moves and reconnects with the metal that it transfers its current to in a different position. Which can help work around that coating.


Question: How does a spot vision screener work?

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 How does a spot vision screener work?

I think you're referring to the "autorefractor". It shines infrared light into the eye (invisible, so the eye doesn't respond and close the iris) and measures the reflection off the back of the retina. From there, the device adjusts the lenses inside itself until the the reflection off the retina is "clear". This gives you a pretty good idea on where to start with regular vision testing. It's also the only way to test the vision of babies and young children who can't answer "Which is better? 1 or 2? 1.....or.....2?".


Question: "Stealth" Drones. How can a drone be "stealthy" if it must be constantly transmitting data in order to be remotely operated? Isn't radio silence a requirement for stealth in the modern battlefield?

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 "Stealth" Drones. How can a drone be "stealthy" if it must be constantly transmitting data in order to be remotely operated? Isn't radio silence a requirement for stealth in the modern battlefield?

Radio transmission can be directional. If you put a directional antenna on a drone and direct it to a satellite it would be close to impossible to detect it from below the drone. You might have a chance from a aircraft close and above the drone but that is hard to do Transmission to the drone do not need to be directed to it bout could cover countries or continents and if they are encrypted the would not help in detecting the drone. I would be easier to intercept if you had electronic intelligence satellite in the correct position in space but they are rare and few countries have any.


Question: What is the purpose of tracheostomies?

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 What is the purpose of tracheostomies?

I broke most of my face/jaw and they had to rebuild it. With that much work being done, I can't imagine there was a good way to keep me breathing through my mouth/nose. I'm guessing most of the time it's because of issues like that. Granted, I think the tracheostomy was the reason they took a chest x-ray every day \[and always when I was trying to rest ;) \] until the stoma healed to make sure there were no complications.


Question: how can a solar roof be cheaper than a regular roof?

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 how can a solar roof be cheaper than a regular roof?

So this is how I understand it which could be wrong and if so someone let me know. A solar roof cost more upfront to build than an normal one but a normal roof isnt doing anything after words. A solar roof is making and storing electricity and depending where you live you are either getting paid by the state for that energy or you are using that energy yourself saving money on your bill. So in the long run you get money back from the solar roof


Question: How do horses know a hit on the flank means "walk" ?

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 How do horses know a hit on the flank means "walk" ?

Training a horse (properly) is a very long process They should learn to move forward as youngsters, with a soft head collar and lead rope. Gentle forward pressure is used to encourage them to walk on, and this is usually combined with a vocal command such as a click, whistle or simply saying "walk on". Same goes for slowing or stopping and saying "whoah". As you move towards backing a horse (having weight/a rider on its back for the first time), you should be able to use these vocal commands on their own with little to no physical command in order to start/stop, or speed up/slow down. Next step once they're used to the weight and shift in balance that comes with carrying a rider (usually done with a second person in the ground to guide and reassure the horse), you then start to associate a touch on the side with the foot with the vocal command to go forwards, and the same with gentle rein pressure along with a "whoah" command. It takes a while, ideally vocal training should be done consistently from when foals are halter-trained until they're back at 3/4 years of age.


Question: - What is the 3 martini lunch tax break?

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 - What is the 3 martini lunch tax break?

Businesses can now deduct 100% of their "business meals" from their taxes versus 50%. So now you can go have a "3 martini lunch" with all your business friends and write the whole expense off your taxes. It's supposed to help out businesses by encouraging more dining out, but, as usual, it's just a tax break for the rich.


Question: How is carbon added to iron to make steel?

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</answer>
 How is carbon added to iron to make steel?

Gah, I just erased my long answer by accident. So, short explanation on steelmaking: you're not mining the actual iron, but different minerals, that are chemically iron-Oxides, for example fe3o4. In the blast-furnace process, coal is used to transform the iron oxide to elemental iron. (The coal is burned with the oxygen from the iron-Oxides.) There is more coal than ironoxide in the furnace, some carbon that is not burned will be dissolved in the liquid iron. You then obtain iron with ~4% carbon. This is too much for steel which contains only about 0,2% carbon. Therefore, another process is following where oxygen is blasted into the iron to burn the carbon out of the iron. Also, some other components like phosphorous, silicon etc.. are burned out of the steel. (The Linz-donawitz process is the most common procedure for that) at the end of this process, sometimes specific components are added to in order to vary the material properties of the steel. (alloying) Edit: some stuff didn't make sense


Question: Does Gerd destroy the lungs?

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 Does Gerd destroy the lungs?

I am a doctor and one of my specialties happens to be the lungs :) so hopefully I can help! GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease, aka chronic acid reflux, heartburn) doesn't "destroy" the lungs in the dramatic sense, but can cause serious damage ***over time*** if the acid reflux is severe enough that it repeatedly comes up the esophagus and spills back into the trachea and then down into the lungs themselves. I have seen a variety of damage from this which can range from: very *mild* (evidence of inflammation only seen on imaging such as CT scan) to *mild* (pesky chronic cough), to *moderate and severe* (frequent coughing, difficulty breathing, and significant abnormalities on imaging). I have even seen *very severe* where major structures of the lungs are severely damaged or scarred, and someone needs extra oxygen to breathe comfortably. It generally takes a long time of severe, untreated GERD for it to start seriously impacting your lungs -- and the first sign of a problem *usually* begins with more frequent need to "clear your throat", voice changes (hoarseness), and intermittent dry coughing because the acid irritates your vocal cords and upper windpipe (trachea) first, before it eventually affects the lungs themselves. However, some people do not even realize this is happening unfortunately, or do not feel symptoms of reflux, and thus it goes untreated. Depending on the extent of damage, it can sometimes be reversed if the reflux to the lungs stops (inflammation can be reversed but scarring and structural damage usually does not reverse). Anatomically, acid reflux should not be able to affect the heart at all because there is no connection from stomach acid that can reach the heart. GERD is relatively easy to treat with medication that your doctor can prescribe or that you buy over the counter at a local pharmacy. It is always important to get checked out if you have GERD symptoms consistently for longer than a few weeks/1 month time because it *may* be a sign of a more serious issue that needs to be addressed. Hope this helps!


Question: Why is cleaning one's room a sign of progress with depression?

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 Why is cleaning one's room a sign of progress with depression?

I've never suffered from depression. But my understanding from someone I know who has is it's a small victory, but an achievable one. It means, at the end of the day, you don't feel like you've yet again done nothing. You've tidied that pile of clothes into drawers. It's not much. It took 5 minutes. But you did it. And that's a victory. Apologies to anyone who suffers if I've got this wrong or misunderstood.


Question: what is the difference between a microscope and a telescope? I know micro is for small and tele is for far but what is the difference with magnification?

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 what is the difference between a microscope and a telescope? I know micro is for small and tele is for far but what is the difference with magnification?

The difference isn’t (just) magnification. If you look at magnification numbers, you’ll see that microscopes and telescopes overlap. The biggest difference, functionally, is something called focal distance. Focal distance is the distance from the lens that the object you’re focusing on should be when the device is in focus. Microscopes have very short focal distances, because the tiny things you’re focusing on are one centimeter or less from the lens. Telescopes have really long focal distances.


Question: Why do ballpoint pens stop working after writing over pencil lead?

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 Why do ballpoint pens stop working after writing over pencil lead?

Graphite is an extremely slippery substance and will coat or paint a thin layer onto many other surfaces, the ball of a ballpoint pen needs to rotate to bring a new inked surface to the paper, the graphite will either stop the ball from rotating or cover the surface of the ball in graphite.


Question: What do the authorities do with the money that is found from high end drug dealers?

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 What do the authorities do with the money that is found from high end drug dealers?

What on earth makes you think that asset forfeiture only applies to "high end drug dealers"? There are cases where people have had [their homes seized after being caught selling $40 worth of drugs]( URL_3 ), or because a visitor was caught with possession of small amounts of drugs. In the USA, civil forfeiture laws allow the police to seize assets on suspicion of a crime, the victim doesn't need to be found guilty or even charged with any crime. This is literally legalised theft, since the police can, and do, simply say that they "suspected" the money or property was the result of drug crime, and the victim has to prove that it wasn't. The authorities do whatever they want, since they write the laws. Some of them use it to fund the police, some of them use it as part of general revenue, some of them use it to buy [expensive and unnecessary military equipment]( URL_1 ), buy sports cars, fund holidays in Hawaii, and even pay for slushy machines. I'm not kidding or exaggerating. Some of them give the money to prosecutors and police as a personal bonus. So before you ask questions about "the authorities", you need to specify which ones. In the US, civil forfeiture is a lucrative money-making scam worth [literally billions of dollars]( URL_2 ), and more than 80% of people whose assets are legally stolen are never charged with a crime, and most of the rest are charged with only minor offenses. In some places, the same people who receive the seized property get to decide whether or not it was "drug related". Remember, the victim of this legalised theft doesn't need to be found guilty or even charged with any crime, and most of them aren't. The police just need to say they suspect that it might have been the proceeds of drug crime. More here: URL_0 URL_4


Question: How did early humans survive when babies wept constantly through the night?

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 How did early humans survive when babies wept constantly through the night?

Humans have never been pray nor stealth animals. We are predatorial pack animals. Want to find a human? Follow the loud, smelly horde that's putting up tents and fires. Children crying is probably going to be the last signal you as a predator need to locate the human tribe. We compensated with being somewhat dangerous predators ourselves. Our coordination and superiour tools kept us pretty well defended against predators that potentially wanted to attack. We didn't hide troughout the night, we had someone keep watch and if danger appeared we stood our ground and fought off the attacker. A smart predator most likely only attacked us once before realizing we're not easy pray.


Question: Why is running on a treadmill easier that running outside?

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 Why is running on a treadmill easier that running outside?

If we compare running on a treadmill that is spinning with some set speed to running outside on a flat surface at the same speed, then the only functional difference, as far as the runner is concerned, is the air resistance. It takes a bit less effort to run on a treadmill because you do not have to push the air in front of you out of the way. Those saying it is easier on a treadmill because you do not have to push your body forwards are incorrect. If you did not push yourself forward while the treadmill was pushing you back, you would fall off the treadmill. Frame of reference is indeed important here. Running without pushing yourself forward is called "running in place" and can be done just fine without a treadmill.


Question: Why do some drugs such as Trazodone/Gabapentin calm or put you to sleep at lower doses yet have opposite effects at higher doses?

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 Why do some drugs such as Trazodone/Gabapentin calm or put you to sleep at lower doses yet have opposite effects at higher doses?

Edit: I thought I was in the r/askscience sub lmfao sorry I am not a scientist but I have wondered the same thing before so I did a little research. Take anything I say with a grain of salt; just trying my hand at this. > Although its mechanism of action is not fully understood, the main pharmacological action of trazodone is blockade of the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor (1mg of trazodone roughly blocked half of brain 5-HT2A receptors). Increasing trazodone dose (50mg) causes antagonism on histamine H1 and α1-adrenergic receptors. The blocking of the 5-HT2A, histamine H1, and alpha receptors is thought to produce the hypnotic effect reported for low doses of trazodone (25–100mg).11 At these low doses, trazodone induces and maintains sleep without causing daytime drowsiness or tolerance, mainly because of its short half-life (3–6 hours). [Source]( URL_0 ) I found this info on trazadone but haven’t looked into the other substances you mentioned yet. So what I took away from this is that while the exact mechanism of action of trazadone is still unknown, we DO know that only as little as 1mg of it can produce the hypnotic effects that combat insomnia. Also, at higher doses trazadone will act as an antagonist to the histamine H1 and a1 adrenic receptors. This is where it goes over my head but I think that the interference of one or both of these receptors could produce an effect on your body that makes the hypnotic effect less viable. I believe agonism of the histamine receptor causes hypotension so the antagonist response could be hypertension which in turn would make it harder to fall asleep. I have no idea what antagonism of the adrenic receptor would constitute. Another substance that works better at lower doses is Melatonin btw. I hope someone more qualified than myself comes along to answer your questions! :)


Question: why does RAM not have the same issue of limited write cycles that solid state drives do?

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 why does RAM not have the same issue of limited write cycles that solid state drives do?

I'm going to try and ELI5 this, so *please* do not consider this a *technical* response. So, RAM has data written to it a lot, but it doesn't need to be *permanent*. That is, when you turn your computer off, and the RAM has no more power, you don't care what happens to the data. An SSD needs to retain that data without power. So, one way to think about this, is that you have to write the data *harder* (you know how I said non-technical?) Because you're doing that, it also wears out faster. Compare it to, say, writing on a whiteboard you can erase and reuse to writing on a piece of paper using a pencil and then using an eraser on that paper each time.


Question: what is the mechanism for prescription drugs that cause weight gain? Do they slow your metabolism or make you overeat?

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 what is the mechanism for prescription drugs that cause weight gain? Do they slow your metabolism or make you overeat?

Could be either and more. Some drugs slow your system down. Some cause you to retain water. Some make you overeat. For example, it's very common if you are on a steroid, that you will eat a lot more, and retain water. Also, you get cravings for sugars. All this leads to weight gain. Some drugs just slow down your metabolism and make you burn less calories than you normally would. So if you don't eat less, you gain weight. Some also just make you very tired, and if you sleep more, you won't be using as many calories. It's all about chemicals, and I don't know all the details, but I do know that when we put drugs in our systems and it messes with our chemical makeup our bodies do wild and crazy things.


Question: Why is space expanding? Can we detect it? If so, what causes it to expand? If not, is there a theoretical way to detect what causes it to expand?

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 Why is space expanding? Can we detect it? If so, what causes it to expand? If not, is there a theoretical way to detect what causes it to expand?

> The way I understand it is that space is expanding constantly and while the expansion itself isn't faster than the speed of light, it appears that way because there is just so much space. How 'fast' the expansion is depends on how far apart two points are, so saying it's faster or slower than something doesn't *really* make sense. The distance at which it becomes faster than light is the cut-off point of what we call the *observable universe*, because obviously light will never reach us coming from a galaxy that's moving away from us at faster than the speed of light. > Is that how space is expanding? To the best of our knowledge, space is not made of discrete cells. There are some theories which try formalizing something like this (e.g. loop quantum gravity) but the only accepted theory of the universe (general relativity) treats space as an infinitely divisible continuum. Of course, we also know that general relativity is wrong, because it breaks down at quantum scales. So the true answer is "we don't know". > Do we know how and/or why space is expanding? No. We do know some things though: For one, space seems to have expanded *very, very* rapidly in the early universe, driven by some unknown force. We call this "inflation", and attempt at modeling it have sometimes attributed the cause to some currently-unknown "inflation field". As of today we have no evidence for or against these theories. Also, the expansion of space seems to be *accelerating*. We don't know what causes this acceleration, which is why we gave it the name *dark energy*. So in a way, it's accurate to say that "dark energy causes the expansion", but that doesn't really answer the question because we don't know anything about dark energy other than that it causes the expansion of the universe. The best guess we have at what dark energy could be is that it's caused by random quantum fluctuations, but the rate of expansion predicted by the latter and the rate of expansion we measure are off by 120 orders of magnitude. So the correct answer is "we don't know". > Can we "zoom" in to see it? No. Certainly not at the energy scales we've been probing. The largest microscope ever built (the LHC) hasn't been able to detect anything relevant to quantum gravity or dark matter / dark energy. Of course, particle physics remain convinced that if only we had an *even bigger* microscope, we *should* see something.