title list | over_18 list | post_content stringlengths 0 9.37k ⌀ | C1 list | C2 list | C3 list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"Help with orbital hybridization."
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"The answer I'd give you changes depending on why you want to know. My ",
"/r/askscience",
" answer is that hybrid orbitals are a lie we tell students before they actually learn molecular orbital theory, and that they are only useful as a heuristic to predict molecular and lone pair geometries.",
"The answer... | [
"Methane and Nitrogen are both sp3.",
"Methane has 4 bonded pairs of electrons and so it forms a tetrahedron. this shape requires sp3 hybridised carbon.",
"Nitrogen has 3 bonded pairs and one lone pair. so it is essentially a tetrahedron (but the lone pair \"squashes\" the 3 bonded pairs down a bit more) whic... | [
"Methane and Nitrogen are both sp3.",
"Methane has 4 bonded pairs of electrons and so it forms a tetrahedron. this shape requires sp3 hybridised carbon.",
"Nitrogen has 3 bonded pairs and one lone pair. so it is essentially a tetrahedron (but the lone pair \"squashes\" the 3 bonded pairs down a bit more) whic... |
[
"Can astronomers watch anything at all happen over time, or are the timescales so large that the universe looks like it's on pause?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Depends on the type of astronomer. If they observe the solar system, they can obviously see changes from day to day. If they observe stars, and that means the Milky Way, because all observable stars are inside our own galaxy, I'm not entirely sure, but I believe they could measure changes on time scales of years. ... | [
"Other things that can be observed in a reasonably short time frame:",
"\nVariable stars, which fluctuate in brightness, with a period ranging from a couple of hours to a few days.",
"\nStars orbiting a supermassive black hole, as seen in the center of the Milky Way. This takes a couple of years. ",
"Gif here... | [
"Why, just this week, a new supernova began appearing. It's currently in the process of brightening and will peak in the next few days. Of course, the star went nova long ago but the light is just reaching us now.",
"source"
] |
[
"Is there a way to protect electronics against EMP blast (without using faraday cage)"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"You seem to be confusing things. A vaccuum tube is an electronic component typically used in high power amplifiers; it has nothing to do with electronic shielding. Tanks and jets are largely formed of continuous metalic bodies and so are implicitly Faraday-shielded. As far as buildings go its a fairly simple matte... | [
"In the sentence right after, it says \"other components in vacuum tube circuitry can be damaged by EMP\". So while vacuum tubes may be less susceptible to damage than transistors, there are still all sorts of other components that can be damaged. ",
"The concrete isn't serving any protective purpose, its the emb... | [
"In the sentence right after, it says \"other components in vacuum tube circuitry can be damaged by EMP\". So while vacuum tubes may be less susceptible to damage than transistors, there are still all sorts of other components that can be damaged. ",
"The concrete isn't serving any protective purpose, its the emb... |
[
"Do earthworms sleep or have some sort of circadian rhythm?"
] | [
false
] | I know they have some sort of hibernation but don’t know if they actually sleep. | [
"Research with deep burrowing species, such as Lumbricus terrestris (the lob worm), demonstrates that during a 24-hour period, activity is greatest from dusk until dawn. This is not surprising, as these creatures possess photo-receptive cells (even though they have no eyes) and therefore only surface to feed and ma... | [
"Hey, this seems fine since it’s a multi paragraph direct quote from the researcher, but in general, I would not trust scientific research published on the guardian or any major media (CNN, FOX, NBC) that isn’t direct intact full paragraph quotes from researchers. Media loves to get the big picture of research dea... | [
"Hey, biologist here. My dissertation is focused on venomous snakes which are much different from worms despite their shared lack of legs, but I teach physiology and mammal circadian rhythms in our universities physiology class so I might be able to shed some useful insight. ",
"Before I get into anything else ... |
[
"What causes a burning sensation when you get salt in an open wound?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"It is just basic electrophysiology. When you have an open wound, the solution around nerve fibers is directly accessible. Nerve fibers work via gradients of sodium and potassium inside vs outside the cell. If you really boost the sodium concentration outside the cell, it becomes hyperexcitable. Now, it is a wound,... | [
"So, will salt work as an amplifier for any sensation? If you were feeling cold, and then somehow magically introduce salt to the nerves in the cold area, would you feel super cold? "
] | [
"The pain sensation originates from nociceptive receptors (nociceptors) on the dendritic ends of sensory neurons. There are many subtypes, but the relevant one here is the chemical subtype, which contain environment-sensing channels, such as TRP. These channels respond nonselectively to ion gradients. The addition... |
[
"Why is that Cesium is a liquid below it's melting point?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Cesium is not a liquid at room temperature. I am not quite sure what makes you think that. In special circumstances you might be able to supercool it but this is really an edge case."
] | [
"I just googled it and wikipedia says that it is liquid in room temperature, hence my question."
] | [
"Wiki says ",
"which makes it one of only five elemental metals that are liquid at or near room temperature",
"28C is near enough room temperature."
] |
[
"Has a computer ever had a scientific discovery completely on its own? (Ex. Something humans can't explain etc)"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Kinda, yes. Depends on what you mean by explain.",
"Genetic algorithms are being used all the time these days, and they come up with crazy results that no human would have thought of, and are usually incomprehensible. They make no sense at all but still work.",
"Perhaps the most striking example I'm aware of, ... | [
"I would not say never, the field of ",
"automated theorem proving",
" is a very active area of research. ",
"One of the complications with automated theorem proving is that computers are unable to assess the \"elegance\" of the theorems computed. In short, many results have been discovered, but their \"impo... | [
"Never.",
"Computers have been used, though to fill out brutally complex mathematical proofs, with a huge number of possible classes examined one by one. The first (1976) proof of the Four Color Theorem is an example of this - the mathematicians reduced the problem down to 1,936 separate classes of map, and groun... |
[
"On average, what percentage of their contribution to GDP are workers paid in the United States?"
] | [
false
] | I’m going to try and describe my question/thought process in terms of things I know, so forgive me if a lot of what I say is obvious to anyone who’s studied economics. I took a business economics class last semester where we learned about mutually exclusive alternatives (MEAs). I’ve been thinking a lot about workers wa... | [
"You need the mean, not the median, for the multiplication result to have any meaning. The first reference I found indicated the mean U.S. household income in 2018 was $90K. Multiplied by 128.6M households yields a $11.6T total, or 60% of the GDP figure you quoted."
] | [
"This is a hard question to properly answer, but to a rough first order approximation:",
"The median personal income in the US is ",
"$63,179.",
" There are ",
"128.6 million households",
" in the US. That means workers make roughly $8.1 trillion per year.",
"The US GDP is $19.3 trillion, so workers are... | [
"I disagree. If we're trying to estimate something about the typical worker, then using a mean that's skewed by the handful of people that make tens or hundreds of millions per year makes the result meaningless when talking about the typical person. The median, while not perfect, is much more representative of the ... |
[
"Why is it impossible to balance a needle on its point in such a way that it stands that way alone without a magnet?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Yes."
] | [
"A perfect needle on its tip is in an unstable equilibrium. In practice, situations like this are hard to achieve."
] | [
"So, the \"perfect circumstances\" can be calculated, but not created?"
] |
[
"Will you be weightless if the resultant gravitational pull on you is zero?"
] | [
false
] | An Irish physics examination asked: Where will an object will be weightless between the earth and the moon? The answer given was that it will be weightless when the gravitational pull of the earth = the gravitational pull of the moon. My understanding of the term 'weightless' is that an object is weightless when the on... | [
"Now that you have posted the exam, I am willing to say unequivocally that the exam is wrong, regardless of whether we ",
" consider Relativity or not. The question asks:",
"A spacecraft carrying astronauts is on a straight line flight from the earth to the moon and after a while its engines are turned off. At ... | [
"I prefer your understanding of weightlessness - an observer feels weightless if they are in free fall.",
"However, you could say the exam is pedantically correct. Weight is usually defined as the force of gravity on an object. Therefore, you want to find where the object has no force on it in the Newtonian sense... | [
"For some reason I never realised that weightlessness occurs as soon as the engines are turned off. Thank you very much for your answer, I found it to be the most straightforward and informative."
] |
[
"Is there a legitimate, applicable solution to safe nuclear waste storage?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"There is no 100% safe way to dispose of nuclear waste.",
"Nor is there any 100% safe way to dispose of thousands of other very hazardous non-nuclear industrial waste products.",
"So there isn't anything special about nuclear waste, except it is easier to frighten children with it. In fact, in some ways, nucle... | [
" hasn't seen Superman III...",
"Really, there's no totally foolproof way to get rid of the stuff and we can't be sure it's going to stay put."
] | [
"The best way to deal with nuclear waste is to use a nuclear fuel cycle ( e.g., ",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle",
" ) that \"burns\" radioactive elements as completely as possible, so that the stuff left over isn't very radioactive. ",
"This is also important to avoid hitting \"peak Urani... |
[
"How did Chinese officials know to look for a novel virus in the early days of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak?"
] | [
false
] | What triggered the search to determine the specific virus? Is there some sort of protocol in place that catches these things? Maybe I’m naive, but I’m impressed with how quickly China was able to determine it was a new virus given how common and broad the symptoms are. | [
"This is standard public health. Public health systems are things that no one notices during normal times, but that are constantly watching for this sort of thing. When something looks abnormal, there are processes to escalate surveillance and start looking for causes. ",
"I think the first English-language repor... | [
"Well thought out and rapidly sourced intel, great post."
] | [
"Thank you for the thorough response! I’m glad to hear the various public health agencies are good at what they do."
] |
[
"Why does staring at a moving optical illusion and looking away cause what you're looking at to appear to be moving?"
] | [
false
] | For example, the illusions in | [
"It's known as 'The Waterfall Effect'. The simple explanation is that the nerve cells detecting movement get tired, and when you look away, the brain overcompensates and creates the illusion of motion where there is none. ",
"Find out more: \n",
"http://psylux.psych.tu-dresden.de/i1/kaw/diverses%20Material/www.... | [
"I remember when guitar hero came out, and I didn't like playing it because after I would look away from the screen, my vision was swirly and triply for a few minutes "
] | [
"Yes it is adaptation. Specifically many aspects of visual processing are computed as ratios in the nervous system. Motion detectors (called correlation detectors) are directionally tuned, and velocity tuned, and higher levels of visual processing compare output of these detectors to determine the motion of objects... |
[
"If I chose a random bit of my computer's hard drive and flipped it from a 0 to a 1 (or vice versa), what would happen?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Nothing - on your hard drive this happens all the time. Data on hard drives is written with error correction encoding. During every write to a hard drive, a few 'extra bits' are also written. These 'extra bits' are cleverly calculated so that whenever one (or more) data bits get corrupted during a read operatio... | [
"Depend on which bit.",
"If you chose a bit from a bitmapped image, one of the pixels in that image would be a different color when you viewed the image. This could be not even noticeable (if you changed 0xFFFFFF to 0xFFFFFE, for example, that one pixel would go from pure white to just barely grey) or if you cho... | [
"Most file systems and even file formats have some level of error resiliency. Consider that most hard drives are still of the spinning variety rather than solid state. They are mechanical devices which can suffer from mechanical problems. Also, a lot of the basics of filesystem design were developed many years ago ... |
[
"Do other stars follow an orbit?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"To a first approximation, we can say that everything in the universe that has mass \"follows an orbit\". ",
"(Though every orbit is perturbed by the gravity of other objects that have mass.) ",
"-",
"Our Sun orbits around the center of our galaxy, taking about 225–250 million years to make a round trip.",
... | [
"Sure, and these binary and multiple stars are also orbiting around the center of our/other galaxies."
] | [
"Yes, so the answer to the question is yes, on multiple scales! Nothing is so massive that it is not influenced by gravity. "
] |
[
"Why are lithium, beryllium and boron so rare?"
] | [
false
] | Compared to heavier elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen? | [
"Elements are forged in stars. Moderately massive stars make C/N/O easily and for a decent chunk of their lifetimes in ",
"a cycle named after those elements",
", but they don't spend much time making beryllium, boron or lithium. To paraphrase ",
"Neil DeGrasse Tyson",
", when stars die, they unleash their ... | [
"I think it's less that they \"don't spend much time\" making Be B or Li, and more that those elements are very easily fused into more massive elements, so in any star which is capable of making C, those three will get fused out in short order and the net product of the star will include very little of them."
] | [
"All elements heavier than hydrogen ultimately come from stars that underwent fusion for millions/billions of years and then exploded to release their fused elements into a new solar system. The lack of Beryllium, Lithium, and Boron has to do with this fusion process occurring inside the star.",
"You probably kno... |
[
"When you get cancer, is most of the pain focused on the area that you have cancer in? Or does the pain spread out across the body regardless of the origin of cancer?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Excepting brain cancer, pain in cancer is frequently due to disruption of the normal anatomy which produces local pain that may be so severe or vague it feels like it’s spreading. For example, liver cancer can stretch out the sac that surrounds the liver (its capsule) and produce excruciating pain, but since the n... | [
"Part of the reason for bone cancer pain is the interruption of TRP receptors which fire when the body is exposed to a thermal stimulus. Disruption in the TRP channel lead to firing at core body temperatures, thus constant and relentless pain. Note that modern pain medications don't function via a mechanism to alle... | [
"Just to add to your answer, tumors can also directly impact major nerves, which can cause pain in otherwise healthy areas of the body."
] |
[
"Why is it that an animal can go years without any form of brushing their teeth, yet if a human tried that, their teeth would rot?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Animals and humans have a very different diet. Our diet consists of much more sugars and other things that cause tooth decay, which is why we have to clean our teeth to maintain a healthy mouth."
] | [
"Looking up if animals get dental diseases, I found ",
"this book",
"... ",
"Animals can develop caries and periodontal diseases, just like humans! ",
"Look up pictures of animals' teeth - they don't always look healthy! ",
"There are a significant amount of deep cleans and extractions done by veterinary ... | [
"What about monkeys and other fruit eating species? Don't they eat tons of sugars through fruit?"
] |
[
"What is the sound made by fires?"
] | [
false
] | Where does the sound of fire come from exactly? | [
"You're probably thinking of the crackling sounds that comes from burning wood. Wood has pockets of moisture in it, and fire boils that moisture and increases the internal pressure in the wood, causing it to crack. The cracking wood is where the sound comes from.",
"A fire like a bunsen burner doesn't make any so... | [
"Op could also be thinking of a fire's roar, which comes from thermal expansion (think of it like wind turbulence)."
] | [
"It probably still would. Air trapped in the wood might expand enough to crack it. "
] |
[
"Do pilots have to take the Earth's rotation into account during North/South flight?"
] | [
false
] | My question mostly stems from my understanding on inertia. For example, if you too a ball straight up in the air while on a moving train, to ab observer not on the train the ball will have a parabolic flight pattern. Extrapolating to airplane flight: Say a pilot is flying from South Africa to Poland (same time zone). D... | [
"It isn't just the earth that moves, but also the atmosphere moves with it at the same rate. So when a plane flies through the atmosphere, the whole system is rotating as a whole at the same rate (earth + atmosphere) so the net effect on flying times is zero - DIRECTLY. ",
"INDIRECTLY the rotation of the earth ha... | [
"The air rotates (more or less) with the earth (otherwise we'd have very massive winds). The aircraft flies through the medium so the air carries it. If there were no air, a flying device like a rocket would have to take into account the rotation of the planet in such a flight."
] | [
"The Coriolis force it acts 90° to the wind direction causing air to turn right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. As altitude increases wind speed increases due to less surface friction and increases direction (10° to 50° depending on surface roughness) in the northern hemispher... |
[
"Is there a reason that the superposition \"works\" in so many situations, or is the fact that so many physical properties are representable by a linear system a happy coincidence/approximation that is backed up by experiment?"
] | [
false
] | Is there any reason to believe that we're simplifying things by assuming that so many properties of the universe are linear? I know that chromatic forces aren't linear, so why should so many other things be? On a personal level, it bothers me how convenient it seems. (resubmitted - the last one got blocked because it w... | [
"We don't really assume that so many properties of the universe are linear. We know now that many of the linear forces we deal with on a daily basis (i.e. Newtonian gravity and electromagnetism) have higher-order corrections that are nonlinear. Newtonian gravity was superseded by General Relativity (a fully nonline... | [
"Imagine some system doesn't obey the superposition principle, and some property f is an arbitrarily complex function of some parameter x. On some small enough interval the function is constant. You can make a better approximation on some interval by including a linear term. Of course, you can keep going and includ... | [
"Thank you. I didn't think to look whether GR was nonlinear. I also didn't know about that property quantum quantum electrodynamics. ",
"I know that Newtonian gravity is an approximation of GR gravity. Is the electrodynamics I learned in school a \"pretty good\" approximation in the same way? Or are the rules see... |
[
"Do defibrillators just \"reset\" irregular heartbeat rhythms or do they \"restart\" a stopped heart as well?"
] | [
false
] | Afaik, the human heart relies on electrical signals from 2 nodes in the heart to maintain a regular rhythm. It makes sense that an electric shock can reset the irregular rhythm into a regular one. During my grade 12 biology class, my teacher said that fixing irregular rhythms is the ONLY purpose of the defibrillator. H... | [
"What you describe sounds like ",
"commotio cordis",
" which is a disruption of heart rhythm due to some sort of traumatic impact (i.e. a hockey puck, or the steering wheel in a car accident). It sends the heart into a very bad rhythm which could be reversed by defibrillation. This may be why they tried to us... | [
"Only in the movies can they restart a heart. They are used to reset an irregular heartbeat."
] | [
"Thank you for your patronizing sarcasm. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove.",
"Here's the scenario: you find a person down in the field. There is no pulse. You have no means of determining the underlying cardiac rhythm. It is not unreasonable to say, in a colloquial sense (again this is not a medical t... |
[
"Are human fertility rates affected by population density?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"So, for context, I recently learned that there are a species of Arctic ground squirrels in which the females reproductive success is affected directly by the density of the squirrel population, rather than by availability of food. I was wondering human reproduction acted in any similar way."
] | [
"In a hunter-gatherer tribal society fertility rates are regulated by lactation/milk production.",
"When a woman is lactating, due to hormonal factors, she is less like to ovulate and become pregnant",
"When food is plentiful children are weaned off breast milk earlier, ovulation returns, and a woman is more li... | [
"Which while fascinating unfortunately doesn't really answer the question."
] |
[
"How does an axial compressor create more pressure?"
] | [
false
] | I'm actually in the math-heavy design stage to build an actual mini axial gas turbine. There are reasons why a centrifugal one is used as part of a turbocharger, but the scientific challenge really got to me. I'm even building an extra 4-axis lathe to mill the blisks for it. Anyways. I have no problems with the design ... | [
"This is an interesting question: one I have spent close to a lifetime pondering. I am a retired compressor research engineer. This is a corollary question to the age old “why do pumps pump?”. That is, why doesn’t the fluid stop and reverse course and go back out the front of the pump? ",
"The aerodynamics of... | [
"If I understand your question correctly, you actually answered it in your question :>",
"At an energy level the kinetic energy is converted into potential energy. The rotational flow is converted to an axial acceleration which is converted into pressure by the narrowing effect of the stator. That's if I understa... | [
"I think you might be the one cracking the egg so to speak.",
"I understand what you're writing. I think your answer is exactly where I am standing right now knowledge-wise. The question is: How does the reduction in flow area not sabotage the diffusors (rotor blades and vanes)? There can either a diffusion OR a ... |
[
"Are energies in general relativity \"relative\" or \"absolute\"?"
] | [
false
] | Within quantum mechanics, energy zeros are arbitrary and only energy differences affect the dynamics of a system. Shifting the energy higher or lower will simply cause a rotation of the global phase of a system. However within general relativity energy warps space. If I add a field of constant energy field over the w... | [
"Since energy density enters into the stress-energy tensor and the field equations are non-linear it should be no surprise that the absolute sign of the energy does matter. For instance, consider the stress tensor for a perfect pressureless fluid (a matter dust). If the energy density is 0 and the spacetime is diff... | [
"The Aharonov–Bohm effect still relies on the differences between potentials at different points in space to work, not because of a global potential change at all points in space. ",
"Also as I understand it the zero point energy that comes from quantum field theory is not sufficient to account for the value of t... | [
"The Aharonov–Bohm effect still relies on the differences between potentials at different points in space to work, not because of a global potential change at all points in space. ",
"Also as I understand it the zero point energy that comes from quantum field theory is not sufficient to account for the value of t... |
[
"Why do humans find many animals cute instead of tasty looking?"
] | [
false
] | Is it some evolutionary glitch? Is it genetics passed down from our ancestors to motivate us to domesticate animals? Curious what the reason is. | [
"Evolution doesn't have infinite precision to work with. The failsafes against killing human infants are extremely strong because the outcome if they fail is so catastrophic; if you weaken them enough (or install enough loopholes or whatever) to let you kill other infant animals, the odds go up that you'll acciden... | [
"This makes sense. But it raises the question: human beings have no difficulty distinguishing between human and non-human animals. Baby animals easy prey. Why wouldn't our \"baby love\" failsafes incorporate the distinction between human and non-human?",
"Is it simply that this situation just didn't come up en... | [
"This makes sense. But it raises the question: human beings have no difficulty distinguishing between human and non-human animals. Baby animals easy prey. Why wouldn't our \"baby love\" failsafes incorporate the distinction between human and non-human?",
"Is it simply that this situation just didn't come up en... |
[
"What is the difference between the different types of silicon in a transistor?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"N-type has excess electrons, P-type has missing electron \"holes\" in the crystalline structure. Usually silicon is doped with a small amount of another material to make it N-type or P-type. The type of dopant determines whether it is N-type or P-type."
] | [
"This will be simplified.",
"If you look at silicon on the periodic table, you'll see that it's in the second column of the p-block along with the other Group IV semiconductors. Stripping this whole entire subject down to the bare bones, the elements in this column have 4 valence electrons (2s",
" and 2p",
" ... | [
"If you think about how a transistor works, it has to maintain an 'off' state even when there is a voltage applied between the source and the drain.",
"What does this mean? Simply that the area between the source and the drain must be non-conductive when off, and conductive when on (as controlled by the gate).",... |
[
"Would a spherical shell rotated about 3 orthogonal axes simultaneously feel an evenly distributed outward pressure?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Any arbitrary rotation of such an object can equivalently be described as a rotation about a single axis. Whatever angular velocity vector you can construct in your initial coordinate system, I can pick a coordinate system where one axis lies along that direction. Then the angular velocity has a nonzero component ... | [
"How would you rotate a rigid body about two (let alone three) perpendicular axes? Imagine a globe spinning about the X-axis, and then you give it a smack in the positive X direction, so as to spin about the Y-axis. The globe wouldn't be spinning about both axes simultaneously. It would be spinning about a new axis... | [
"Ok here's a thought experiment. Suppose you have a rigid sphere. You put three marks on it : two on the equator, about 90 degrees apart, and one on the poles. I claim that no matter how you spin the sphere, you cannot get all three points to have equal centripetal force directed away from the center of the sphere.... |
[
"Which is more effective at cooling a room in a house: Pointing a fan in (pulling cool air in) or pointing a fan out (pushing hot air out)?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"If you want it to feel cooler, you want the fast moving air to pass by your body, displacing the warm air just above your skin. When a fan is pointed towards you, the colomn of moving air is tighter than when it is pointed away from you. Blowing cold air at you will feel cooler than blowing warm air out, even if t... | [
"Right. It depends on where you get to put the fan and whether there are other vents in the room/house. If you only have a floor fan, and no other openings, blow cold air in.",
"For greatest efficiency, bring the cold in the bottom and hot out the top. A fan can be used in a number of ways to help this."
] | [
"Right. It depends on where you get to put the fan and whether there are other vents in the room/house. If you only have a floor fan, and no other openings, blow cold air in.",
"For greatest efficiency, bring the cold in the bottom and hot out the top. A fan can be used in a number of ways to help this."
] |
[
"Has there been any research into removing the need for the human body to sleep?"
] | [
false
] | It's my understanding that the reasons why humans sleep are pretty vague. I think with all the advancements in the next 20 years, that this could be one of them. | [
"Yes actually, though it is not with any documentation that I bring forth this information, (though google may bring something) the U.S. military has experimented with sleep replication supplements. I have heard first hand from soldiers (Marines, if I remember correctly) being test subjects for this drug while on a... | [
"I take that drug for narcolepsy. It is very interesting and very effective and really a godsend. You have no idea (or maybe you do if you have narcolepsy) how terrible it is to feel partially asleep, your brain tired and aching for sleep during the day, not quite fully awake, your whole life. If you've ever dri... | [
"The main effects of sleep deprivation are damage to brain processing,; so memory and learning capability is effected and damage to the immune system.",
"Are there any permanent cognitive effects from semi-routine sleep deprivation? "
] |
[
"Would it be possible to create a stable, artificial ring around our planet (any celestial body, really)?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"It would be very challenging but is entirely possible. You'd be hard pressed to find enough materials without some serious off-world mining and you'd need a much larger global economy than we currently have."
] | [
"Relevant: ",
"Larry Niven's Ringworld and problems with it",
". "
] | [
"Actually, rings of mass around a sphere wouldn't do stable equilibrium. It would be very possible to position the ring so that the forces on it are zero (so it would be in equilibrium and not move). But if it gets pushed a little bit, we would have to realign the position with thrusters or something or gravity wil... |
[
"How does \"escape velocity\" work? Isn't any speed escape velocity as long it isn't zero?"
] | [
false
] | I mean, if a space ship moves at a constant 20kph upwards, won't it eventually leave the Earth? And since you get farther and farther away from the Earth by every kilometer you move, the escape velocity and the gravity should slowly decrease, right? So when the space ship reaches a height of maybe 100km, it will be muc... | [
"A ship that's moving at a constant speed upward is under power. It's being dragged down by gravity, and yet it's still moving upwards without losing speed. That means it's under propulsion, an engine is at work, energy is being spent in fighting gravity.",
"Escape velocity is a different concept. It's the speed ... | [
"That's correct. Just to contribute with some vocabulary:",
"escape velocity applies to ",
" objects",
"In aerospace engineering, these are called ",
". The term is an analogy to a bullet, meaning that the only forces acting on the projectile are gravity and, at most, air drag."
] | [
"I actually answered some of this question in the context of black holes ",
"in this post",
".",
"You are absolutely right that as long as the ship has an acceleration that is ",
" greater than the gravitational acceleration, then the ship will escape to infinity. The ship might be going at literally a snai... |
[
"Does honey really have antibiotic or antibacterial properties? If it does, what causes it to be either antibiotic or antibacterial?"
] | [
false
] | I've heard this mentioned several times about how honey is either antibiotic or antibacterial. What exactly is in honey that makes it antibacterial or antibiotic? I hope this isn't a stupid question... | [
"One of the more clearly understood aspects of honey is that it's very hygroscopic, due to its high sugar content. Most bacteria can't survive for very long in honey, because the honey will pull all the water out of the bacteria and kill it.",
"Edit: ",
"Here's a link",
" that gives a basic overview of five... | [
"Just to be sure, we're talking about putting bacteria directly into a bath of honey. Eating honey will not clear up your infection.",
"To be fair, putting bacteria in a lot of things kills them."
] | [
"I doubt that's been tested. Even if it worked, you'd have to keep the instrument in the honey for a period of time.",
"Even then, before you could use the instrument, you'd have to clean the honey off, which depending on your method of cleaning could re-contaminate. Indeed if you had another way of getting the... |
[
"Minimal Human Contact - Side Effects?"
] | [
false
] | I understand this is a broad question but what kind of side effects would you encounter from distancing yourself from society for a really long period of time? I guess an example would be if you were in prison and you were put in solitary confinment with nothing but books for 10 years what sort of state of mind would y... | [
"I just finished a fantastic documentary by National Geographic on solitary confinement. Many of those guys were in Ad Seg for a decade or more. ",
"Basically what happened was the development of anti-social behaviour, anxiety, fear, etc. One inmate being interviewed through glass noted it was his first sit-down ... | [
"In children at least there is a disorder called non-organic failure to thrive (NOFFT). It's a psychosocial disorder in which children are seemingly healthy with no discernible biological causes, don't grow at the same rate or mature physically as other children. This extends to intellectual development as well. ... | [
"can you tell us the name of this documentary? please."
] |
[
"How do strong forces pull things from far away?"
] | [
false
] | I heard that strong forces pull things stronger from farther away, and that these forces are so strong that nuclear forces are basically the residual spill-off from them. How is it possible that something can get stronger from farther away? Wouldn't that pull everything into a certain range? | [
"The effect you're referring to is known as ",
"color confinement",
". The force felt doesn't increase with distance, but it is approximately constant. However, this occurs in bound groups of quarks (either a quark and antiquark pair, which is a meson, or three quarks or three antiquarks, which are baryons and ... | [
"Actually, the strong nuclear force is unique among the fundamental forces of the Standard Model in that it gets weaker as you get two particles which are affected by it closer together. This is known as ",
"asymptotic freedom",
".",
"The only particles which are affected by it are ",
"quarks",
", such a... | [
"it gets weaker as you get two particles which are affected by it further away from each other",
"That should be the other way around - it gets \"asymptotically weaker as ... distances decrease\" (from the article you linked). In other words, quarks are free to move around within a hadron, but as you separate the... |
[
"If light cannot escape from a black hole, wouldn't the objects being pulled in be going faster than the speed of light?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Sort of.... the thing is, you can't measure distances and speeds ",
", i.e., looking at spacetime as a whole. From that standpoint they're dependent on the coordinates you choose. The only physical way of defining distance is ",
". In other words, observers near each other can measure their distances, before t... | [
"Once you're past the event horizon, that's it. You're done. There's no coming back--not ever. And it's not just about speed. ",
"General Relativity says that mass can warp spacetime, and the more massive something is then the more it warps spacetime. ",
"The singularity in a black hole takes \"mas... | [
"Look at it this way: If you were stationary at 5m outside of the event horizon, and a nuclear bomb exploded 5m past the event horizon, you wouldn't even know that there was an explosion, as none of the matter, light, or radiation would reach you."
] |
[
"what would happen if you threw a paper aeroplane in space?"
] | [
false
] | Would it just keep moving in the direction you threw it until I hit a solid object? Edit 1: my phones saying there are 9 comments, but only showing/messaging me about 1 of them so apologies to anyone else that commented if there was/is actually 8 more comments! Edit 2: I woke up and reddit had fixed that glitch and thi... | [
"Even from a PC browser, this thread only shows two comments, but says 13. Reddit dun broke.",
"For your answer, though, if you threw it in \"deep\" space, nowhere near any large gravitating bodies, it would just keep going until it eventually hit something (or got caught by something's gravity). If you threw i... | [
"Even if you could somehow throw your paper airplane hard enough, it would almost certainly disintegrate from the force needed to get it up to speed.",
"Unless it's already traveling at that speed, like if an ISS astronaut made a paper airplane and just let go of it outside)."
] | [
"I really wish there were more videos of simple zero G experiments like this. I want know what fire looks like in space. I want to see what it looks like when you flip a coin. I want to play with a gyroscope. I want to go to space. "
] |
[
"Why are DNA bases and RNA bases so different? How can removing a single hydroxyl group have such a large impact?"
] | [
false
] | Considering the other groups in DNA bases I would expect that the hydroxyl group would be rather insignificant, yet DNA bases exhibit different chemical properties as opposed to RNA bases (ex: they're more stable) So why does removing this one hydroxyl have such a big impact on the molecule as a whole? | [
"RNA can rarely be double stranded, but yes the OH of RNA makes it much less stable than DNA. This is because the OH group can actually attack the 'backbone' of the RNA strand. Basically, RNA is capable of tearing itself apart while DNA isn't.",
"Also, RNA is much less stable in the environment than DNA because R... | [
"This is a good question that I have had to think about a lot in my research. Besides being less stable (covalently) than DNA, RNA can also (1) fold into ",
" stable secondary structures and (2) binds a very different set of proteins in the cell. ",
"Why does one little OH group have such big differences? Well,... | [
"Someone will post a better answer but, I believe the differing molecule configuration of the OH group cause the RNA to be less stable because its more vulnerable to hydrolysis? also its only single stranded as well and not a strong double helix like DNA. \nNot the best answer, its been a few years out of school"
] |
[
"Diluted red wine changes color at a certain concentration. What's happening here?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"You wouldn't be comparing against phenolphthalein - rather, you should be comparing it to ",
"litmus",
" - which belongs to the same class of chemicals found in your wine, known as anthrocyanins - which is red in acidic solution and blue in basic solutions.",
"The main concept behind a dye as a pH indicator ... | [
"Well, a quick scan on wiki has turned something up.",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_content_in_wine",
"Its most likely the colour change of anthocyanins in the wine. Heres a ",
"journal",
" your chemist friend may be interested in reading, but without having a sample of your specific wine its hard... | [
"I don't know what your chemistry background is, but if the pigments in the wine form a solution that behaves according to the Beer-Lambert law you should see a simple lightening of the color, so it could be a chemical deviation (",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer%E2%80%93Lambert_law#Deviations_from_Beer-Lambe... |
[
"Is it possible to create \"Anti-Atoms\" with Antimatter ?"
] | [
false
] | So I know that antimatter consists of positrones and anti-protons wich are basically the same as protons and electrons just with opposite charges. So i wondered if there is a possibility that these two can form an "anti-hidrogen atom" and if so if they can form bonds and create "anti-H2" and other molecules (Im not aw... | [
"Yes, and ",
"it has been done for decades now",
".",
"if so if they can form bonds and create \"anti-H2\" and other molecules",
"Theoretically, yes.",
"Im not aware of an anti-neutron, so I think that we cannot create more heavy atoms",
"Antineutrons do exist."
] | [
"Matter neutrons contain matter quarks; these would annihilate with the anti-quarks in the anti-proton. So, one would need anti-neutrons to create heavier anti-atoms."
] | [
"As mentioned we have created anti-hydrogen atoms already.",
"To create anti-hydrogen molecules you need enough of the atoms together. That is very challenging, but possible in principle. ",
"Here is a proposal",
".",
"Antineutrons exist and we create them routinely in particle accelerators. They are not ch... |
[
"Why do we sleep?"
] | [
false
] | Besides the obvious, we are tired, is there any other reason why we need to sleep? I should be sleeping now but that question has taken over my head. | [
"AFAIK a lot of body functions are only performed when we are asleep. Such as skin, teeth and nails nutrition and cell renewals. \nThat is why people with insomnia suffer hair falls and nails damages, because their body doesn't have the chance to renew these cells."
] | [
"This is still very much an open question, but here's a few key features:",
"Sleeping lets your brain \"defrag\" itself, sort of like a computer does",
"Sleeping lets your brain physically clean itself",
"Sleeping lets your brain focus on processing complex stimuli without distractions of waking experience"
] | [
"I know this late, but none of the answers so far explain why we sleep. And I researched a bit and it turns out we don't know yet. We know that when we sleep, we do some important functions which we don't do while we are awake( we don't know why ).",
"So yeah, it's still a mystery. "
] |
[
"Does Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Have Any Scientific Basis?"
] | [
false
] | My dad took a bunch of courses in it and has a bunch of 'certifications' in NLP. However the claims it makes to me sound ridiculous and I think the affect NLP may have is no more than a placebo. In addition things like using it to reading people so well sound a bit bogus too - this is just anecdotal but my brother is a... | [
"I think its fair to say the claims made exceed the evidence for those claims. The ",
"scientific reasoning doesn't appear particularly sound",
", and what little direct experimentation there has been doesn't seem to support the case for its efficacy.",
"This is not to say there's nothing to the connection o... | [
"It is complete and utter scientific garbage."
] | [
"I only have a word of a Ph.D. psychologist who has some sort of training/certification in NLP. He says it's crap, I didn't inquire further."
] |
[
"What would it take to annihilate all life from earth and can it be \"achieved\" by humans?"
] | [
false
] | I mean like every single organism, extermophile bacteria, etc. | [
"We're still trying to find the limits of sustainable environments - for example ",
"http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1936/516.short",
"Because we have identified lithospheric bacteria at substantial depth, the only way to be ",
" sure is to completely annihilate the crust and atmosphere. T... | [
"This is ",
"/r/askscience",
"."
] | [
"Yep - that's the belief. e.g. ",
"http://journalofcosmology.com/Panspermia9.html",
"\n",
"http://www.springerlink.com/content/h171534701359381/",
"From the abstract of that last paper: \n\"The data suggest that in a scenario of interplanetary transfer of life, small rock ejecta of a few cm in diameter coul... |
[
"[Neuroscience, Molecular Biology, Medicine] How bad are small doses of MDMA for the brain and body? What are the long-term and negative side-effects?"
] | [
false
] | 1.) What is the current scientific understanding of the mechanisms and short/long term effects of low-dose MDMA use? 2.) Has there been any research on potential interactions between prescription psychostimulants and low-dose MDMA use? 3.) What structures might undergo the most stress/damage? I've read research about h... | [
"1) MDMA works on the serotonergic system in your brain (among others) which causes downstream effects in other monoamines (dopamine, norepinephrine) as well ",
"here",
". Short-term effects of MDMA use are sweating, increased body temperature, increased blood pressure and pupil dilation. It causes increased e... | [
"bleh, not sure Terrence McKenna is the best source for an academic answer."
] | [
"bleh, not sure Terrence McKenna is the best source for an academic answer."
] |
[
"Why don't modern ships use sails?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Shipping companies are looking into using kites attached to ships to help supplement the engine.",
"As for the historical reasons sails fell to steam, it's mostly speed and reliability. They're really cool and I spend a lot of time studying them, but they're complicated and a pain in the ass."
] | [
"Usually the answer to any question like \"why doesn't a major corporate entity use XXX technology\" is that it isn't cost effective. I'm certainly not an expert on shipping, but here are some reasons I can brainstorm.",
"-Wind powered ships are slower, and wind is less reliable than an engine.",
"-Sails would... | [
"Here's an article from a couple years ago: ",
"http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080208/full/news.2008.564.html"
] |
[
"Does downloading a podcast make my phone heavier?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Depending how pedantic of an answer you want, maybe. \"Heavier\" is not the same thing as \"has more mass\". If you flip a bit, you're changing the charge of some memory element somewhere, so there is probably a minuscule change in charge or magnetic fields, which will push or pull a tiny bit more on the ambient... | [
"No. The data of the podcast is represented on your phone by a bunch of switches. Turning the switches from off to on doesn't make the switch weigh any more or less.",
"On a side note, when your battery is dead it will weigh a tiny bit less than when the battery is full."
] | [
"In principle this is correct, but it depends on the exact nature of the switches (depending on how they work, some switches contain more energy/mass if off than on). In practice phones use ",
"flash memory",
", which works by placing electrons into a floating gate to turn that bit off, which means a set of all... |
[
"Pretend we have a second moon, basically identical to our current one, orbiting perfectly on the opposite side of the planet as our own. Would we still have tides?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Tides are caused by the gravity gradient of the moon across earth; stronger gravity on the near side causes a bulge (water moves toward the moon), weaker gravity on the far side causes another bulge (water moves away from the moon). If there's no gradient, you don't get tidal forces. I'll look at local force of gr... | [
"I looked at the problem analytically (as opposed to numerically as you have done) and my results indicated that the tidal forces would double. ",
"See my top level post",
"."
] | [
"It looks to me like the tidal forces would double.",
"Below I've linked to the equations calculating the force on the \"left\" (L) side of the Earth, the center (C) of the Earth, and the \"right\" (R) of the Earth due to moons A and B, and then taking the difference:",
"diagram",
"page 1",
"page 2",
"(No... |
[
"Does gravity on the earth's surface vary throughout the day?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Gravity does vary very slightly throughout the day, but certainly not enough for your bathroom scales to notice. The acceleration on your body from the Earth is about 9.8 m/s",
" . From acceleration from the Moon on you from Earth is about ",
"0.000035 m/s",
" . So if you weighed 70 kg (~150 pounds), the Mo... | [
"The Moon pulls the scale with almost exactly the same acceleration as the person standing on the scale. Think about this, you jump from a diving tower holding a brick above your head. Earth pulls the brick down with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s",
". Is the brick pushing you down and making you fall faster? Of cour... | [
"You have a funny way of asking questions. Your boyfriend was incorrect in explaining your apparent weight gain as a change in the gravitational force you were feeling. He was not incorrect in saying that gravitational forces do chance, though.",
"In any engineering situation where the mass needs to be accurate... |
[
"Can two samples of the same size, with the same mean and standard deviation, contain different values?"
] | [
false
] | No right? I feel like the answer is no but something is nagging me about it, and it may be such an obvious question which is why I can't find anything online. I thought I would ask here. | [
"Sure they can. It would be quite silly if you could reconstruct a whole sample of hundreds (say) degrees of freedom from just two.",
"For example, let ",
" = sqrt(5/2), that is about 1.5811. Then the two samples",
"have the same mean and standard deviation. However if you keep calculating higher order sample... | [
"There's a fun little piece of math trivia called ",
"Anscombe's quartet",
". For different sets of numbers that were maliciously constructed to have the same aggregate statistics, but look completely different when plotted. Not only do they have exact matches for the sample mean and standard deviations, but al... | [
"Thank you! I ended up asking this on stack exchange as well, and the degrees of freedom answers help this make sense to me."
] |
[
"What happens to protons when light is polarized?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Could it be that you meant \"photons\"? "
] | [
"Assuming OP meant \"photons\"... and further assuming OP has heard of the wave/particle duality...",
"Electromagnetic radiation usually travels as a transverse wave. The wave's orientation is the same thing as its EM fields, which are perpendicular to the direction of travel.",
"When you linearly polarize an e... | [
"I understand the wave perpendicular to the direction of movement is then restricted to one dimension, but I was curious if there was any noticeable effect on individual photons. "
] |
[
"Could any artifacts of an ancient civilization survive on Venus?"
] | [
false
] | I've often heard that Venus could be considered within the "Goldilocks zone" of the sun, but that its extreme greenhouse effect and corrosive atmosphere precludes the possibility of life as we know it. However, assuming the atmosphere was not always like that, if a humanoid civilization of relative technological parit... | [
"What a very interesting question, to answer it we have to consider several things; firstly any life that may have existed on Venus would have most likely existed several billion years ago when we suspect there may have been liquid water on the planet so we are talking about a huge length of time between any existe... | [
"That's an amazing answer! I hope other people read it for its thoroughness, even if they don't share my weird obsession with Venus."
] | [
"How far we're looking back also makes a difference. Venus is sufficiently volcanically active that it undergoes basically a complete resurfacing every 300-600 million years. "
] |
[
"Are women predisposed to be vocal in fright or is it a result of social conditioning?"
] | [
false
] | I was playing Laser Tag and remarked on the different reactions of men and women to being surprised. I then thought of the conventional horror movie stereotypes and wondered if there was a disposition for women to be more vocal in fright or if, from these movies and other sources, there was a societal expectation for w... | [
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vociferation#Emotional_motivation",
"Both men and women scream when frightened."
] | [
"The comments here are deleted for two reasons.",
"(1) Layman speculation: For some reason half the population seems to think they have something to say on evolutionary psychology. Please only answer if you really know what's going on.",
"(2) People asking \"why is everything deleted?\": Our rules have been set... | [
"I think the things deemed incorrect are listed on the right."
] |
[
"How close to Earth could a black hole get without us noticing?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"It depends on the mass of the black hole. A black hole with the mass of, say, a person (which would be absolutely tiny) could pass through the Earth and we'd be none the wiser. If one with the mass of the Sun passed by, well, the consequences would be about as catastrophic as if another star passed through - our o... | [
"Generally this is correct, but i wan't to add that a black hole with a mass of a person would evaporate pretty much instantly due to Hawking readiation and therefore wouldn't be able to pass the earth."
] | [
"When you get objects that small, the concept of 'impacts' needs to be considered. The Schwarzschild radius of a 70kg black hole is ~10",
" m, which is 10",
" times smaller than a single proton. I don't think we can necessarily expect it to interact in the same way as a macro-scale impactor."
] |
[
"How do stimulants such as nicotine, caffeine or amphetamines suppress your hunger?"
] | [
false
] | Does it make some people feel temporarily satiated because it regulates, or triggers a leptin response? | [
"That is a rather incomplete answer that doesn't account for the physiological actions of chemical binding to receptors or blood glucose levels.",
"You're not accounting for that fact that nicotine, caffeine, and amphetamine all trigger adrenaline release since they are adrenergic stimulants. Adrenaline release c... | [
"That is a rather incomplete answer that doesn't account for the physiological actions of chemical binding to receptors or blood glucose levels.",
"You're not accounting for that fact that nicotine, caffeine, and amphetamine all trigger adrenaline release since they are adrenergic stimulants. Adrenaline release c... | [
"As someone who works in the greater neuroscience community, I can endorse this comment as correct. I would provide a source but I'm actually at work now and it would be hard to find a single one, likely a book chapter is needed for enough references.",
"As for how to test this, all of this neurochemistry/behavi... |
[
"Are there any scientific studies demonstrating the difference in magnitude of the placebo effect on skeptics versus believers? If so, what are the results?"
] | [
false
] | For example, if you compared the effects of say essential oils on the headaches of 100 skeptics versus 100 non-skeptics, would there be statistically significant variances between the two groups? I consider myself a skeptic so maybe my bias is showing with the wording here, but I'm genuinely curious to know what the di... | [
"Respectful Insolence",
" has a good take down of Kaptchuk's methodolgy, and I suspect that similar problematic methodologies are used in many of these small studies.",
"For instance,",
"Participants were recruited from advertisements for “a novel mind-body management study of IBS” in newspapers and fliers an... | [
"There have been ",
"a number of small studies in recent years",
" regarding so-called \"open-label placebos,\" where participants are literally told \"the pill we are giving you is a placebo, it has no medical value.\"",
"Again, these are small studies (so the effect ",
" disappear in larger studies, ",
... | [
"Right, so Kaptchuk is actually measuring the impact in \"believers\" (referring to OPs question), and is finding similar levels of improvement to more generally informed studies (which contain a good cross-section of \"believers\" and \"skeptics\"... ignoring any bias of the demographic of people who participate i... |
[
"Why are the black boxes in airplanes physical devices that have to be found after an accident instead of just a thing that sends wireless data to a set location?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Well first off, they were invented long before wireless backups were possible. It was for a long time the only way to ensure that information was preserved. Second, damaged equipment could interfere with sending that information. If the antenna is struck by lightning and melts, the computer will still try to send ... | [
"Aircraft mechanic here...",
"General electric and Rolls Royce are currently able to perform what you are talking about with some of their engines. They are actively monitoring flights and advising airlines to change engines or parts whenever possible in order to avoid minor or catastrophic failures.",
"I have ... | [
"There is a PBS documentary on Netflix US right which talks about some of the \"live\" monitoring systems in place (I believe this one focuses on RR). It is called City in the Sky, worth the watch for OP I think.",
"Also to add my $.02 from my time researchig in reliability. The US DoD is working on a project t... |
[
"How are concepts or memories formed and stored in the brain?"
] | [
false
] | I’m trying to understand how concepts are stored in the brain. From what I understand a certain strand of information is repeated by a group of neurons until they create a sort of bond where the same action potential is repeated. Every time you activate this group of neurons the are reinforced (such as studying). | [
"Best theory I've ever seen is connectionist theory, in other words neural networking theory.",
"A neural network is a type of computer, really a computer cluster. Where a bunch of really simple computers are hooked together so they compute in parallel, and they are densely interconnected so they are able to inf... | [
"The current most widely accepted theory is, as the other commenter described, that memories, knowledge, skills, etc. are encoded in the brain by changes in the connections between neurons. For very simple associations (e.g. if you learn that a particular tone is associated with another stimulus like a puff of air ... | [
"/u/brainmindspirit",
" has an excellent answer. I'd like to discuss some other aspects.",
"Long-time storage of information depends on the modification of neural synapses. So there has to be new gene expression and protein synthesis to alter synaptic connections on a long-term basis.",
"The Arc protein",
"... |
[
"What is the chemistry behind toilet bowl cleaners that change color when the surface is \"clean\"?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I was a chemist at a production plant which produced one of the major brands of toilet bowl cleaners that does this. It's a gimmick and nothing more. Water soluble dyes are added to toilet bowl cleaner during production. When the cleaner mixes with the water in the toilet, the dilution causes a change in pH which ... | [
"I really like one product called Greased Lightning. It's an all purpose cleaner that does a great job, but be careful what surface you use it on. Glass cleaners are pretty generic with usually a bit of ammonia, isopropyl alcohol, streak-free surfactant, and blue dye. Store brands are good here. The Lysol and T... | [
"It's good to wait a bit just to let the active chemicals do their job. I usually spray those things first, then clean the sink or mirror while I'm waiting. "
] |
[
"Can fish see clearly outside of their aquarium?"
] | [
false
] | Since their eyes are accustomed to focus under water, does looking through air look like looking through water without googles looks to humans? | [
"Actually, it is like looking into water with goggles to humans. The refractive index between the eye and the medium is what counts for focus. This is why only a very small air space between human eyes and water allows for clear vision. Since the fish have water in contact with their eyes, as they are accustomed... | [
"That makes perfect sense. So, if they were taken out of the water, their vision would get blurry?"
] | [
"Presumably yes. If you like, I will dig up a primer lesson on refractive index as it applies to air/water interface."
] |
[
"Explain to me what the deal is with the Higgs boson?"
] | [
false
] | Specifically, I know that it's supposed to give matter its mass. What I don't understand is how matter could fail to have mass. Are we saying that without the Higgs, matter would just be energy and therefore massless? Are other bosons inherently massless? Please help me understand. | [
"See ",
"this",
" that I wrote in another thread. It is not the Higgs boson that leads to mass, but the value of the Higgs field that permeates the vacuum.",
"And yes, the various fields would be inherently massless if there were no Higgs field. It is worth knowing, though, that protons and neutrons get mos... | [
"I'm not really sure why there is all the fuss about the higgs. It's just the last hole to be filled in the standard model - had the things been discovered in a different order, we'd be talking about a different one."
] | [
"The Higgs Boson doesn't give matter mass. It merely confirms the existence of the Higgs field. It's the Higgs field's non-zero value in a vacuum that give mass to all the particles it intersects with. A more detailed explanation of this phenomenon is available ",
"here",
". I ",
" you read this as it cla... |
[
"Why are 64 bit binaries larger than 32 bit ones?"
] | [
false
] | They're almost always larger but why? They're not directly referencing memory address so I can't think why they need to be bigger. Can anyone shed some light? | [
"The number of memory offsets in the binary should be fairly small. Also, x64 keeps most immediates at 32 bits.",
"The real reason that x64 binaries are bigger is because of the REX prefix. Anytime you want to use one of the new registers (R8 to R15), or do a full 64 bit operation (default is 32 bit) - you need... | [
"The compiled binary data is most certainly storing memory addresses and memory offsets! The reason why this makes the binary larger is very simple: The data used to store such addresses and offsets takes up 64 bits each as opposed to 32 bits."
] | [
"Have a look at eabrek's reply, I can confirm it's more accurate."
] |
[
"[Biology] Since hypoxia typically occurs at extreme altitudes due to the thinning of the atmosphere, would a person get \"hyperoxia\" if they were to descend to the depths of the Marianas Trench, (if the water were removed, and open atmosphere were available to breathe)?"
] | [
false
] | I was just watching a documentary on National Geographic about "The Oceans Drained", and this question popped into my head. Let's say we COULD drain the ocean, (for the sake of this question, life on Earth wouldn't cease to exist, and the atmospheric content remained identical to today). If a person were to go to the... | [
"You would not be crushed by air pressure, humans aren't balloons, we are open to the environment. People get crushed in deep water because the air in your lungs and other lumens can't resist the pressure from water outside your body. But at a great depth of air your body would have little trouble equalizing the p... | [
"This question has a few components: the environmental/earth science side and the human physiology side.",
"For a brief idea about the physiology: oxygen toxicity caused by increased O2 partial pressure is well documented and understood. The most common causes are iatrogenic (caused by a medical intervention) li... | [
"For comparison: At 10,900 m below sea level (with no water), the atmospheric pressure would be 285 kPa. This is a partial O2 pressure of about 60 kPa - not deadly, but not good for you in the long run."
] |
[
"I have been told that antibiotics can decimate someone's gut flora. Do the affected bacteria eventually repopulate, or can the make-up of one's guts be permanently altered?"
] | [
false
] | How do (presumably) competing strains of bacteria respond to antibiotics, and what happens to them in the long term? | [
"To speak to one specific example, a c. dificile infection is a potential consequence of antibiotic use. The antibiotics basically wipe out the native gut flora that would ",
"normally keep the c-diff infection in check",
", resulting in significant overgrowth of the pathogenic bacteria. While c-diff specific... | [
"The problem is that it's ubiquitous, meaning it's pretty much everywhere. You're probably breathing it in as we speak. So you take your antibiotic, it kills everything, and clostridium enters your system with nothing to stop it from adhering to your gut."
] | [
"Well, that's what antibiotics do. They kill bacteria. Some strains are more prone to specific antibiotics than other.\nOur gut flora comprises lots of species, not dangerous under normal circumstances. It prevents more dangerous species from getting more \"influential\" - it interferes with their growth. Most of t... |
[
"Can food be charred to where it will not be digested or adsorbed?"
] | [
false
] | Can food be cooked to the point where the body is unable to absorb it for nutrition? | [
"Interesting question. This is educated speculation, but yes I would think that once food has burnt through there will be no more nutritional content (in the sense of energy, micronutrients like calcium would still be present). In fact, a bomb calorimeter (which IIRC is the gold standard for measuring the number of... | [
"Can food be cooked to the point where the body is unable to absorb it for nutrition?",
"Of course. If, for example, you were to heat a vegetable or piece of meat in a sealed environment (i.e. where the cooked food cannot react with oxygen in atmospheric air), then you would create charcoal out of your food. Ch... | [
"Are you familiar with heterocyclic amines formed during cooked meat? Is this the same a charing?"
] |
[
"Why does the taste of ice cream change when thawed and refrozen?"
] | [
false
] | I'm not crazy am I? Surely someone else have noticed this! | [
"Note: this is not speculation, this is the true answer:",
"ELI5:",
"Ice cream tastes good because you have fine particles of ice cream in a large mixture. However, if you leave it open for a long time, or if you melt and refreeze, the ice cream particles will coalesce, making it harder for you to mix the flavo... | [
"I think it has to do with the way ice cream is made from the start. I'm not sure if this is correct but my understanding is that ice cream is made similar to how icees or slushees are made. As in they move the material around as they freeze it. This seems like it would do nothing, but in the end it gives the subst... | [
"I'm not a member of the panel or anything, but I'll throw out a hypothesis seeing that I'm a chemical engineer. ",
"First, I assume by \"thaw\" you mean melted (or almost melted). When the ice cream is thawed, it is overall at a higher temperature, thus the metabolic rate of the microbes in the ice cream increas... |
[
"How big would a planet have to be before the gravity is too strong for humans?"
] | [
false
] | As title says | [
"a similar question was asked on a thread some time ago, and this begs the question to define the \"too strong for humans\". 5g is the limit where humans black out, but at 2-3G the heart would have to work overtime to send blood to the head, probably blood clots would appear in legs and chronical back pain would ap... | [
"G = 6.7e-11 m",
" kg",
" s",
"M_earth = 5.9e24 kg",
"M_me = 6.4e1 kg",
"Dist = 6.4e6 m",
"F = ( G * M_earth * M_me ) / Dist",
"F = ( 6.7e-11 * 5.9e24 * 6.4e1 ) / (6.4e6)",
" = 6.2e2 Newtons",
"F = 620 Newtons",
"G = 6.7e-11",
"M_earth = 5.9e24 kg * 125 = 7.3e26 kg",
"M_me = 6.4e1 kg",
"Di... | [
"I'm just going to post this"
] |
[
"Why is Bragg's law empirically correct?"
] | [
false
] | (worded as a question now). In x-ray diffraction, Bragg's law states the relationship between the lattice spacing of a crystal and the wavelength and incidence angle of incident radiation to that crystal. I understand the proof of the law (it's just geometry), but I have a few question's about why it works in practice:... | [
"These are all some of the best questions I've seen posted here in a long time, and I feel bad that I can't really give them as good a treatment as they deserve. I hope someone else can call me out on my bullshit below, because odds are good I get something wrong. ",
"Why is the incidence angle equal to the diffr... | [
"your diffraction pattern just ends up being the diffraction pattern of your average grain size, which would be a halo",
"Not at all. Powder diffractometers still measure the diffraction between lattice planes, which is why we can use them to determine crystal structure. With powders, you assume that all possib... | [
"It's important to note that Bragg's law is a result of ",
" planes, not planes of atoms. It is the periodicity of the crystal lattice that is responsible.",
"Bragg's law isn't actually a geometric argument, the geometry is just a simple interpretation. Bragg's law is actually derived from the Laue equations.",... |
[
"I have a hypermobile tongue and no frenulum..."
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"How can you swallow your tongue if it's attached at the other end in your mouth?"
] | [
"its really long and flexible and can flip over itself and down my throat."
] | [
"I'm not quite sure what you mean by \"swallow\" then?",
"Are you asking if people have choked on it?"
] |
[
"How do other baryons behave inside atomic nuclei?"
] | [
false
] | Neutrons decay in free space, but are apparently stable inside some atomic nuclei. In other nuclei protons decay. Are there theories or experiments describing how the stability of other baryons are affected? I've found quite a few interesting papers on hypernuclei which I am working through, but very little more easily... | [
"I've found quite a few interesting papers on hypernuclei which I am working through, but very little more easily digested material.",
"Yes, this is what you're looking for. It's a relatively young area of research, and obviously a lot of it is theoretical rather than experimental. We understand QCD very well, bu... | [
"Thanks. ",
"There's nothing boring about this, quite the opposite it is so interesting I just wish there was more information to find. ",
"Should I ask again in 10 years or 40? "
] | [
"Hopefully the field will be much more developed in 10 years. There isn’t much introductory literature available, unfortunately. "
] |
[
"Why is non-dairy coffee creamer so flammable?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"No. Powders are really only especially flammable as fuel/air mixtures. And when they catch they have a lot of flash but don't exactly have a lot of sustained flame. If they catch anything else on fire it's generally only stuff that is also already extremely flammable, and even then it's hit or miss. So it wouldn't... | [
"It's not particularly more flammable than similar materials like flour, corn starch, or sugar. Non-dairy creamer is processed to have a specific particle size and contains non-caking agents designed to make it flow easily, which makes it easy to be used in an explosion but that's also true of other things, such as... | [
"It is the same reason coal mine dust and grain dust is so flammable. There is a tremendous amount of surface area so fire travels incredibly quickly.",
"Grain fire explosion",
"Coal Dust fire",
"Upper Big Branch Mine"
] |
[
"When a T-cell (T lymphocyte) differentiates into the Killer T cell, Helper T-cell, Suppressor T-cell, and Memory T-cell, why doesm't the function of the Helper T-cell and Suppressor T-cell cancel each other out?"
] | [
false
] | I know that the Helper T-cell stimulates the other T-cells (and B-cells) alerting them to go congregate together and go fight the tumor, but doesn't the Suppressor T-cell inhibit the T-cells (and B-cells)? What am I missing here? These two actions seem to contradict each other. Does the Suppressor T-cell only activate ... | [
"I know that the Helper T-cell stimulates the other T-cells (and B-cells) alerting them to go congregate together and go fight the tumor, but doesn't the Suppressor T-cell inhibit the T-cells (and B-cells)?",
"Yes",
"",
"What am I missing here? These two actions seem to contradict each other.",
"You're not... | [
"Not completely sure, but it sounds like a feedback mechanism. If T cell activation continued to activate T cells, nothing would ever cause the reaction to stop. Activating suppressor T cells would keep immune reactions from going out of control. I'll be learning about this more in the near future, but this is my b... | [
"Yes! This your reasoning is correct. This a big factor. In fighting influenza, protocol 1 is to search, kill, destroy the virus whereas protocol 2 is to turn on the breaks and cool the immune system off once the virus is gone. An out-of-control immune response can be deadly, and is thought to be responsible for ... |
[
"Does hair go grey or grow grey?"
] | [
false
] | I’ve got a long beard, there are some greys in it, I’ve pulled them all out before so either they are going grey or they are growing much faster than I thought (I think my beard has gotten to it’s natural length as I have not perceived extra length in the last year or so, but it never seems to thicken up or anything). ... | [
"Hair grows grey. Melanin in your hair follicles give it color, and the amount can vary over your lifetime (and strand to strand). If you think of kids that are blond but then darken in their teenage years, you're basically seeing the graying process in reverse. There are a lot of variation in mekanocytes and the a... | [
"Your hair doesn’t turn grey, it grows in grey. ",
"It becomes a slightly different texture, so the colored part may snap off, but the only way to lose color in your hair after it’s grown out of your skin is to bleach it somehow. (Whether with sun or chemicals or something else that isn’t coming to mind)"
] | [
"It's really about the amount of melanin in the hair...blond hair has some melanin, white does not."
] |
[
"Why do certain things you eat cause your stomach to make that churning/rumbling noise? What's going on?"
] | [
false
] | Is it gas? And if it is then why do other foods that give you gas not do it? | [
"The name of this sound is actually called \"peristaltic sound,\" and is simply the sound of the food being pushed through the small intestine in a process called \"peristalsis.\" The same contractions of the muscles occur while you are hungry, which create the audible indication of hunger."
] | [
"You would be unlikely to hear liquids moving around. If you can hear it, there are gases involved, either gases you swallowed, or methane and hydrogen generated by bacterial action on indigestible carbohydrates. These can include fructose, lactose, and sorbatol for some people, and complex carbohydrates found in... | [
"I have this issue recently too. I noticed it has been happening more often recently... should I change my diet or what should I do about this? "
] |
[
"When water leaves or enters a body of water from a point source, does the entire surface level decrease instantly or is there a gradient?"
] | [
false
] | For example, when water is withdrawn from Lake Meade at various water intakes; does the entire surface of Lake Meade decrease at the same time, or is there a wave or gradient effect? Same goes for water being added, such as filling a pool with a garden hose at the bottom of one end. | [
"When water leaves a body of water from a point source, there is a gradient. To provide an example for this, when you drain a bathtub, the water is drained out of the tub in a vortex. However, since the volume of water is large, the vortex and the gradient that it causes is unnoticeable. You would see a decrease in... | [
"More generally, matter never spontaneously moves ",
" a gradient of some type (e.g., force or pressure)."
] | [
"The entire basin does not instantly adjust when water is added or removed from a specific area. In general, the rest of the water in the basin won't \"know\" that any water has been removed until the information propagates to that location. This type of information (height of the upper surface) generally propaga... |
[
"Why is there such a large strength gap between Electromagnetism and Gravity?"
] | [
false
] | Is there anything that explains the enormous disparity between the gravitational scale and the typical mass scale of the elementary particles? In other words, why is gravity so much weaker than the other forces, like electromagnetism? A simple magnet can pick up a paper clip off a table if it is relatively close, yet t... | [
"No. This is one of the great unsolved problems of theoretical physics, called the hierarchy problem. People have different theories for explaining it, like supersymmetry, large extra dimensions, brane-world scenarios and so on, but none of these are truly convincing and there is no experimental evidence for any of... | [
"I never understood why this was considered a problem. Aren't both G and the fine structure constant free parameters, so there's no known way of defining what they ought to be in the first place?"
] | [
"It might not be a problem, but there seems to be something that needs explaining there. The fine structure constant, and the corresponding constants for the strong and weak force are all numbers roughly of order 1. The gravitational coupling constant is around 10",
" If you think about these constants as being p... |
[
"Greenland ice melt reporting has me worried, what are ramifications of this year's melt?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"In a very general sense, one year / season of event data is not something to be overly concerned with, but this is still quite troubling more in that it's pretty much in line with a series of recent papers suggesting that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is accelerating, e.g. ",
"Graeter et al, 2018",
" ... | [
"Thank you for bringing this up. If one ocean flow is disrupted the entire climate will change, and we have no clue how. Less warm water flowing north and less cold water flowing south, the temperature changes could be devastating."
] | [
"Annual melt estimates in general are pretty susceptible to the stochastic nature of our climate. Where we might get crazy melts one year we might see very reduced melt estimates for the next, this is a common interference of climatologists when we try to remove the natural variability to ascertain the longer time ... |
[
"If a patient is given full nutritional support, what is the actual cause of death in Rabies?"
] | [
false
] | So I watched an extremely sad video of a man with rabies who seemed to be conscious up until the day before he died. Which, made me think, I've never understood the actual mechanism that rabies kills you by if your body is provided the water and calories it needs through hospital support. Could someone clarify it for m... | [
"Scientific answer here. Rabies actually has been cured four times using the ",
"milwaukee protocol",
".",
"First some details. Rabies is a capsulated rhabdovirus, it is rod shaped or bullet shaped in terms of microscopic shape. It has an RNA genome with code to create only a few proteins. It has it;s own RNA... | [
"Actually to my knowledge, no. Nerves are not all the same, even those of the sensory variety. Some are for deep pressure, others light pressure, others pain, vibration, temperature, proprioception (the sense that allows the sober version of you to close your eyes and touch your nose), and nociception (general word... | [
"Rabies virus causes widespread inflammation of the brain and other parts of the central nervous system. This causes all sorts of neurological problems, including paralysis and loss of consciousness, and it's those that kill you."
] |
[
"Einstein birthday megathread"
] | [
false
] | Hi everyone! Today is Albert Einstein's birthday and we're here to answer all of your Einstein-related questions. His most famous achievement is arguably the development of the in 1915. General relativity is an extremely well-tested theory of gravity, with implications for mechanics, astrophyiscs, cosmology, and more. ... | [
"Out of respect, please do not joke about Stephen Hawking's passing."
] | [
"Out of respect, please do not joke about Stephen Hawking's passing."
] | [
"Things Einstein contributed to besides relativity:",
"-understanding atomic dimensions through viscosity",
"-relating atoms to viscosity and Brownian motion (the Stokes-Einstein relation)",
"-understanding the photoelectric effect in terms of discrete photons",
"-developing the electromagnetic theory that ... |
[
"Is the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine 'Open-Source'?"
] | [
false
] | Hello everyone, I recently read . This article links to the BNT162b2 mRNA sequence provided by the WHO. From my understanding this sequence contains the whole 'logic' of the vaccine. So i wonder if this sequence is enough information that (given that you have the required money/machines/base materials etc.) 'everyone'... | [
"The RNA \"source code\" is public. The manufacturing processes used to manufacture the vaccine (create the RNA sequence, encapsulate it in lipid nanoparticles, etc.) ",
"are protected by both patents and as trade secrets",
"."
] | [
"Compulsory licensing exists in many countries, and of course the whole point of the patent system is that the process is published. It's unusual in the US for a compulsory license to be imposed, but more common elsewhere (for example, India has done it for several drugs to improve availability there). Trade secret... | [
"I wonder - what did he (or you, for that matter) base this claim on? I'm asking this neutrally - this is something that I've heard in discussions about him (with people emphasising economic reasons for his choice) and I would love to get a more round view of things if possible. Thanks :)"
] |
[
"Xenotransplantation: What determines what animals can participate?"
] | [
false
] | Hello. :) I’ve come across the concept of using pig hearts for transplants, but not many other animals in general. This got me wondering: What is the scientific reasoning was for choosing pigs as opposed to a different animal like a cow, or some other? I wasn’t sure whether the flair would fall under human body or biol... | [
"Mainly organ size, but also what kind of antibodies the animal have and if they’re compatible with human immune systems - it has been said the history of transplantation is the history of immune suppression; tackling rejection is the holy grail of transplant medicine and ",
"the reason for using these “gal-safe”... | [
"Pig hearts have been considered as a potential source of transplant organs for humans for several reasons. One of the main reasons is that the size and structure of a pig's heart is similar to that of a human heart. This makes it easier to transplant a pig heart into a human without requiring significant changes t... | [
"Also some potential alternatives, like chimpanzees, are ruled out for ethical and practical reasons."
] |
[
"what happens to the millions of silent mutations that make inactive proteins? why don't we still have a ton of them?"
] | [
false
] | Random mutations only very rarely result in changes in a protein that improve its usefulness for the cell, yet useful mutations are selected in evolution. Because these changes are so rare, for each useful mutation there are innumerable mutations that lead to either no improvement or inactive proteins. Why, then, do ... | [
"In genetics, a silent mutation is one which doesn't have an effect--it either doesn't change the amino acid sequence, or if it does, it switches to one similar enough not to change function. If a mutation is silent, by definition it's not breaking the gene product. (And these do accumulate quite a lot.) You see... | [
"Mutations that aren't useful don't have any advantage over other organisms, whereas directly useful mutations will lead to greater numbers of the recipient organism.",
"So the population of a species inevitably has useless mutations as a rarity, rather than an evolutionary debris. Besides, racking up too many wo... | [
"Based on the way you asked the question, I'm going to assume there are two issues you're not taking into account.",
"The first is that functional proteins are needed for survival and reproduction. If a protein isn't required, then yes, it will get mutated into oblivion. And you can see that in the genomes of s... |
[
"Is there any evidence that \"sugar rushes\" actually occur?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"But a change in diet might help with ADHD. ",
"NPR",
". ",
"Journal",
".",
"I've also read somewhere that eating candy can help you concentrate (temporarily, of course), essentially acting as a stimulant. Carbs also trigger the release of insulin, letting tryptophan through to be converted into serotonin... | [
"But a change in diet might help with ADHD. ",
"NPR",
". ",
"Journal",
".",
"I've also read somewhere that eating candy can help you concentrate (temporarily, of course), essentially acting as a stimulant. Carbs also trigger the release of insulin, letting tryptophan through to be converted into serotonin... | [
"In social psychology they taught us much of the supposed \"sugar rushes\" children have are actually due to the environment. For example, a child at a birthday party in a new environment surrounded by other children and activities will naturally be more stimulated, though parents usually fall back on the old \"the... |
[
"Do people dream while they are unconscious or in a coma?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"I spent a little less than six months in a coma from December 1999 to June 2000. I basically felt the same as I would if I went to sleep one night and woke up the next morning (of course, when I did wake up I wasn't entirely convinced it really was the year 2000).",
"I don't believe I had any dreams either."
] | [
"Fake answer: you've seen the end of Inception?",
"Real answer: they don't feel anything, in literature reports and my personal experience. The person I spoke to about it extensively described it as bewildering to wake up months in the future."
] | [
"I wouldn't assume that she is blatantly lying, but what I find more likely is that her brain convinced her either just as she was entering or just as she was exiting the coma that she had been conscious for the duration, and had seen something miraculous.",
"Of course, it is very difficult to argue with personal... |
[
"Can we fix the blind spot?"
] | [
false
] | I saw a billboard for the 2012 Camry that touted its "blind spot detection" technology. Is such technology even needed? Couldn't we just add a third set of mirrors positioned to give the driver a view of this spot? I put this in because I'm assuming this is somehow not possible due to some geometrical constraint. I mea... | [
"You're right. You can even buy little stick-on mirrors that have a convex shape, allowing you to see the presence of something in the blind spot. But that doesn't sell cars. Telling people that they have a radar that keeps their family safe does."
] | [
"I was afraid this would be the answer..."
] | [
"I've used ",
"Multivex Mirrors",
" on one of my cars and they are awesome (although their website is awful). They are stick-on glass mirrors that are flat nearest to the car and curve as they reach the outside. ",
"Edit: formatting"
] |
[
"Few questions about the nature of conciousness, the process of thinking and the senses."
] | [
false
] | null | [
"See our FAQ on the topic.",
" All the best!"
] | [
"Thanks! Should i remove the post?"
] | [
"Nope, I already did. Also, if you delete your own posts it will make it more likely that your future posts will get marked as spam, so I wouldn't recommend deleting it."
] |
[
"Are some traits inherited more dominantly from either the mother or the father?"
] | [
false
] | Someone claimed that baldness was inherited from the mother, and to look for the trait one should look at the persons (boys) uncles on his mother's side. I have no idea if this is true - but if it is, or other traits are inherited either from the mother or father, which such traits are the ones most well-known? And how... | [
"Someone claimed that baldness was inherited from the mother, and to look for the trait one should look at the persons (boys) uncles on his mother's side.",
"This isn't completely true, because baldness is polygenetic, but there is a scientific reason for saying this.",
"Most human chromosomes are the same in m... | [
"Mitochondria are solely inherited from the mother. Thus ",
"mitochondrial diseases",
" are inherited mother-to-child."
] | [
"Very good answer, thank you!"
] |
[
"If protons become neutrons by the process of beta+ decay, how come a proton has a lesser mass than a neutron?"
] | [
false
] | As I understand it through the process of beta positive radioactive decay one element becomes another yet they have the same atomic mass. Ergo a proton becomes a neutron. In this process a positron and a neutrino exit the nucleus. Both of these have mass. Yet a neutron has a mass of 1.00727647u, a neutron has a mass o... | [
"A ",
" proton cannot β",
" decay into a neutron because of the mass difference.",
"The thing you're missing here (with regards to the ",
"C thing too) is that a nucleus is a bound state. Nuclei sit in a potential well caused mostly by the strong interaction. The potential is lower than the case of all the ... | [
"A proton can only decay into a neutron if it is more energetically favourable -- if the nucleus with the neutron would have less total energy than the same nucleus with a proton instead. This can happen because the proton also has electric charge and will repel other protons in the nucleus. The binding energy fo... | [
"So for the mass we just have to plug into E=mc",
" and have mass be just another form of energy?"
] |
[
"Why is it that snowflakes are practically two-dimensional?"
] | [
false
] | Of course they aren't actually, that would be impossible, but why is it that the crystal grows outwards in two dimensions but not the third nearly as much? In other words, why are snowflakes nearly flat, rather than spherical or cubed or hexahedronal? | [
":",
"There are actually a bunch of other shapes such as needles and prisms, ",
"see here",
". These different shapes form under different temperature and water saturation. It just so happens that our atmospheric conditions often favour the formation of plates.",
":",
"Firstly, it's important to understan... | [
"Can you expand on the lack of symmetry? I have always been under the impression that snowflakes often are (at least superficially) symmetric.",
"Furthermore, snowflake photography suggests that most snowflakes are more self-similar than they are to other snowflakes from the same cloud (",
"example",
" and ",... | [
"The symmetry he's referring to, I believe, is on a very small scale, not referring to the whole snowflake, but to it's building blocks. ",
"Basically, you can only make certain overall patterns with a specific shape."
] |
[
"What is the strict difference between micro-evolution, macro-evolution, and speciation?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"microevolution and macroevolution are extremes on a continuum of evolutionary change. MIcroevolution typically refers to changes in gene frequencies in a population over time scales that ",
" ",
" can measure. Macroevoution generally refers to large scale changes between species that occurs on geological time ... | [
"Ring species",
" made all of your questions make sense to me when I first learned about them."
] | [
"Conceptually, every species that has ever existed was new at some time. ",
"Precisely defining species and when they begin is challenging though because species are human constructs that are properties of populations (not individuals) over time, poorly defined (no one definition works for all species) and fluid ... |
[
"Could the theory of relativity have been proven without a solar eclipse?"
] | [
false
] | Einstein's theory took around 20 years to prove because they needed a solar eclipse and a clear sky with good equipment and so on, in order to test the theory. Could there have been any other way to prove it 100 years ago? | [
"Gravitational lensing",
" was another prediction but I believe this was harder to detect since it wasn't until 1979. ",
"Also check out ",
"Tests of General relativity"
] | [
"The first laboratory test of general relativity - and, as far as I'm aware, the first test done without the aid of a solar eclipse - was the ",
"Pound-Rebka",
" experiment in 1959, which tested gravitational redshift (the phenomenon of light emitted in weaker gravity gaining frequency in stronger gravity). Thi... | [
"It's kind of amazing to think that the only reason Einstein was as famous as he was, is because we just happened to live on a planet that had just the right sized moon and an anomaly that happens every few years or so."
] |
[
"Very difficult-to-formulate question about how the human eye processes visual information: do we process things in order based on what we are focusing on rather than the entire field of vision?"
] | [
false
] | I want to try and explain this phenomenon a bit better (I'm not even sure if it's real or an optical illusion), so I'll be as detailed as I can. I'm experiencing something weird with reflected light and the way my brain is trying to process it and I'm not sure if there have been any experiments done that might address ... | [
"A few points of clarification... you're asking about your internal process of perceiving the stimuli? And that your focus seems to create an internal perception of de-synchrony?",
"I only ask because Potter and colleagues (2014) revealed that the brain can process and interpret images presented to the eyes for a... | [
"And that your focus seems to create an internal perception of de-synchrony?",
"Yes this. It's consistently de-synchronized as well, i.e. the timing between perception of Lights A and B flashing seems to be virtually the same. It's as if my mind is ready to process the information coming from the side that I'm fo... | [
"No expert in any of the topics mentioned, but any chance some of the differences noticed are due to there being more rods in the periphery of human vision which are more perceptive to light? One of the reasons averted vision is a technique used by astronomers to spot faint stars you cannot see when directly lookin... |
[
"What are those things floating around in my vision?"
] | [
false
] | I see little outlines of shapes in my vision, Almost exactly like when you look at organisms in a microscope. What are they? | [
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_floaters"
] | [
"Debris from several possible sources (such as collagen fibrils, remains of the hyaloid artery which appears and regresses during fetal development, clumps of calcium, blood cells that have leaked into the eye etc) in the vitreous humour that makes up the body of your eye casting shadows onto the retina. What is q... | [
"Thank you, This is exactly it!"
] |
[
"Could we use entangled photons to learn about the inside of a black hole?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Nope"
] | [
"Care to explain why?"
] | [
"You cannot send information with entangled pairs, black hole or not."
] |
[
"Oil is a huge potential source of energy, so why haven't bacteria been eating it all?"
] | [
false
] | It's frequently in warm locations/not necessarily that far down, but they haven't even eaten the accessible oil | [
"Metabolism depends on the existence of a gradient of chemical potential. There are organisms that can thrive solely on ferrous iron by exploiting its oxidation with aqueous oxygen. A large, highly reduced, organic compound like oil stores lots of energy, but in the absence of a suitable oxidizer there is no way to... | [
"The biggest issue with oil metabolism is that it's difficult to break the C-H and C-C bonds of an alkane. This is simple enough when, say, operating a car, but life doesn't operate very well while on fire. In order to be useful in a biological sense, a useful enzymatic method needs to be employed to get a molecule... | [
"Bacteria break down oil when it leaks out into more habitable environments...there are many bacteria which make their living breaking down oil at natural seeps (or manmade spills, for that matter) all along the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, for example. Oil eating bacteria are apparently are found down in some oil... |
[
"Do muscles burn more calories just by being sore?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Similarly, in what ways can your baseline resting caloric consumption be increased?"
] | [
"Building more muscle will raise your BMR but I have no idea what percentage of a difference it actually makes. This is actually what led me to find out if a sore muscle burns more calories than a resting one. "
] | [
"Muscle tissue does require more energy for upkeep than fat tissue, but the difference is not that great as some people like to believe. It's pretty much impossible to measure exactly, but you have to put on a few kilos of muscle tissue to make a statically significant difference."
] |
[
"Andromeda Collision"
] | [
false
] | I've been told that the Milky Way is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy, but I've also heard that all the galaxy's are moving away from each other, how does this work? | [
"Cosmological expansion only causes things that are already sufficiently far apart to expand away from one another. For things that are relatively close to one another, like the galaxies in the Local Group, the behavior is much more closely approximated by the standard picture of attractive gravity.",
"In other w... | [
"Basically the gravitational force is much stronger than the expansion force of the universe. Only if the distance between two objects is sufficiently large, then the objects will move away from each other.",
"In billions of years our cluster of galaxies will be the only thing visible to us in the sky. Without a ... | [
"Maybe less. ",
"We can still see back 13 billion years ago, to when the first galaxies were forming."
] |
[
"Why does the tip of a javelin tilt towards the ground when reaching the ground?"
] | [
false
] | Hello reddit, I watched the olympics yesterday and saw some javelin throwing. Now the thing that puzzled me a bit is that the tip of the javelin at the beginning of the flight (when it's released by the athlete) points towards the sky. But during flight the javelin tilts to the front and at about its maximum height it'... | [
"That's not how gravity works."
] | [
"Because of ",
"pitching moment",
". The tip does ",
" always tilt towards the ground though, if it's a bad throw."
] | [
"Yes that's the perfect explanation, my beef with the parent comment is that it didn't explain why (center of gravity in front of center of pressure) but instead just said that there was a pitching moment, which doesn't explain anything. Also, the wiki page involves aerodynamic center and other aerospace jargon whi... |
[
"How plausible is the idea/concept that someone might die (or whose death my be accelerated) by heartbreak?"
] | [
false
] | Also: Do you know that feeling you get in your chest/heart when something emotionally damaging occurs? Sometimes you'll think of a really sad thought and you don't cry but your heart feels almost like it's tightening/collapsing into itself. What is biologically occurring when that happens? Is that a direct link to emot... | [
"Extremely plausible",
"http://scienceline.org/2006/08/ask-schrock-heart/"
] | [
"Question: Could this be related to the stories in medieval legends where maidens would 'swoon and die'?"
] | [
"Thanks!"
] |
[
"What environmental factors affect hair color?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"\"Nature vs. nurture\", I love it!",
"In addition to the obvious example of sun bleaching, I have heard that the food you eat can affect your hair color. We have two pigments that determine hair color, one for black / brown hair and one for blonde / red hair. Your hair color depends on the different concentratio... | [
"That's a more interesting answer than I expected. I'm at work now but I'm going to look into it more. "
] | [
"okay, tell me if you find out. this has made me more curious than I first thought:P"
] |
[
"What happens at the source of carbonated bubbles in a glass?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"The bubbles form at spots of leftover bits of dust or grime or whatever that didn't get cleaned off fully. The cleaner the glass is, the fewer bubbles you will see.",
"Bubbles have a hard time forming on glass itself because the CO",
" doesn't have anything to \"stick\" to in order to form a bubble. The CO",
... | [
"Pint glasses in Pubs in the UK have a bunch of nobbly bits on the bottom (not glass) so the bubbles form there and stream all the way to the surface making it look a nice lively pint...."
] | [
"Those spots are so-called \"nucleation points\", which are usually small scratches or pieces of dust. The CO2 forms there because it is able to \"stick\" there more easily than the rest of the glass. The next time you drink a fizzy beverage, try sprinkling a little bit of sugar inside. The sugar provides nucleatio... |
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