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Steam is from boiled water, which is bacteria-free. Non-boiled water can contain brain-eating amoebas also known as Naegleri fowleri. The scary part is it's 97% fatality rate.

Nose is meant to inhale gases (air). Water vapour is a natural component of air, and is a gas. Liquid water is neither of those two things (even though you can inhale liquid water if you immediately spit it out through the mouth, it’s a cleansing technique).

That isn't why it's called universal. Universal serial bus means common. It was developed to do away with all the different interfaces we had before. Serial, parallel, PS2, gameport, etc. You think having usb mini/micro, Thunderbolt, etc is annoying now, it was atrocious 25 years ago.

I know it's not true in general, that's why I said it's an oversimplification. Given we're explaining vector calculus to a five year old, though, I thought it would be OK. What is true, though, is that if a vector field only has a single component then the curl does have to be perpendicular to the field. That's what's going on with linearly polarized light, and why I didn't feel too bad about oversimplifying.

The problem is that fevers can suddenly spike dangerously high with no warning, and there’s a limited amount of time to try to get it under control before there is harm to the brain. So it’s good to try to control the mechanisms that could cause that by taking medications that lower the temperature. Fevers are designed to try to kill infection, but it’s an imperfect biological response that could kill the person instead of help them. Especially in babies.

Really cool, thank you!

And highly dangerous. I’m still alive but it wasn’t a great time

Note that the latest medical evidence is that those old home remedies were wrong.

The general medical consensus is that there is no harm in taking paracetamol or ibuprofen to reduce a fever. It will not prolong the illness or reduce the body's ability to fight it, so it's okay to take some as needed for comfort.

Don't believe me, believe actual medical professionals from mainstream publications:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/well/live/fever-infection-drugs-tylenol-acetaminophen-ibuprofen-advil-aspirin.html

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-355008565371

I'm sure you can find some doctors who disagree. But this is most definitely the consensus of the vast majority.

104 is too high. 101 is typically when I’ve experienced doctors start prescribing meds

That makes sens, thanks!

For conversion purposes, 40°C = 104°F :)

Not necessarily, there are other dangers with that as well. But if you stay below a reasonable temp (I’m in the us and don’t want to convert) then it’s also not necessarily bad to do that. Old home remedies actually encouraged the high temp in order to make it happen faster

That's when the fever gets too high, I get that -- but does that mean as long s it's safely below 40°C (or the adequate threshold for elderly, infants, etc.), it is better to keep it going?

That's when the fever gets too high, I get that -- but does that mean as long s it's safely below 40°C, it is better to keep it going?

Because sometimes the body gets too hot in its effort to save you and you end up melting your brain. Fevers are really the bodies last line of defense… think of it like a war of attrition. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how healthy you were, sometimes you just die

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It really depends on age, body, health, etc. Long and uncontrolled fever can be harmful beyond discomfort. Older people, those suffering from chronic illnesses or babies should not be with high fever over long periods of time. It also matters if the fever lasts a day or two or weeks.

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You're actually supposed to do a handstand.

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