title list | over_18 list | post_content stringlengths 0 9.37k ⌀ | C1 list | C2 list | C3 list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"Is DNA 'limited'? If so what happens when multiple people have the 'same' DNA?"
] | [
false
] | Does DNA have a limited number of possibilities, or are there an infinite amount of possible DNA combinations? If the possible combinations are limited, what happens when two people have the 'same' DNA? Are there any cases of this happening? If DNA is infinite, what would happen should it be limited? (What I mean by li... | [
"\"20",
" is 20 with 20 zeros after it\"",
"its more than that. 20 times 10",
" would be a 20 with ",
" zeros.",
"20",
" is about 8.035 times 10",
" times bigger than 20*10",
"source"
] | [
"i thought that might be a typo, but 20",
" still has more than 200 zeros",
"wolfram alpha"
] | [
"Yes, DNA is limited, but the number of possible combinations of DNA that would still be considered human is much greater than the number of humans that have ever lived.",
"As frequently happens in science education, Carl Sagan has already explained this far better than I ever could."
] |
[
"How do thermophile proteins keep from denaturing?"
] | [
false
] | Some archaea and bacteria live at temperatures above to 353K. These are temperatures where molecules have enough kinetic energy to cause the vast majority of proteins to lose their structure and therefore function. No organism can survive without functioning proteins, so what is different about thermophilic proteins ... | [
"This is a current area of research in molecular biology. ",
"The simple answer is that life operates in a 10-20kJ/mol window, and this window can exist in high or low temperature environments. Thermophile proteins don't work at the regular 40C, so it's not like it's transferable. People are interested in how the... | [
"So, if these proteins are allowed to cool to mesophilic temperatures, do they denature with the decreasing hydrophobic effect? "
] | [
"Yes, partly, although the extent to which this is important is up for debate. In the end, nobody really cares about protein foldedness, they care about activity. Obviously folding is a prerequisite, but not sufficient for enzymatic and other activities.",
"What happens when you take yeast cells at 37C and put th... |
[
"How/why do mirrors act as windows for depth perception when it is only light reflecting off of a surface?"
] | [
false
] | I hope my question is worded appropriately. Yesterday, I was reading a book in my car. I have reading glasses and when I try to look at something in the distance with my glasses on, it's blurry. I happened to glance in my car's mirror and I noticed that objects further away from the mirror are still blurry, while objec... | [
"Looking into a flat mirror, in almost every way, is no different than looking at the reflected object directly. A flat mirror conserves all angles of incident light. :)",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plane_mirror.png",
"This diagram may help you. It shows that, although you are looking at the reflected p... | [
"To extend this a bit, you can think of how far the light travels before it hits your eye. Lets say the object is 10 ft behind you and you facing a mirror 5 ft away. The light has to travel from the object to the mirror (15ft) and then from the mirror to you (adding up to 20 ft). So you perceive the object as th... | [
"well said!"
] |
[
"Lead, mercury, uranium. Why does it seem like the densest metals are also the poisonous ones? Is it BECAUSE of their density?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"It isn't really because of their density, but more because of their chemical similarity to other metals.",
"Enzymes are proteins that act as catalysts for chemical reactions in living systems. Many enzymes contain metal ions, which help provide structure to the enzyme and very often play a key role in facilitati... | [
"Could you provide other examples of notable enzymes that contain other metals (like the zinc, calcium, copper, molybdenum, and nickel you mentioned)?",
"There are thousands. One very important one is carbonic anhydrase, which has zinc at the active site. Other important enzymes with zinc at the active site are a... | [
"Just to add to this, I'd also like to offer counter-examples: Gold and platinum are both significantly more sense than lead whilst being essentially non-toxic (as are most of the platinum group metals. A key exception is osmium, which is still non-toxic as a pure metal, but it forms a very toxic and nasty oxide). ... |
[
"Why does tilt-shift fool us into thinking things are small?"
] | [
false
] | e.g. . I'm guessing, when stuff is very far it's all in focus, light rays are parallel...when your eyes focus close depth of field is an issue... when you take something far and force parts out of focus your mind thinks it must be really close and small? | [
"The tilt-shift effect is created by deliberately putting certain regions out of focus. In particular, you want to blur the areas that are significantly closer or farther than the focal point.",
"Normally, the only way to get such a shallow depth of field is for the scene that you're photographing to be small, in... | [
"Same effect happens in your eye. I don't have any evidence, but I suspect the effect is at least partially based on your visual experience rather than entirely derived from exposure to photographs."
] | [
"makes sense. ",
"far stuff = parallel light waves, everything in focus, deep depth of field ",
"near stuff = bigger difference in angles of waves hitting different parts of lens, shallow depth of field",
"not even macro, just seeing lots of normal pictures would create that association, large depth of field ... |
[
"Are there antibodies that target other antibodies?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Yes! Although typically not your own. The body has a system called \"central tolerance\" that makes sure that all immune cells that recognise self proteins are killed before they mature. This prevents the generation of immune responses against your own body proteins (although this system can break down in autoimmu... | [
"We use these all the time in the lab to label molecules on a microscope slide. Say you're studying protein X in a fly. You get your tissue all nice and pretty on the slide, and then you apply an antibody from, say, a mouse that recognizes protein X. The antibody sticks wherever X is. This is your primary antib... | [
"Thanks for the reply! So could you modify antibodies to target the specific antibodies?"
] |
[
"Does the rotation of a planet have an adverse effect on the moon(s) orbiting it?"
] | [
false
] | And are there planets where it's moon(s) orbit in the opposing direction of the planet's rotation? And if so, are there differences in the rotations of planets with 1 moon versus many moons? | [
"The answer to the first question is yes - why not? The direction with which the moon orbits a planet has nothing to do with the way the planet is rotating. Moons are essentially bodies (like asteroids) that were moving close enough and slow enough to a planet that it got \"trapped\" in it's gravitational field. Od... | [
"Thank you, I was under the impression that over time, if the satellite has enough mass, it can alter the rotation of the planet slightly or the planet itself can essentially dictate which direction the moon travels. TIL"
] | [
"It may or may not happen, I'm just sure that by the time the satellite's revolution would significantly effect planet's rotation or vice-versa, the satellite will probably be long gone because of other factors.",
"This gets me wondering, I actually have no idea why a planet rotates, whether it is a gradual proce... |
[
"If I was holding a compass on the moon, in what direction would it point?"
] | [
false
] | Would it still point at earths magnrtic southploe or does our Moon have it's own magnetic field (a very very very weak one)? Or would it be too confused by the suns radiation or ionozed particles? Or would earths magnetic field be waaaay too weak out there? | [
"For any real compass, it would do nothing as the moon has no magnetic field and nothing else would be strong enough to move it. with an ultra compass of no friction, it may move due to suns particles so that it would point towards/ away from the sun (i dont feel like figuring out which). Your body may have enough ... | [
"Both Io and Europa are indeed within Jupiters magnetosphere and apparently its enough to cause a current flow inside of Europa!",
"The compass I think would point to Jupiters magnetic north pole, but only in the vertical axis because magnetic lines dont flow straight from you to the pole, they curve around (cons... | [
"Huh, interesting.",
"What about Europa? Jupiters magnetic fieldbdoes surround it. Would the needle point towards jupiters north pole?"
] |
[
"Is it possible to generate power using harmful radiation as an energy source?"
] | [
false
] | And by 'harmful radiation', I mean the alpha, beta, and gamma radiation generated by radioactive nuclei. I guess I'm asking if there would be a way to stick the waste products from nuclear fission power plants into something that could harness the energy of the radiation for power. | [
"This is already done. They are called ",
"Betavoltaics",
" and the ",
"Radioisotope thermoelectric generator",
"."
] | [
"Cool, thanks!"
] | [
"Absolutely!",
"Some spacecraft use Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) to generate heat and power themselves. For example, the Curiosity Rover on Mars uses a Pu-238 RTG to power itself. RTGs work by creating a temperature difference via decay heat to generate electricity."
] |
[
"Would getting a COVID-19 vaccine be advisable after you have already contracted and recovered from it?"
] | [
false
] | I know this is a fairly hypothetical question at this point as we don’t know yet what vaccine will be most effective but is there any evidence to support the question one way or the other from other similar diseases? The leading literature on the front runner vaccines shows better immune response than those that contra... | [
"If you've already been exposed an infected by a disease, you are likely immune, so getting a COVID-19 vaccine won't hurt but it won't do anything either. ",
"Studies showing \"vaccines having a better response than those who contract the virus\" may be dodgy. Who is funding the studies? How good are the studies?... | [
"Viruses dont care about manners but the old lady down the street might care if you take her dose from her. Its not like 7 billion doses of vaccine are going to be available immediately"
] | [
"Thanks, not infected that I know of yet. However had a bad outbreak at work so everyone just got tested. I have no worries about getting a vaccine when it’s first available but might wait if I become infected to let others get it first that need it. I’m not in the healthcare field but am an engineer so I still enj... |
[
"Will my parents’ dogs “recognize” my scent when I meet them for the first time?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Hi thisismyus3rnam3 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 th... | [
"Human body"
] | [
"Human Body"
] |
[
"Could a solar panel be developed for radiation?"
] | [
false
] | Would it be possible for a solar panel to be developed to get enrgy from radiation? (Like Chernobyl) | [
"But not all radiation is light..."
] | [
"But not all radiation is light..."
] | [
"I think technically 1 photon actually gives you 2e of charge, since you'd make a particle-hole pair."
] |
[
"What would be the ideal operating temperature for a car?"
] | [
false
] | I'm assuming colder weather will make cooling of the engine easier, but will it actually increase the performance? Or is there something that will make it perform better at higher temperatures? Or is the temperature pretty much irrelevant? | [
"Colder weather won't improve performance just by keeping operation cooler. Since your motor is burning fuel at 1800* in the combustion chamber and your coolant's nominal temperature is 350* a change of 80* in ambient temperature is almost entirely irrelevant to performance capabilities based on cooler operation."... | [
"During lectures in engineering we were told to keep in mind that different materials have different temperature expansion coefficients. So something that turns freely at one temperature could be stuck at another temperature. I think this is something one would have to keep in mind when thinking about the ideal ope... | [
"Gasoline combustion motors are an air pump at their basis, requiring fuel and air to do their job. More fuel requires more air, and vice versa. ",
"At ambient pressure there is only so much fuel one can compress and burn before it's wasted, cooler ambient temperatures lend themselves to denser intake air (which... |
[
"How Exactly Does a Cell 'Absorb' Light?"
] | [
false
] | So chlorophyll in plants aborbs light to convert to energy, and photoreceptors in our eyes aborb light to transmit to our brain making our pupils pitch black, but what exactly does 'aborb' mean? How do the cells 'capture' light and what is done with it? | [
"for the eyes, its the rhodopsin protein, more specifically the ",
"opsin",
" cofactor that is chemically excited by a photon and changes shape in response. ",
"visual explaination"
] | [
"Those are two very different things. As someone said, it's all about energy transformation.",
"There are extremely complicated signaling pathways that changes in environment trigger within each cell, but the basic formula for each of our senses is this: \n1. energy detection (mechanical-touch, chemical-scent or ... | [
"Light is just energy. Plants have structures in them that, when hit by light, use the energy that light carries to form complex molecules (forming atomic bonds requires energy, often a lot of it).",
"The receptors in our eyes, instead, are like sensors. They are able to detect specific wavelenghts (\"colors\") o... |
[
"Without a magnetosphere, can Mars ever sustain a stable atmosphere?"
] | [
false
] | Without a spinning molten core and magnetosphere, how can any habitable atmosphere ever be established on Mars (without severe and rapid leakage into space due to the solar wind)? | [
"Solar erosion of atmospheres around Mars would take millions of years to have significantly measurable effects.",
"If you gave mars an atmosphere, it would retain it past when humans have gone extinct.",
"'Rapid solar erosion' is only rapid on a planetary timescale."
] | [
"Maybe not, but 'rapid' is, perhaps, overstating it a little. On human timescales and with a sufficient input of raw materials from the outer system, it should be possible to sustain a biosphere of some sort on the martian surface."
] | [
"You might be interested in this thread, posted about the same time as yours",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2ig9cm/if_the_solar_winds_blew_the_martian_atmosphere/",
"Summary: It's gravity, not magnetic field, that is most important for atmosphere retention. However, if you dumped an atmospher... |
[
"How did the universe start?"
] | [
false
] | Recently I have just been wondering. How did the universe start? In school they explained the Big Bang theory, but when I thought about it; I wondered. Where did all the matter that supposedly exploded into what is now the universe come from. So could give me an answer? How did the universe begin? | [
"Not with a bang, but with a whimper.",
"First there was a very brief — much, much shorter than a second — period of intense metric expansion. This is called the ",
" During this period the energy density of the universe was ",
" It's called the ",
" because it's presumed, with good reason, that that's the ... | [
"You and every other living cosmologist.",
"The truth is that it's really not that far-fetched. We already know that energy affects the geometry of spacetime; that's what gravity is. Metric expansion is just another manifestation of the same basic thing."
] | [
"The universe expanded, driven by the pressure of all that energy.",
"It's my understanding that ",
" itself is expanding, and I find it difficult to picture a \"pressure\" that acts on space (instead of pressure acting on a boundary of a closed system in everyday life, for example). How does energy cause space... |
[
"Does every rotating planet have its own equivalent “Northstar”?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The North Star is just a random star that coincidently lines up fairly well with the earths axis of rotation. It doesn’t line up 100% perfect because it’s just a coincidence. Our ancestors were observant enough to realize that it doesn’t appear to move at all in the sky. They didn’t have the technology to see that... | [
"So ",
"this wiki article",
" would interest you - it shows the pole stars for other planets in our Solar System.",
"Bear in mind that not every pole will have a star aligned to it. It's really just coincidence that there's a bright star very close to our North Celestial Pole, and there's really no equivalent... | [
"There will always be a point directly to the north (and another to the south in the southern hemisphere) that appears motionless in the sky, and if within a galaxy you can generally expect there to be a star or group of stars near that point, but they won't necessarily be as prominent as Polaris. Also, planets wit... |
[
"\"Magnetism holds us together. Magnetism is what keeps up from flying apart.\" -- Fringe"
] | [
false
] | This assertion was made by Walter last night on "Fringe". That was pretty much the extent of the explanation, however? Is this true? Can someone tell me more? | [
"It's true that ",
"magnetism (which magnetism is a part of) holds atoms/molecules to other atoms/molecules, and also (broadly) keeps electrons fixed to their respective nuclei (nucleus + electrons = atom). Electromagnetism is, in turn, part of the ",
"electroweak",
" force. The nucleus itself is held togethe... | [
"The fact that electricity and magnetism are exactly the same thing, perhaps."
] | [
"Tomayto, tomahto."
] |
[
"Why do horseradish and wasabi seem to burn through the nose, while regular hot sauces and peppers seem to burn through the tongue (and also almost anything else they come in contact with)?"
] | [
false
] | I hot sauces, the hotter the better, (~7,000,000 Scoville is my daily driver) but I’ve noticed there is a big difference between how a Carolina reaper burns vs horseradish. Why is that? | [
"Hot peppers get their heat from capsaicin, which has a throatier burn and burns the mouth more. ",
"Wasabi and horseradish, which are in the same family of roots, get their burn from a compound called allyl isothiocyanate.",
"Allyl isothiocyanate vaporizes more easily than capsaicin and has a smaller molecular... | [
"The molecules in horderadish and wasabi are mucolytics, aka stuff that makes the mucus more soluble"
] | [
"So, that's why wasabi helps me clear my nose when I have a clogged nose"
] |
[
"Not asking for medical advice. Just genuinely wondering; what's worst for the liver/body, moderately drinking alcohol or taking an OC like Tylenol PM or a prescription med. like Ambien?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"What I mean by moderate would be what would be equivalent to the effects of taking one or two of these pills. Of being able to go to sleep. So 4 beers a night? 2 glasses a wine a night? 1 shot a night? "
] | [
"So how would those units stack up in comparisons to taking 1-2 sleeping pills a night? What's better, what's worse, is the question I'm basically asking. Should be interesting to see if anything comes up. I know Ambien is known for its sleep walking effects, but that's not what I'm really looking for, I'm after th... | [
"Please can you define \"moderate\" drinking?"
] |
[
"What are the differences between 16, 32, and 64 bit programs?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Those numbers correspond to the word size of the underlying architecture. Programs optimized for 64bit processors can make use of 64bit variables without incurring a loss of performance since the processor can handle manipulation of data of that size with the same number of instructions as smaller variables. A 32b... | [
"Don't forget memory addressing. ",
"16 bit addressing only gives you access to 64KiB. Intel (and compatible) processors get around this limit by the use of segment registers to dictate which 64KiB segment you want to address (coding for this is a bit of a pain). ",
"With 32-bit addressing, you can access up t... | [
"AFAIK, no current 64bit processor supports the full 64bit address line, nor does any current motherboard. Nor do we currently make RAM cards in a high enough capacity or motherboards with enough slots to get anywhere near. For all intents and purposes, a 64 bit processor will take as much memory as you can throw a... |
[
"Why does sunburnt skin feel hot to the touch?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The underlying DNA damage leads to cell death and an inflammatory reaction. Inflammation produces redness, warmth, swelling, and pain."
] | [
"When you get a sunburn, it's just like any other burn. It's typically like any other first degree burn, but it can sometimes be more severe and become a second degree burn (i.e. the skin starts to form blisters). When your skin burns in this fashion, what occurs is a combination of different things:",
"There are... | [
"I apologize for butting in with my rather minor level of medical knowledge from my GCSE Biology exam, but enzymes denature their active substrate area at 45 degrees, is this the same with proteins? Because surely at that sort of temperature internally the externally exposed temperature of the skin would be near en... |
[
"How can I proof the tick sounds a Geiger counter generates are completely random?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"This is more of an exercise in statistics than in physics. Assuming your source is not ",
" active (and a perfect detector for simplicity), the number of ticks of your Geiger counter will be distributed according to a ",
"Poisson distribution",
".",
"So you can just count ticks over a period of time, plot ... | [
"Thank you for the answer! But if the ticks will be distributed according to a Poisson distribution, it means there is a certain pattern. Doesn't that mean that the Geiger counter's ticks are not random?"
] | [
"Having a pattern doesn't mean that they're not random. All random variables are not ",
" random variables."
] |
[
"Could you infect a cow with a virus (ie covid 19) and then get the antibodies from its milk?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"It’s hardly a new idea. There’s a 1973 patent on the topic (",
"Process of producing bovine milk products containing specific antibodies",
"), and here’s a 10-year-old Scientific American article about the approach (",
"Milk of Life: Dairy Cows Inoculated against Sepsis Could Help Malnourished Children",
... | [
" antibodies are not destroyed in the stomach. But that doesn’t mean they’re able to escape from the gut into the body. The antibody treatments that are being used by oral delivery are targeting things that are in the intestines - bacteria that cause Traveler’s Diarrhea, for example. So there’s no risk of systemic ... | [
"IgA, which is a major subtype in milk, is resistant to digestion. Also, in general, bovine immunoglobulin including IgG is resistant to digestion. This isn’t some hypothetical scenario, commercial products based on this are fairly widely used. ",
"Effects of Bovine Immunoglobulins on Immune Function, Allergy, an... |
[
"What exactly is the \"hot dense state\" of the big bang?"
] | [
false
] | While trying to come to better grips with the big bang theory, I was perplexed by how all matter took the form of radiation.(Is this view mistaken?) Later this radiation cooled down and formed matter as we know it today. Initially, I thought the energy would be something like electromagnetic radiation, but as far as I ... | [
"It's not really certain. Our current understanding of physics doesn't go arbitrarily close to \"t=0\" if you will. It gets pretty darned close, but not all the way there. Anyways, if it continues as we expect, then the present separate fields may be more \"unified\" at higher energy densities, they may appear not ... | [
"That's difficult to explain to a degree. There's a thing called the \"running of the coupling constants.\" But essentially, how strongly particles \"couple\" to their field changes with energy. For most reasonable cases, that's not a big deal. But in really really high energies, these coupling constants change, an... | [
"One thing I never understood. Why do the qualities of a field change under extreme heat and pressure? Is it because the messenger particles are being affected?"
] |
[
"How close to the speed of light could a ship realistically get?"
] | [
false
] | Is it possible to achieve an extremely high velocity without the ship breaking apart? Say we have some uninvented propulsion mechanism that allows us to apply a constant moderate acceleration to a vehicle indefinitely. Would the ship stay intact? Assume that it travels in a perfect vacuum with no free particles or aste... | [
"There's a nuance here that many people fail to register. If you measure ",
" (elapsed time on the astronauts' watches) versus ",
", there is no limit to how fast a spacecraft can go. The usual ",
" holds for all values of the hybrid speed ",
", as high as you care to go (where ",
" is the ratio of th... | [
"Arbitrarily close. Going at any speed is ",
" as going at any other speed, and there's no stress due to velocity. You can't even define velocity except with respect to something.",
"In reality, sustaining such a velocity wouldn't be possible as at high speeds even the random particles in space would have massi... | [
"Velocity is only defined relative to a frame of reference. We are moving at 99% of light speed right now to some frames of reference.",
"What you feel, what could damage a spaceship, is acceleration."
] |
[
"Have humans always had acne?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"A better question might be have mammals always had acne? ",
"There are documented occurences of many different types of animals that also experience this. ",
"For reddit, here is a research paper done on Feline acne: ",
"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-3164.1997.d01-16.x/abstract"
] | [
"There were treatments for acne at least as far back as Ancient Egypt.\n",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acne_vulgaris#History"
] | [
"Evolution wise it's five minutes ago "
] |
[
"Why is it so difficult to detect lung cancer before it reaches stage IV?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The lungs are insensate meaning they don't have physical sensation until you reach the pleurae around the lungs. Cancer in the lungs can grow and develop with no symptoms until it is large enough to cause pain or other symptoms that would cause you to seek care."
] | [
"I'll only address the imaging aspect, because that's what I'm more familiar with. ",
"People often get chest X-rays or CT scans for lung symptoms. Often, you might see an X-ray which is concerning for pneumonia or CHF, which can hide the cancer.",
"So, basically, even though you might have an image done, somet... | [
"It's not 'difficult' per se. It's just unusual because the patient doesn't notice the symptoms, and there aren't really systematic screening procedures across the whole population as there are for breast cancer.",
"https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/screening.htm"
] |
[
"Why have humans developed an aversion to fecal matter, when other mammals seem drawn to it?"
] | [
false
] | I understand that most other mammals (thinking mostly of dogs) have better noses and can smell the diet of the other animals. But I'm more interested in where humans evolved to avoid it, or even have a gag reaction to it. Maybe to avoid sickness? | [
"Dogs eat feces because they have guts better adapted to eat it. In addition, their feces-consuming tendencies are an adaptation for scarce food conditions--they eat their fecal matter because it has nutrients they can't afford to lose in the wild."
] | [
"Sorry, I was in a rush. Forgot to mention that some species (1) use feces to cultivate bacteria or fungus, for example on the skin to create competition for harmful bacteria, or to recolonize the gut, or to actually farm fungus. Komodo dragons are a prime example. They roll their mouths in fecal matter to ",
" i... | [
"Grazing animals such as horses will avoid the area around where they have ",
"defecated",
", so it's not only humans that avoid their own feces."
] |
[
"If I only have sound in one ear, like 1 headphone, in a silent environment, does my other ear try and compensate for not hearing by trying harder?"
] | [
false
] | For clarity: if one ear has sound going into it. Does your brain do something because only one ear is hearing? Does it increase the sensitivity so that the other ear tries to hear the noise as well? | [
"When sound input to the ear is low, the inner ear will ramp up its gain in order to compensate. For those in fields like engineering, consider this like a regenerative radio receiver. As the gain is increased to compensate for low stimuli, we eventually reach a threshold where the radio (or in this case the inner ... | [
"Can I tag on a very related question that I have been wondering? Does what you are listening to get processed differently between one ear or the other?"
] | [
"It actually is. I study the effects of those bundles in our lab. It's a lot of fun.",
"Those emissions are physical vibrations in the ear, vibrations of the hair bundles, basilar membrane, or even fluid waves in the cochlea. These are then transduced back to the round window the cochlea, to the stapes, incus, ma... |
[
"If a person with light skin got a skin graft from a person with dark skin, would the skin color eventually change?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"What you’re referring to is an allograft. The skin would stay the same color as the donor. Freckles don’t move around; melanocytes in grafted skin behave similarly. ",
"There are a few different types of skin grafts you can get. It depends on several factors, including surface area to be covered, thickness and t... | [
"Great question! Skin allografts usually aren’t left on more than a month or so because they almost all ultimately reject, even with irradiation or immune suppression. They’re used more as a bridge to autograft when the surface area to be covered is larger than the amount of harvestable tissue available at one time... | [
"Burn survivor here!",
"I’ve had grafts from my own body, animal grafts (from memory I think it was from a pig) and also had my skin taken and grown in a lab and then grafted, which they termed “cultured skin.”",
"I might be having another graft down the track where the surgeon wants to use skin donated from a ... |
[
"[META] Is your question missing from the new queue? Also, info for new subscribers!"
] | [
false
] | Have you submitted a question and it isn't showing up in the New tab after 10 minutes or so? Send us a with a link to the post in question and we will have a look and fish it out. There are other reasons for your question not showing up. If it falls into one or more of these categories, we most likely have removed the ... | [
"Or even if you are a panelist, it is always a good idea to include citations to peer-reviewed literature whenever possible. Not only does it make your case stronger, but it gives the reader a place to go for more information. You don't have a write a review article with 100+ citations, but even one link is benef... | [
"I would also like to emphasize that if you are a non-panelist making a top level response, you should include citations for your answer."
] | [
"While we're being meta, another little suggestion:",
"I see a lot of questions of the form \"Why does X happen\" or \"Why is X\"? These questions assume the truth of X. Unless you have a scientific source showing that X is true, the question should be phrased something like \"Does X happen, and if so, why?\""
] |
[
"How does the Sixth Sense(A supposed intuitive faculty giving awareness not explicable in terms of normal perception) work?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I'm not sure what the sixth sense is... awareness of what?"
] | [
"Knowing something is somewhere (ex. behind you) without looking"
] | [
"Sorry, your response was caught by the spam filter by accident and I didn't see it. ",
"What you describe is called the ",
"psychic staring effect",
". There is no empirical evidence for this or any other such phenomenon. Rather, you are simply more likely to remember the times when you had that feeling and ... |
[
"What effects does the ambient temperature have on the combustion process (fire starting)?"
] | [
false
] | Starting a fire in the winter is more difficult than the summer. I understand that heat is a contributing factor to starting a fire, so it makes sense that more energy would be required in order to get the initial reaction. So, how cold would it have to be before starting a fire is impossible? Would warming the fuel so... | [
"It's been many years since I did chemistry but lets see if the old brain has still got it...",
"The ambient temperature will make a difference to how easy it is to light a fire (I'm assuming in the first part of your question the fuel is at ambient temperature) but generally not a huge difference. The reason it... | [
"So it's the fact that my kindling is cold not that the air is cold that makes my fore hard to start? That's actually useful information for me, thanks!"
] | [
"The speed of a gas (specifically, root mean squared velocity) scales with the square root of temperature. So in order to observe oxygen moving at half of regular speed, you'd need to be around 75K (~ minus 200C). But I believe you would be hard pressed to find a situation where oxygen diffusion to the surface was ... |
[
"When the umbilical cord is cut after childbirth, who feels the snip: the mother or the child?"
] | [
false
] | Serious question. No Philosoraptor bullshit (although I would love those, except in a different subreddit). This caught my attention after watching a childbirth video, and since both are connected to each other (as in the case of siamese twins), I wondered if the pain is shared upon separation. | [
"No pain, the umbilical cord does no have any nerves in it, therefore no pain felt on either side. "
] | [
"I enjoyed the confidence with which you pulled that out of your ass."
] | [
"I enjoyed the confidence with which you pulled that out of your ass."
] |
[
"Would it be possible to build molecules using antimatter?"
] | [
false
] | I know an antimatter hydrogen atoms was created at one point, but would antimatter atoms be able to bond to make molecules? | [
"I just wanted ot point out one of the harder issues, antimatter we can create tends to be very high energy. Since isolating it is difficult, cooling it so it can form an atom is difficult, but you would have to have it at a much lower energy to then form chemical bonds to make molecules."
] | [
"Actually, ",
"this has been reported in 2007",
", although one could argue that \"Positronium\" is not a conventional molecule."
] | [
"would antimatter atoms be able to bond to make molecules?",
"Yes. Collecting enough antimatter and isolating so that this could happen is, to date, not feasible, but conceptually, yes, such anti-molecules could form."
] |
[
"Does the distance hot water needs to travel before hitting a cup, bathtub or such have any effect on its temperature?"
] | [
false
] | So for instance if I fill a bathtub and the water drops down from 1 meter, instead of 2 meters. Does it have time to actually cool down even a degree on the way down? | [
"Temperature difference is dependent on the ambient Temperature, Mass flow rate, and heat loss by convection ( in this case the distance traveled). There's some other stuff going on but I'm on lunch break so you're not getting equations. For practicable purposes the change in temperature from faucet to tub is neg... | [
"I was curious because there was a picture of a tub that had the water coming from the ceiling, many meters up. Also our coffee dispenser repairman explained that the cup goes straight under the tap so the water needs to travel as little as possible before hitting the cup, because it would otherwise cool down many ... | [
"Many meters would allow colder air to mix in with the falling water and assuming the water was rather hot compared to air then it might cool down a few degrees. Tub water should be around 90-100 degrees which is not all that much warmer than the inside air around it. Also, if its in a small room, the air temp will... |
[
"Can we predict the course of evolution that the human race will take? If so, what sort of trends will be more common in the future?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"No. We can't predict ordinary old organic evolution because we don't know what the future will be selecting for or against. We can name what trends are happening at the moment though. For instance sexual dimorphism for size and canine length is no longer selected for. Humans used to be sexually dimorphic with male... | [
"Unless they can wipe diabetes out of the gene pool in the next 24 hours then it's pretty safe to say that someone who has a genetic disorder has gotten pregnant with someone and therefore increased the frequency of the genetic disorder in the next generation (yay evolution!). So technically evolution is happening ... | [
"Won't those genetic disorders be negated against due to our increasing proficiency in biological science?"
] |
[
"How did the rabies virus evolve to cause the death of its host so quickly? From an evolutionary point of view, that appears counter productive?"
] | [
false
] | Most of the natural hosts of rabies virus only survive for a few weeks. How did the virus evolve this characteristic ? Isn’t that a poor evolutionary trait? Why didn’t it evolve to cause the host a mild encephalitis and irritable state where the animal would show a degree of aggression but not perish in a week or so? | [
"You are looking at it purely from a human/canine/etc perspective.",
"You're 100% correct that diseases that purely exhibit such extreme symptoms and progression aren't very long-lived, but there's a reason why rabies - unlike eg the Spanish Flu, sweating sickness, and thousands of other bouts of infectious disea... | [
"You're 100% correct that diseases that purely exhibit such extreme symptoms and progression aren't very long-lived",
"This is widely believed but wrong. ",
"In general pathogens evolve toward increased transmission, not increased or reduced virulence; but changes in virulence do sometimes alter transmission. ... | [
"A rabid animal loses all sense of fear for the most part. ",
"Also skunks are omnivores, this could cause the animal to ingest an infected host."
] |
[
"How fast would I have to travel to \"catch up\" to the speed that the sun is setting if I am on sea level?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"In order to do this, you have to move as fast as the Earth is rotating relative to the sun, but in the other direction so that your motion \"cancels out\" the Earth's rotation.",
"The actual speed depends on your latitude, and a little bit on what time of the year it is. At the equator, ",
" a full rotation of... | [
"1036 miles per hour",
"1670 km/h. For reference, the speed of sound is about 1224 km/h at sea level. ",
"You'd need to be above 47° of latitude to be able to do this without breaking the sound barrier. "
] | [
"If it's not an equinox, things get a little complicated",
"Why? If you're traveling along a line of latitude (that is, straight West), and canceling out the rotation of the Earth, things shouldn't change. The circumference at s latitude is constant. The earth's rotational velocity is near enough to constant th... |
[
"What phenomenon is causing this sound? [clip inside]"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I'm not sure what you are looking for here, this is a recording of 2 solid fuel rockets, and a set of liquid rockets which all function through the rapid expansion of super heated gasses....wouldn't you expect them to make some noise? ",
"Edit: Bob answers your question in even more detail in the reply you refer... | [
"you can hear a loud low pitched sound an a very quiet high pitched sound at the same time",
"That depends on the relative loudness of sounds. The louder a sound, the more adjecent frequencies it will mask. I can't seem to find good graphs, but ",
"this",
" should give an idea of how the loudness of a sound w... | [
"The closest viewing site is around 5 km away (3.1 miles, ",
"from the description",
"). At that distance you shouldn't expect to hear anything above 4.5 kHz",
" , yet there is clearly audible content above 8 kHz",
" .",
"Air absorbs high frequencies much more than low pitched sound. That's why far away n... |
[
"What's the lowest possible Lunar orbit, that doesn't make the satellite slam into an obstacle?"
] | [
false
] | Since the Moon has no atmosphere, would it be possible to photograph the lunar landers (in detail) by flying over them in a really low orbit? Or maybe the Moon isn't spheric enough for that? | [
"To some extent, sure. However, you'd have to take into consideration ",
"mascons",
", which are areas of higher density rock, causing changes in the local gravity field in an irregular fashion. These would change your orbit and eventually, cause you to crash."
] | [
"The variation between the highest and lowest points on the moon is about 18km. Even if you had 25km between you(your camera) and the lander, even a cold war era satellite camera would be able to take extremely detailed pictures of it. That being said, you could definitely get an orbit where you made a pass over on... | [
"Sure, although you'd be ",
"moving rather quickly relative to the surface",
". You might be better off taking pictures from a more reasonable altitude, especially considering that you won't have to worry about a lot of the things imaging satellites in earth orbit have to worry about (atmospheric distortions,... |
[
"Creatine. What's its correlation with ATP? Is there any well studied reason to cycle it?"
] | [
false
] | I read similar questions previously asked on other subs that gave some pretty answers. I read a lot on the page but the chemistry parts of it started to throw me through a loop. How does Cr relate to ATP/ADP? From what I understand from the Examine page, cells use ATP molecules for their energy which converts them into... | [
"Your muscle cells utilize ATP to generate energy [gross oversimplification]. Since your muscle cells are quite metabolically demanding, they have a \"reserve\" stockpile of high-energy phosphate bonds in the form of Creatine Phosphate. As ATP gets converted into ADP during muscle activity, ADP starts to build up. ... | [
"I've always thought of it this way:",
"When you're lifting heavy weights large muscle groups suddenly become active and require lots of energy. This is where phosophocreatine comes in, it acts as a very quick and cheap source of energy while glycolysis gets started. Once glycolysis gets started (happens very fas... | [
"So im sure you know that when you work out and you feel that \"burn\" it is your muscle switching from aerobic respiration to anaerobic respiration. Ok so what is respiration? Well that, simply put, is the movement of electrons (think circuits) along the path of least resistance from a high energy state, like gluc... |
[
"The Earth goes around the Sun which goes around the Milky Way which is hurtling through space. I was told that in physics, as velocity increases, time slows down. Is time moving slower for us than for a hypothetical stationary observer in interstellar space?"
] | [
false
] | Is time passing differently in different solar systems and in different galaxies? Is there a 'universal time' in which a certain defined amount of time has elapsed since The Big Bang? | [
"There isn't a \"universal time.\" All inertial reference frames are equivalent. You could say that Earth is hurling at 99.9999% the speed of light in some direction, and you wouldn't be wrong.",
"If you choose to ignore all that, you can pick a reference frame in which the cosmic microwave background is the same... | [
"There is no 'origin point' of the universe. The BB wasn't an explosion from a point, but ",
" of space undergoing rapid expansion. So there is no 'centre'. As iorgfeflkd said, the closest we have to that is our movement relative to the ",
"CMB",
".",
"There are also no 'stationary observers'. Imagine float... | [
"Yes."
] |
[
"What happens to impurities in drugs when they are injected intravenously?"
] | [
false
] | Say a tiny chunk of heroin or that cotton they use to filter it or even dust/dirt gets sucked up into the syringe and they inject it into their vein, what happens to it? does it get stuck in the kidneys? disintegrate? can it lead to a clot later? | [
"A piece of foreign matter in the circulatory system is called an embolus.\nEmboli can arise from natural materials already within the circulation, such as blood clots, or can be introduced by injection.",
"What happens to an embolus is mostly determined by its size and where it arises from. Assuming it is not so... | [
"Not to mention endocarditis if the syringe is not clean!"
] | [
"For some reason, I was focusing on the kidneys not even realizing if it is injected into a vein, of course it will be going to heart and lungs first. Thanks for the great explanation!"
] |
[
"Are Protons and Neutrons in a nucleus static or do they move about in a \"gloop\"?"
] | [
false
] | The strong nuclear force holds them together but when they are together, do they have a fixed position, like a solid or do they move about? | [
"And each nucleon is itself a gloop of qcd"
] | [
"Early models of the nucleus regarded it as a \"liquid drop,\" where the nucleons did effectively behave as if they constituted a liquid.",
"However, according to modern models that better match experimental data, it would be more appropriate to think of it as a gas."
] | [
"qcd?"
] |
[
"What is the speed of light in a non-inertial frame of reference?"
] | [
false
] | I recently watched a VSauce video where they said that light travels at a constant speed for everyone as long as you aren't accelerating. So what happens when you accelerate? Does the speed of light change, and if so how can we calculate the new speed? | [
"This is the thing that is the case: if a beam of light moves past you in your immediate vicinity and you have the ability to measure its speed as it does so, then you will measure its speed to be c. ",
"That's really ",
". That's the only completely relativistically correct thing you can say about the speed of... | [
"I think it's more a question of what coordinate system you adopt than whether you're accelerating. It's also a question of what exactly you mean by \"speed.\"",
"In 2D Euclidean space, you can specify points with a Cartesian coordinate system (orthogonal x and y axes), but you can also specify points with, say, ... | [
"Thank you for the response! It seems to me that asking the question of the speed of light in an accelerated frame would depend on how the coordinate system is arranged, and isn't a meaningful way to measure it in that case.",
"GR has always been a concept which has eluded me. I hope to one day tackle and underst... |
[
"Does the earth's total mass always remain the same?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"What if there were no space junk falling to earth? "
] | [
"Gasses escape from earth into space. That would reduce the earth's mass."
] | [
"Another follow-up question: what about things growing? e.g. Trees, animals. Or the weight shift of the planet due to cities and people concentrated in an area? Why kind of difference would that make?"
] |
[
"Why did China and India become so heavily populated?"
] | [
false
] | . | [
"A: They're very large countries to begin with in terms of geographical area. \nB: They both have multiple large river systems which can support large scale agriculture\nC: They both have had centralized governments for millennia. Central governments, despite their bad reputation, do serve to allocate resources eff... | [
"Is there an element that their cultures also heavily favour families and the production of children.",
"E.g. Some parts of India have arranged marriages, and in China it is common for the Grandparents to heavily assist in the raising of kids and reduce financial burdens on the children."
] | [
"They are also lagging on the economic and educational side. Hence birth rate that stayed high longer than richer country. "
] |
[
"Why are black holes often displayed with acreation disk which is red to orange on the outer rim and yellow to white on the inner ring?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"This is showing the temperature profile of the accretion disc. It's hotter near the black hole and cooler on the outer rim. Warm stuff glows red, and hotter stuff glow yellow, then white, then blue, as you get hotter and hotter.",
"This heat comes from ",
". The closer you get to the black hole, the faster the... | [
"Viscous stress is also critical for allowing material to fall into the black hole from an angular momentum perspective, too!",
"Both energy and angular momentum must be conserved, so in order to bring some mass into a lower orbit, some of its angular momentum has to go somewhere else.",
"The viscous drag betwe... | [
"Thank you that was very enlightening answer."
] |
[
"How does the green coating on some public toilet handles “protect against germs”?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"They likely contain silver or copper, which have antimicrobial properties. Hence silverware and brass door knobs. How this actually works is still an active research area.",
"Where I work, we use copper tape on some equipment to prevent biofouling in marine environments.",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olig... | [
"Here's an example of one from a popular brand that is green, and it looks like it uses silver.",
"https://www.waterwisetech.net/specs/antimicrobial_flushometer_handle.pdf",
"I'm assuming some may also use copper or various alloys. The antimicrobial is mixed with whatever else they use as the coating."
] | [
"Yes, but then you have skin. Our bodies are good enough at keeping heavy metals out, and detoxifying those that get in, that you typically need to actually consume a concentrated source, or breath it in, or inject it, to get noticeably ill.",
"Toxic effects from simply touching metal are rare, but it does happen... |
[
"Redditors who work in nuclear power plant, what is the closest you have seen a reactor come to disaster?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Hi chekhovs_colt 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 f... | [
"Hello,",
"We don't allow this kind of question on ",
"/r/AskScience",
". You can try ",
"/r/AskReddit",
" instead."
] | [
"IS IT NOT SCIENCE ENOUGH FOR YOU, NEIL DEGRASSE TYRANT?"
] |
[
"How does pyruvate know to go to the mitochondria or to do the anaerobic reaction?"
] | [
false
] | So if there is oxygen present, then the pyruvate would go to the mitochondria and do aerobic cellular respiration. If there is no oxygen it would instead do fermentation from what I understand. But I am curious about what biochemically causes this change aside from just the lack of oxygen. Like if there's some transpor... | [
"This paper",
" is a good review of pyruvate transport into the mitochondria. Basically, pyruvate can flow across the mitochondrial outer membrane using non-selective anion channels such as VDAC1.\nThere are two proteins, MPC1 and MPC2 (named for being mitochondrial pyruvate carriers), that form a complex that tr... | [
"Nothing has to know about the concentration gradient. As long as there is a way to flow, substrates will spontaneously flow."
] | [
"Substrates flow down their concentration gradients the same way that if you pour concentrated syrup into water, it will naturally spread all throughout. The reason why it does this is that it is thermodynamically favorable to equilibrate like this."
] |
[
"Why do we assume dark matter exists and not just that our understanding of the mass of the universe is wrong?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Physicists don't simply assume that dark matter exists. Rather we consider that including this type of matter could be one possible way we could refine our current understanding of the laws of physics to bring them in line with experimental observations. The reason the idea of dark matter came up in the first plac... | [
"In addition to what ",
"/u/crnaruka",
" said, what I always like to point out is that it is not remotely strange that dark matter should exist. For some reason the lay person has a bias that all the matter in the universe must be visible matter, when in fact it's actually somewhat strange that there isn't more... | [
"Exactly, that's the behavior of the object we can observe, at least for the ",
"Traingulum Galaxy",
". For the Milky Way, the behavior is like the solid line in ",
"this curve",
", where you see that the speed seems to kind of flat-line, which again is very different from the behavior expected from the dis... |
[
"Why do you see so many specialty toothpastes (e.g. gum strength, cavity defense, 3-d white etc)? Why don't they make one super toothpaste with all the benefits?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"In the case of medicines, companies will market a range of medicines for specific conditions like \"migraine relief\" or \"period pain\" when all the products are the exact same pills. Reckitt Benckiser, makers of Nurofen, were fined for false advertising in Australia over this. ",
"http://www.abc.net.au/news/20... | [
"As a dentist I was able to ask this exact question to a rep from GSK (Oral B, sensodyne etc). They explained in some cases it's due to ingredients affecting the bioavailability of the active ingredient, particularly in toothpastes containing Stannous Fluoride or potassium nitrate (sensitive tp's).",
"However he ... | [
"As one of the other commenters noted, this is a marketing tactic, not a scientific one. The micro-segmentation of products within a category can accomplish two important goals for a company:",
"It can allow more potential customers to \"see themselves\" in your product. If you offer just \"toothpaste\", you wi... |
[
"Why does egg yolk (and the whole egg also) become solid when heated?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Proteins are never liquid. They are solids floating around in water. ",
"What you see as the uncooked egg white is mostly water.",
"Think of little balls all nicely spaced out in the water. With heat, the balls change their shape and become long threads. Water is also evaporating. ",
"With additional heat, t... | [
"I don't actually know whether they become more compact, but generally, we call the change in the protein's structure \"denaturation\". When a protein is denatured, hydrophobic regions of that protein that interacted to give a certain structure no longer interact, and are free to stick to other hydrophobic regions ... | [
"I don't actually know whether they become more compact, but generally, we call the change in the protein's structure \"denaturation\". When a protein is denatured, hydrophobic regions of that protein that interacted to give a certain structure no longer interact, and are free to stick to other hydrophobic regions ... |
[
"What is the range of velocity a comet has to be in in order to be caught by a planet?"
] | [
false
] | There are three ways comets and planets can interact: - the comet can crash into the planet - the comet's path can be altered by the planet's gravity, but not strong entough to be caught - the comet has exactly the right velocity and gets caught be the planet to become a moon So my question is: What is the range of vel... | [
"A moon cannot get captured in the way you describe. Maths prohibits it. Think of it as the reverse of our moon just leaving orbit. \nA passing asteroid would need to have its orbit distorted by an existing moon or second asteroid in order for it to enter orbit. The reverse of this also happens sometimes and small ... | [
"If you have two bodies interacting through gravitation, you can tell whether they're bound or not immediately by inspecting their energy. Suppose for the sake of simplicity that one object is much more massive than the other so we can neglect the motion of the large body. If the small body starts off a distance r ... | [
"Thanks, solid answer! I had to research more than I thought in order to understand it, but maybe that's a good thing!"
] |
[
"How can a single speaker make multiple tones at the same time?"
] | [
false
] | How are, for example, the bass line, drums, guitar and vocals all generated all from one speaker at the same time? | [
"One of the coolest properties of waves are that they are linear, meaning you can add them together to get a new wave. That new wave obays the wave equation just like the two original ones.",
"So check this out here is a plot of sin(x) and of sin(2x) and of their sum. ",
"http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Pl... | [
"The ability to accurately reproduce desired complex waveforms is one of the features that distinguishes higher-quality speakers from lower-quality ones. ",
"With a low-quality speaker, nonlinearities in the speaker's response to input voltage result in distortion of the sound. There are many different kinds of ... | [
"TL;DR: We produce and \"mix\" all these frequencies together in the studio and produce a song which then gets converted into an analog/digital signal and played by the speaker. Our amazing biology allows us to decode these overlapping signals and understand the music being played.",
"I'm an engineering student(E... |
[
"If a human abstained from food long enough, would the body metabolize tumor and cancer cells?"
] | [
false
] | I was just reading up on autophagy of cells, and the increased rate during times of caloric deprivation and how the body will eat up non-essential structures. The body will even target transplants (if unsuccessful) and effectively destroy the tissues. So what is so problematic with cancer? | [
"I think you're confusing cells as molecules. We metabolize molecules for energy (fat, protein, carbs) but not cells. Under certain situations, like starvation, you can break down these molecules within certain tissues. Your body doesn't recognize a tumor as anything wrong (unlike transplants), it's simply an exten... | [
"Offhand, I'm going to say no, as the body will start favorably breaking down muscle tissue for protein after starvation. Tumors are identified as 'self', so unless it's a muscle tumor (which are rare), you probably won't get breakdown of it.",
"Starved bodies are trying to maintain brain health first, and organ ... | [
"Fat is tapped into before muscle tissue.",
"I am saying the opposite; cancer cells are identified as 'self', i.e., as organ tissue. My point was that a starving persons body does not consume their heart, liver, or lungs, it consumes their biceps, quads, etc. "
] |
[
"Would noise cancelling headphones reduce the effectiveness of an lrad"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Noise canceling headphones operate by generating a signal that is in opposite phase to the incoming sound. This is plain old destructive interference ( source ",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_(wave_propagation)#Mechanism",
")",
"To totally cancel out the incoming signal you need to be able to ge... | [
"However, if there's a glitch, dare you risk getting blasted with a signal as strong as the LRAD's?",
"Or if the glitch leads to constructive interference, getting blasted with a signal ",
" as strong as the LRAD's?"
] | [
"As an additional question, will earplugs work to stop the effect of the sonic weapons or do they work more on the body itself?"
] |
[
"What ever happened to that newly discovered underground ecosystem that was being drilled into a few months ago?"
] | [
false
] | I cant remember the name of it. All I can remember is that it had never been touched before and contained water and possibly air. There were complications with drilling into it but I believe it was a few months ago that they were going to break through. | [
"Lake Vostok.",
"So far ",
"they found nothing",
"."
] | [
"They had to stop for the Antarctic winter, They did some test in ice core samples that were taken from near the top of the lake and found nothing. Once it gets back to Antarctic summer time, they plan on resuming and trying to get samples from deeper in the lake."
] | [
"This is referring to Lake Vostok, a subglacial lake roughly the size of New Jersey beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet. Last austral summer (northern hemisphere winter) they drilled into it with low pressure in the drill hole. The plan is that water from the lake would rush up into the hole and freeze in place.... |
[
"Would a bullet travel slower through a tank filled with heavy water (deuterium) as opposed to regular water?"
] | [
false
] | ? | [
"Heavy water is slightly more dense and viscous than normal water (1.1 g/mL vs 1.0 g/mL, and 1.0 mPa s vs 1.24 mPa s, resp). Those are the two properties which are most important when calculating the drag on an object, and they are both in favor of the heavy water making the bullet travel more slowly, all else equ... | [
"According to this:",
"The answer to the question everyone\nasks is “Yes, you can drink it”; the Material Safety and Data Sheet states that dizziness and nausea\ncan occur if you ingest 10% of your body mass of heavy water, and LD50 is 30% of body mass.\nHence it is safer than ethanol."
] | [
"Drag is proportional to fluid density, and heavy water is about 10% more dense than ordinary water. ",
"The drag forces on a bullet would be about 10% higher so it would slow more quickly."
] |
[
"The man in this picture is currently the object of ridicule in /r/WTF. Can anyone explain what condition is making his neck so extremely large?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"He might have Cushing's syndrome, which can be caused by long-term or high-dose corticosteroids (often used for suppressing inflammatory response to, e.g. an auto-immune disease). It can also be caused by some pituitary tumors that also lead to high levels of cortisol in the blood.",
"The high deposit of fat ar... | [
"If it were a goiter, his neck would be swollen much less uniformly. I'm guessing that it's a gnarly case of Cushing's Syndrome. "
] | [
"This \"certain vitamin\" you mean is Iodine. This doesn't seem like goiter, but never know. "
] |
[
"If the acceleration of the expansion of space continues indefinitely, will molecules eventually be separated by it?"
] | [
false
] | It was very difficult to word that question in one sentence. What I mean is, if space itself is expanding, does that mean every atom is slowly expanding away from every other atom? What exactly is happening on the Quantum level? If you continue this acceleration septillions upon septillions of years into the future wou... | [
"No. Expansion of space happens at massive distances. Local objects stay gravitationally bound.",
"From the Wiki:",
"Metric expansion is a key feature of Big Bang cosmology and is modeled mathematically with the FLRW metric. This model is valid in the present era only at relatively large scales (roughly the sc... | [
"This does a great job of explaining expansion - with pictures even!",
"Edit: Note that the last paragraph hints at the possibility that indeed everything might fly apart at the end."
] | [
"The ",
"Big Rip",
" theory posits that as the expansion of the universe accelerates, the rate at which the distance between matter expands will be so large that atoms and subatomic particles will be torn apart by this and will not be able to bond or form particles between themselves. So eventually you'd just h... |
[
"Do neurons or other cells generate biologically functional magnetic fields?"
] | [
false
] | Just learning about electromagnetism, and I’m curious whether anything is known about magnetic fields generated during action potentials. Do charged molecules interact/move with magnetic fields for functional purposes in our body? Further, do any human cells use magnetic interactions to communicate? Do any other anima... | [
"Yes action potentials induce magnetic fields, as you'd expect with Maxwell's equations. No we don't communicate with them, they're pathetically weak. Some animals are receptive to Earth's magnetic field, but through a different mechanism. If there are receptors, we haven't found them.",
"The only reason it ever ... | [
"Kind of off topic, but I met the researcher who most involved in transcranial direct magnetic stimulation during my master's in Sheffield. He showed us the machine he used and demonstrated it by holding it above our heads and causing our arms to twitch, it was really strange to be in control of every part of yours... | [
"The problem with magnetism is that all you have to work with are dipoles. That makes the interaction strength fall off with a 1/r",
" ratio.",
"This makes it more efficient to communicate using electric fields than magnetic fields, as ions are electric monopoles and easy to produce.",
"This doesn't motivate ... |
[
"To what extent does our knowledge of the electrochemistry of our brain support or contradict the idea of free will?"
] | [
false
] | Hi All, from the AskScience help i questions about determinism are still ok - if not, sorry. So...my understanding is that we can currently predict the results of simple electrical and chemical reactions. If we know the initial conditions and the properties of the materials involved we can predict the outcomes, and it ... | [
"This is both a scientific and philosophical problem, and we'll need a better understanding of both the question (the language and the meanings of words used to pose it), as well as neuroscience, in order to answer it.",
"To begin with, you have to state your question much more precisely. \"Free will\" has too ma... | [
"cool - thanks for that - much appreciated!"
] | [
"Great post. I thought I was semi-informed on the matter, and I'm glad I read this before I had an opportunity to go around spewing my uninformedness."
] |
[
"Do we know how \"far\" space goes or extends?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"In a way, we have found the end: to a telescope, the universe looks like a spherical room with a wall 46 billion light years away. We can see all the way to that wall and no further. The patterns on the wall should tell us a bit about what's beyond, but so far it looks exactly the way we would expect it to look i... | [
"It's not past the speed of light yet, is it? I thought it was currently less than the speed of light, but accelerating and would one day pass it."
] | [
"No, it already is. In fact some galaxies we can see are already moving away from us in excess of the speed of light."
] |
[
"How can adding a neutron to atomic nuclei make them unstable?"
] | [
false
] | The traditional model for atomic nuclei is that they're a balance of the strong force between nucleons and the electrical repulsion of the protons. This model cannot explain why adding in an additional neutron would make it fall apart since this only increases the effect of the strong force while letting the protons mo... | [
"You can't consider a nucleus in isolation, you have to think about what other nuclei it can break apart into. If its possible that there is an arrangement of the same neutrons and protons into two nuclei that are more stable, then the original nucleus will eventually decay to that.",
"For small numbers of proton... | [
"Yes, you can. In fact, the more stable the products are compared to the parent nucleus, the faster it will decay. Although it's not exactly easy to calculate the stability of an arrangement of protons and neutrons without just measuring them; it's an active area of research."
] | [
"Are you familiar with the ",
"principle of least action?",
" How does a particle sniff out every path it can take from A to B and pick the one that minimizes the action? ",
"QM is not manifestly deterministic. That's not a claim that indeterminism is true, but that one does not need to assume or deny determi... |
[
"If numbers are infinite, and elements are made up of certain number of protons,neutrons and electrons then is there a infinite number of unique elements?"
] | [
false
] | Sorry if this is a really dumb question. | [
"In principle, there are an infinite number of unique elements. But only the first hundred or so have small enough nuclei to be stable for more than a fraction of a second. When an atomic nucleus gets too big, the short-range strong attractive nuclear force is over-powered by the long-range weak repulsive electric ... | [
"As mentioned, there are in principle an infinite number of unique elements, but the heavier elements stability is usually in the nanosecond range (if stable at all). ",
"It was proposed that there may be stable heavier elements however, and this is generally know as \"Seaborg's Island of Stability\" (see: ",
"... | [
"I'm not going to say you're wrong, but I want an explanation or a link"
] |
[
"Does streaming a podcast (for example), take the same amount of data as downloading it?"
] | [
false
] | Basically what the title says, but Ill expand. If I am not on wifi, and am on LTE, would the data consumption be the same/more/less if I streamed it instead of downloading and then listening? | [
"Yes. As long as the quality is the same, the amount of data downloaded will be the same. Although sometimes they will decrease quality of streams to make it easier for those with a slow connection to stream without tons of buffering. "
] | [
"Another possible difference will be in the protocol used to stream or download the data. Some protocols have more overhead than others either in how the data is framed or if you do things such as retrying to fetch lost or corrupt packets (more probable in downloads) or just skipping them (more probable in streamin... | [
"If the streaming is over http, it will actually take a little bit of extra data. Data is transmitted over the internet according to the TCP/IP packet specification, and each packet contains a bit of extra data, like parity bits(to make sure there is no data corruption), and address information. It isn't much extra... |
[
"When you sleep and your mind begins to process your memories from the day, does it prioritize information that you deem more important?"
] | [
false
] | I've just always been curious if your mind has a priority system in place for when you are sleeping. Considering it's subconsciously storing your memories from the day, how does it decide whats important and whats just filler that needs to be cut out? | [
"Maybe. Unfortunately, that's about all we have to go on right now. ",
"Stickgold and Walker",
" have discussed the idea, suggesting that an active something-or-other is prioritizing information, but there's not much known about what that could be. A good sleep could also help the regular processes of active me... | [
"Given the differential consolidation of emotional memories (Payne's work, for example), there is likely a role being played by emotional salience of the events. There is ongoing work looking at the role of cortisol and dopamine as it relates to subsequent consolidation."
] | [
"There's some evidence suggesting that spurious factors ",
"like the smell in the room",
" can bias what information we consolidate during sleep, so to the extent that prioritization does happen it appears to be at least partially heuristic-driven."
] |
[
"Can animals tell if others of their kind suffer from significant mutation, and does it affect how they socialise?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Yes. Animals can absolutely tell if others of their kind suffer a significant mutation. The key word here is Significant. ",
"Many mutations are neutral, they neither hinder nor help the organism. Sometimes, the mutation is deleterious, and damages the fitness of the organism. Rarely, a mutation is beneficial, a... | [
"I described evolution in order to provide a reason for the expected avoidance. In the first line above, I stated that Yes. Animals can tell if others of their kind suffer a significant mutation. I later elaborate that a significant mutation would undoubtedly result in the inability of said organism to function soc... | [
"I've heard of one example... but it may have been developmental:",
"There is an unidentified whale with a 52Hz whale-song, which is significantly higher than most other whales.",
" As a result, no other whales communicate or socialize with it. It is often referred to as the loneliest whale on earth.",
"As I ... |
[
"Why do our teeth not heal or regenerate when cracked or broken?"
] | [
false
] | Every other part of the human body will heal itself to a point. Get a cut? Skin grows back. Break a bone? the body will seal the cracks. Why is it that teeth do not regenerate whatsoever? | [
"The cells (ameloblasts) responsible for forming the outer, white layer of protection on our teeth (the enamel) die when the tooth erupts into the mouth. So while the enamel can become demineralized and remineralized like most hard tissues, it cannot form any new enamel whatsoever. The insulating layer just underne... | [
"Well, looks like I'm up to bat.",
"Teeth are organs that have several mechanisms by which they can restore damage or even lost tissue. The pulp can create tertiary dentin either as a defense mechanism or a restorative measure in some cases, this includes some types of micro-fractures and abrasions.",
"The cem... | [
"Hmm, i did some research and here's what I found: Teeth have the ablitity to heal themselves- to a certain extent. However, since 90% of the enamel consists of minerals, there's no cells which allow our teeth to repair and regenerate like bones.",
"Also, enamel is the hardest tissue - but it's not living, theref... |
[
"My mother won't get off my back about this one, if you sleep with the lights on is it true your body won't produce enough melatonin?"
] | [
false
] | My mother watches doctor oz like no other, and I often fall asleep with my lights on because I'm too lazy to get up and turn them off. She thinks now my body isn't producing enough melatonin and freaks out at me anytime she sees my light on while I'm still sleeping. Is she actually right or being crazy? | [
"The ",
"25 hour study",
" in fact the same one you linked has well known flaws that caused the 25 hour response. The access to artifical lighting and control of it by the test subjects was deemed the primary cause.",
"A much more ",
"recent",
" and better controlled study proved that humans default to 2... | [
"Melatonin plays an important role in our bodies as it helps to regulate the circadian rhythm.",
"According to this study",
" the wavelengths most relative to melatonin production are 446-477 nm. These are blue wavelengths, and may or may not be produced by the lamps you have.",
"Melatonin does cause drowsin... | [
"My pleasure. I worked in a sleep lab for several years, and the lady I worked under was an assistant on the 2nd study, she'd shoot me if she found out I let that go, not that I wanted to undermine you at all!"
] |
[
"Is there any scientific bases to spiritual energy in water? (Holy Water)"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Hi gamelodge 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... | [
"We do not like to allow \"debunking\" thread on ",
"/r/askscience",
" since they rarely end well. Moreover there is no scientific evidence that \"spiritual energy\" or \"conscious energy\" exists. Anybody claiming to be harvesting such thing is either religiously based or a scammer."
] | [
"I will ask on ",
"/r/spirituality/",
" although I have already asked on ",
"/r/Reiki",
" and Chakra, so don't want to look like I am spamming, its just that no one seems to want to talk about this stuff."
] |
[
"Can mosquitoes be vectors for prions?"
] | [
false
] | I was thinking about the multitude of diseases that mosquitoes can carry, and it got me wondering: could prions be transmitted using mosquitoes as vectors? I found sort of thing that says prions can be spread through blood, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to see the bigger picture. Could anybody help me out? | [
"I do believe there are groupd currently looking into prion diseases being spread through vectors like Mosquitos and ticks. I read an article a year or two ago addressing chronic wasting disease (cwd) in deer and looking at whether prions could be transferred through various vectors. ",
"I really would not be sho... | [
"Prion diseases are caused by protein \"misfolding\" or more accurately alternative conformations of the protein that can self-template the conversion of the native protein to the infectious, amyloid version.",
"The body has some natural defenses to remedy the formation and accumulation of misfolded protein, chie... | [
"Thank you! That was very informative."
] |
[
"Without cone cells, would vision be black and white?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"It would be grayscale. You would not be able to tell apart differences in wavelength from differences in light intensity."
] | [
"Would we perceive all wavelengths on the EM spectrum? Visible light as well as radio, microwave, gamma, UV, etc?"
] | [
"No. Presumably you'd only have rod cells so you would only be sensitive to that range (which is basically the visible spectrum)."
] |
[
"Are there any universities or colleges in the U.S that do only teaching and not research ?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Most community colleges don't do research. I'm guessing you meant traditional four-year colleges though, and I'm not sure of that."
] | [
"And if you don't mind (and even if you do) I'm going to close this thread because it's not a science question, and point you towards ",
"/r/askacademia",
"."
] | [
"Pacific Lutheran University."
] |
[
"How long does it take formerly deaf people to learn to understand spoken speech?"
] | [
false
] | I was watching video on Youtube of people hearing for the first time due to surgery and/or implants. I expect they don't instantly hear voices and know what they mean. I'm assuming that people who were once able to hear take less time to reacquire the ability to understand spoken language depending on time. | [
"There is a great deal of cortical plasticity throughout life. But it is the case that sensory deprivation in early development can have a permanent effect."
] | [
"Here's one...",
"http://www.medel.com/blog/cochlear-implants-how-young-is-too-young-how-old-is-too-old/",
"But most of the information is based on my personal experience meeting deaf adults. I attended Gallaudet University, so I have probably met well over 1,000 deaf people. Of all the people who could hear ... | [
"Did you have a link for this please?"
] |
[
"What companies/institutions are currently developing protein based COVID-19 vaccines, what is the specific approach being employed by each, and what adjuvants are being utilized? Also, how far along is each one?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"There are around 300 COVID vaccines at various stages of development"
] | [
"I was referring to the frontrunners. :)"
] | [
"There are 50-some front runners. The question is too broad for ",
"r/askscience",
". Questions based on discussion, speculation, or opinion are better suited for ",
"r/asksciencediscussion"
] |
[
"Would air at different temperatures have noticeably different Indices of Refraction? Do things look different in the winter because the air bends light differently?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Yes, this is how ",
"mirages",
" and the ",
"Fata Morgana",
") occur. That second link is going to be jacked up because of wikipedia's parentheses. Does anyone know how to fix it?",
"Edit: thegreatunclean knows."
] | [
"Fata Morgana",
"\n ",
"[Fata Morgana](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage\\))",
"You have to escape the parenthesis with a backslash. This tells the reddit markup to ignore it instead of using it to close the link segment."
] | [
"Sick. So edited. Thanks!"
] |
[
"If light (waves) super impose, do photons? Or do the photons act as waves when they collide?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"You've hit upon a key issue when discussing particles vs waves in optics.",
"Waves pass right through each other. The amplitude at the cross point depends on whether the crests or toughs of the wave line up - in more fancy language, the amplitude at the cross point depends on the relative phase of the two waves... | [
"Photons do not interact with each other to a very good approximation",
"When you say interact, do you mean recoil? What kind of interaction?"
] | [
"Photons do not interact with each other to a very good approximation",
"When you say interact, do you mean recoil? What kind of interaction?"
] |
[
"How do trees create enough pressure to lift and crack concrete sidewalks with their roots?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Roots do not crack the concrete with direct kinetic force - ie karate chops! Instead, it causes differential settlement under the concrete slab because the root is more rigid than surrounding subgrade. The sidewalk over soil can deflect more than over the root which puts bending stress on the concrete. Concrete... | [
"Well walls and such is a different thing. Sidewalks cracking over roots can happen in a matter of weeks after laying fresh concrete or the growth of a new root.",
"As for walls and such - if its roots under the foundation the same principle applies, the wall will crack as the building begins to settle different... | [
"Well walls and such is a different thing. Sidewalks cracking over roots can happen in a matter of weeks after laying fresh concrete or the growth of a new root.",
"As for walls and such - if its roots under the foundation the same principle applies, the wall will crack as the building begins to settle different... |
[
"What would happen if another star collided with our sun, assuming the other star was equal size and mass and both were traveling at the same speed?"
] | [
false
] | Would they combine together into one large star or collapse into a massive black hole? Would the energy released from the collision be enough to destroy the solar system? What about the galaxy? Just curious. | [
"Well, for a starter, the idea of direct collision is very unlikely, but another star could be caught in the gravitational field.",
"It would mean the two start would rotate around a middle point, get closer to each other after millions of years, until they fuses. We would end up dead, and the result could be a b... | [
"It takes a minimum of 8 solar masses to make a black hole, and the OPs question only has 2 solar masses."
] | [
"The required mass to produce high enough levels of gravity to compress and heat the core such that Iron can be produced from fusion."
] |
[
"Why are isotopes with a large number of neutrons unstable?"
] | [
false
] | I can see how the combination of the strong nuclear force and electrostatic repulsion make isotopes with many protons and few neutrons unstable, but what makes isotopes with many neutrons and few protons unstable? (Eg hydrogen 20) Surely the stability should increase with neutron number as the strong force simply incre... | [
"I hope this is correct:\nNeutrons are ½-spin particles and belong to the group of particles called fermions. These particles obey the ",
"Pauli Exclusion Principle",
". In short, this means that further adding neutrons forces these neutrons into higher and higher energy states causing the nucleus to become uns... | [
"I also have no expertise here, but just to save you some clicking, the link he sent (and this ",
"link",
" where A=#'nucleons?' Z=#of protons and N =#of Neutrons ) say that there's a spin-spin coupling effect between protons and neutrons which lowers the energy of the system if #neutrons and protons is odd, an... | [
"I also have no expertise here, but just to save you some clicking, the link he sent (and this ",
"link",
" where A=#'nucleons?' Z=#of protons and N =#of Neutrons ) say that there's a spin-spin coupling effect between protons and neutrons which lowers the energy of the system if #neutrons and protons is odd, an... |
[
"Why is the shape of Universe pictured like a bell ?"
] | [
false
] | Hi, Below is a link to a picture of big bang and evolution of universe from a article on nautilus. This picture looks very familiar as i have seen this whenever they talk about universe or big bang. I have always wondered why do they always picture universe in a shape of bell ? shouldnt it be shperical like a ball? The... | [
"The picture is depicting 1 axis of time and 2 axes of space (and just ignoring the 3rd axis of space because it's kinda difficult to draw a 4 dimensional object); where time goes from the left at the big bang towards the right up to the present. The bell shape specifically is because near the big bang, the univers... | [
"We don't really know why the universe went through hyperinflation. Only that it appears that it did. We don't know the starting or the stopping mechanism."
] | [
"Basically, it is non-trivial to draw 4 dimensions (x,y,z,t) 3D space over time on a 2d surface (x,y) of a picture on a screen.",
"The creator of the visual assumed it would be easier for you to extract the sphere from a circle at time t, rather than the dilation of space over time. So when throwing away informat... |
[
"Why is it that when I close my eyes to go to sleep, I can at times see a flashing light."
] | [
false
] | To explain more, it doesn't matter if the room is completely dark or with some light. Many times I can see a bright flash of light with my eyes closed as if someone was aiming a flashlight at my face. I have seen the flash of light in different colors. White, yellow, and blue. | [
"Pressure on the eye when you close your eyes can physically stimulate your retina and make flashes appear. The retina can also be overstimulated and will continue to transmit signals to the brain... this usually goes away the longer you keep your eyes closed. Sometimes it can have nothing to do with your eyes and ... | [
"Thanks very helpful.",
"I didn't think it was pressure as it doesn't happen when I rub my eyes only when I'm drifting into sleep "
] | [
"Is the flashing in sync with your heartbeat?"
] |
[
"What exactly is a reflective surface and is there anything that can't be reflected?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Mirror Physics"
] | [
"Any change in the index of refraction (and therefore the local speed of light), will cause some amount of reflection. The amount of reflection depends on the relative difference of the index of refraction, polarization of light, and incident angle. The details can be worked out mathematically through the ",
"F... | [
"I just wanted to make a joke about vampires, that's all."
] |
[
"We've created devices that can hear (microphones), see (cameras), and feel (touch-sensitive surfaces). Why can't we create devices that can smell and taste?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Taste and smell are typically the result of chemical reactions and trigger subjective experiences while hearing and seeing are discernible, physical measures that most people would be expected to experience in the same way most of the time. It is going to be harder to make machines that detect how reactions affect... | [
"OP: When you say \"replicate\" do you mean in a record/playback sense?"
] | [
"There are many devices that can \"smell\" and \"taste\". The TSA uses some tech that detects traces of explosive/drug residue either in the air, or from swabs. It's simply interpreting chemical signals. I heard a rumor that during Vietnam, the army experimented with a sensor that was mounted on a helicopter and de... |
[
"Since the color black seems to efficient at absorbing light (and thus heat), why aren't plants on Earth black in color vs green? What is significant and better about having green chlorophyll vs black chlorophyll?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Minuteearth does a great video on this on YouTube (from the maker of minutephysics), the video is called \"why are leaves green\" there is a part 1 and 2, I think it's part 2 that answers your question "
] | [
"This question is asked about once a month here, you can find a ",
"handful",
" of results by searching this forum.",
"The short answer is that evolution doesn't always reach the optimum solution."
] | [
"Simple answer? Plants absorb almost every other visible wavelength (one chlorophyll for yellow, one for red, etc) and green just happens to be the one that the sun puts out the least, so plants dont make many chemicals to absorb it"
] |
[
"What is the effect of resellers on the economy?"
] | [
false
] | I'm not refering to retailers per se, because I can understand the effect they play: grouping the products in a physical location. These resellers end up raising the prices of a product that wouldn't cost that much otherwise. I'm not talking about speculating that a product will become valuable at a later date, I'm tal... | [
"As you indicate, there are several ones available;",
"This seems to be the one you are aiming at. The best example of this are supermarket-chains, for instance with bread they buy and sell under the price of what your local baker can produce.",
"The supermarkets have the reach and thus can demand a lower price... | [
"Economics degree here... funny enough it's not remotely related to my profession. ",
"In most cases Resellers exist because a manufacturer doesn't want to deal with the trouble (and ultimately cost) of selling directly to John Q Public. The other dimension (there are a few but im skipping them for now) of this ... | [
"They provide the convenience of not having to remodel a run-down house. Some people would rather remodel the run-down house themselves and save some money while others don’t mind paying a little extra to let someone else do the dirty work. ",
"Even if you’re going to pay contractors to have work done, it takes a... |
[
"Do physicists ever use the speed of light as an inertial frame of reference?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"No. An object moving at c doesn't have a valid rest frame. We have some entries about this in our physics FAQ."
] | [
"Why is that? I didn't see any entries on this specific topic in the FAQ"
] | [
"https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/wiki/physics/light_frame"
] |
[
"Is it possible to trap sound waves inside of a container of some kind?"
] | [
false
] | My coworker was pondering this earlier today and I admitted that I was not certain if a vessel could be conceivably constructed that could do it. The idea would be that you have some kind of container, produce a sound (a few spoken words, for example) into it, seal it, and open it at a later time to hear the sound agai... | [
"A container with 0 energy transmission? No, impossible. The sound waves oscillate everything they come into contact with, which includes any material known to exist. ",
"You can, however, create devices that are drastically more effective at reflecting and maintaining waves. Look up \"cavity resonator.\""
] | [
"No. Sound as you are representing it would exist in a fluid medium (liquid or gas). Even if you made a pure tone and stored it in a perfect container that did not absorb sound at all the sound would diminish because energy would be lost to friction within the fluid resulting in heat. No matter what, energy would b... | [
"What?",
"Look, a sound wave is just that; a wave. Its information is stored in the form of kinetic energy rippling through a medium, air. When it hits a wall, it bounces off, sure, but some of that energy is lost to the wall, very slightly heating it up.",
"So unless you somehow make a wall that doesn't absorb... |
[
"A polarising problem"
] | [
false
] | A friend and I have been trying to figure out what's going on with this pair of polarising filters... they were obtained from two different pairs of 3D glasses like those you get at the cinema. Configurations of the filters in the video in chronological order State A: "1" in front of (closer to camera than) "2", each w... | [
"I think circular polarization + slight frequency dependent birefringence would explain this.",
"EDIT:\nFor monochromatic light, circular polarization is commonly done as a quarter-wave plate in front of linear polarizer. This should explain the difference between front and back. For a range of wavelengths, thi... | [
"just a little side point that I like to point out to my students: One of the ways that polarized 3D really took off was the selection of circularly polarized light. If you chose linearly polarized light (easier to do in some ways?) then tilting your head at all in the theater would reduce/eliminate the effect. Cir... | [
"In ellipsometry, you treat each optical element as a matrix (see Mueller Matrix). When viewed in this sense, the order of optical components can be seen as an outcome of non-commutation of matrices. "
] |
[
"How many antacid pills would you need to take to turn your stomach acid into water and what would be the ramifications of that?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I'm not sure about all antacid pills, but at least most of them are not simply an alkaline substance to cancel out the acid. They are a buffer substance where the active ingredients form conjugate acid/base pairs.",
"So they work by normalising your acidity level to a pH very close to the equilibrium point of th... | [
"Probably not. ",
"Your body has a number of mechanisms for maintaining a very tight pH range in the blood.",
" If those fail and you enter acidosis or alkalosis, you will quickly have severe health problems.",
"This is, incidentally, why the \"alkaline diet\" stuff that pops up on alt-med sites is garbage."... | [
"Probably not. ",
"Your body has a number of mechanisms for maintaining a very tight pH range in the blood.",
" If those fail and you enter acidosis or alkalosis, you will quickly have severe health problems.",
"This is, incidentally, why the \"alkaline diet\" stuff that pops up on alt-med sites is garbage."... |
[
"When developing a new drug how do they know what dose to give to test subjects without killing them?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The short answer is that it's a combination of testing (both in vitro and on animals) and statistical modeling.",
"An important concept is the idea of therapeutic index (TI) - This is the ratio of the dose that produces toxicity to the dose needed to produce the desired therapeutic response. Thus, the higher the... | [
"They take data from similar drugs and from animal testing to calculate a dose with a high probability of being safe. That dose is also probably too low (to be on the safe side), but they fine-tune it using the test results from the human trials."
] | [
"They also use other data like the dosing for similar types of drugs. Like with chemo drugs or seizure drugs, there are classes of similar compounds. So they can look at the dosing for the compounds most similar to the new experimental drug and go from there."
] |
[
"When something smells, is it losing mass? If so, does something that has a stronger smell than another thing losing mass quicker?"
] | [
false
] | I was thinking about how smell is measured in parts per million (ppm), but where do those parts come from? If they're coming off of an item, then that item must be losing mass, right? I understand we're talking about incredibly minute amounts of mass. | [
"Yes, in order to smell something, it has to be sufficiently ",
"volatile",
" that at least a little bit can diffuse through the air and get to your olfactory receptors.",
"However, it's not necessarily true that something with a stronger smell is more volatile, because those receptors can have very different... | [
"So what does cause things to smell more or less strongly? For example, why do things smell stronger around steam?"
] | [
"Yes, if you smell something solid or liquid, that something is losing mass into the air. What you smell comes from volatile (prone to evaporation) chemicals.",
"Pure ethanol is an easy example. If you have pure ethanol in liquid form, it evaporates and you can smell it. It will eventually completely evaporate. B... |
[
"Why do modern consumer GPUs have hundreds or thousands of CUDA cores or stream processors, while consumer CPUs have barely hit ten?"
] | [
false
] | I have a ton of experience with low level computing technology but I just realized that I can't answer this question in a way that satisfies me. Top-of-the-line GPUs have thousands of processing cores for high parallelism. That makes perfect sense; rendering a frame is a super parallel process. But even top-of-the-line... | [
"GPU cores do a relatively small subset of things very fast. CPU cores have to do a huge amount of different stuff, and have to do it pretty fast.",
"The generic CPU core thus has to be much much bigger....and so to answer your question:",
"We don't make CPUs with more cores, because we can only fit so many CPU... | [
"Those big differences are mainly a marketing trick of GPU manufactors. A CUDA core isn't comparable to a CPU core at all, since it's merely a single lane within a vector FPU/ALU. A vector FPU with several lanes is also a component of any modern CPU core. The GPU analogy of a CPU core is a Multiprocessor (NVIDIA) o... | [
"you can.",
"http://www.techpowerup.com/img/11-02-16/64a.jpg",
"I know several people that run dual-socket gaming machines."
] |
[
"My cantaloupe produces a certain sound when I tap on it. Could I play this frequency back loud enough to make it resonate and... crack? explode?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I do not know what would happen, whether it would crack or explode. It depends probably on how the cantaloupe is vibrating at that frequency. Also, a cantaloupe is not a very brittle or rigid material. I would expect a more rigid, brittle object to be easier to explode or crack and it would have a more well-define... | [
"I think this is pretty good. As omfgforealz points out, it is related to the shape of the object too. The elastic properties of the material and materials (and the determine how it vibrates inasmuch as the shape does. The more complicated the mix of materials and shapes will add a lot of broad resonant peaks rathe... | [
"From a controls standpoint, the sound you hear (which very likely is not a single frequency) is the cantaloupe's response to the input signal or excitation (the tap). It is not the resonance frequency, and not all systems have resonance frequencies.",
"You don't need to excite the cantaloupe with its resonance f... |
[
"Hypothetically, if we could blow Venus out further from the sun, could it harbor life?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Isnt the main problem with Venus the fact that its atmosphere is so thick and made up largely of greenhouse gases? So even if we somehow blew Venus out into the habitable zone, we would still need to introduce micro-organisms to change the composition of the atmosphere to be less toxic and to curb the greenhouse e... | [
"Like Smrti said above/below me, Venus would be nearly habitable in its current orbit if it weren't for the carbon dioxide atmosphere and sulfuric acid rain.",
"Moving planets is hellishly difficult, though. ",
"Here",
"'s a post by one of my favourite sci-fi writers on the topic. Honestly, if you just want l... | [
"We could replicate the chemical reactions synthetically, no absolute need for micro organisms. Although unless we use self replicating nanobots the organisms would have the advantage of numbers."
] |
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