What are the fundamental differences between the DC Comics and Marvel Comics characters and universes?

Regarding characters,

In the DC universe a superpower was never seen as anything but a gift. Superman was an escapist fantasy for boys about attaining ultimate power.  He was the strongest being on the earth! He could fly! He only had one weakness and it was a substance that couldn't even be found on the earth!

For DC characters attaining a superpower was always a gift.  it made you a better person and it didn't just give you more power it let you reach the zenith of that power.  No one was stronger than Superman.  No one was faster than the Flash.  Superpowers made you unstoppable!

Meanwhile, in the Mavel universe, the Fantastic Four attain powers that scare the hell out of them and make them freaks in the eyes of the world. The scene where they realize they have changed is more akin to a horror movie than a power fantasy.  Johnny Storm is on fire, Reed Richards body is seemingly collapsing on a moolecular level, he can't see his wife because she's turned invisible and Ben Grimm has become nothing short of a monster, a fact that will haunt him for the rest of his life. 

These were real people dealing with real issues in a real New York.  They beahved as a family would.  They would fight and make up.  They had money problems to worry about.  And they had these messed up superpowers to deal with.  The notion that a superpower didn't automatically make you an unstoppable force for good but could actually be a burden was phenomenal!

The formula was so successful that it would be repeated again and again.
Radiation made the Hulk the strongest being in the Marvel universe but it also turned him into a monster that the world feared and wanted destroyed.
Daredevil got an awesome radar sense but he had to sacrifice his sight.

And then the greatest of all Marvel creation's put the reader into the book like nothing at DC ever had.  Spider-man was a teenage boy! He was the reader! An outcast at school.  Lonely.  He became Spider-man and lived the power fantasy for all of a few pages before the arrogance resulting from his new found power indirectly leads to his uncles death.

The reader could identify with Peter Parker on a level far beyond cool superpowers.  And that was the fundamental difference between DC and Marvel characters.

What is an intuitive explanation of quantum tunneling?

In usual English tunnels are things that you form when you dig a hole to connect two valleys

In order to tunnel effectively you generally need to know what valley you want to reach and you then pick a spot to start shoveling that minimizes the energy you must expend digging

Why dig? Because it takes less energy walking through a tunnel rather than hiking over the mountain every time you want to visit the next valley, so over time the effort is worth it.

This is the analogy with quantum tunneling with an odd twist.

If an electron wants to get somewhere that is a valley separated by a mountain blocking its path (not a valley in gravity but a valley in electric potential) it must expend energy to “hike” up the electric potential (voltage) mountain to then slide down to the next valley.

Without assistance from outside stimulae the electron will never have that energy to do so so it is stuck in the valley.

But wait! The Lords of quantum have bequeathed the lowly electron with an awesome power, like the knight on a chessboard it can move around obstacles in its path! How? To explore this imagine the electron debating with the Lord of Quantum:

Electron: “Lord Heisenburg, thou sayest my position is uncertain and my uncertainty in position times my uncertainty in momentum is never less than a fixed value given by the equation bearing your name. I wish to vanish from this valley and reappear in the next.”

Lord Heisenburg: “Impossible, you lack the energy I require to climb the voltage wall; the beautiful voltage wall that I have set in place to imprison you.”

Electron: “Lord Heisenburg, I hereby beseech you to measure my momentum to great precision. Do you grant my request?”

Lord Heisenburg: “Whilest I choose to imprison you in this valley I am nonetheless a benevolent Lord. I grant your request.”

Electron: “Lord Heisenburg you are a great Lord. Your laws are upheld throughout the land. Your uncertainty law is as constant and immutable as your energy law which mandates I climb the hill yes?”

Lord H: “Yes electron you speaketh the truth.”

Electron: “Therefore since you have now measured my momentum precisely my position is largely unknown lest the product violate your glorious law. Correct?”

Lord H: “Yes electron you speaketh the truth.”

Electron: “And even the great Lord H must obey his own laws?”

Lord H: “Yes electron you speaketh the truth.”

Electron: “But I must remain in this valley by virtue of the law of electric potential?”

Lord H: “Yes electron you speaketh the truth.”

Electron: “Then I must be in a state of superposition of being in both valleys at the same time. And if you try to measure my position you may find I am actually in the other valley.”

Lord H: “Arrrggggghhhhh my wall my beautiful wall (sobbing sounds) is undone. My prison destroyed at my own decries! Woe is me!”

Are there genetic differences between races?

Humans do show some phenotypic and genotypic variation by geographical  origin. Geographic isolation after human migrations, and natural or sexual  selection, have resulted in some alleles being more frequent in some groups that in others, and ancestry determines the distribution of these gene variants, but this is only for a few genes. That is basically the whole concept of "race" from a biological point of view. It is a fuzzy one, because there is no precise demarcation between ethnic groups, as humans have been migrating and moving around the globe for a long time, in different migratory waves. In today's world, with globalization and relatively easy world travel, geographic isolation is a diminishing parameter. We meet and fall in love with people whose recent ancestors came from all the continents in the world. It makes even less sense nowadays to think of human ethnic groups as "pure races" or "breeds".

If we feed genomic data from thousands of people from all over the world, and we use algorithms to find relatedness or to build trees or to find patterns of genetic variation, we will get clusters that show that genetics mimic geography to a large extent. But this is a pretty trivial fact, and it makes perfect sense that people who have lived together within one geographical region for thousands of years or even shorter times will share more gene variants in common. If you use genomic data from just Europeans, gene frequencies closely mirror geography . And like the great Italian human population geneticist Luigi   Cavalli-Sforza reminds us, if we feed one of these programs genomic data  from people in neighboring tiny Tuscan towns, they will pick up genetic   differences between the inhabitants of neighboring towns Sienna and Florence. Geography is a better determinant of genetics than "ethnicity" (of course,  depending  on how we describe ethnicity; for those not in the US,  remember that  "Hispanic" is an ethnicity) (Geography is a better determinant of human genetic differentiation than ethnicity). A recent example was just published, finding genetic differences in people original from the British Isles: these people all look the same, the Welsh, the Cornish, etc., but you can differentiate them genetically if you compare them to each other, because of the intrinsic genetic variation and its association to geography  (Fine-scale Genetic Map of Britain Gives Clues to Ancient Population Movements).

In the scientific community, nobody doubts that ancestry is not of medical importance, for example when it comes to genetic risk for certain diseases, predictors of treatment success, or even as confounding factor for genome wide association studies (GWAS, Genome-wide association study) aiming at finding gene variants associated with traits.

However, does all of this say that race is not a social construct? It depends how you define "social construct" and in which context. If you ask me, it's hard to minimize the importance of race as a social construct when Barack Obama will be forever know as the first US black president when genetically speaking he is as much white as he is black. The fact that everyone perceives Mr. Obama as black speaks volumes as to the importance of allelic frequencies in this debate: absolutely zero. He is black, because to a country who was founded by Northern European immigrants who pushed back the native American populations, and brought people from Africa as slaves, where their descendants are still subject to discrimination on the basis of skin color, hair type, or general "looks", the social concept of race trumps any scientific basis for it.

Ken Malik (ABOUT) who has a scientific (neurobiology) background as well as one in the philosophy of science, wrote a very good article a few years ago on the subject of race as biological reality, or social construct, which I highly recommend as it is very well written and very informative: WHY BOTH SIDES ARE WRONG IN THE RACE DEBATE

Regarding the majority of the variation being present within groups, Ken Malik explains it masterfully by summarizing two key studies:

Imagine that some nuclear nightmare wiped out the entire human race  apart from one small population – say, the Masai tribe in East Africa.  Almost all the genetic variation that exists in the world today would  still be present in that one small group. That is a dramatic way of  expressing the results of a landmark analysis conducted by the  geneticist Richard Lewontin in 1972. Lewontin showed that virtually the  entire range of human differences – 85 per cent – occurred between  individuals within single populations. A further 7 per cent  differentiated between populations within a race. Only 8 per cent of  total variation distinguished what we call the major races.
Since 1972 other researchers have confirmed that 85 per cent of variation exists within a population. The results of a 2002 study by Noah Rosenberg and his colleagues were even more striking. They showed that  differences among individuals account for a staggering 93-95 percent of  all genetic variation. About 2 per cent is taken up by differences  between populations within a race. And race accounts for just 3-5 per  cent of all human difference. The study also found that almost half of  the alleles appeared in every major population in the world. Only 7.4  per cent of alleles were exclusive to one region, and such alleles  tended to be very rare. Rosenberg’s study is the largest of its kind and  hence the figures are likely to be the most accurate.

Wishful thinking cannot inform policy, but neither should "sciencebabble".

What should be the point of film? Should it for entertainment or to send a message?

Both.  It is generally too simplistic to ask "what is the point" because things generally have more than one purpose.

Film is art.  Film is commerce.  Film is spectacle.  Film is documentarian.  Film is protest.  Film is stimulus.  Film is conversation.  Film is amusement.

Studios are businesses.  They make films to provide a financial return to their investors.  Film is their product.  They make films they believe a large audience will pay to see. 

Writers, directors, and actors are artists and entertainers and storytellers and employees of the studio.  They want to create art.  They want to please the audience.  They want the studios to see them as good investments and thus to provide more work at greater reward.

The audience is complex.  Going to the cinema is a form of entertainment.  They want to have a good time.  Depending on their mood, they want to be told a story that will excite, amuse, thrill, scare, motivate, or communicate.

My view of film is that great film is both entertainment and art.  Art is an expression that says something about the human experience.  A great film should have something important to say, but it should do so in a way that is entertaining.  Film is modern storytelling.  A good storyteller enthralls their audience, completely capturing their attention and stimulating their emotions while simultaneously leaving them with something to think about after the story is told.  A good storyteller teaches their audience something without making the audience ever feel lectured.

Here is a diagram I made that explains how I think about film.  I believe if film has a main purpose, it is to try to be in the top right corner of the chart.

How much did the Rogue One reshoots and Tony Gilroy's involvement affect the final film?

Rogue One underwent extensive reshoots back in June 2016 which, as claimed by the production team, is standard procedure. They brought in Gilroy to help out. How much did the final movie differ from Edwards’ original cut that resembled a war film? Are there any details of what was altered?

Unless they deliberately shot footage for the trailers as a misdirection tactic it's clear from the sheer quantity of material in the trailers that didn't end up in the movie that Rogue One changed a lot in post production, reshoots and edits. The interesting question is how much was bolstering elements of plot and character that were there already and how much was patching holes in something that was not entirely working?

Given that they've got a solid commercial, critical and fan hit on their hands I hope we'll get an in-depth and spin free look at the production at some stage. I think it would be fascinating. How different would the movie have been? How much was cut for time and how much for restructuring?

I think it's clear that at one stage Jyn and Cassian escaped the citadel tower with the plans and went elsewhere to transmit them. Maybe back to the Rogue One shuttle. There were shots of Jyn crossing the beach and running through the citadel tower set with the plans in her hand.

(TIE fighter hovering at the end of the gantry in the trailer, but not in the movie)

Almost everything in the final trailer is in the movie but there is a lot in the teaser and first full trailer that was cut. Some iconic moments included:

• Krennic on the beach with his cape trailing in the water — gone.
• Stormtroopers wading through the shallows — gone.
• Jyn in the vault corridor — mostly gone.
• “On your own since the age of 15” — gone.
• “This is a rebellion isn't it? I rebel” — gone.
• Captured rebel pilots on Jedha — gone (leaving an unexplained crashed X-Wing in the background when Chirrut saves Jyn and Cassian).
• “The captain says you are a friend, I will not kill you” — gone.
• “There is a 97.6% chance of failure” — gone.
• TIE fighter hovering at the end of the gantry — gone.
• “The power that we are dealing with here is immeasurable” — gone, along with any suggestion Vader was ever aboard the Death Star.
• It looks like there was originally a longer flashback scene with (bald) Saw Guerrera too.

Pablo Hidalgo said that the ending did not change. Whether that means the “everyone dies” climax of the mission, the Tantive IV’s escape, or both I'm not sure.

I don't think anyone could watch the final cut and claim Disney interfered to tone the movie down. It's very intense and very much a war movie.

What are some major differences between the USA as portrayed on television vs. the real USA?

School sitcom vs. real life:

Breakfast

TV: Mom, dad, and sibling(s) are leisurely occupying a sun-drenched kitchen while enjoying a breakfast feast of eggs, bacon, pancakes, toast, milk, juice, sausage links, hamsteaks, hash browns, and omelettes. The main character briskly walks through, exchanges some witty banter, then heads out the open door in shorts and a t-shirt to walk to school with their BFF.

Life: It's pitch black outside. No one interacts with each other due to their different schedules. You pour yourself a bowl of sugary cereal to accompany your pop-tart before putting on your winter coat (since 90% of the school year is at least jacket weather unless you're in LA) before heading out into the teeth-chattering cold to wait at the bus stop unless you're old enough to drive.

School

TV: Since people apparently don't have classes, they instead opt to spend 90% of their time at their lockers, looking at their character-synopsizing locker decorations until someone inevitably comes by to discuss entertaining drama; drama which no one else notices since there are a sum total of 16 other people wandering casually through the hallway.

Life: You have negative 4 minutes to get from one class to another. More likely then not, you don't even have time to stop at your locker—due to the 10 people per square foot stepping on each other's heels to get to their next class—but if you do, the only person you see is your awkward locker neighbor, whose schedule you have memorized.

Lunch

TV: Despite the questionable nature of the cafeteria food, everyone nonetheless eats it. People drift from table to table to chat casually with their neighbors.

Life: People pack lunches of half-assed sandwiches and processed foods. The over-full seating, ominous proctors and peer-pressure status quo prevent people from ever moving around.

After school

TV: The kitchen and living room (which are always surgically clean) comprise a revolving door of entertaining action fed by a rotating cast of characters (such as next-door neighbors and relatives) who wander in and out unannounced. At dinner, the family sits down together over a home-cooked meal to discuss their day.

Life: On the rare occasion that two people's schedules permit them to occupy the same (messy) house at the same time, they spend it in opposite corners of the house with their eyes glued to various screens. But mostly, parents are at work or running errands; and kids, when not setting new historical precedents for overcommitment with their after-school activities and homework, are distracting themselves on the internet. Dinner—either takeout or something that came from a box—is deposited on the table to be collected whenever opportunity arises. Also, unless it's a classmate coming over to work on a group project, no one visits your house during the week—especially not the neighbors you barely know.

Captain

Is Captain America technically a captain? Did he ever actually obtain that rank? If he is ever promoted, will he still be called a Captain ?

The answer depends on which media you're looking at.

In the film Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers enlists into the Army as a private (rank E-1). Upon his successful transition via the Super Soldier serum and a training period of some length, he is promoted to the literal rank of Captain (O-3), as shown by his dress uniform rank insignia.

In the comic books, however, the answer is a little more complicated.

Beginning in World War II, the "secret identity" of Captain America was in fact his real name and enlisted rank, i.e. - Private Steve Rogers, who deliberately acted the part of a soldier so inept they couldn't even risk sending him to battle, so he remained stationed at an Army base in Virginia as a cover for his operations as Captain America.

This is where the question of Cap's "real" rank becomes tricky because of the complicated continuity. Depending on who was writing it, either Captain America was really just an Army private, or he was in fact a commissioned captain who was merely posing as an Army private as part of his cover story.

To make things even more complicated, when he is operating in the battlefield as Captain America per se, his designation as "Captain" becomes a far more grandiose title than mere rank might suggest. Owing to the advanced tactical and strategic training he has been given, in addition to his security clearance levels and combat experience, any time "Captain" America engages with the U.S. military, he does so with full operational authority over all forces. For all intents and purposes, he outranks any other military officer in the room, even if that officer is a full four-star general or admiral.

Yet despite this insane level of authority, I believe that even in the present he still formally draws pay from the U.S. military as if he was just plain old O-3 Captain Rogers.