title list | over_18 list | post_content stringlengths 0 9.37k ⌀ | C1 list | C2 list | C3 list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"Historically, from an evolutionary standpoint, is premature ejaculation considered an advantage or a hindrance?"
] | [
false
] | I'm asking this question mostly from a human-centric standpoint, but I'd be interested in knowing the answer for other species as well. It clearly is currently considered a hindrance since mating judgments take the female's pleasure into account as well, but how about from a macro perspective or from when things like ... | [
"I'd imagine it'd be an advantage. Some species go through elaborate ruses to mate with females, such as disguising themselves as other females so they can infiltrate the alpha males harem and mate with his females, then skidaddle on out of there. Premature ejaculation would be an advantage because he wouldn't ha... | [
"Lastly, if we assume there is in fact some genetic component then we have to consider the trade-offs. 'Premature ejaculation' does allow for a higher chance to successfully mate, but the longer the sex/foreplay goes on then the more sperm will be transferred to the female.",
"By longer the sex, do you mean the l... | [
"Lastly, if we assume there is in fact some genetic component then we have to consider the trade-offs. 'Premature ejaculation' does allow for a higher chance to successfully mate, but the longer the sex/foreplay goes on then the more sperm will be transferred to the female.",
"By longer the sex, do you mean the l... |
[
"Why does a sewing needle become magnetized when pushed/pulled through fabric for a lengthy period of time?"
] | [
false
] | I tried a google search, but almost everything I could find related to how to magnetize a needle to make a home-made compass. I think it has something to do with the friction making the electrons move in different patterns, but that could be way off. Just curious about something I noticed. | [
"I'd never heard of this effect. Does it actually happen? Have you ever seen it?",
"Our current model for magnetism in ferrous materials is that there are microscopic regions (\"domains\") in a piece of ferrous metal. When you apply a magnetic field, some of them become aligned with it. As the number of aligned d... | [
"On multi needle (therefore multi colour) embroidery machines the colours not in use are immobilised by magnetic strips holding them against the back plate. This would be about two inches above the needles. "
] | [
"More likely than not, the needle was already magnetized and the fabric did nothing to it.",
"You can magnetize a needle by rubbing it on a magnet. The magnetic field is necessary here.",
"You can also end up giving the needle some electric charge by moving it along certain fabrics that have some electric charg... |
[
"What are current theories regarding events prior to The Big Bang?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"None. The nature of the big bang theory makes it 100% impossible to theorize scientificly about \"before\" the big band. In fact \"before the big bang\" doesn't really make sense. The big bang was the start of everything including time. Before the big bang time did not exist, so there can't be a \"before\" in a sp... | [
"Without a predictive theory of quantum gravity, this is mere speculation. The big bang could be the beginning of time, or merely the start of the current cycle of the cosmos according to various hypothesized models (eg brane cosmology or Penrose's recent proposal of conformal cylces).",
"Also note that under app... | [
"I've done some research on the subject, there are two main theories that try to describe things before the big bang (both assume that there already was an universe before the big bang)",
"(Because all the energy and matter gets consentratet in one small space, time and space start to glitch out so every universe... |
[
"I have (roughly) a pound and a half of pure mercury I procured in high school. What should I do to dispose of it?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Give it to your dentist and see if he or she would take it and dispose of it with amalgam scraps."
] | [
"If you were local to me (Oregon) I'd pay you for it."
] | [
"Not ",
"this",
"."
] |
[
"Does love have the same chemical effect in man and woman?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Though it's a huge simplification to say that 'romance' is triggered by one single physiological agent, oxytocin is one of the hormones which are generaly related to things like love and romance. Turn out that estrogen regulates oxytocin activity. Since females have higher titres of estrogen, this 'love'-signal is... | [
"Too vague. Romantic love? Parental love? THere are different hormones for example involved in parental love for each sex. What are u asking about?"
] | [
"I'm sorry. I meant romantic love."
] |
[
"Why does putting a plastic bag over a credit card help it scan?"
] | [
false
] | As a cashier, I have many customers whose credit/debit cards do not scan properly. The first thing I always try is to put a plastic bag over the magnetic strip and swipe it again. Why does this work? | [
"All it is doing is making the card thicker and thus removing some of the play in the swiping motion. This allows it to make more direct and controlled contact. Next time you have on that won't work just slow down you swipe a little and apply force on the card in the direction of the reading edge. "
] | [
"This is basically the conclusion that I came to after working as a cashier for several years. You aren't cleaning anything with the plastic bag as it is just as likely to work on the 1st swipe as the 10th. It also works with a slip of paper wrapped/folded over the card."
] | [
"I've also seen people put sticky tape over the strip. Works flawlessly, again, because it just makes the card thicker and takes away sideways movement while swiping, but it ridiculously hard to get back off after, especially if left there for a long period of time, and I've seen some of the strip come off on the t... |
[
"Organ donation: is there a \"shelf\" life of how long an organ could \"live\"?"
] | [
false
] | I might have titled the post poorly but my curiosity is on one question: theoretically, is it possible for an organ to "live" forever if it keeps being donated and transplanted? For example, a donated heart is transplanted to person A who then donated the heart to be transplanted to person B after person A dies. Would ... | [
"No. First normal life applies in this case so \"forever\" is not a usable term here. All cells eventually die, in humans anyway. And no longer replicate, this is why people die of organ failure at an advanced age with no pre-existing condition. ",
"Next, the organ dies a little when it's taken out of a live pati... | [
"You cannot re-donate an organ. They're too damaged from the toxic immunosuppressants transplant patients must take, from the recipients rejection of the organ, and from the stress of the transplant operations. ",
"I read recently the average lifespan of a transplanted organ is 4 or 5 years. That varies by orga... | [
"To expand on the fact that eventually cells no longer replicate, it seems useful to point out that this is due to the telomeres. These are sections of repeating DNA at both ends of a chromosome that can't be completely copied each time the cells replicate. Once they are used up, the actual useful DNA would start t... |
[
"AskScience AMA Series: I'm Sliman Bensmaia, PhD, a neuroscientist who studies the sense of touch and how it informs motor control in order to develop better neuroprosthetics. AMA!"
] | [
false
] | Hi reddit, I'm Sliman Bensmaia! As a neuroscientist, my overall scientific goal is to understand how nervous systems give rise to flexible, intelligent behavior. I study this question through the lens of sensory processing: how does the brain process information about our environment to support our behavior? Biomedical... | [
"I don’t really work in this particular arena, but from a neuroscience perspective, “practice makes perfect” is related to how your brain sends and reinforces signals. There’s an old saying that “neurons that fire together, wire together,” meaning that when you repeat the same motion over and over, your brain will ... | [
"Practice makes perfect. Why is that?",
"For example, take free throw shots in basketball. It probably takes only a few tries for your brain to figure out the fine details of what is required to make a free throw. But our brain and body don't always get it right and our accuracy is improved with practice. ",
"W... | [
"Fun question! If you grafted tongue skin on your fingertips and if the skin and the taste receptors survived, you would be able to put your finger on or into a food or beverage and sense it. However, you would experience it as a touch, not a taste. Keep in mind, also, that most of the flavor actually stems from re... |
[
"Standing on the beach with no air disturbance or haze, how far away is the point where the horizon and ocean merge?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I assume by \"perfect conditions\", you mean we're pretending the Earth is a perfect sphere. In reality, of course, this isn't true, but it makes calculations much easier.",
"In that case, there are ",
" two things that matter - the height of the person, and the size of the sphere. A taller person will be ab... | [
"The formula pseudonym1066 provides here gives you the distance in kilometers if you enter your height in meters.",
"The result in general units is the square root of 2",
", where ",
" is the radius of the Earth (or whatever other planet you might be on!) and ",
" is your height above the surface. This wor... | [
"3.57 ",
"? There has to be a unit here."
] |
[
"Is there an \"optical superconductor\" similar to an electron superconductor? Could you make a perpetual light loop similar to a persistent current in a standard superconductor loop?"
] | [
false
] | I know that you can create a . I was curious if there was a light equivalent to electron superconductivity, and if so, could you theoretically do the same loop trick. And if there isn't an equivalent, why not? I suppose I'm picturing a super-cooled piece of fiber, which I'm not sure makes any difference at all to light... | [
"They don't last forever because if inherent imperfections in their construction.",
"Actually, it's not only due to imperfections in their construction, it's ",
" for them to continue forever (barring the perpetual motion argument). From my understanding, the whispering gallery resonators can be likened to a c... | [
"The light-analogue of a conducting (or insulating, semiconducting, etc) material is called a photonic crystal. There is a type of photonic crystal called a Whispering Gallery Resonator where the light can constantly be reflected around in a circle, being totally internally reflected from the edges. They don't las... | [
"Very interesting, thanks for the reply. Are the conduction properties dependent on temperature as superconductors are?",
"Also, according to ",
"Wikipedia",
", \"Photonic crystals are periodic optical nanostructures that affect the motion of photons in much the same way that ionic lattices affect electrons i... |
[
"Why do geothermal plants produce steam?"
] | [
false
] | I know they boil water, but I was looking at some diagrams of several power plants and found that they include a condensation unit. Why is there still steam emitted, despite the presence of this piece of machinery? | [
"Are you thinking of a cooling tower? All thermal power generating plants have some waste heat to dissipate (if they didn't they would be violating the laws of Thermodynamics with a 100% efficient process). Usually this excess heat is rejected through evaporative cooling via a cooling tower, which is the large cy... | [
"A condenser is actually a required part of any heat engine and has nothing to do with water conservation. The Carnot cycle would not complete without a heat removal step, and in the simplest sense the net work the plant does is directly proportional to the ratio of the low temperature during the condensing stage a... | [
"The condenser is definitely not required to turn a steam turbine. It does improve the overall efficiency of the system, but the reason it is a closed loop system is to recirculate the water. ",
"Noncondensing turbines are used all the time where there is a need for process steam. "
] |
[
"What happens to the human body when exposed to the vacuum of space?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Just lots of questions about dead bodies on the moon.",
"Do they not at least answer part of your question? Also, check out ",
"this thread",
" in ",
"/r/sciencefaqs",
"."
] | [
"They seemed more about decaying. I'm interested in how long you could keep from being a dead body yourself."
] | [
"From the thread I linked to:",
"A human in vacuum can survive without permanent injury for about 30 seconds, according to NASA, provided that you don't try to hold your breath. It is estimated that you won't live beyond ~2 minutes...",
"The answers are all there."
] |
[
"Would it be possible for a large/dense enough planet to have a Sun orbiting it?"
] | [
false
] | And if so, would said sun be warm/large enough to effectively warm the planet to the stage where life could exist? | [
"Theoretically it should be possible, but I can't imagine a scenario in which the initial conditions would be such that it could take place. ",
"As other people have mentioned, a planet that is more massive than a star should, in fact, sustain fusion. However, if the planet was composed of material \"further alo... | [
"Around 13 times the mass of Juipter."
] | [
"Not an astronomer, but AFAIK: A planetary object, by definition, is something not massive enough to sustain fusion and thus being a star. So a planet should ",
" be more massive than a star. "
] |
[
"What is 'Excited Delirium' and how can you die from it?"
] | [
false
] | I got on a 'police video' binge recently and I must have watched 5 or more videos where a person dies (seemingly) from just being bound/restrained/handcuffed. They seem to go from alert and awake, to unresponsive and not breathing in a matter of just 2-3minutes. Has anyone studied 'Excited delirium'? Is it possible for... | [
"The issue with 'excited delirium' is that it's more of a description of a physical state than an actual diagnosis. It describes a person being highly agitated with disorganized thought processes. It doesn't point to an underlying cause. In face there can be quite a number of different causes as outlined by the pap... | [
"Too much lactic acid in your system is known as lactic acidosis and can cause death in extreme cases. This doesn't happen in healthy people as your body has ways of preventing toxic build up through your liver and kidneys. Most causes of lactic acidosis are due to diseases preventing these organs from functioning"... | [
"Thanks for your answer. And what about my third question (if you're able to answer): Is it possible for a human to die if they have too much 'lactatic acid' or 'lactate' or maybe even adrenaline in their system, and then are restrained, so their body can't 'burn it off'?"
] |
[
"Why do I feel like I need to cough when I stick a q-tip in my ear?"
] | [
false
] | I know you're not supposed to do it, but I still do. When I stick a Q-tip in my ear, I get this overwhelming urge to cough. Why is that? | [
"A reflex requires nerve circuitry with a sensory input path (afferent) and a motor output path (efferent). One of the input sensory paths for a cough reflex is in the external auditory meatus, or ear canal. ",
"This is known as the Arnold ear-cough reflex as the sensory input comes from the nerve of Arnold, a br... | [
"I was just gonna say they're connected together and that's why there are ENT specialty docs. Would you agree with that statement? "
] | [
"Depends what you mean by connected. Other than a small nerve and reflex, they don't really share much in the way of direct connection. The canal is distinctly divided from middle ear and rest of throat by the ear drum. ",
"But if you're just looking to connect the word ear with nose and throat, that's much easie... |
[
"What was the advantage of having feathers for a dinosaur like t-Rex or other therapods?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Hi spenway18 thank you for submitting to ",
"/r/Askscience",
".",
" Please add flair to your post. ",
"Your post will be removed permanently if flair is not added within one hour. You can flair this post by replying to this message with your flair choice. It must be an exact match to one of the follo... | [
"‘Biology’"
] | [
"Biology"
] |
[
"Does (exposed) surface area, nucleation sites, or material affect how quickly a drink loses its carbonation?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"To your main question: Yes. This is the basis for the ",
"coke and mentos fountain",
" phenomenon. The mentos provides nucleation sides for the carbon dioxide in the soda to explosively expand. "
] | [
"They would be the walls, yes, but also tiny bits of dust and pollen and things that make their way into your drink. ",
"It's hard to say which of those materials would be a better surface for inducing nucleation. It would probably be the one with the highest specific surface area, however that is affected by a w... | [
"They would be the walls, yes, but also tiny bits of dust and pollen and things that make their way into your drink. ",
"It's hard to say which of those materials would be a better surface for inducing nucleation. It would probably be the one with the highest specific surface area, however that is affected by a w... |
[
"Unsure how to ask this, but if sound and colors of light are both wavelengths, why can't we see music or somehow shine light waves at the same wavelengths of a song and thus see it?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"light is made up of photons. Sound is the vibration of particles in the air. Lots of things in the world vibrate / oscillate in time or space. Just because something does is fluctuating over time, doesn't mean that it has an effect on our sensory system."
] | [
"I'm not sure what you mean by that. A wavelength is a property of a wave. Sure, you could take a sound, compute the wavelength of some component, and then shine a light at that wavelength. "
] | [
"I'm not sure what you mean by that. A wavelength is a property of a wave. Sure, you could take a sound, compute the wavelength of some component, and then shine a light at that wavelength. "
] |
[
"removal of lens in eye allows you to see light from cashier scanner at grocery store?"
] | [
false
] | Science teacher told me this many many years ago in middle school, what lens is this? I've always wondered if I had it done, get a flashlight that emits the light that only people without this lens can see, I can see in the dark. I'd it possible?? | [
"Your eyes only have one lens each and you need it to focus. People who have had a lens removed due to cataracts or an accident cannot focus on nearby objects.",
"Normally this lens blocks ultraviolet from reaching your retinas. If it is out of the way then your retina will start receiving ultraviolet! ",
"And ... | [
"Yes and no. You could see but everything would be blurry without a lens to focus the light properly. Others may be able to see a faint blue light from your flashlight.",
"The eyes can see near-ultraviolet spectrum but the lens blocks it out.",
"Artist Claude Monet had severe cataracts in both eyes (cataracts a... | [
"The lens in your eye (right behind the pupil and the iris) allows the light of the surroundings be refracted and bundled to project a small, inverted picture on the retina, the part of your eye that detects light (at the back of your eye ball). It's similar to when you put a beam of light through a magnifying glas... |
[
"Can a eusocial animal survive on its own if it is separated from its colony?"
] | [
false
] | For example, what would happen of you separate a single worker or soldier ant from its colony? Will it continue on living up to its life expectancy given enough food and shelter? Can it hunt for food and find shelter on its own? Or will it die because literally has no idea what it supposed to do outside of working for ... | [
"That depends on the species, but if it is completely isolated from its family, they usually don't live long.\nUnless you mean, say, a new queen looking to start her own colony. They always start out alone.",
"That said, an ant colony could function for a while without its queen just fine, they just wouldn't be a... | [
"Not always.",
"There are species of ants with multiple queen castes, including ones that mate in-colony and bud off with workers (Ponerids come to mind). There are also species that can have multiple founder queens."
] | [
"It's best to take care when generalizing about ",
"ponerids.",
" They're pretty diverse."
] |
[
"Can someone explain to me why launches from Russia popular despite it being so far north? Also, what are the cons (and optionally, pro's) of the Russian rocket launch site being so far north, and of other launch sites in general, if any?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"The only 'pro' that I know of, is that it's pretty deep in their terrirory and therefore hard to reach by American spy planes of the time. Remember that it was a military facility built in the cold war era. And it was really as south as USSR controlled territory went.",
"And it's popular because Russian cargo ro... | [
"Another con of launching from that far north is that it limits the kinds of orbits you can easily reach. ",
"Orbits are described by their inclination, which is basically how offset they are from the equator. ",
"If you launch from on the equator, you can point directly east and put a satellite in low-earth or... | [
"Being close to the equator lets you take advantage of the spin of Earth to get some initial speed.",
"Earth's rotation at the equator is around 460 m/s. At other sites, multiply by the cosine of the latitude - that makes it 327 m/s at Baikonur and 408 m/s at Kennedy Space Center (Florida). You need 9000 m/s to r... |
[
"Are there any plants that parasitize animals? If not, why?"
] | [
false
] | There are fungi that parasitize animals (e.g. Candida), fungi that parasitize plants (e.g. Armillaria), and fungi that parasitize other fungi (e.g. Psathyrella epimyces). There are animals that parasitize other animals (e.g. pinworms), animals that parasitize plants (e.g. Heterodera), and animals that parasitize fungi ... | [
"Yup.",
"\nOne example is ",
"t",
"he ",
"Bird Catcher Tree",
". ",
"The seeds stick to birds, often killing them and thus feeding the tree roots. ",
"If you want to throw your net wider and enlarge the definition of parasite...",
"\nWell, the most successful genome on planet earth is that of a t... | [
"This is a great question. I also can't really find any examples of plants parasitizing animals. My guess is that its just highly evolutionarily improbable, because... how would it happen?",
"Extant parasitic plants have evolved over long periods of time to rely on other lifeforms for their nutrient intake. Thoug... | [
"Sounds reasonable, but how does any of this not apply to fungi?"
] |
[
"What is an estimate of the population that the earth could sustain?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"A person runs on average slightly less than 100 watts, and they're about 25% efficient. Let's assume we rely entirely on solar power (plant matter) to sustain us. The average amount of sunlight per square meter is 164 watts. Plants convert about 5% of energy to biomass. ",
"100w = 164w/m",
" *0.05 *0.25 *x m",... | [
"\"so really it depends what you mean by 'sustain'\". ",
"It depends on the behaviour of that population, up to some point. In general Humans have evolved a certain \"optimistic\" outlook. It's in our language, e.g \"the silver lining\" of a cloud. As individuals it benefits us to be optimistic even against ins... | [
"In Dan Brown's Inferno, he mentioned a scientist who supposedly studied about this and said that the number of people Earth could hold without having any problem is around 3-4Billion. But I somewhat doubt it for that book is fictional. Though I haven't checked it yet.",
"ps. some believe that Earth could hold mo... |
[
"How do you calculate how long a star will burn through it's fuel?"
] | [
false
] | I want to graph the relationship, cause I'm curious about something. What is the formula to use for calculating the time it will take for a star to burn through it's fuel given a certain mass? This is not for a homework problem, I'm just tinkering with numbers. | [
"Well, you can get a rough estimate by taking the luminosity, which is in watts, and dividing it by c squared, which gives you a mass rate of change. Then divide the total mass of the star by this rate to get an ",
" lifetime of the star.",
"edit: I just tried this with the sun and was way off. Then I remembere... | [
"But not all mass is converted to energy, a proton is about 940Mev/c², and the binding energies of the nucleons ",
"is on the order of 10 Mev",
", looking at that graph, He to Fe isn't even all that much difference, so i guess you can count about 7/940 ~ 0.7% of the mass into energy, for fusion of H to He, and ... | [
"Check my edit."
] |
[
"Thermochromic Pigment experts, are there any high temp formulas?"
] | [
false
] | Looking specifically for powders, pigments, slurries, paints, that change from color to opaque at 55C, BUT burn out at well above 200C. Most fail around here, but we are looking for something that maintains its properties up to around 425C | [
"change from color to opaque",
"You mean change from color to transparent? For something to maintain any properties or transparency at 425C you're going to be looking for a ceramic - no polymers can survive that kind of temperature. I know some ceramics that change from transparent to opaque but generally not t... | [
"That's going to be very difficult. There are only a handful of materials that are thermochromic at all, and an even smaller number of thermochromic ceramics. Personally I don't know of ANY thermochromic ceramics that go from opaque to transparent when heated, usually it's the other way around with ceramics. ",
... | [
"silicone won't hold up to 425C. Usually it starts decomposing into silica around 200-250C. Most pigments (other than graphite or specialized heavy metal based pigments) also won't hold up to those kind of temperatures."
] |
[
"What kind of fuel is used for rockets in space?"
] | [
false
] | Since there is no oxygen in space, what kind of fuels are used for moonlandings etc.? | [
"There are several different advantages we want from rocket fuel:",
"Unfortunately, ",
" It'd be awesome if one did, wouldn't it?",
"Okay, since it is what you were asking about, I'll start by the last point. Fuels that don't require oxygen (or any other kind of oxidizer) are called ",
" as opposed to ",
... | [
"Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen are common propellants. Liquid oxygen is generally the most common oxidizer but there are more exotic mixtures like UDMH/red fuming nitrous acid that can be used. (In that case the UDMH is the fuel and RFNA the oxidizer.)"
] | [
"Liquid oxygen is a common oxidizer with liquid hydrogen or refined kerosene for initial stages, but in space thrusters are desired to be simple - standard chemical rockets have minimum throttles and require igniters.",
"A work around is hypergolic fuels, which ignite spontaneously when the fuel and oxidizer mix,... |
[
"Why does fresh prepared rice, nice soft rice, dry out when sealed immediately and refrigerated?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"There are two kind of starch in rice: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose is a long, straight starch that rigidifies when it cools. Amylopectin is stockier and branched in structure, and it gelatinizes under heat.",
"Long grain rice—the rice most prone to hardening in the fridge—has a high proportion of amylose. Th... | [
"So it doesn't actually dry out, it just hardens. This makes sense since microwaving makes it soft again."
] | [
"Related-- ",
"calorie content of rice changes when cooked with a bit of oil and then cooled",
"."
] |
[
"Why do milk or sugary drinks cause thicker saliva?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I conducted a pretty thorough literature review to determine why exactly thicker saliva secretions are related to ingestion of some foods and drinks but not others. Apparently there's a ",
" of research out there on saliva.",
"I finally hit paydirt with this study: ",
"Milk was not studied, but acidic drink... | [
"At work, so I don't have time to write up a full reply, but I'd say it's a combination of the secretions that form your saliva changing, and residues of the drink left behind in your mouth, combining with saliva and causing the changes. ",
"I know that with milk, it's a mixture of the proteins that give milk it... | [
"Thank you very much :) I had always figured it had to do with sugars as I'd heard from somewhere that sugar was hygroscopic and assumed that mean it absorbed water. I'm not sure if that's right or wrong but I know it's just a basic \" layman speculation\" haha\nThank you "
] |
[
"Pressure at different points in a capillary tube"
] | [
false
] | Consider a capillary tube dipped in a tub filled with water. The pressure at the water's surface is equal to atmospheric pressure. The pressure inside the capillary tube at the level of the tub's surface should also be equal to atmospheric pressure as they are at the same level. The pressure in the capillary tube at th... | [
"Surface tension causes a change in pressure across the surface.",
"Consider an inflated rubber balloon. Outside is atmospheric pressure. Inside is higher pressure. This change in pressure is supported entirely by the tension of the rubber skin.",
"It's just the same with liquids. Tension in a convex meniscus l... | [
"Alright it's been hours and nobody else is brave enough to say it: I don't get it. It seems fine to me, am I reading it wrong?"
] | [
"What are you asking?"
] |
[
"Would a probe sent to Alpha Centauri be able to send data back to us?"
] | [
false
] | Ignoring the fact it'd be four years after the probe got to the system, would the data be able to make it back to us? I recall not long ago there was an ask science that said TV broadcasts would be scrambled long before it reached anyone. Would this be similar? | [
"I think it would be theoretically quite possible. Non-natural radio emissions shouldn't be that hard to spot. See ",
"SETI",
" and ",
"Radio Telescopes",
".",
"Feasible in any short term time scale to launch a probe (and wait many years) on the other hand is a different debate..."
] | [
"If it's any comfort, Voyager 1 is expected to pass close to ",
"Gliese 445",
" in about 40,000 years."
] | [
"Huh, well that's not all that bad all things considered."
] |
[
"Can someone tell me what kind of long term effects LSD, Marijuana, or magic mushrooms can have on a person"
] | [
false
] | The internet is filled with garble, and many of the readers here are real scientist (go you!), so I thought someone could tell me what they know about the subject. Of course no one wants to turn out like Ozzy Ozborn, but learning the mechinism would be cool too. | [
"Ozzy has a genetic condition. He isn't like that because of drugs."
] | [
"This",
" was a fairly contentious discussion a few days ago. It's on the scientific data around cannabis. Imo, there just isn't enough data to condemn it nor is it completely harmless. ",
"Frankly, it's always a matter of cost-benefit analysis. As is much of life. Some substances provide sufficient benefit (en... | [
"Of course no one wants to turn out like Ozzy Ozborn",
"Biiiiiiig difference between drugs like heroin and psychedelics like LSD."
] |
[
"Curious question about the Hadron Collider."
] | [
false
] | Does the hadron collider have any other use other than finding the now plausible Higgs Boson particle? | [
"The LHC has a lot of uses. Look around ",
"here.",
" ",
"EDIT; After doing a bit of reading myself, I found out something pretty awesome. To quote the website I linked you, they are using ATLAS; ",
"ATLAS is one of two general-purpose detectors at the LHC. It will investigate a wide range of physics,... | [
"This topic was discussed in this ",
"thread",
", which should give you some additional information."
] | [
"Thank you for the link, it's been an interesting read along with the experiment(s) links within. Cheers good sir!"
] |
[
"Why can't we tell whether or not we are moving at constant velocity, but we can tell a change in acceleration?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"We can't sense constant velocity because it's literally indistinguishable from being at rest. For any constant velocity I have with regards to some other reference point, I can always state with authority that I am at rest with regards to myself and my velocity is zero. This principle is one of two that underlay... | [
"Physically speaking, an acceleration implies a force, something people relate to as \"feeling.\" Traveling at a constant velocity necessarily implies no acceleration, which would, under ideal circumstances, mean no force. "
] | [
"You know how force equals mass times acceleration? If you're accelerating, you feel the force. Velocity doesn't show up. "
] |
[
"Where do the majority of neanderthal finds come from?"
] | [
false
] | From what I understand the first Neanderthal finds were discovered in Germany. However since then what part of the world has the majority of neanderthal finds come? Kind regards. | [
"They’ve been found all over Europe and the Middle East. I can’t really say where the majority have come from since theres lots of them spread out over a huge area. Some of the sites with the largest number of individuals have been in Krapina in Czech Republic, Shanidar in Iraq and Atapuerca in Spain (although many... | [
"Any found in North Africa?"
] | [
"Not to my knowledge, although the specimens from Israel and Gibraltar are practically in North Africa."
] |
[
"How Is Type O Blood the Universal Donor If It Has Antibodies A and B?"
] | [
false
] | I'm learning about the immune system but this is not making sense to me: For example, if type O blood is transfused to a person with type A blood, wouldn't the antibody A in type O blood bind to the antigen A on type A red blood cell and pose danger? Do they remove antibodies from blood before transfusion? Would the co... | [
"It sounds like you understand the ",
"transfusion reaction table",
" pretty well.",
"The major risk in a transfusion is that the recipient's antibodies attack the donor red blood cells and cause a ",
"hemolytic transfusion reaction",
". ",
"There is much less of a concern with the antibodies from the... | [
"0 type has no A and B antigens, so is not attacked by the recipient immune system (who can have anti-A and anti-B antibodies). The quantity of anti-A and anti-B antibodies in the given blood is not sufficient to cause a heavy (deadly) reaction in A, B and AB recipents."
] | [
"The few antibodies that may be in a couple pints of blood generally aren't enough to harm healthy people, but transfusions are more often needed by people who are already weak and ill. As such, I think I read somewhere that blood is typically put into a centrifuge to separate out and remove extraneous antibodies a... |
[
"Could a human become impregnated with Neanderthal DNA?"
] | [
false
] | I've read about scientists desire to resurrect the woolly mammoth ( ). Could they not do the same thing with Neaderthal DNA recovered ( )? EDIT: Here is a more recent article on the woolly mammoth, although I'm not sure I trust the source: EDIT 2: This is a cross-post for askreddit, I was directed here. | [
"Hypothetically yes. ",
"Hypothetically:\nAnyone on the planet who is not fully of African descent is between ",
"1-4% neanderthal already",
", showing that not only could a human be impregnated by neanderthals, but that we were. So there is nothing in terms of species barrier that would make it impossible.... | [
"Thanks. Your comments made me head to Wikipedia and read up on it for the past half hour. I want to believe we absorbed them, instead of forced them to extinction in our expansion.",
"We. ",
"I say it like it's something we all decided to do 5 years ago on a field trip, for fun."
] | [
"No, it just means neanderthals interbred with humans after they left Africa. Neanderthals would most likely be able to impregnate an African person (or vice versa)."
] |
[
"How tall could something be on Earth before it is crushed?"
] | [
false
] | And what is doing the crushing exactly? Is it the weight of itself or the gravity or both? | [
"This depends entirely on what that thing is made out of, how wide it is, how it's structured, where it is on the earth, and too many additional variables you didn't specify.",
"Also weight is the force due to gravity."
] | [
"It depends on the material that this structure is made of. As for the second part of your question, weight is a force caused by gravity. The force that would crush a structure would be the mass doing the crushing multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity otherwise known as the weight. "
] | [
"With the right materials (perhaps carbon nanotubes), a tower could be tall enough that ",
"the end is in geosynchronous orbit",
"."
] |
[
"What are the differences between an expensive laser diode used for scientific applications and a cheap consumer grade laser pointer ?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The term \"scientific laser\" is pretty broad, and encompasses many different technologies and requirements for many different scientific purposes.",
"Generally, two things drive the cost of a laser system:",
"1) Sustained (not peak) power output",
"2) Beam coherence (how little the beam spreads out over dis... | [
"I've worked with a company called ",
"Nanoplus",
" who might be able to help you out. For example, for DFB lasers between 1100 and 1300 nm, they give a typical 3 MHz linewidth, with power to about 20 mW.",
"I know there are technologies out there that can get linewidths into the 10's of kHz, maybe even singl... | [
"I've worked with people who use precision location-finding lasers for documenting structural engineering experiments, and my impression is that their equipment is pretty much surveyor's tools on steroids. Suppose you build a full scale three story steel frame in a laboratory. You know what was planned, but for the... |
[
"Do animals understand the changing of the seasons?"
] | [
false
] | I understand that cats and dogs understand routines, but when summer gives way to winter, and they poke their nose outside and see endless snow and feel the bitter cold where warm sun and grass once was, do they get what's going on or does this confuse them until they get used to it and it justbecomes normal until the ... | [
"This is a tough question to answer, what exactly do you mean by understand? We know that there are behavioural (e.g. migration, mating, feeding) and physiological (e.g. fur growth/shedding) responses to seasonal changes in animals. These behaviours/responses are not learned (though of course learned responses do e... | [
"Like already said, most animals just react with their natural behavior.",
"My cats just check everyday if it´s warm enough to leave. Otherwise they just take 4 steps and come back in. Being confused by the seasonal changes, means having an expectation or assumption that doesn´t match the following observation. T... | [
"Please don't hate me but the way you phrased your question inevitably leads to an answer of \"No they surely do not understand they live on a spherical planet moving around the Sun yet tilted with respect to its own axis of rotation\". They definitely cannot \"understand seasons\". Did they evolve behaviors to cop... |
[
"Can a human be trained to simultaneously comprehend a different story being told into each ear?"
] | [
false
] | I've done some Googling - and I'm really surprised that I can't find any research that sounds close to what I'm thinking. I'm envisioning a simple setup where a person could be presented 2 different stories, one piped into each ear by way of stereo headphones. (So each story remains distinct and isolated to one ear.) A... | [
"Look into research on multitasking. I'm betting that people can't do it very well."
] | [
"I once read a gender study that said in general, men could listen to only one story at a time but would have a number of details, while women would know the general information of both stories with no details. I'll try and find it again.",
"Here's the closest thing I can find: ",
"Wikipedia on Dichotic Listeni... | [
"You are referring to ",
"Dichotic Listening",
". There have been a number of tests on the subject. To address your specific question, it appears that we cannot divide our attention successfully between two messages. We can select one message and gather details on that, but we pretty much ignore the second."
] |
[
"What is the terminal velocity of an object in water?"
] | [
false
] | Assuming the object is hydrodynamically(sp? ) efficient, what's the maximum velocity it will fall through the water column? | [
"I would solve it like a free body diagram. Sum of the forces on an object moving underwater should work. So, you have the weight downward, the buoyant force upward, and any viscous drag upward.",
"Sum(F) = mg - F(B) - F(d) = ma. A terminal velocity is reached when a =0 and the force magnitudes are constant. "
] | [
"Are you talking about for vertical motion, horizontal motion or general motion? If you restrict your question to vertyical motion, sagan_drinks_cosmos has a good answer. With respect to general motion, that's very difficult to calculate and MCMXCII's answer is more relevant.",
"However, if you want to look at ... | [
"I was about to disagree with you, but on second thought I guess if you reduce \"friction\" enough, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to accelerate indefinitely."
] |
[
"So, according to theory of relativity every object shrinks as it approaches the speed of light. Does, that mean, that atoms and protons and quarks shrink as well? And does, that mean, that Planck's length isn't a constant, but relative as well?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"This is actually precisely wrong in spirit. The principle of special relativity is that all inertial frames are equivalent. So if I measure an object to be contracted in my frame, it is ",
", since my frame is as good as any other. Sure, in the frame of the moving object it does not appear to be contracted, but ... | [
"This is actually precisely wrong in spirit. The principle of special relativity is that all inertial frames are equivalent. So if I measure an object to be contracted in my frame, it is ",
", since my frame is as good as any other. Sure, in the frame of the moving object it does not appear to be contracted, but ... | [
"Spacetime itself contracts and not just the objects in spacetime. The size of objects, atoms, etc. ",
" stays constant. In other words, if a spaceship contracts in half due to high velocity, a ruler in the rest frame of the spaceship will also contract in half, so measuring the length of the spaceship using that... |
[
"Do Gravitational Waves Satisfy the Wave Equation?"
] | [
false
] | Recently started learning about waves and their associated wave functions, and I believe my lecturer said "all simple waves should satisfy this equation". Though Gravitational waves are no way simple, would they still satisfy it in some way or another? | [
"Yes they do, but the question is, what is it that is oscillating in the solution to the wave equation? In the case of gravitational waves, it's the perturbations to the Metric (a description of the curvature of spacetime), where zero-amplitude corresponds to Minkowski space.",
"Some not-so-light reading: ",
"h... | [
"You need to do some field redefinitions, and a couple of gauge fixings, but yes, they do. The final equation in vacuum is",
"□h_μν = 0",
"which is the wave equation for the tensor h. It must however be supplemented with the constraints that h be symmetric, traceless and transverse:",
"h_μν = h_νμ ",
"h = h... | [
"Wrong thread?"
] |
[
"Is it much harder to synthesize the 119 element than the 118, just because its a new period? If yes, why?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"No. Its location on the periodic table reflects (or attempts to reflect) its ",
" properties, not its nuclear properties. The way that element 119 behaves chemically has no bearing on how its various isotopes will behave in terms of ",
" structure and reactions. The reason why element 119 is hard to produce is... | [
"Electrons play no role in the nuclear reaction. After the nuclei are created (if they are) some electrons might tag along, but that doesn't influence the probability of the formation of the nucleus, and they are certainly not flying away as neutral atoms."
] | [
"Electrons play no role in the nuclear reaction. After the nuclei are created (if they are) some electrons might tag along, but that doesn't influence the probability of the formation of the nucleus, and they are certainly not flying away as neutral atoms."
] |
[
"What happens to the potential energy of an object that's lifted past the point of Earth's gravitational pull?"
] | [
false
] | As you lift an object, your kinect energy becomes potential energy. This can usually be released again as kinect energy once the object is dropped, and when it hits the ground it becomes heat. So what if you go the other way? You just keep raising an object higher and higher. The potential energy keeps increasing until... | [
"past the point of Earth's gravitational pull?",
"There is no \"point past Earth's gravitational pull\". ",
"every point mass in the universe attracts every other point mass with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance betwee... | [
"Just to be clear, yes, I am well aware that there is no point past Earth's gravitational pull. I apologize for the sloppy wording. At some point, 1/(d1 - d2)",
" becomes so small that its effect is negligible. das_hansl said that the object retains that potential energy and if it's ever close enough that the Ear... | [
"So where did that energy come from?",
"Do you mean: Why do things already have potential enegy, even if they have never\nbeen before close to the object (say jupiter).",
"I don't know enough about this topic, so I am a bit speculating. But I think, it is\nthe mass of the object being converted into energy. If ... |
[
"Why does a star's fusion process proceed in the particular order of elements that it does, rather than simply marching up the periodic table from simpler to more complex elements?"
] | [
false
] | If you look at you see it shows the fusion order as Iron is, of course, the heaviest element produced because the energy it produces can't counter the gravitational pressure and the star collapses prior to going supernova. But why does the process skip lithium, beryllium and boron before getting to carbon, then skip up... | [
"answer for why it skips from helium to carbon:",
"The basic issue is that there is no stable isotope with either 5 or 8 nucleons, which is how many nucleons you'd have if you added hydrogen-1 with helium-4 or just merged two helium-4 nuclei.",
"Lithium 5 is so unstable that I can't even find it in any list of ... | [
"Thanks. This is the clearest and most comprehensive answer, and frames the material in a way I can understand it best."
] | [
"Thanks. This is the clearest and most comprehensive answer, and frames the material in a way I can understand it best."
] |
[
"What is 'time'?"
] | [
false
] | Alright so I am going to try to explain the dilemma I've having that no one seems to be able to help me with. I've watched COUNTLESS documentaries on the ideas of relativity and how gravitation and velocity affect the rate that time elapses. BUT I can't get past the first barrier - the usage of the word 'time.' I've al... | [
"Time is what separates two events at the same location."
] | [
"Time is not a human-made concept. The passage of time occurs completely independently of humans. If that were not the case, how could anything have happened before us?",
"Units used to measure time are, as you identify, arbitrary. We've defined seconds, hours, days because they're useful lengths of time for u... | [
"Analogous to how height separates two objects above the same point on the ground."
] |
[
"Mystery liquid in my grandpa's basement"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Could be just white paint? Titanium dioxide is 4.3 times as dense as water. A paint with TiO2 would be less dense than that, but probably not much less dense."
] | [
"It could be almost anything. You'd need to do some testing to get any idea at all. I would ",
" that its not very dangerous, or the Tupperware would have a label. You'd presumably know more about your grandpa's temperament than we would, though. Is he the kind of guy that'd leave something dangerous around with ... | [
"Yeah thats a pretty good guess, but we need some pictures : ) "
] |
[
"Do radiowaves travel at the speed of light?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Yes."
] | [
"Huh. So light is not the only thing that travels at the speed of light?"
] | [
"Radio waves are light, they're just a kind of light that isn't visible."
] |
[
"Could there be a nucleon with a -1 charge?"
] | [
false
] | Specifically, I am not asking about antiprotons. Protons are made up of two up quarks and one down quark, for a total charge of ⅔+⅔-⅓ = 1. Neutrons are one up quark and two down, for a charge of ⅔-⅓-⅓ = 0. Could there be a particle made up of three down quarks for a total charge of -⅓×3 = -1 ? | [
"Could there be a nucleon with a -1 charge?",
"A nucleon? Well, no. Nucleons are definitionally ",
" components of an atomic nucleus. The only two such particles are protons and neutrons.",
"I guess if you relax the definition to include antimatter, then an antiproton would be a an antinucleon with a -1 ch... | [
"Nucleons by definition is either a proton or a neutron, so no.",
"You can ask if there are any hadrons (quark bound states) that have charge -1. There are, they are charged mesons (quark-antiquark) like π",
" or K",
" or some baryons (three quarks), for example the Δ",
" (ddd)."
] | [
"Are there any papers you might recommend going into depth a little more about delta baryons? It's piqued my interest. Thanks!"
] |
[
"Ramsar in Iran has the highest natural radiation level of an inhabited location. What have we learned about the medical effects of radiation from the unusually high chronic doses received by the local population?"
] | [
false
] | has a short section about it, but doesn't go much in debt. The question is particularly poignant because the levels of exposure there is close to what the WHO has counted for the most heavily affected areas of Fukushima: (page 41). | [
"You're interested in areas said to have high natural background radiation. The most commonly referenced HNBR areas are in Iran, India, Brazil and China. ",
"This seems to be a definitive review on the topic",
". ",
"My take on it (and there are better radiation oncologist panelists for this question) is that... | [
"Thanks for the great answer.",
"you can find a smattering of studies linking life in HNBR areas to increased chromosomal abnormalities",
"Does this translate into a statistically significant increase in congenital disorders?"
] | [
"Most of the studies on the chromosomal abnormalities weren't looking for that and were tiny without the necessary followup. ",
"One study out of India",
" found that an increased number of germline point mutations between offspring and mother, though. They didn't look at effects of those mutations.",
"Also,... |
[
"Do obese people have less of a chance of getting osteoporosis because of the extra weight?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Your correlation of weight bearing being protective against osteoporosis is correct...in fact sometimes astronauts have to take bisphosphonates to help protect them from bone degradation when they've been weightless for too long. When speaking about the obese though, they are most likely NOT exercising and theref... | [
"Whether or not obesity protects against osteoporosis or is a contributer to it is somewhat controversial. Increased mass generally does lead to increased bone density, but purely adding density doesn't protect against fracture. Some groups think that that fat may affect bone growth. Here are some of the potential ... | [
"The thing about osteoporosis is that you don't even need a big fall to break bones. Really benign things like reaching behind you to pick something off the ground while you are in a chair can break a bone. Just sitting or standing can put enough force on your vertebrae to break them and lead to ",
"kyphosis",
... |
[
"Why do I sometimes get bitter soda from soda machines?"
] | [
false
] | I'm talking about the machines they have at free refill/fast food places where they give you an empty cup that you fill yourself with ice and the drink of your choice. Sometimes the resulting soda is tasteless or bitter, but other flavors on the same machine will be fine. I'm asking because I'm sick of getting home f... | [
"These machines work by combining a mixture of water and the soda 'syrup' provided by the company. It's not the exact same as a bottled drink. The store you're buying it from also has control over how much syrup vs how much water to add. If the store is cheap, they will lessen the syrup content and you'll get a wat... | [
"Soda fountains mix concentrated syrups with carbonated water. This is more cost effective than buying drums of soda already mixed. ",
"The operators of the machine can set the mix ratio themselves, resulting in more or less concentrated drinks. If the machine isn't working properly or the syrup is low, the soda ... | [
"Not a very scientific answer and I'm no expert but based on my limited work with soda fountains, it sounds like the syrup was out on that flavor and/or the lines are dirty. Soda fountains have influent water lines (usually municipal tap), CO2 lines, and concentrated syrup lines. The water gets carbonated by the ... |
[
"A question about the empty space in a proton or neutron."
] | [
false
] | I was watching talk by Lawrence Krauss. At about 21:00 mins he talks about the space between the quarks in a proton or neutron. He says about 90% of the mass of a proton or neutron comes from the energy of the empty space between the quarks. I don't get it. I'll try to give the general direction of my thoughts to narro... | [
"I think Krauss is being a bit hand-wavy and putting things in laymen's terms.",
"To be precise, the majority of a proton's (or neutron's) mass is ",
", meaning it is due to the network of gluons which bind the quarks within the nucleon. If you look up the mass of up and down quarks, they are only 2.4-4.8 MeV, ... | [
"Oh okay, but does the energy of empty space make up any of the mass of a proton or neutron? "
] | [
"Not appreciably - although there is a non-trivial vacuum energy that permeates all space, it is negligible unless you are looking at cosmological volumes (this is what is referred to as \"dark energy\"). For nucleons, the \"empty space\" between the quarks isn't empty at all - it is a tumultuous sea of self-intera... |
[
"Are people with 'cerebral' professions (scientists, doctors, engineers, etc) any more or less likely to develop neurological problems than people with manual professions?"
] | [
false
] | Does the amount and frequency with which you strain your brain have any noticeable effect either way? | [
"Ironically, the biggest known effect related to what you're asking may be the negative effects of the more sedentary lifestyle that many white-collar professionals have. See e.g. ",
"Sedentary life impairs self-reparative processes in the brain",
" and ",
"How inactivity changes the brain",
" for a couple... | [
"Exposure to certain chemicals can increase the risk of neurological damage. These chemicals tend to be primarily used in industrial and agricultural applications, so people with jobs putting them in regular contact with them are at increased risk. This could potentially include both 'manual' and 'cerebral' profess... | [
"the type of person you're referring to would likely have more cognitive reserve (",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_reserve",
") than an average person, and this has been shown to have protective effects against mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's"
] |
[
"Do leaves keep photosynthesising after the fall of the tree if they are still green?"
] | [
false
] | A few weeks back I got curious and read an article about what frequencies of light plants use in photosynthesis and where that evolved from. With fall coming ever so slowly to my home in Denton Texas I've noticed many of the leaves i see on the ground are still green and so presumably still absorbing those same frequen... | [
"Yes, as long as the ",
"stoma",
" are still open, which can happen for a few hours, then the leaf can still photosynthesize. This can be proven in a gas exchange chamber by measuring the CO2 uptake or by monitoring the chlorophyll fluorescent signature of the leaf.",
"However, many of the leaves that you see... | [
"I don't see why it shouldn't go on for a while, until water loss shuts it down. Green leaves fall mostly due to mechanical damage, for example being ripped of by wind. They should stay functional for a while."
] | [
"Photosynthesis is a multi-step process, beginning with the absorption of a particular wavelength of light to excite an electron that initiates the process. I believe the first step of exciting the electron would still take place but the downhill reaction and C3 (Calvin Cycle) may not function."
] |
[
"Would a sand timer still work the same if the sand grains were boulder-sized and the timer was proportionally larger?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"No. Sand is incredibly strong per unit in comparison to its volume. A single grain of sand can support and entire glass full of sand easily without breaking. Once you scale up to bolder size, the strength lessens at an exponential rate. See this link. ",
"http://petrowiki.org/Compressive_strength_of_rocks",
... | [
"Scale up in particulate flows is notoriously difficult. You should look into hopper design to perhaps find a lead here. The force chains in granular materials are largely behind the consistent flow. I think it would work but you mind have to adjust the angles and such to prevent it clogging-- see hopper design"
] | [
"What about a timer that used 1/2\" inch steel ball bearings? Or titanium?"
] |
[
"why are there no green mammals?"
] | [
false
] | There's green insects and reptiles because of natural selection + camouflage, but why haven't mammals evolved some sort of green hue? | [
"I think you are circling around the right type of answers.",
"\nThere is a bit of a problem with evolutionary agruments though- that debating ad hoc, ",
", is somewhat endless as there are hosts of potential reasons. ",
"For instance in addition to the ones you mention:",
"It could be possible that no mam... | [
"I've been wondering this question for years, thanks for making this post!",
"It can't be impossible to make green pigment. Baboons and Mandrill can have bright reds or even blue skin, and bright yellow/orange fur. So it certainly is not beyond the ability of evolution to produce green in mammals. I can only spec... | [
"Which of course begs the question. Why the hell are plants green and not black?",
"Similar problems answering that as to the \"why there are no green mammals\" question though."
] |
[
"When a vaccinated person is infected with a strain of a virus different from the one they were vaccinated against, do they create different anitbodies?"
] | [
false
] | So with Covid-19, the vaccines are made with the original strain, so are antibodies work against the original strain. But when a vaccinated person gets infected with the Delta variant, in addition to making the OG antibodies, will the immune system also make antibodies specific to the Delta variant? Or will it just pro... | [
"The goal of most vaccines is to target things called conserved regions, these are proteins or parts of proteins that tend to be the same (conserved) across multiple strains. In the case of Covid they used the spike protein and most likely a specific region that they found to be highly conserved across the strains ... | [
"Wall of text incoming but I think it's best to by clear on this topic.",
"I will need to do some reading to speak knowledgeably on your last two questions but regarding questions about mRNA vaccines I and potential delta variant interactions I can maybe clarify a couple of things. First mRNA vaccines don't reall... | [
"Whoever says it's \"unwise\" to vaccinate people during a pandemic is probably not a credible expert that you should be listening too.",
"Here is an oversimplified explanation. For the purposes of this illustration, assume that immunity acquired from vaccination by US FDA approved products and immunity acquired ... |
[
"Anyone going to the APS March Meeting in Dallas?"
] | [
false
] | Next week is the March Meeting of the American Physics Society, one of the biggest conferences in condensed matter physics and biophysics. There are a few people here in that area, is anyone going? We could drink and/or science together. I promise not to rape anyone. | [
"I'll be around, but will probably be freaking out about getting my talk ready till Thursday. You might also get a bigger turnout if you ask about this in ",
"r/physics",
". "
] | [
"I was, but I had to cancel. Oh well, Boston 2012!"
] | [
"I live near Dallas. I am not a physicist or scientist for that matter, but I'd be up for a few beers with a fellow Redditor."
] |
[
"Have the TSA Scanners been proven to be safe?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"It's worth pointing out that there are two different types of fully body scanners in use: millimeter wave scanners and backscatter x-ray scanners. ",
"The backscatter x-ray scanners give you a fairly significant dose of x-rays on your skin, though I suspect we won't know the full degree of the health effects for... | [
"To put it mildly, your source is hardly up to scientific standards. ",
"An article in Radiology (doi:10.1148/radiol.11102347) explains the potential risk associated with X-ray backscatter scanners fairly well and argues that the millimeter wave scanners should be used instead:",
"In summary, individual cancer ... | [
"To put it mildly, your source is hardly up to scientific standards. ",
"An article in Radiology (doi:10.1148/radiol.11102347) explains the potential risk associated with X-ray backscatter scanners fairly well and argues that the millimeter wave scanners should be used instead:",
"In summary, individual cancer ... |
[
"Some COVID-10 vaccine candidates (e.g. Oxford) use Adenovirus as a vector to transport mRNA of Sars-CoV-2's spike protein. What if the recipient of such vaccine had a prior infection of that adenovirus and now has immunity against it, will the vaccine still work? if so, how?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"That’s a major concern with adenovirus vector vaccines. There’s evidence it’s a real problem:",
"Before vaccination, 266 (52%) of 508 participants had high pre-existing anti-Ad5 neutralising antibodies (table 1). Participants with low pre-existing anti-Ad5 immunity had RBD-specific ELISA antibody and neutralisin... | [
"Followup question: It seems that the leading candidates, including the Oxford vaccine, will require a booster shot. Why wouldn't the booster be relatively ineffective, because the immune system would've learned to respond to the adenovirus from the first shot and would therefore clean up the virus before it is abl... | [
"Pre-existing immunity to the adenovirus vector was a major concern in the 2000s. In one of the earliest adenovirus vaccine studies, they found that subjects that had been previously exposed to the vector responded much more poorly than those that had not previously been exposed. ",
"Source",
". These results w... |
[
"Would a solar panel in Puerto Rico generate more energy than one in Maine?"
] | [
false
] | It doesn't necessarily have to be Maine versus Puerto Rico, but in general, does solar radiation increase as you near the equator to the point that there is a significant increase in power generated? Cheers. | [
"Latitude is one factor, but there are others such as cloud cover, smog levels, etc. ",
"Here's a map of the US showing available power",
" (",
"more here",
"). See also ",
"insolation",
"."
] | [
"On a perfectly sunny day in both Maine and Puerto Rico, assuming they had similar levels of air polution/atmospheric clarity, then yes. Puerto Rico would have more intense sunlight than Maine does."
] | [
"Thanks for describing the source - even though you couldn't provide a link or anything so we can check the source ourselves, it's definitely helpful."
] |
[
"Do any microbes \"hunt\"?"
] | [
false
] | I have been thinking about the roles that microbes play in their natural environments, and I find it hard to believe that simple resource limitations and climate factors are all that control the growth and death of microbe populations. Besides parasites, are there any microbes that "feed" on one another? | [
"There are all kinds of predatory microbes, for example, many ",
"protists",
" feed on other organisms. "
] | [
"there is a myxobacterium that uses pili to chase down prey. it hunts in packs, and moves much like a cross between batman and spiderman."
] | [
"I guess you could consider any microbe that use phagocytosis (like an amoeba) as a \"hunter\".",
"White blood cells in our bodies \"feed\" on bacteria and foreign materials:\n",
"White blood cell chasing a bacterium"
] |
[
"I have 7 cases of MS/parkinson's and Lupus in my family who grew up in the same area; what is you opinion on how this could happen?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"See ",
"this thread",
":",
"Adding a clarifier at the end of your post like, “I’m not asking/looking for medical advice”, does not change the fact that you ARE asking for medical advice.",
"Also, asking for \"causation\" for a disease is ",
" medical advice.",
"If you have a concern, perhaps you should... | [
"thanks for the condescension. I once loved this subreddit. Not sure why there is a medical tag if you can't ask these sorts of questions. I will delete the post and unsubscribe. ",
"Also I DO NOT HAVE THE DISEASE. I am not looking for a cure here. I am asking what has been found by way of having such an unusual ... | [
"Not sure why there is a medical tag if you can't ask these sorts of questions.",
"Because questions about diseases is perfectly fine if it does not include personal history or family history (which you've included here). There is no condescension. You're just defensive because you've misinterpreted the rules.",
... |
[
"Why do our physical bodies not 'jump' around like what quantum mechanics say?"
] | [
false
] | What I'm really trying to ask is, why can't we see any biological macroscopic effect of quantum mechanics? | [
"Because quantum mechanics sat that they can't. Bohr's correspondence principle demands that quantum mechanics behave the same as classical mechanics in classical limit. Which actually holds true for coherent states where the variance of observable approaches zero as h (Planck's constant) normalised by the action o... | [
"The rules of quantum mechanics certainly apply to things the size of a human, but at the same time, you'd never expect to see something the size of a human \"quantum tunnel\" during the lifetime of the universe. ",
"All matter has a wave-like property, known as the ",
"de Broglie Wavelength",
" which links m... | [
"It is something I should have mentioned- but even if a baseball is barely moving, it's de Broglie Wavelength will be tiny- and of course it is never not moving, it will always be vibrating/rotating/etc ever so slightly. "
] |
[
"Is it possible to generate hydroelectricity, by placing turbines within downspouts?"
] | [
false
] | Assuming this is in an area with heavy annual rainfall. The water is falling from the sky, and achieving maximum head. The problem seems to be with flow. It isn't constant and can be erratic. | [
"The water in a downspout from your roof doesn't fill the pipe as it flows down. It clings to the surface of the pipe and the center of the pipe will remain full of air. This even happens when there is a larger volume of water involved, such as in the waste pipe from a bath, there is still a large amount of air in ... | [
"Well hold on: Failling from the sky has nothing to do with it's head in this case because it hits the roof and thus has however tall your structure is for head (If that makes any sense). ",
"In any case, the amount of energy from it is going to be pretty small, even if you have a 50x50 ft roof and it rains 1\" i... | [
"I'm just curious. Do you convert your feet and inches into meters, mm, and liters to do your calculations? Or do you know some shortcuts that avoid having to do that. I live in a metric world (except I still drive in miles) and I'm not trolling, just genuinely curious."
] |
[
"How does smoke negatively affect the lungs? Do different smokes have different effects?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"The damage caused by smoke in a lungs is at least partially due to smoke irritating and damage alveoli, the things which your lungs use to extract oxygen from the air. ",
"Different smokes most definitely have different effects, but most if not all will irritate the alveoli. Campfires are probably the worse (ove... | [
"Smoke is made of tiny particles (carbon/ash/tar) which deposit in your lungs. Since these things don't belong in your lungs, immune cells come along to literally eat these particles. Besides eating these particles, some immune cells also release chemicals/factors which damage (by causing inflammation) surroundin... | [
"I'd like to add that when people say \"tar\" in topics like this, it doesn't mean the stuff used to make roads. It simply means partially burnt plant matter. Still bad for you, but it's not the same thing. "
] |
[
"Why don't predatory animals cannibalize each other more often?"
] | [
false
] | Why don't predatory animals such as lions or crocodiles cannibalize each other. Wouldn't less of the same species mean less competition for resources or mates. | [
"Most of the time it's just not efficient for them. Many predators have been known to kill each other for dominance of an area but if it's just for food most of the time it is much easier for them to go after other prey. They can't think of other predators as a good source of food because they're also the ones who ... | [
"Diapsids (in addition to crocodilians and snakes - also monitor dragons, amphisbaenians, even dinosaurs...) are especially notorious for cannibalism in the literature. ",
"This paper provides a good overview",
", ",
"as does this one",
"."
] | [
"There is a certain amount of risk to each Predator. Sure you could cannibalize your cohorts, but they could defend themselves and hurt you or even kill and eat you too. It's all about efficiency. \nI think of the American Alligator and American Crocodile in your question. Alligators are known to sometimes cannibal... |
[
"If I change the amount of Gauge Bosons in a system, will that affect in any way the strength of their respective interaction/force?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"An interaction is not given by the presence of a background or population of actual carrier particles. It stems (or can be written as being due to) the exchange of ",
" carrier particles. ",
"When two charges apply an electrostatic force on each other, there are zero real photons around. The number of photons ... | [
"the corresponding fields do literally mediate the interaction. For every type of particle there is a field, roughly.",
"These fields can ",
" support plane waves, which are a different thing from the kind of field configuration that appear in the interaction above. In the quantum picture, and after a bunch of ... | [
"Oh... Wow. So then why do we say that they mediate the interaction? Just for simplicities sake?"
] |
[
"Theoretically, if a brain were to be continuously transplanted into different host bodies, would it be able to survive forever?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"There are at least three issues:",
"We've never transplanted a brain, so it's hard to answer this question even hypothetically (not theoretically, hypothetically).",
"Mature brains don't produce new neurons, so you better hope you don't lose too many over time.",
"Age-related brain disorders such as ",
"Al... | [
"Don't they actually produce some new neurons? Of course not many, but iirc they recently found out that some new neuros are still produceds even when older"
] | [
"The hippocampus generates new neurons but only to be used in learning and memory within the hippocampus itself. They couldn't really become a motor neuron or cerebellar neuron or anything like that."
] |
[
"On stealth aircraft, how is it possible, that radars can 'see' out of the airframe, but enemy radars cannot see in?"
] | [
false
] | I would assume, that since aircraft radars that are housed in the nose of the aircraft need to see the enemy through the hull, it would mean that the noses air made from some radar transparent material. However this would mean, that enemy radars would be able see inside the nose of the aircraft just as well. | [
"Radar leaving the aircraft is fine since the geometry of the transmitter and receiver are included in the initial design.",
"This is the part I'm having trouble understanding.\nWhen a stealth aircraft uses its radar, wouldn't the radio waves be attenuated by its own skin on the way out? Then again, when its rada... | [
"Radar leaving the aircraft is fine since the geometry of the transmitter and receiver are included in the initial design.",
"This is the part I'm having trouble understanding.\nWhen a stealth aircraft uses its radar, wouldn't the radio waves be attenuated by its own skin on the way out? Then again, when its rada... | [
"so how blind are these guys flying? Thats very cool"
] |
[
"Need help speeding up DNA extraction protocol..."
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The Qiagen kits I use have no cap at all! Maybe you can find a different brand of column but use the Qiagen kit reagents? My lab does this often with Minipreps (with minimal/no loss in concentration compared to Qiagen columns), never tried with a Midiprep though.",
"also, try ",
"/r/biology",
" ",
"/r/la... | [
"The Qiagen kits I use have no cap at all! Maybe you can find a different brand of column but use the Qiagen kit reagents? My lab does this often with Minipreps (with minimal/no loss in concentration compared to Qiagen columns), never tried with a Midiprep though.",
"also, try ",
"/r/biology",
" ",
"/r/la... | [
"I've seen a vacuum manifold used for many minipreps in parallel; centrifugation steps are replaced by a quick pulldown via vacuum. It looks like you can buy the manifold straight from Qiagen, though for that price, you might rather just drill some holes in a tube...",
"http://www.qiagen.com/Products/Catalog/Lab-... |
[
"Why do the rings of Uranus seem to be... resonating? 2:30 in video"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"No video?"
] | [
"Frick. Looks like I'm retarded. I swear I had attached a link...",
"Thanks for the heads up"
] | [
"I'm just going to answer this here. The rippling you're viewing is just because the video is really ",
" low resolution. It's just video artifacts. ",
"However, with that said--Saturn's Rings aren't completely static either! Here's a video from the Cassini space craft:",
"\n",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... |
[
"Do objects in space cast shadows on the aurora?"
] | [
false
] | Would an object like a satellite passing above an aurora interrupt the solar wind? | [
"If said satelite was electrically charged enough, it could (i think) change the local field that causes the aurora - tho I dont know wheter it would be noticeable visually, and what energy level you'd need to pump into that satelite to make a difference enough vs earth magnetic field."
] | [
"But wouldn't an object that blocks the visible light from the sun also block the solar winds?"
] | [
"Not traditionally no, since a traditional shadow is caused by an object sitting between the light source and the light destination. The auroras aren't caused by a light source shining from behind an object in space onto the Earth's atmosphere, it's caused by charged particles from the solar winds which travel down... |
[
"Why are yawns \"contagious\"?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"From what I remember from my lectures yawning could be contagious in order to synchronize the sleep of animals.\nOne interesting point is also which\"part\" of the face is triggering the yawns. It appears that the eyes are the main vector of the contagion.",
"Many others explanations are possible, but this the o... | [
"According to my precocious daughter, she watched a TV episode called Brain Games where they gave explanation as part of our survival instincts is for humans to mimic behaviour of others (such as prey animals that run when one is spooked.). Not sure this is entirely convincing, but for me I notice coughing in a lar... | [
"There's a concept called mirror neurons that psychologist believe to be the reason this happens. Mirror neurons are the firing of similar neurons when you see someone do something. So if you were talking to someone and they scratched their cheeks, your neurons that you use to scratch your cheeks will activate. Som... |
[
"If you gave a baby a tattoo, what would happen as they aged?"
] | [
false
] | Sorry both for the inane question and if this would be better asked in another subreddit, but I wanted a serious answer. I'm aware getting a tattoo on a baby would be abuse and it's not something I would ever do, the thought only came up after watching some episodes of Archer. As the baby aged, would the tattoo begin t... | [
"this is technically correct.",
"No, it carries a bunch of assumptions with it, not the least of which with any technical backing behind it. It's just off-topic."
] | [
"I don't know if a permanent tattoo constitutes as a scar like other users are saying. You should ask ",
"r/tattoos",
" they'll help you with all your questions."
] | [
"I think it is absolutely relevant, since it seems scars behave similarly. Thank you!"
] |
[
"If the Milky Way is moving through space, is it orbiting something bigger?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The definition of orbit gets a little strained beyond the order of galaxies. The Milky Way pretty definitely orbits the Local Group barycenter. The Local Group is part of the Virgo Supercluster, and it's not entirely clear what is orbiting what within that group (taking the two body problem to an extreme). Beyond ... | [
"Everything you see in any representation of the Milky Way is considered gravitationally bound. Heck, even our two closest galaxy neighbors are well bound to the Milky Way. The general hypothesis is that the Milky Way would have a much more dispersed and less rigid shape if all the matter were normal baryonic matte... | [
"Yes, it's called a ",
"barycentre",
", a point in space that's the centre of mass of a gravitationally bound system."
] |
[
"Math and Science"
] | [
false
] | This question is very hard for me to articulate, but for the current system of mathematics that we use for science, especially stuff like algebra, calculus, discrete mathematics, linear algebra etc, was math there all along (did it exist) or was it used as a tool for science? I know I'm not phrasing this very well, but... | [
"Math and science are like two good, busy friends. They spend lots of time off by themselves, working on secret projects, but often have beers together and share their secrets. Usually, shortly after such inebriation both fields make a lot of progress."
] | [
"Take it even further. Math is an extension of basic logic. Thus, it's not just useful for describing the universe. It's useful for describing any universe, or things that do not actually exist. In any realm where logic is used, math will be descriptive and useful."
] | [
"A lot of it was developed hand in hand. Newton developed calculus at the same time he was developing mechanics. Vector calculus was developed alongside electromagnetic theory. Knot theory has its origins in an incorrect theory about the nature of matter, that all atoms are actually knots in the ether. William Rowa... |
[
"Besides a massive dish, is there anything preventing people from sending malicious commands to rovers and satellites?"
] | [
false
] | Surely there are safety precautions in place preventing a rogue signal from bringing down a communications satellite, but with the ability of hackers today it makes me wonder. What are the precautions? | [
"I think that the main question remains unanswered. Is communication with the satellite encrypted and authenitcated?",
"Answers so far, implying that it couldn't be done, don't hold up when examined:",
"Transmitter power. - VSAT terminals communicate with satellites using low power and small dishes. Hand-held s... | [
"The single biggest hurdle is the infrastructure. The radio telescopes i work on are 30+ meters in diameter and very difficult/complicated. But that is only the start. Some of the transmitters use hundreds of kW of electricity and are cryogenically cooled. ",
"However, assuming you have sufficient equipment a... | [
"Not to mention the commands are likely encrypted, so even if you knew the commands, without the encryption key the satelitte would ignore you."
] |
[
"Could an animal intelligence table be possible?"
] | [
false
] | Obviously traits of intelligence is subjective. But surely there is a load of recognised functions that show intelligence or whatever. Plus you could have two different colours: One represents that all of that species express that function. Second colour that represents that some of the species have that intelligence. ... | [
"Making a table is easy. Getting people to agree on a set of criteria that defines intelligence is not."
] | [
"The problem becomes who makes the table of intelligent features. A lot of people point to animal architecture - the complexity of the ant colony, the air conditioning in termite mounds, the water flow through and isolation of beaver dams. Yet amoeba, single cell organisms can also make complex shells for themsel... | [
"Absolutley?"
] |
[
"Ecolittering. Is throwing a banana peel out the car window better than putting it in a trash can?"
] | [
false
] | Ideally organic waste should be thrown in a compost bin, but in lieu of that, is it better to throw it into a field rather than a landfill? Background. I worked for a composting company for 2 years. I toss apple cores, banana peels, half eaten tacos etc onto the ground all the time, but I will lash out on people who l... | [
"I work for a water company for a major city. I would suggest that this kind of littering is OK in a rural or bush/woods environment, or anywhere the organic waste or its outputs are not easily washed down drains etc. In an urban environment, large amounts of organic waste get washed down storm-water drainage syste... | [
"Expanding on the question: Is it worse for the landfill not to have that organic material in the mix? Does that organic material help with the slow decay of the other garbage there? Could the moisture and organisms held by that organic material help break down the other more durable materials in the landfill?"
] | [
"Not really. Oxygen is the limiting factor for decay of the organics in a landfill. A certain amount of (mostly anaerobic) decay does take place (producing methane gas, which has to be vented or burned off continuously) but it's a very slow process. If you really wanted the organic materials in a landfill to actual... |
[
"How are cranes built?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Some cranes actually raise themselves, see ",
"this timelapse video",
" for an example."
] | [
"This video shows how a crane uses a climber system to insert sections of the crane underneath itself: ",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB91Sm-kGJ8&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRB91Sm-kGJ8",
"Edit: removed mobile link."
] | [
"It still needed another lifting device. Then my question is how were cranes built before they had fancy mobile lifting devices to set up the initial set up. ",
"Thanks for the video though :)"
] |
[
"How did NASA get the ISS into orbit?"
] | [
false
] | I want to know the detailed process, not just "rockets" | [
"That's an enormous question.",
"The simple answer is ",
"piece by piece",
".",
"The slightly longer (but still simple) answer is, by launching three orbiters dozens of times, by launching several Soyuz and Salyut rockets, by conducting dozens of spacewalks, by utilizing two Canadian robot arms, and by doin... | [
"They took it up piece by piece - assembling a bit more each time - in the U.S.'s space shuttle and other countries' equivalents (which are all powered by rockets)."
] | [
"Nah, that pretty much answered my question, thanks"
] |
[
"How do antennas work?"
] | [
false
] | I'm a 2nd year electrical engineering student who's taken physics with calculus (mechanics and E&M), RLC circuits, digital logic, vector calculus, and differential equations. I still don't know how antennas work, but I can handle a scientific answer to this question! | [
"Beamwidth in azimuth and elevation are inversely proportional to gain, so smaller beamwidths equal large gain. This means antennas with any sort of gain have to be pointed in the right direction or they won't work very well (if at all).",
"The size of the antenna is the biggest (haha) factor. This is generally... | [
"Whenever an EM field hits a wire (or antenna) it will induce an EM wave to propagate in the wire. And with something like an antenna, when it hits the end it will reflect back. The key to having a good antenna is to make sure that those reflections cause constructive interference, rather than destructive. If th... | [
"A quarter wave needs a ground or at least a counterpoise. A dipole is usually a half wavelength (basically, two quarter wave antennas where each thinks the other is a ground), and doesn't require a ground."
] |
[
"What exactly is happening when I repeatedly suck on the opening of a glass bottle and it pulls my lips/tongue into it?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Suction is flow of a fluid into a region of low pressure. You are decreasing the air pressure inside the bottle when you suck on it. Since the air pressure inside is less than the air pressure outside the bottle the higher air pressure that is outside the bottle \"pushes\" your lips into the bottle causing the suc... | [
"Cool, thanks!"
] | [
"Vacuums do not innately attract matter, because the pressure gradient between the region will always push matter toward lower pressure. "
] |
[
"why high-speed wind feels colder?"
] | [
false
] | why high-speed wind feels colder? | [
"There are two potential reasons. One requires the wind to be cooler than the object, which we will assume is you from now on. The second requires some moisture on the object.",
"First, the rate of heat loss is what makes you feel cold. This rate increases with wind because the wind reduces the temperature gradi... | [
"Thanks a lot :)"
] | [
"It's primarily just a higher rate of convective heat transfer. Convection is caused by fluid motion against another medium, in this case the air against you. As the particles of air collide with you, they also take heat with them, assuming they are a lower temperature than you are. So, the higher the wind speed, t... |
[
"How does relativity change when acceleration enters into it?"
] | [
false
] | Yesterday, someone commented on the Cornell Astronomers AMA, suggesting a spaceship that provide a constant thrust of 9.81 m/s The idea being to constantly accelerate halfway to a nearby star and then to decelerate for the other half. I wanted to do a back of the envelope calculation to see how long the trip would tak... | [
"Basically, if you want to figure out the velocity relative to the starting rest frame under seemingly-uniform acceleration from the ship's frame, you take the hyperbolic tangent (which goes from zero at zero to one at infinity) of how fast you'd naively expect it to be going with respect to light without relativi... | [
"Accelerating reference frames are covered under ",
"general relativity",
", which describes the warping of spacetime under acceleration due to gravity ",
" delta vee. The effect of constant straight-line acceleration at 9.81 m/s² is the same as being in a one gee gravity field, or being in a rotating space s... | [
"Would a spaceship still experience the acceleration as it approaches the speed of light?",
"The spaceship never approaches the speed of light from its own point of references, and so it can always keep accelerating more and more as long as it has fuel."
] |
[
"What determines the frequency of lightning in a storm?"
] | [
false
] | I know this is probably a dumb question but some storms have lightning every two seconds while others can have a minute between strikes. I’m just curious as to why. | [
"A storm will have a higher frequency of lightning with greater energy available to the storm. This energy is referred to as CAPE, or convective available potential energy. CAPE is determined by the vertical temperature gradient through the atmosphere of the storm. CAPE has units of Joules per kilogram (of air); an... | [
"Essentially CAPE measures the energy that convected air possesses for a given altitude and temperature gradient. There are other measures that quantify various other atmospheric conditions that are a pre-requisite for thunderstorms, such as the lifted index (LI).",
"You’re right that a low CAPE of say, less than... | [
"Cosmic rays may have some interaction with the atmosphere that, during a thunderstorm, temporarily reduces the impedance of the atmosphere, thus creating a path for any potential electrostatic discharge. ",
"However, cosmic rays are not a limiting factor in the frequency of lightning because they are so abundant... |
[
"What is it about Malaria that requires a special class of anti-malarial medication, rather than \"typical\" antibiotics effective against bacterial infection?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Malaria isn’t a bacteria, it’s a protozoan. As such, it requires a different type of drug to fight it. Think of it this way: antibiotics are for bacterial infections, anti-virals are for viral infections, anti-fungals are for fungal infections. The different types of drugs won’t be effective against organisms f... | [
"Antibiotics work only against bacteria! That's why it is (also) useless if you have a virus infection.",
"Malaria is neither - it is a small parasite that places itself inside red blood cells. That's why antibiotics also don't work. It's more complex, of course, and you can read more about its life cycle ",
"h... | [
"Malaria protozoans are much more complex than bacteria. Consequently they need different medications.",
"Not to mention that not all antibiotics cover every type of bacteria. Some antibiotics, such as first-generation cephalosporins (think Ancef/Kefzol or Keflex) are narrow-spectrum - they only work on a relativ... |
[
"Atomic theories, what's *actually* wrong with Thomson's plum pudding?"
] | [
false
] | I actually don't understand this. Of course, nowadays we can use simple physics, but during the early 20th century, how did we do this? Was it simply since Rutherford disproved it? Was there any more reasons back then? | [
"As far as I am aware, historically, it was the gold foil experiment that led to the rejection of the plum pudding model in favor of Rutherford's model."
] | [
"Even before the gold foil experiment, Thomson was incredibly unhappy with the model he came up with. He quite rightly intuited that it was impossible that it could cling together as a wide mass with thinly distributed positive charge being attracted to the smaller electrons. The Plum Pudding Model was just the bes... | [
"It's worth noting that when Thomson came up with the model, he had just discovered the electron. It was the first sub-atomic particle discovered; Thomson thought it was the ",
" sub-atomic particle. If your job is to come up with an atomic model with ",
" electrons, his model ain't so bad. It was more orderly ... |
[
"We always hear that the European explorers brought over new diseases; however, did they catch (similar to smallpox) any that were native to the Americas but deadly to Europeans?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"This is more speculative than I would like for this sub, but some believe syphilis is a new world disease, others believe it existed in Europe unrecognized.",
"Edit ",
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis",
" "
] | [
"if this were true would it mean native americans are more able to resist the virus?"
] | [
"For most of Eurasian history, people were exposed to the different strains of smallpox, flu, typhus, measles etc. in smaller bursts. ",
"Look at this website",
". So, the survivors gradually built up antibodies to the different diseases. Native Americans were exposed to them all at once. ",
"Additionally, so... |
[
"What are 0s and 1s ultimately, in physical terms? How have their permutations and combinations resulted in myriad things. Is there a book to get my head around this. I feel overwhelmed."
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Hi ",
"/u/FulkOberoi",
" ,",
"I think the best resource for you would be an Electronics textbook. You would see at a very low level how information storage, encoding, and circuit construction happens. Unfortunately, I'm not able to suggest a good textbook for you here. Could you please post your question in ... | [
"I certainly will.",
"However, I am concerned about the The Picture. ",
"No textbook I’ve encountered deals worth the Big Picture.",
"Is electronics and computing - Science (Natural Law), Engineering, Art, stroke-of-luck, a bunch of conventions and protocols (who decides them)?",
"Any explanation I seek on ... | [
"I totally understand where you're coming from. However that is a lot of questions. Perhaps you could submit the topics separately:"
] |
[
"As I understand it, only one side of the moon ever faces Earth, the other always away, so why are there craters on the side facing Earth?"
] | [
false
] | Did the moon used to rotate? Did asteroids come from the other side of earth, almost hit us, but hit the moon instead? | [
"You might want to look at ",
"this",
"Meteors can come from any direction, though they are predominantly in the plane of the solar system, but the earth isn't really big enough to make a huge difference. The image is from ",
"this page"
] | [
"Also, orbital mechanics are such that an object on a sub-orbital trajectory doesn't have to impact the side it approaches from. In fact, periapsis(the point in the orbit closest to the body being orbited) is on the opposite side of the moon as the highest point in the orbit(for an elliptical orbit). An object on a... | [
"One other thing - the Moon has not always been tidally locked to Earth, and there was ample time for impacts over its whole surface with objects coming in from beyond the Moon."
] |
[
"Why do planets orbit/rotate in the direction they do?"
] | [
false
] | All of the planets in our solar system orbit the sun in the same direction that the sun rotates about its axis (counterclockwise when viewed from the sun’s North Pole). But Venus and Uranus rotate about their axes in the opposite direction as they orbit the sun. What causes planets to orbit another object in a certain ... | [
"The cloud of dust that became our solar system had some particular orientation of angular momentum, so when the planets formed out of that dust, they kept the same orientation, which is why they all orbit in the same orbital plane, more or less. If they’re rotating a weird way, it probably means they got smacked b... | [
"or they were affected by the gravitational forces of a neighbouring planet as is what's suspected to have happened to ",
"Uranus",
" which is flipped on its side, orbiting the Sun like a rolling ball."
] | [
"As another poster suggests the alignment is thought to come from the protoplanetary disc that the planets formed from. This disc formed from a cloud that had a net angular momentum with which the disc then takes on. This is the typical stuff you can read a lot... It was thought that this was also the end of the st... |
[
"Do people with Situs Inversus (reversed/mirrored organs) tend more to left-hand dominance?"
] | [
false
] | Wikipedia claims that globally humans are 87-92% right hand dominant. Situs inversus seems pretty rare at roughly 1 in 10,000. Do we have statistics on the handedness of those with Situs inversus? Bonus question: Do we know if right-left lateralization of brain function is reversed in people with Situs Inversus? | [
"If I remember my embryology correctly, the neuroectoderm develops along the anterior posterior axis before the lateral axis is determined. So assuming handedness is a trait determined by the brain lobes, I would think the answer is no. "
] | [
"weird that handedness didn't correlate, but wearing a watch on the right hand did."
] | [
"weird that handedness didn't correlate, but wearing a watch on the right hand did."
] |
[
"If you had a row of rotating gears a light-year long and you stopped the first one how would it take for the last gear to stop?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Mechanical forces are transmitted through materials at the speed of sound (in that material). That's what sounds is - a compression wave that propagates from atom to atom. The speed of sound in steel is about 5 km/s, so if your gears were made of steel it would take at least 60,000 years to transmit a force over... | [
"If by indestructible material, you mean one incapable of any sort of deformation, you run into the ",
"same problem",
" as \"a perfectly rigid rod\" thought experiments. Asking for possible outcomes with impossible materials prevents a truly scientific answer. The assumption #2 requires physics to behave as th... | [
"Not enough variables defined. You'd need to assume some basic gear geometry and a material, as well as a speed and stopping time to define this.",
"For instance, if the gears are made of wet clay, then it's easily possible for two gears (rather than a series a light year long) to yield (permanent, inelastic def... |
[
"Why do depressants and stimulants tend to be addictive, where hallucinogens aren't?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Generally one of the properties of addictive drugs is that they directly (cocaine, amphetamines) or indirectly (opiates, alcohol) cause the increased release of dopamine in the synapses of an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. The ",
"mesolimbic pathway",
" of the brain is thought to mediate rewa... | [
"this was interresting, thanks!"
] | [
"so how does benzo work, i've tried both alcohol and benzo and the effect is somewhat similar, yet benzo is classified as a different sort of depressant?\nwhat differentiates benzo from other depressants, in other words..?"
] |
[
"What is it about Alaska's geology that it has more gold than elsewhere in the US?"
] | [
false
] | Why don't we find more gold in the lower 48? | [
"basically it comes down to having perfect conditions. Gold is formed from the intrusives that occurred because of the subducting oceanic plate under Alaska. These intrusives are very hot, and have a lot of heavy metals in them, so when water seeps into the hot material, a lot of the minerals dissolve and travel wi... | [
"if you are talking about once we get past the brittle upper crust and get into ductile lower crust to mantle, then the gold will just be incorporated into the different mineral assemblages. You wouldn't find gold nuggets floating around, they would be in a chemical bond with something else. "
] | [
"The mantle is a hodgepodge of various pieces of oceanic crust and some chemical gradients within the peridotitic assemblages in the upper curst, so it is vastly different under, say, California, and New York. "
] |
[
"AskScience AMA Series: Hi Reddit - we are group of 250 engineers, scientists, innovators, technologists, digital experts and designers with a collected 45 PhDs / Professors and 35 members representing national science or engineering institutions / charities. AUA!"
] | [
false
] | Last week was British Science Week! We are here to answer any questions any of you have to do with science or technology and how they affect your life. There are no silly questions - ask us anything and we will try to give an easy-to-understand answer and, wherever possible, provide some further sources to enable you t... | [
"Thank you all for doing this AMA!",
"I'm a high school student and in Biology class we are currently discussing evolution. I think this subject is very interesting but one particular thing got me wondering.",
"From what I've learned, evolution occurs through 'survival of the fittest'. Organisms mutate and when... | [
"Sorry for the slow reply - we wanted our expert to give his opinion!",
"There is no clear answer to this but because of improved medicine, living conditions etc people are living much longer and so the ultimate selection pressure “dying before you can reproduce” is less powerful. There are a variety of genes (a... | [
"No panel member has built an Ark..... yet....",
"",
"Joking aside, we hope that before we create the singularity that we will have figured out how to work together to solve climate change."
] |
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