title list | over_18 list | post_content stringlengths 0 9.37k ⌀ | C1 list | C2 list | C3 list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"Okay, just recently finished Portal 2: Say you placed a portal in an Atmosphere-less Area and one in our atmosphere, how long would it take/ would it be possible, to have our air sucked out?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Well the need to correct things that are so unneccessary that my brain would filter them out before they reach the concious part of my mind is one thing, but calling your comment an answer is beyond the reach of my understanding. You understood what OP wanted did you? Probably even before you noticed he used the w... | [
"Air would not get sucked out...it would get blown out."
] | [
"Does this actually matter? Nobody would say \"if you breathe, air gets blown into your lungs\" It's the same thing."
] |
[
"Do animals in the wild often get painful problems such as ear infections or kidney stones, and have to suffer for a long time as they cannot cure them?"
] | [
false
] | I ask because I was reading about 19th century surgical procedures, and how they were often so agonising / dangerous that people would only go as a last resort, I.e their suffering was so bad that they would undergo a lot to end it. It got me thinking, if creatures in the wild often get painful ailments then there must... | [
"They do. Fortunately many animals that run in groups will groom each other (monkeys birds cats dogs) And often that takes care of the infection or irritation. May species cross groom. Birds feed on ticks on the backs of Others animals for example. Others suffer with infestations and infections from wounds but mos... | [
"This partly answers my question, I.e that most animals will die from their injuries if not strong enough to outrun prey / find food so do not suffer for long periods. And as someone said below animals have shorter life expectancies anyway in the wild so don't suffer age related diseases as often.",
"But I guess ... | [
"Yes animals in the wild can suffer for extended amounts of time. It sucks but its the way it is. Unfortunately we weren't 'designed' in a way that makes us happy, we were 'designed' by evolution to optimise our chances of passing on our genes. If it were very common for a species to get bad kidney stones then they... |
[
"Why can a single individual react so differently to drugs in the same family (i.e. Xanax vs Ativan, both benzodiazepines)? And why do different individuals experience just as much variance between drugs, but not the same experiences on the same drugs as other individuals?"
] | [
false
] | I hope I was coherent, but I'll give some examples to clarify. Individuals A and B have been prescribed both Xanax and Ativan. (A) reports that Xanax has had a stronger effect on their anxiety, while Ativan is too mild and ineffective. (B) reports that Ativan is stronger and more effective, while his Xanax is too mild.... | [
"\"Tremendous amount of molecular variation from person to person\"",
"Great answer ",
" the distribution of different protein transporters and receptors varies greatly between 'types' of neurons. These compositions vary greatly between different areas of the brain. By the time we get to the scale of different ... | [
"And we've only just touched on metabolism! For a tablet of lorazepam or alprazolam (Ativan and Xanax) to get from the mouth to the brain, they have to go through the gut and liver. The two are modified by different hepatic enzymes. Alprazolam, like many drugs, is metabolized by cytochrome P450, specifically CYP3A4... | [
"It all has to do with different Phenotypes and Genotypes.",
"The Genotype is the set of genes in our DNA that are responsible for a particular trait (such as the ability to metabolize a certain drug class).",
"The Phenotype is the physical characteristic/expression of said trait. ",
"For example, at the lab ... |
[
"Why is a hen's egg 'egg-shaped', rather than being spherical or elliptical?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The egg never falls too far from the nest. And by that I mean, if you roll a sphere, it will keep rolling in that direction. If you roll an elliptical shaped object, it will roll in one direction, but only in a certain way. an egg shape is special though. if you roll an egg, it will roll in a circle pattern, and s... | [
"They are designed that way to exit the chicken easier, the wider end goes first and the muscles push the tapered end.",
"Additionally, the shape keeps the eggs from rolling around in the nest too easily, and provides quite a bit of structural support.",
"Had the egg been spherical, it would easily roll around ... | [
"To add to this, the eggs of some birds have an extremely pointed end (almost conical) to ensure they roll in a very tight circle. IIRC guillemots and cormorants are good examples of this. They lay their eggs on bare rock ledges on cliff faces. If the eggs were to roll more than 20-30 cms away they would fall over ... |
[
"How does the 'scan' function on car radios find stations?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"There's something called the ",
"Signal to Noise Ratio",
", or SNR. Most ham radios have the ability to set the SNR threshold at which a frequency is stopped on during a scan. Sometimes this is referred to as ",
"sqelch",
"."
] | [
"Simple energy detection. When you change the station, you change the frequency of a local oscillator, and the mixing of the radio signal from the antenna and the LO moves the signal to \"baseband,\" where it is filtered and demodulated. The scan feature automatically changes the LO in steps, and measures the ene... | [
"It doesn't distinguish sounds/noise/static. It's done off of a measurement of the input power on the antenna.",
"Take a noise generator. Watch in awe as your radio scan stops on EVERY channel despite no carrier frequency"
] |
[
"If I can get a tan from a ball of fire 93 million miles away, can I also tan from a smaller campfire just a few feet away?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"No, not really. In order to tan you don't just need a high total amount of electromagnetic radiation (i.e. visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light), but you also need radiation of the right type. Essentially all of the tanning caused by sunlight is caused by ultraviolet light and most permanent tanning is due spe... | [
"BTW, one can get a good tan from arc welding a few feet away (don't actually try this though), for the welding arc does give off a broad spectrum of light radiation. "
] | [
"I was about to ask this, because I used a MIG welder for a few hours with just gloves and a tank top in my garage, the next day I thought my arms were going to melt. Worse than any sun induced burn I've ever had."
] |
[
"How is blood detected in stool?"
] | [
false
] | There is a satisfactory answer as to how the works. My question pertains specifically to the 'quantitative faecal immunochemistry' or qFIT test which is more advanced. It is now used in Britain's healthcare system to detect small amounts of haemoglobin in the stool (screening for early colorectal cancer). A basic descr... | [
"FIT uses antibodies against human globin. So it still won't differentiate between where a GI bleed is, but it's more sensitive. So it's not looking for blood, but hemoglobin. The only one I've done in the US was a card test, so you look for the line like a pregnancy test. Designed for the point of care.",
"I hat... | [
"FIT uses antibodies against human globin. So it still won't differentiate between where a GI bleed is, but it's more sensitive. So it's not looking for blood, but hemoglobin. The only one I've done in the US was a card test, so you look for the line like a pregnancy test. Designed for the point of care.",
"I hat... | [
"Thank you! That's very interesting about the H-antigen. So with agglutination tests, do you fix antibodies to the latex beads, and then look at whether they stick together? (indicating that they have been cross-linked by the antigen of interest). I remember reading something like that in a biochemistry textbook.. ... |
[
"Would you die of starvation if you were stranded on an island with only celery to eat?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Quick and easy answer: Yes. Your body needs many things that it cannot synthesize, specifically a set of ",
"essential amino acids",
" ",
" ",
" ",
"If you aren't eating food that contains these amino acids, your body is going to stop being able to repair itself, create new cells, and a lot of other real... | [
"It's a personal opinion regarding that product. I think a move towards convenience and away from cooking and sharing meals as part of our culture has been a huge part of the obesity epidemic, and the increase in eating out and decrease in family-style meals is widely cited in obesity epidemiology. The same mindset... | [
"Did you really not read the first sentence of my comment?",
"There has been a synthesized single food that meets all of your needs..."
] |
[
"Do mirrors reflect only visible lights, or do they reflect light of other frequencies (if so then which types--x-ray, infrared, gamma, etc)?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Yes and no, a normal mirror reflects visible light and likely near IR and UV, but it's not optimized for anything past that. Mirrors can be made for most forms of light, though it gets far harder the smaller the wavelength gets, x ray mirrors have to be almost edge on to work well, much like how glass becomes more... | [
"so can X-rays be transmitted through fiber optics?"
] | [
"That's a very good question, and to be honest i don't have a clue, but i'd also like to know."
] |
[
"If I put a drop of blood on a litmus paper, will that test my pH levels?"
] | [
false
] | I'm doing a little home experiment. I know that if I put saliva or urine on litmus paper, it will tell me the pH level of that. Will this also work for blood? If no, why not? Thank you! | [
"Your blood pH is tightly regulated, and pH paper does not have the accuracy to differentiate between small changes - that is, assuming you can discern any colour change through the blood."
] | [
"This.",
"Unless you're in the hospital, or on your way there, your pH is 7.35-7.45. Litmus paper isn't going to pick up on differences that subtle, and the blood will stain the paper, making it difficult to determine the reading, especially considering alkaline substances turn it blue, and blood is red, and blo... | [
"ABG's as you've linked there are not something we do routinely on all patients. They're of use in critically ill patients, and trending of chronically ill patients with respiratory symptoms.",
"They're also of use in emergency situations as I get results considerably faster, and a decent idea of the patients el... |
[
"Why does a galaxy not form clusters of stars similar to planets?"
] | [
false
] | Assuming a spiral galaxy, why do we not see large groups of gravitationally bound stars orbiting the center like a planet? Instead we see spiral Arms, not spherical clumps. | [
"Galaxies do form ",
"star clusters!",
" There are two main types, open (like the ",
"Pleiades",
") and globular (like ",
"M 68",
"). However, these are on much smaller scales compared to the spiral arm. "
] | [
"Makes sense. Then why do arms of the glaxy form instead of a disk? "
] | [
"Well our solar system is a huge cloud of things orbiting, you just can't see them as they aren't large enough to be a star. And the galaxy does have black holes, star clusters, and denser areas, but again, you don't see this in pictures because the cloud of stars is so bright. The physics is also different because... |
[
"Spirits:A question about the aging of whisky."
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"The ",
"sheer number of compounds",
" make it not feasible to do. Even if we have identified ",
" the compounds, it takes tremendous effort and energy to produce those via synthetic methods. Definitely not worth it, considering we have a ",
" well established method and an organism that does most of the wo... | [
"an organism that does most of the work for us.",
"If you're referring to yeast, they play no part in the aging of whiskey, the aging is what happens after distillation, in barrels, and is a result of compounds in the charred wood interacting with the spirit as it moves in and out of the wood from seasonal temper... | [
"That's correct. Even though I initially meant yeast in the context of alcohol and all the metabolic products, the source of sugar, the aromatic compounds and esters, and even the wood are all from organisms who do the work for us. That is, we can analyze what's extracted from the wood as part of the aging process ... |
[
"Introducing: AskScience Quarterly, a new popular science magazine by the scientists of reddit!"
] | [
false
] | Hello everyone! We're happy to present, The moderator team at have put a lot of effort into a new popular science magazine written by scientists on reddit. The goal of this magazine is to explore interesting topics in current science research in a way that is reader accessible, but still contains technical details for... | [
"Hi, mods. Thanks for doing this! Graphic Designer here with a science degree and extensive experience in publication design. Not looking to trump your current designer. Willing to volunteer my service if you ever find yourself in a pickle. PM me.",
"Edit: Please don't interpret this as a shot at your current des... | [
"I second getting more graphic design eyes on this project."
] | [
"This is great! Any plans to add an index of sources for further reading? "
] |
[
"Is it possible for a concussion, especially an untreated one, to worsen the effects of certain conditions or disorders?"
] | [
false
] | I know this is going to be a really dumb question and I'm sorry if I sound like an anti vax mom by the end of it.Is it possible for a concussion to worsen the effects of, for example, my autism. I got concussed several years ago, about three months before I recieved my diagnosis, and never really got medical treatment... | [
"For an uncomplicated, mild head injury (i.e., nothing wrong on brain imaging), most kids and adolescents return to baseline functioning within a month. But there are a lot of factors that influence that recovery time. Preexisting developmental or neurological concerns (like ASD, ADHD, seizures) can push that windo... | [
"To add to this, there isn’t much “treatment” you can have done after a concussion beyond rest, avoiding stressful activity, and specific therapies for loss of function caused by the event like walking or neck injury rehab. Your brain heals itself from a minor head injury and we don’t have any pill or shot that I’m... | [
"I'll try to check with a doc first chance I get, but I think I said it in another comment, but I'm still technically a minor, so itll be a bit hard. Thank you for answering, I appreciate it."
] |
[
"In string theory, is it known how long a string is? Does this question even make sense?"
] | [
false
] | More importantly, are strings thought to be actual physical objects that we could interact with if we had any way of operating on that sort of scale? Or it it just that the mathematical model of vibrations on a string is the closest thing we have to the relevant differential equations that is still something scientists... | [
"The length of the strings is believed to be close to the Planck length, about 1.6*10",
" meters."
] | [
"It isn't theoretical. Quantum mechanics is a very physical science, however things that apply to real life don't apply on that minuscule a scale. Things like electrons \"teleporting\" around in their shells make no sense on a macroscopic (real-life-sized) scale, but they just happen in quantum mechanics. As the sa... | [
"No, the string is 1 dimensional as a point is zero dimensional and a surface is two dimensional.",
"It would be \"in\" the 11 dimensions of string theory... or however many they are at nowadays. You can have a one dimensional object in multiple dimensions.. for example a surface bending around in three dimension... |
[
"What is the purpose of Maggot Therapy?"
] | [
false
] | From what i saw in a youtube video it looked like someone had a hole in their foot or something and it looked pretty infected. Some doctors then put bunch of baby maggots into the wound and wrapped it up. The footage then fast-forwards to when they take off the bandage and it shows the maggots had multiplied and gotte... | [
"Its been a while since this question was asked so I doubt many people will see this, but as its about the only field I have some experience in I felt obliged to respond. I’ve been working with a University in researching aspects of maggot therapy and I’ve gained a bit of knowledge about how it works. So here’s my ... | [
"Precisely this. The companies that produce the maggots have their own fly colonies that they collect the eggs from which consists of numerous cages containing 400-600 flies each. They are sustained on sugar and water alone but will only produce and lay eggs when given protein. This little quirk of nature allows th... | [
"The fly eggs are disinfected prior to hatching, when the maggots are \"born\" or hatch they are kept in a perfectly sterile environment, free of bacteria, and can be disinfected again before they are introduced to the wound. ",
"Here is the source, page 28"
] |
[
"How do the 6 arms of a snowflake form symmetrically?"
] | [
false
] | I just watched this video that was posted by IFLS [ ] and it shows how a snowflake is formed. In the video you can see that the 6 arms of an individual snowflake form independently from each other yet they form the same general pattern. Considering how many different patterns snowflakes can form (supposedly no two sno... | [
"This is a great question. I asked this in a crystallography class, and the answer my prof gave was that the crystallization is deterministic but extremely dependent on the local thermodynamic conditions (temperature, humidity) so the arms of the same snowflake are likely to be identical compared to the arms of dif... | [
"I believe the video is likely showing melting or sublimation of snowflakes in reverse."
] | [
"That would make a lot of sense. I'm not sure if anyone has ever managed to make artificial snowflakes. However, it is relatively easy to catch them and put them under a microscope."
] |
[
"A friend of a friend linked me to this article as we were discussing flu vaccinations. Is this real science?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The flu vaccine is the best way to prevent getting the flu. The people on your facebook wall have no idea what they're talking about. You are correct that even healthy people can get the flu.",
"http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/flushot.htm#howeffective"
] | [
"I think what people on facebook are alluding to is the general hystaria the industrialised world has towards getting sick. It has been proven that children who are 'sheltered' immune-system wise (ex: not allowed to eat dirt!) when they are young get sick more when they're older because their immune system isn't aw... | [
"Give \"Dr.\" Mercola's ",
"Wiki page",
" a thorough read. He seems to be peddling the most popular mix of misinformation and expensive supplements that's been plaguing us since the 80s. ",
"Ben Goldacre in his ",
"Bad Science",
" gives a thorough rundown of the majority of such claims and judges them, to... |
[
"Could a black hole's event horizon be altered by the gravity of another black hole passing nearby?"
] | [
false
] | If it can change, what does that say about particles/energy in the space that the event horizon has retreated from? Have they escaped? | [
"The event horizon is a gravitational phenomenon and any changes in the event horizon itself will propagate at c."
] | [
"Light can only orbit a black hole at 1.5 times the radius of the event horizon (in the case of a Schwarzschild black hole). This is called the ",
"photon sphere",
"."
] | [
"Yes, nearby objects affect the shape of a Black Hole event horizon.",
"As for retrieving information, that's impossible. Keep in mind that the event horizon is a spatio-",
" boundary. It is a boundary in time as well as space. Things that have crossed the horizon aren't there anymore, so 'moving' the horizon (... |
[
"Can we repair damaged nerves?"
] | [
false
] | If yes, which ones and how? | [
"Yes, nerves can be repaired. If nerves are severed, they can be stitched back together. If a larger piece is damaged, it may require a nerve graft, where the damaged area is removed and another nerve (from elsewhere in your body or from a cadaver) is stitched on to either side. However, this isn't like grafting a ... | [
"The graft itself isn't always made of nerve tissue. Neuroflex is ",
"an inert collagen tube",
" impregnated with chemical cofactors that stimulate nerve growth. The surgeon takes the dried tube out of the sterile pouch and rehydrates it in saline. The nerve endings are stitched into the tube and after the n... | [
"We can take nerves from dead bodies? Does it have the same limitations as donated organs? like “freshness”?"
] |
[
"Apparently if you could compress Mt. Everest into the space of a pin head it would create a black hole. Is this true?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"What you are looking for is the Schwarzschild radius which is the size of the ball you would need to compress an object into for it to become a black hole. You can find the equation ",
"on wikipedia",
". The article even gives you an estimate of 9.46*10",
" nm for mount Everest. This is a lot smaller than a ... | [
"Thats about 10",
" nm or 10",
" m or a picometer. For a sense of scale, the atomic radius of hydrogen is about 25 picometers (that is the radius of the electron orbitals around the nucleus, the nucleus itself is on the order of 10",
" m in diameter). So 25 of these black holes could be arranged across a hydr... | [
"9.46*10-4",
"Can you give an example of something that is this small? I have a hard time grasping this value."
] |
[
"How were the ancestors of modern birds able to survive the mass extinctions that killed off the dinosaurs?"
] | [
false
] | I know very little about the subject other than I kind of remember that the first sort of mammalian creatures were often able to survive by burrowing underground and/or having fur that kept them warm during the ice age. Is there any truth to this? How did birds survive? | [
"The theories on the Cretaceous extinction go hand in hand with how the birds survived. There's a number of adaptations the birds had that won them advantage over the circumstances scientists theorize killed off the dinosaurs. Although, we don't know ",
" how birds survived the extinction, here are some important... | [
"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-did-mammals-survive-when-dinosaurs-perished-63229592/",
"Probably similar to why mammals survived, a combination of small bodies and adaptable eating habits made them less likely to starve than large, specialized dinosaurs, as well as taking shelter in burrows dur... | [
"Do you know if their ability to travel large distances is a considered to be a major factor? ",
"I would suppose the climate and food sources kept changing dramatically across different geographies across the years. Birds could move from one liveable location to the next and find food in new places as requir... |
[
"Will a vacuum \"float\""
] | [
false
] | If I had a super strong lightweight container that had an almost complete vacuum inside would it rise in our atmosphere like a helium filled balloon? | [
"If the container was strong enough to contain the vacuum without collapsing, and light enough to mean the total volume displaced weighed less than the equivalent weight of surrounding air, yes."
] | [
"This was answered yesterday. A total vacuum is only 16 percent more buoyant in air than helium, therefore, you'd need to be able to construct a container that was only 16 percent more heavy than an equivalent helium balloon. But yes, if you were able to do that, a vacuum container balloon would float. "
] | [
"Possibly, but there's a lot of hype when it comes to nanofabricated materials - and the media which reports on it treats it like fairy dust. "
] |
[
"Trapping the suns light."
] | [
false
] | So if the sun emits particles/rays of light, why isn't it possible to "trap" these particle in a box? What makes them vanish, or do they simply decay over time? Even if they do, wouldn't they still exist for a brief period in this box? | [
"This is a general question about light, regardless of the source producing it (sun, candle, laser, etc.) Light spreads out as it propagates, becoming weaker in intensity because the same energy is spread over larger and larger areas. Light doesn't actually disappear unless it is absorbed by matter, in which case... | [
"When light is absorbed by matter, is the entire sum of it's original energy that has spread over a larger area absorbed, or just the energy remaining?"
] | [
"so, theoretically, if I get into a 6x6x6 box, and it is out in a field with bright sunlight, and it is closed shut, why is it darkened immediately? shouldn't there be light \"trapped\" inside?"
] |
[
"Are there any drugs that have stopped being used because the disease evolved total resistance to it?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"There are many examples; here is one:",
"1-adamantylamine was once commonly used to treat influenza. Its target is the M2 pore protein of the virus. Over time, the gene for this protein mutated, and now practically all influenza virus is resistant.",
"From ",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amantadine",
"Am... | [
"Yes, this is unfortunately quite common, and is an active area of research in both antibiotic and antiviral medications.",
"I'm a chemist and actually recently received funding from NIH directly related to this issue. One of the systems our lab studies is the Influenza A M2 protein. We study the structure and fu... | [
"Yes. The name comes from the adamantyl group, see here: ",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamantane",
"The \"adamantane\" name is derived from the Greek word for \"diamond\" since the adamantane structure has a similar arrangement to the diamond crystal structure."
] |
[
"How does human body excrete radioactive materials once they have been inhaled and/or ingested?"
] | [
false
] | For example, if a cigarette smoker would stop smoking today and we only take Po210 and Pb210 (those reside on tobacco) in consideration in the lungs, will the body eventually excrete these materials, some of them, or none at all? | [
"Stuff in the lungs isnt excreted, anything foreign, I can tell you ask a smoker of a few things over the years, you will end up coughing out.",
"I'm not aware if the radioactive elements build up to more risky levels compared to the day to day levels of other like elements in the body.",
"Just try to avoid rus... | [
"Radioactive elements get treated by the body much like 'regular' ones, and may end up being utilized in some cases (which is why radioactive jodium can be such a threat: the body stores it in the throat for later user because it doesn't treat it differently than 'healthy' jodium).",
"Sometimes, they disappear in... | [
"What about the russian cigs?"
] |
[
"Are the isotopic abundances of Pb-206, -207, and -208 only attributed to the fact that they have decayed from their respective parents?"
] | [
false
] | I'm getting at the term "common Pb" and what, exactly, it refers to. I know common Pb is essentially Pb that is not the product of radioactive decay, but does that mean it's only referring to Pb-204? Or is there Pb-206, -207, and -208 that formed without radioactive decay? Or are 206, 207, and 208 only generated from ... | [
"Pb",
" was formed during the big bang",
"No it was not. The big bang only formed hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium. Everything beyond that comes from stars or stellar remnants.",
"\"Primordial\" means present when Earth formed. It has nothing to do with the big bang.",
"where as the other stable isoto... | [
"I understand his error...",
"Primordial Lead is a term used in geology to refer to the original 204Pb/Pb206 ratio that existed at the time of Earth's formation. ",
"Since we cannot access the Earth's primordial Lead ratio, no terrestrial rocks are that old, the standard 204Pb/206Pb ratio (0.10745) is taken fro... | [
"We have Pb-207 from:"
] |
[
"What is the maximum depth at which caves can form?"
] | [
false
] | I'm a physics student with next to none background about the earth sciences. I had the thought that if a cave is deep enough, the weight that you feel would be reduced as compared to the weight you feel up here, since the big chunk of rock on top of you would be exerting a gravitational force in the opposite direction ... | [
"I don't know too much about geoscience, but I'm going to guess that no. What you are suggesting is that this cave would have to be in the mantle at least a quarter of the earth approximately deep, if not more. ",
"However, since the cores are on average 3 times denser than the mantle, i think for it theoreticall... | [
"When I thought about this I had no idea how thin the crust is in relation to the rest of the layers. I still think there might be some measurable difference, but nothing in the orders of magnitude that would cause any unusual phenomena.",
"Thank you for your help. "
] | [
"Obviously its measurable, theoretically I cab calculate the gravitational attraction between me and an apple, or even me and Pluto. "
] |
[
"What’s the deal with the Sputnik V vaccine? How effective is it and why is it so controversial?"
] | [
false
] | Different countries are planning to use the vaccine, isn’t it dangerous if it wasn’t properly tested? How does it stack up with BionTech or Moderna for example? Edit: was->wasn’t | [
"The “Sputnik” COVID vaccine is a fairly standard approach to modern vaccines. It consists of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, in replication-defective recombinant adenoviruses. They used a slightly novel approach by using two different adenoviruses, human Ad26 and Ad5. ",
"This is a very generic approach. Replicati... | [
"This is an incredibly balanced answer. Thank you for taking the time to write this"
] | [
"Thank you for this. This is the best kind of internet."
] |
[
"How come we can see laser beams?"
] | [
false
] | Its light traveling in only one direction, how come it hits our eyes? | [
"Unless the beam were pointed into your eye, which I do not recommend, then that is correct. You can imagine taking your laser down to the individual photon level. In a vacuum, nothing will cause it to deflect towards your eye."
] | [
"You are seeing the light that's scattering off air molecules, and potentially other stuff like dust in the air. This redirects the photons to your eyes."
] | [
"Unless it was so powerful that the electric fields exceed the Schwinger field, then it will create electron positron pairs from the vacuum, and scatter from those."
] |
[
"If the human brain was a computer, how much RAM would it have?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The brain really doesn't function in a way directly analagous to a computer, it simply isn't possible to answer your question. It both processes and stores information in a very different way."
] | [
"I think this analogy is too stretched. The conclusions are really only reasonable in an extremely limited set of comparisons, with the only real lesson being that computers work differently to brains.",
"the human brain would not have very much RAM, let alone processing power ",
"You can probably almost immedi... | [
"I think this analogy is too stretched. The conclusions are really only reasonable in an extremely limited set of comparisons, with the only real lesson being that computers work differently to brains.",
"the human brain would not have very much RAM, let alone processing power ",
"You can probably almost immedi... |
[
"How do blood transfusions work?"
] | [
false
] | Since blood is made up of blood cells, those cells need an organism to live in don't they? Wouldn't the blood cells die when they have been away from the body a certain amount of time? [And if not, why not?] | [
"Yes they will die eventually. Blood transfusions are broken down into several parts (red blood cells, platelets, and plasma being the chief ones). Each has a different lifespan, and plasma can be frozen to prolong its lifespan. The others are refrigerated to extend their lifespan."
] | [
"Yes, once separated into their components, blood products have a limited shelf life. Platelets last 5 days, while packed red blood cells can last anywhere from 21 to 42 days depending on the type of preservative used. Plasma, when frozen quickly after donation, called Fresh Frozen Plasma, can be stored for up to ... | [
"So if I donate blood, it has to be used before a certain time?"
] |
[
"Why can we only concentrate on one thing at a time?"
] | [
false
] | This has always kind of mystified me. Is "multitasking" a misnomer (as in singing and playing the guitar at the same time)? Or does that limitation of concentration only apply to certain parts of the brain (e.g. paying attention to two people speaking at once)? I wasn't sure whether to post this in askscience or askred... | [
"Layman's thoughts:",
"The human brain is MASSIVELY parallel. At any given moment, you brain is carrying out hundreds processes, if not more (respiration, digestion, heart beat, etc.). Some you're aware of, some you're not. So, in that sense, you're always multitasking.",
"If you're referring to focusing your h... | [
"StackOverflowException thrown\n"
] | [
"In fact, filtering things out is what your brain does really well. This filtering mechanism is what's 'broken' in autistic kids (I have two) and means that their brains are overloaded all the time with too much information and it makes it hard for them to be touched (too much stimulus), be around others (too much ... |
[
"How is glucose actually made in plants?"
] | [
false
] | From what i know, one of the products of photosynthesis is glucose but im still confused on how the plant actually makes the glucose. I have read about the calvin cycle but im still having trouble understanding how G3P is turned into glucose. | [
"The G3P produced from carbon fixation during the Calvin cycle can be used to produce glucose though a pathway called gluconeogenesis. It's actually a pathway we too are able to use. It's essentially a reverse of glycolysis, including many of the same enzymes. The main differences are a few points in the pathway (t... | [
"After a portion of the glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate pool from photosynthesis is exported from the chloroplast to the cytosol, two molecules are combined to make one molecule of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. This reaction occurs rapidly in both directions, but FBP is then dephosphorylated to fructose-6-phosphate, which ... | [
"The G3P produced from carbon fixation during the Calvin cycle can be used to produce glucose though a pathway called gluconeogenesis",
"This is a semantic point, but gluconeogenesis is the production of glucose from non-carbohydrate precursors. The conversion of G3P to F1,6BP is not a gluconeogenic process, and ... |
[
"Question about Galvanic Corrosion, Do the metals need to touch?"
] | [
false
] | From everything I have read about galvanic corrosion it always states 3 main things need to occur, 1. Dissimilar Metals 2. Exposure to an electrolyte 3. Direct contact between the metals. My question comes in on the 3rd point about direct contact. Say I have Stainless Steel 304, and 6061-T6 aluminum in a salt bath... | [
"Yes they need to touch, or you need to run some kind of electrical conductor from one to the other (that is not the electrolyte). The process works as a cycle, ions travel from one metal to the other one way through the electrolyte and the charges are balanced out by electrons traveling through the electric conne... | [
"That could be true, as long as there is a second path that can transfer electrons then corrosion has the chance of happening. I'm honestly not sure if air would make this possible though, to the best of my knowledge you need a couple orders of magnitude more voltage than you get from any two dissimilar metals. U... | [
"The electrolyte acts as one \"wire\". If there's not another path to complete the circuit, you get local static potential, and not a potential gradient — you get a traffic jam. The electrolyte will \"wedge in\" to any \"gaps\" unless physically restrained. Making a separate wire allows electrons to flow and breaks... |
[
"Does an aircraft throttling up aboard an aircraft carrier while strapped to a catapult increase the carriers velocity?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The throttling up does nothing...",
"The plane is clamped down and the engine is throttled up to high. The catapult assists the acceleration, it doesn't do all the work. The plane's engines would impart a small acceleration ship, but it would be like a bottle rocket taped to your car due to the massive size of... | [
"Technically, yes. Is it significant? No, not really. Average weight of a supercarrier is about 70000 tons. Max thrust of an F15 is about 48000 lbf, so about a 1 to 3000 weight difference. About like a fly pushing on you. "
] | [
"Yes, and it has been used to move carriers. In the 1950's the Navy occasionally used propellor driven planes pointed sideways to help turn carriers in tight quarters. It was called a pinwheel maneuver. The pilots and maintenance folks hated it because it was a severe strain on the engines. ",
"Edit: ",
"source... |
[
"Plastic Material for Rail Covers"
] | [
false
] | Hello , I am part of a group of students who were assigned to work on a hypothetical device to cover train tracks when they are not in use. The train tracks would be activated using electromagnets that will push the covers (located on either side of a single rail) closed when a train is not in close proximity. Seeing a... | [
"standard ABS generally doesn't stand up that well to exposure either - But you can get it made with additives that will help that. An ultra-high molecular weight PE should also be acceptable. You're going to be replacing the plastic components every few years regardless due to simple wear and erosion.",
"Has a... | [
"It is very expensive for such a problem, but unfortunately the leaves are wet and contain a sap-like liquid that makes the very sticky. When they stick on to the rail they cannot merely be brushed aside. Strong, perhaps wire brushes could be used, though these could scratch the rail, and if too strong could even c... | [
"What is the goal? To prevent corrosion of the rails?",
"If that's the case, you'd have to choose a metal lower than carbon steel on the ",
"galvanic series",
" in order to have the covers corrode preferentially to the rails. Given that the covers will corrode anyway, I fail to see the purpose of such a dev... |
[
"Will the universe eventually decay into particles smaller than protons?"
] | [
false
] | I heard somewhere that protons do decay into quarks, but it takes longer than the universe has been in existence. Is there any truth to this? Given enough time, will there no longer be atoms? | [
"Proton decay has never been observed. There's at least one good theoretical reason to believe it cannot occur: baryon-number conservation. A proton is the lowest-energy baryon, so it's got nothing to decay ",
" It's already at the bottom of the hill.",
"But it's already known that baryon number isn't exactly c... | [
"What they mean by that is that if protons decay, they decay so slowly that we haven't been unable to detect any decays yet. They did an experiment to measure proton decay, and observed nothing, which proved wrong a model called Georgi-Glashow theory.",
"It wasn't until 2003 that we knew that Bismuth decayed; exp... | [
"From earlier today",
".",
"Also, quarks can't exist independently. They're always bound into particles with others. "
] |
[
"What does a \"star\" look like in the moments before it achieves fusion?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Stars are quite bright before the onset of fusion, due to the release of gravitational energy. They collapse from vast, rarefied molecular clouds in the interstellar medium when a density perturbation grows enough to induce ",
"free-fall",
". As they collapse, the gas particles heat up , increasing the gas pre... | [
"So how bright (magnitude) would the protostar appear in our sky if it were to take the sun's place?"
] | [
"There would be little visual evidence of the moment that the first atoms begin fusing. Once fusion starts however, the star's internal structure rearranges: there is a different equilibrium state of the sun when you're heated by a core compared to the state when you're heated by contraction. You will see gradual c... |
[
"Would Mars be considered to be in \"Habital Zone\"?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Mars is considered to be just outside the habitable zone for our star",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone",
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Habitable_zone_-_HZ.png",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Estimated_extent_of_the_Solar_Systems_habitable_zone.png"
] | [
"sure, with enough engineering and science anything is likely quite possible. "
] | [
"Yeah, it seems that the atmosphere came from a runaway greenhouse effect, so perhaps a slightly more distant location, where the water could have remained liquid would have significantly aided Venus' development."
] |
[
"What would happen if you separated a fertilized human egg cell right after it split for the first time?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Does that mean you could do this infinitely?",
"For example, you take one cell from the original, then it splits and begins to make its own baby, you take one of those cells and do the same. Could this go on forever?"
] | [
"Does that mean you could do this infinitely?",
"For example, you take one cell from the original, then it splits and begins to make its own baby, you take one of those cells and do the same. Could this go on forever?"
] | [
"Yeah but only by a few hours or so which is basically nothing on the timescale of an entire pregnancy. "
] |
[
"How does music get burned onto a CD?"
] | [
false
] | The most I could find about this from researching on my own is that the sound gets translated into a binary code, which then gets "transcribed onto the cd." But what does this mean; is it actually microscopically etched onto the disc? Also, the place that I found the above information was yahoo answers, so I don't know... | [
"At a high level, the audio is encoded using ",
"Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)",
". First you have to believe that anything we hear can be represented by a wave form (actually two wave forms in the case of a CD, because it stores both a left and right channel). PCM takes that wave form and chops it up into a bunc... | [
"A minor correction, from ",
"wikipedia",
": ",
"The pits and lands themselves do not directly represent the zeros and ones of binary data. Instead, non-return-to-zero, inverted encoding is used: a change from pit to land or land to pit indicates a one, while no change indicates a series of zeros."
] | [
"Interesting!"
] |
[
"Does a (solid shell type) Dyson Sphere have to rotate?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Astronomy"
] | [
"Astronomy"
] | [
"Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):",
"It is hypothetical or speculative in nature. We do not allow hypothetical questions because questions that cannot be confidently answered with any available data often invite non-scientific speculation.... |
[
"What natural light would someone on the dark side of the moon experience, if any?"
] | [
false
] | Except for stars and other celestial objects. That's a given. | [
"What did you mean by the \"dark side of the moon\"? ",
"It can refer to two things:",
"The moon is ",
"tidally locked",
" to the earth. So it's only one side of the moon that faces the earth. We sometimes refer to the other side (the side that always faces the other side from the earth) as the \"dark side ... | [
"Just to clarify: the moon does ",
" pass through the Earth's shadow during every orbit. The orbit of the Moon is inclined with respect to the plane of the Earth and Sun (the ecliptic), by about 5 degree, which is usually enough to prevent the Moon from passing through the shadow.",
"Still, ",
"lunar eclipse... | [
"Considering the Earth's shadow when it's between the Moon and the Sun the far side of the Moon gets slightly more sunlight than the Earth side does."
] |
[
"The halting problem as applied to the much sought after \"theory of everything\""
] | [
false
] | Sir Roger Penrose came to speak at my university today; in between the informal Q&A session and my preparatory reading up on his work, my mind wandered and I had an interesting thought. I'm not well acquainted with the topics relevant to this thought, so I welcome corrections. In any case, I'd be interested to hear opi... | [
"I don't see how that is relevant. "
] | [
"I don't see how that is relevant. "
] | [
"Collapse, everything getting sucked into one black hole, whatever you like. I'm afraid you'll have to explain to me how thus is relevant."
] |
[
"Could some diseases be eliminated through extreme quarantine?"
] | [
false
] | I may not understand how this works but my understanding is that for some diseases to exsist someone has to have it all the time. So if there was a disease that lasted about 2 weeks in a person and then could last for about 1 week on a surface could that disease be eliminated if each person in the world was quarantined... | [
"Sounds good in theory, as long as the disease didn't have some other reservoir. The term people often use for this is \"social distancing\"."
] | [
"As mentioned, natural reservoirs can maintain a pathogen's existence outside the host, sometimes in a dormant or spore state. Many pathogens can act this way, and thus do not require at least one person to be sick all the time. "
] | [
"I did some \"back of the envelope\" math on this. ",
"Earth has 148,940,000 square kilometers, divide that by 7 billion people and you get about 0.0213 square kilometers per person or about 5 acres. Possibly more since you wouldn't want to isolate infants or toddlers for that time. But yeah, this is not feasi... |
[
"Is The Universe The Same Age Everywhere?"
] | [
false
] | I tried asking this question before and got shot down and dismissed with some nasty comments. I think it may have been that I either didn't explain myself well enough or give a good example. I think I came across a good example that would explain what I'm getting at quickly and concisely. In the movie there was a plane... | [
"A hypothetical story that might help:",
"Say we meet in a parking lot somewhere, and decide to agree the universe is X seconds old. We then walk off in opposite directions. We each carry atomic clocks with us. I climb a mountain for a week and bring my clock with me. You go on a vacation to the beach, and bring... | [
"No, you never see your own clock change speed. You always experience 1 second as 1 second, and the world around you experiences time at a different rate.",
"The classic example is the twin paradox, if your twin stays on earth and you fly off at close to the speed of light, you might come back 10 years later to f... | [
"No, you never see your own clock change speed. You always experience 1 second as 1 second, and the world around you experiences time at a different rate.",
"The classic example is the twin paradox, if your twin stays on earth and you fly off at close to the speed of light, you might come back 10 years later to f... |
[
"What are the physical, gravitational, resource, or magnetic limits on the size of a rail gun?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"We have physical limits: no material is infinitely strong.",
"Stress is defined as force divided by cross-section area. The weight force is proportional to volume (assuming constant density and uniform shape), which is equal to cross-section area times length. The area cancels out in the division showing that st... | [
"Further: would a coil gun be preferable?",
"First, contrary to what ",
"/u/katinla",
" said, a coil gun still experiences repulsive forces from its magnetic field. The field attempts to expand the coil. One of my undergraduate workshop problems was to figure out the force on a giant superconducting solenoi... | [
"It depends on your purposes. If you just want to shoot a projectile to a target it needn't be tall. If you want to launch an aircraft, missile or satellite, then you'll have to point upwards, and if the projectile can't withstand a very high acceleration then it has to be a big, long gun to reach the required spee... |
[
"Besides temperature, how would the density of air increase?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Sure, if you are putting in more molecules then the mass necessarily needs to go up, and if you constrain the volume of the cube then the density must increase. The pressure will go up (at constant T). ",
"We do this practically all the time when doing things like filling bike/car tires, you push in some air wi... | [
"Taking this one step further.. in physical laws, if temperature increases, the density must decrease, since they are inversely proportional to one another. What would happen though if the case you just stated happened, but the temperature increased as well? This means we would have to nullify the laws of physics t... | [
"The pressure would increase to balance things out assuming volume remains fixed."
] |
[
"Do fat people have more blood?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"What kind of assumption or logic did you follow to ask such question?",
"Adult humans who have not recent experienced major loss of blood have between 4.7 and 5 litres of blood with females usually on the lower side of that range and males on the higher.",
"If you though that increased mass due to fatty tissue... | [
"thanks, i was watching walking dead, and when they had to do the blood transfusion, i thought that maybe a bigger guys would have more blood, obviously they don't. Kind of amazing that the same 5L of blood that powers a 150lb man powers a 350lb man..."
] | [
"See ",
"here",
"."
] |
[
"Was there ever a time in the history of the earth where if an intelligent civilization had arisen and self-destructed, we would now see no evidence in the fossil record?"
] | [
false
] | I was wondering if some animal could have developed intelligence and produced civilizations. For instance, as far as I know the utah raptor could have evolved opposable thumbs, but since fossils are rare, we don't see such evidence in the fossil record. My immediate thought is that we could identify mineral anomalies, ... | [
"Personally from my studies of geologic processes, if the society was on an area of a tectonic plate that was subducting under another tectonic plate and the rate of motion was such that by present day the entire section where the civilization existed would be buried so deep that the heat and pressure would cause e... | [
"Looking first at the evolutionary line of Homo sapiens - realistically, no. Given the age of the archaeological records that we have for the Palaeolithic, and the fossil record we have for human evolution, it's difficult to identify a period where such a civilisation might have developed, flourished, and collapse... | [
"Civilizations primarily form adjacent to water. This civilization could now be miles out into the ocean under many layers of silt."
] |
[
"Where does pee from your kidneys go when your bladder is completely full and hasn't been relieved?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Where does the sewage in your house go if there’s a blockage? It backs up into your house and makes a mess. Same with the kidneys. If there is something preventing your bladder from emptying, it will back up into your kidneys. It’s called hydronephrosis. ",
"hydronephrosis."
] | [
"To add to this, in most healthy people the bladder can stretch quite a bit (up to a liter in some people). Urinary leakage can occur when the body's ability to keep the urinary sphincter closed is overcome by how full the bladder is. The body would much prefer embarrassing urine leaks than backing urine up into th... | [
"I drink lots of black ice tea while working very focused on the computer half the night. While being distracted, you can easily ignore the short occasionally urge. Result is stretching of the bladder to ~1.25 liters until eventually you feel light pain in the kidneys telling you to finally take a toilet break.",
... |
[
"Does the acceleration due to gravity effect the frequency of a pendulum?"
] | [
false
] | I got into an debate with my physics professor about the effect of gravity on a simple pendulum. She claimed that gravity had no effect on the frequency, and only the length of the string suspending it. My response was that the motion of a pendulum is caused by the force of gravity pulling the object down towards the f... | [
"Are you sure that is what your professor said? Your intuition is correct, as the ",
"frequency",
" (1/period) of a pendulum does depend on the gravitational acceleration. Perhaps she was talking about a different kind of pendulum, such as a pendulum that is constrained to move completely perpendicular to the d... | [
"Perhaps she meant that the weight or mass has no effect on the frequency?"
] | [
"The question was ",
"\"The frequency of a pendulum depends on\"\na)Its mass",
"b)Its length",
"c)the acceleration due to gravity",
"d)all of these",
"e)two of these",
"I chose \"e\" and got it wrong. It was a poorly worded question in my opinion."
] |
[
"Coke VS Diet Coke VS Coke Zero. Let's settle this once and for all. Why exactly shouldn't we drink carbonated beverages, and what is the difference between these products?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I have to point out a few things, first. You guys just seem to be throwing out \"right\" and \"wrong\" without giving any reason or solid science. Let's deal with his own adult decision to drink diet Coke, and see how the health affects compare to regular Coke. ",
"Let's first look at the ingredients. ",
"Coke... | [
"I'd be interested to read more on this teeth and acidity problem. Any references you can share?"
] | [
"O. Sollböhmer, K.-P. May, M. Anders. \"Force microscopical investigation of human teeth in liquids\". Thin Solid Films. Volume 264, Issue 2, 15 August 1995, Pages 176–183",
"http://ge.tt/6H1NwXJ/v/0",
"No significant difference in material loss between sugar-free and traditional soda pops."
] |
[
"Could a loud outdoor concert create the necessary air turbulence for water droplets to coalesce and fall as rain?"
] | [
false
] | I was at Soundgarden concert in Toronto, standing in the rain, when the question was asked of me. According to the Wikipedia entry for : When air turbulence occurs, water droplets collide, producing larger droplets. As these larger water droplets descend, coalescence continues, so that drops become heavy enough to over... | [
"I don't think so. Are you talking about the vibrations in the air due to the volume of the sound at the concert vibrating the droplets in the air to move them around? Falling rain and drop coalescence is just the result of lots of air droplets colliding in the convection currents within a cloud. It's not really a ... | [
"Theoretically it could if the conditions where right:",
"In terms of weather at ground level they would most likely be close to 100% humidity and 0 degrees C. Not ideal for an outdoor concert.",
"However using loudspeakers for cloud-seeding would be very inefficient, as speakers are very inefficient in transfe... | [
"Not a scientist, but this is somewhat related and interesting: ",
"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/100616-planes-change-weather-hole-punch-clouds-science/"
] |
[
"I am told it takes days to digest food. Why is it then that certain foods cause near instant reactions in the... digestion? I.e. spicy food emergencies, asparagus smell etc.?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The whole digestive process takes between 24 and 72 hours, but the digestive system is somewhat complicated, and not all foods and nutrients are digested at the same speed. Liquids generally are processed quicker than solids to take an example. You will also have noticed that alcohol certainly enters your blood st... | [
"Another question. When I eat I feel full immediately and I feel that my bloodsugar rises. However the times I have puked after eating all my food is still fairly undigested in my stomach. Why did I feel full and with a replenished bloodsugar level."
] | [
"There is a lot going on with fullness that is related not to how much food you have eaten but to specific hormones such as leptin that make you feel full or satiated. Also, the feeling of \"fullness\" could simply be your stomach being full of food, it doesn't necessitate any digestion. "
] |
[
"Why did the Saturn V rocket only go to the moon, but Space X's smaller thrust rocket will go to Mars?"
] | [
false
] | I don't get how the Saturn V with it's nearly 8 million pounds of thrust only went to the moon and the Raptor with Space X is planning to go to Mars which according to Google is 33.9 million miles away compared to 250,000... Sure... you would just use gravity slingshotting... right? Is it something like, the heavier so... | [
"Rockets are complicated.",
"Saturn V is a three-stage rocket with 7.8 Mlbs, 1.2 Mlbs, and 0.2 Mlbs thrust. All three stages are used to insert into earth orbit with a significant amount of fuel left over for injecting into a trans-lunar orbit.",
"The SpaceX mars spacecraft is a two stage rocket with 29 to 31 ... | [
"The Spacex stack is only more efficient than the first Saturn V stage. The second and third stages burned hydrogen in their J-2 engines which had better ISP than spacex's Raptors will have."
] | [
"Holy crap. This is true? That moon rocket by the Russians had almost 10 million with 30 engines. Granted smaller. Not successful either due to complexity but. Yeah when I saw some videos I thought the thrust was significantly less. It was compared to the Space Shuttle main engines something like ~500,000lbs. I'll ... |
[
"If a strand of hair starts growing gray, will that specific hair follicle only produce gray hairs in the future?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"So, if a strand of hair starts growing gray, will that specific hair follicle only produce gray hairs in the future?"
] | [
"So, if a strand of hair starts growing gray, will that specific hair follicle only produce gray hairs in the future?"
] | [
"Dear AskScience denizens: anecdotes are not allowed and will be removed. Answers need to be based on peer-reviewed scientific research. ",
"Please read the sidebar and ",
"our guidelines",
" for more information."
] |
[
"Can we see what our genetic potential for different activities are?"
] | [
false
] | I was reading a quote from a book about rock climbers, With regard to tendon insertions, a slight shift in the location compared with normal provides additional leverage that gives a few lucky folks more grip strength (off the couch!) than others could achieve through years of training. Similarly, your innate ratio of ... | [
"It's a long story, but no. We can't. At least not now. ",
"We only know what a fraction of the genome actually means in terms of phenotype (the visible manifestation of what your genome says you should be like.). ",
"However, the bigger issue is that phenotype is also significantly influenced by our environ... | [
"For a new question based on your comment, I hear all the time that our phenotype is significantly influenced by our environment, but is this only in development as a kid?",
"If from 0-21 years old you never played chess you would probably have a horrible chance of having the mind structure to be a chess master. ... | [
"I don't think we can make those kinds of extrapolations yet - we're still really early on in understanding the mechanisms of how our genomics are modified by environment (mainly epigenetics, at this point), so it's next to impossible for me to comment on that."
] |
[
"How much of the sunlight, emitted from its birth untill now, is still travelling?"
] | [
false
] | How much of the sunlight, emitted from its birth untill now, is still travelling? | [
"How much of the sunlight, emitted from its birth untill now, is still travelling?",
"The ",
"sun is about 4.567 billion years old",
". Light emitted from the Sun will ",
"keep travelling until it hits something",
" and is absorbed. The surface area of any objects within a 4.567 billion light-year distan... | [
"but an obect near the sun has a large \"shadow\" on the surface of that sphere, and there are many things near the sun",
"True enough ... for teeny tiny values of \"large\". The closest object to the sun is Mercury, and it therefore would have the largest conical shadow behind it (away from the sun). Even this c... | [
"but an obect near the sun has a large \"shadow\" on the surface of that sphere, and there are many things near the sun"
] |
[
"How would you weigh (find the mass of) a helium balloon?"
] | [
false
] | Obviously scales won't work. Also this has to be an actual experimental method (no theoretical calculations). And is it possible to do it without damaging the balloon in any way? | [
"A helium balloon floats because its buoyancy force exceeds its gravitational force. Meaning that F_grav - F_boy is negative. (meaning that it pushes up)\nSo in equation form: F_net = m_balloon",
"V*g + m_weights * g",
"But if you tie some weights to the balloon until it is in perfect equilibrium (just enough... | [
"Synethos didn't assume you knew the density of helium, only the density of air. And you would indeed have to measure the volume of the balloon to use this approach, fortunately that is ",
"not difficult"
] | [
"Thanks but what I don't know what the density or volume is? Say it's a mystery gas that isn't helium but is lighter than air, or a mixture of gases. "
] |
[
"We've all seen Ultra Ever Dry's substance repelling nano polymer - what would happen if you covered a boat in it?"
] | [
false
] | If the hull of a boat was coated in the polymer, would the boat sink in water? Would it float just as always? Would it float higher in the water? Inquiring minds need to know! Thanks in advance for any responses. | [
"The question I want answered is whether that coating would provide less resistance to water, enabling the boat to cut through the water more efficiently, kind of like wax does for a snowboard on snow. If there is a measurable effect, coud it affect things like fuel efficiency of a boat, or the dynamics of driving ... | [
"Coatings like this are in development to reduce linear drag on boats, just like you suggest. The goal is fuel efficiency and long, thin boats like container ships would see the most benefit. Marine life is actually a major issue for coatings like this, as fouling of the coatings removes their hydrophobic quality a... | [
"Not a great deal. The reason a boat floats is because its total volume (including the air in it) has a lower density than the water. Gravity pulls down the water as it is heavier than the boat including its air. (Of course if the boat fills with water this is no longer true and it will sink).",
"The nanoscale co... |
[
"Why do certain things like coffee/beer taste weird when served at room temperature?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Many fats and other hydrophobic components have melting or softening points right at around 30 °C. The warmer drink gives them more mobility, and further promotes dissolution of flavor compounds. The molecules can diffuse to taste receptors instead of floating inert in suspension. Second, warmth causes aroma compo... | [
"Hope this doesn't count as going off-topic, but you might be interested to know that traditional 'real ale' in the UK is served much closer to room temperature (generally around 10 C/55 F) and consequently the range of flavours is quite different to that of European and North American style beers."
] | [
"Yeah, it means that Americans tend to complain about our warm beer when they come to the UK. ",
"For extra measure, real ale is not pasteurised or carbonated before being put into barrels - before being served, it is 'tapped', allowing air into the barrels, and is served either by gravity (the barrels are behin... |
[
"How does the body physically respond to different opioid medications that have very similar structures but a vast amount of different uses?"
] | [
false
] | Question pertaining how the body actually responds to these drugs and why the changes in their chemical structure is responsible for their vast uses. I understand that naloxone has a higher binding affinity to the opioid receptors but why doesn't the brain register this as a another opioid and continue the high? Same w... | [
"Can you re-state your question in a bit of a more specific way?",
"I ",
" your question generally can begin to be answered by doing some research on the differences between agonists and antagonists. After that look into binding affinities. Then perhaps look into the effects of minor chemical changes on drugs.... | [
"This commentor is correct. The main idea is to recognize that binding affinity and activity are completely distinct from one another. An agonist of the opioid receptor binds the receptor and induces the conformational change needed for activation, which an antagonist (like naloxone) binds to the site but does not ... | [
"To add on to this, I think it is also important to note how the drugs are distributed. Like the parent mentioned, heroin is more lipophillic, which allows it to cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) more easily than regular morphine. From there, it can be converted into morphine and its conjugates, which activate op... |
[
"Question about how solar systems developed: where did the first planets come from?"
] | [
false
] | Hi AskScience, I have a question that David Christian's recently posted "Big History" talk on TED brought up in my curiosity, but I'm not sure if I'm phrasing it well. He talks about the process of particles joining together to form extraterrestrial bodies. But, it seemed that massive stars formed before smaller bits a... | [
"I think your main confusion is in thinking that big things formed first. The formation of the Sun and planets was in essence simultaneous. The ",
"Wiki article on formation of the Solar System",
" is a good place to start."
] | [
"Certainly a lot of material slowed down and hit the sun but what was left over formed the planets. No one is entirely sure how the planets formed but the general idea is there was a disk around the sun of dust which rotated and material collides and sticks together forming larger and larger bodies and eventually y... | [
"In a lot of ways, you are correct. ",
"The sun represents 99.86% of the mass in the solar system, so almost all of the mass was captured by the sun's gravity.",
"While this was happening, a small fraction developed enough momentum escape and reach orbit, and amongst that matter, planets formed. 90% of the re... |
[
"How are tumors able to grow random parts of our body within them?"
] | [
false
] | Thank you for any clarification! | [
"What do you mean? I assume you are talking about when cancerous cells are discovered somewhere in the body although they originate elsewhere. Occasionally cancerous cells can detach from the place they originally grew, and plant themselves elsewhere and grow there, e.g. cancerous cells from the breast being found... | [
"I suspect the OP is referring to ",
"this",
" ",
"r/science",
" story (currently on the front page)."
] | [
"Sorry, to clarify i mean I've seen pictures of tumors that are growing hair or teeth, I was just curious how that happens and why?"
] |
[
"How can a single particle have no temperature?"
] | [
false
] | I was reading Neil deGrasse Tyson Death by Black Hole when it says, "a single particle can't have a temperature because temperature is how fast all the particles of something are moving so a single particle can't have a temperature." The definition I understand but something having no temperature I can't understand. | [
"A single particle ",
" have temperature, but it's for reasons that aren't actually being discussed here. They're skirting around the answer, and frankly I'm kind of surprised; This is an 8-hour old question, someone should have pointed out what I'm about to.",
"Contrary to popular belief, temperature is ",
... | [
"Temperature is not a property of fundamental particles, like mass, charge, spin, etc. Temperature is a lot like pressure: it's a property that only makes sense on a ",
"macroscopic",
" level. In fact, pressure is a way better example to think about if you're confused. ",
"Think about this: if you have a gas,... | [
"You can't just assume something has MB statistics, that's not how it works. MB distributions arise in some systems of a large number of constituants in some cases. In a metal at equilibrium, the electrons have Fermi-Dirac statistics. In a heterostructure they may well have a distribution nothing like FD, BE or ... |
[
"Any ideas on preventing \"monitor wobble\" on a CRT next to a stir plate?"
] | [
false
] | Is there any type of shielding option? | [
"Yes, no problem. Here are the solutions:",
"Move the monitor.",
"Move the plate.",
"Turn off the monitor.",
"Turn off the plate.",
"Replace the CRT monitor with an LCD panel.",
"Magnetic shields exist, but a suitable one would cost more than the combined cost of the monitor, the stir plate and the tabl... | [
"In that case, get an LCD screen."
] | [
"Thanks. Didn't know if there was an easy solution besides those five."
] |
[
"Iridium and similarly hard metals are difficult to machine due to extreme work hardening. Is \"grinding\" based machining also affected?"
] | [
false
] | I understand how drilling and traditional milling would be made essentially impossible due to rapid work hardening, but couldn't a "grinding" approach be used to get around this? Is there something I am not understanding about work hardening? Does work hardening affect materials at such a "small-scale" as sanding away ... | [
"Iridium can be machined, it's just a lot harder to do than other materials and there are much eaisier ways to form it. If you want to cut it with an endmill you are going to want a properly coated tool that has a hard coating capable of handling high temperatures - depending on your setup you might be able to do i... | [
"I work with glass and ceramics a lot. A critical element is operating in a brittle mode. We're trying to crack the material evenly, to a specific depth. Each grinding operation should remove material while also imparting shallower cracks each time. Until eventually you use a polishing operation that doesn't create... | [
"shallower",
"important qualifier there.",
"when you get to a point where a pass-over doesn't make shallower cracks, then you can't make the material any smoother because each pass-over will just look like the previous one."
] |
[
"What is it that actually makes air \"move\"? Is air stagnant and it's just the earths rotation or?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Just like air flies out a balloon, wind is air moving from a higher pressure zone (like the inside of the balloon) to a lower pressure zone (the outside).",
"The easiest way to create this difference is to heat parts of the Earth differently. Warmer air is less dense, which means there is lower pressure there. C... | [
"But the earths rotation itself does not move air.",
"The Coriolis force would beg to differ.",
"If you start a rotating planet out with no heat differences and no atmospheric motion other than a few random fluctuations, it will self-organize into jet streams, all thanks to the Coriolis force (which is caused e... | [
"But the earths rotation itself does not move air.",
"Sorry but this is completely incorrect. The earth's rotation is a leading force throughout most of the atmosphere, and away from boundary layers, balance between the Coriolis force and pressure gradient force are the leading terms affecting the motion of air p... |
[
"How did we treat cancer in the past (pre 1900) Did we even know about it?"
] | [
false
] | How did we go about dealing with cancer before radiation treatment. Did we even know that cancer is what was killing some people? When did we learn it was cancer causing the deaths? | [
"They knew about it. They had no real treatment other than to cut it out. They wouldn't discover it until it caused problems so usually too late. Leukemia is called white blood because that's how the person would die. So many defective white blood cells that the blood literally turned white. All they could really... | [
"It's pretty simple... any cancer that produced an obvious tumor was easy to understand in terms of, \"Cut out the tumor\". Then, if that cancer was metastatic, or any form of cancer without an obvious tumor, you died. Period. ",
"You have to remember though, that the likelihood of most cancers increases with age... | [
"The average age at death was pretty low, but that's because of a high infant mortality rate. If you survived to adulthood you could expect to live into your sixties. That being said cancer still didn't kill very many of them because getting sick in your old age kills you much faster."
] |
[
"Could two genetically identical creatures be different species if they are not genetically linked? (Explanation in comments)"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"If the two creatures are 100% genetically identical, then they would be, from a molecular biologist's point of view, the same species."
] | [
"No. There are good reasons to believe that once intrinsic reproductive isolation between two populations is complete (i.e. they cannot possibly produce fertile offspring), they almost certainly (i.e. with probability so close to 1 that it may as well be a rounding error) will not converge to reproductive compatibi... | [
"Are there any example of this in nature? Different animals or organisms evolving separately yet being able to interbreed further down the line?"
] |
[
"Why are there shadows in electron microscopy? How are they different from shadows due to the absence of light?"
] | [
false
] | I just watched and noticed that there are both shadows and gloss where you'd expect them if it was made with a regular light capturing camera. Are these effects identical with shadows and gloss due to light (or the lack thereof) and if not, how are they different? Are there any differences in size, strength, specularit... | [
"There are two main types of detector for imaging on an SEM. Backscatter electron and secondary electron detection.",
"Backscatter electrons are the 'reflected' electrons that have scattered of atomic nucleus, the chance that an electron will backscatter is a function of the atomic mass, i.e. areas with higher av... | [
"/u/bloodyTribology",
" is spot on. Both the backscattered and secondary electron detectors detect the intensity of electrons hitting their detector, and this is what's used the create the image. So it makes sense that if something is in the way, this will reduce the intensity of the electron beam, and the bright... | [
"The warping in this case is caused by the drill bit being made of a material that is slightly ferromagnetic. The magnetism of the bit slightly warps the path of the primary electron beam as it passes by the edge, causing a skewing of the image. "
] |
[
"Why are do most medications have HCl in it?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"First of all, many chemicals used as drugs contain a nitrogen atom. Not all nitrogen-containing chemicals are basic, but many are. Specifically molecules which contain the ",
" functionality are basic. Such molecules are prone to oxidize when exposed to air. In addition, some suffer from poor solubility in w... | [
"I don't know what the pharmacological role of this is, but I can tell you that these formulations don't contain HCl molecules ",
". The 'hydrochloride' of a drug refers to the chloride salt of a protonated (usually) amine.",
"Let's take ammonia for example, NH3. When protonated it would form ammonium, NH4+, ho... | [
"Other amine-bearing pharmaceuticals are (although more rarely) salts of other acids. One common example is ",
"sildenafil citrate",
" (more commonly known as \"Viagra\") which uses ",
"citric acid",
" instead of hydrochloric acid. This works better because sildenafil has multiple amines, and citric acid is... |
[
"What percentage of genes are purely human?"
] | [
false
] | We share ≈96% of our genes with gorillas, ≈50% with bananas, so if we added all the specific shared genes what percentage is purely human? | [
"It’s hard to know for sure. We don’t have a solid count for how many genes humans have to start with because there is some discussion about what counts as a gene, and not all sequences that could be considered a gene have been fully studied. Out of the 20,000-25,000 genes in our genome, 23 have been identified onl... | [
"Important to note that just because we have the genetic information doesn't mean it will be expressed to the same degree if at all. A lot of what we are like originates from what genes are suppressed more than from which unique ones we have."
] | [
"There are maybe 6 genes that are only found in humans. That's about 0.002% of the human genome.\nBut the answer is more complicated than that. What makes us human is not just the genes but how they are regulated. We share 98-99% genes with chimps but when looked closely the genomes are all filled with structural r... |
[
"What would be the impact of a substance that could radiate cold the same way most things radiate heat."
] | [
false
] | The way I understand it when something cools down it's because the heat has spread out to more atoms and gotten them moving, using up the energy of the source of the heat. Now i'm wondering what kind of impact a substance that could, instead of taking in the heat and speeding up it's molecule, slow down the molecules o... | [
"You have a mistaken idea of thermodynamics. Very quickly, heat is thermal energy.",
"Temperature dictates which direction heat naturally wants to flow -- that is without applying external energy in the form of work (e.g., a refrigerator/heat pump), the net heat flow will always be from an object with a higher t... | [
"Yes, for pedagogical reasons, I specifically neglected negative temperature (on a kelvin scale). Really it makes more sense to talk about inverse temperature β = 1/T = dS/dU where S is entropy, U is thermal energy and then heat flows from low beta to high beta. ",
"But negative temperature is extremely rare; y... | [
"Yes, for pedagogical reasons, I specifically neglected negative temperature (on a kelvin scale). Really it makes more sense to talk about inverse temperature β = 1/T = dS/dU where S is entropy, U is thermal energy and then heat flows from low beta to high beta. ",
"But negative temperature is extremely rare; y... |
[
"In North America there are often invasive species from Asia, such as The Spotted Lantern Fly. Are there invasive and pesky species from North America on other continents?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"How in the heck does a Whitetailed Deer pop up in NZ? And why haven't you shot them all yet, they are delicious."
] | [
"You mean like Wapiti, Whitetailed Deer, trout, Canada geese, Gambusia, Rudd, Brown Bullhead Catfish, Lodgepole pine,, Pinus Radiata, mexican daisy(More Central/South America) ",
"That's just a quick skim of the list of invasive species in NZ, there are surely more that I missed."
] | [
"Of course. From the top of the head, here are some invasive plant species in Europe that originate from North America: Ambrosia artemisiifolia (ragweed), Amorpha fruticosa (false indigo bush), Phytolacca americana (pokeweed), Robinia pseudoacacia (black locust), Erigeron annuus (daisy fleabane)...there are many mo... |
[
"Is there scientific evidence to support the old wives tale \"Red sky at night sailors delight, red sky in morning sailors take warning\"?"
] | [
false
] | If so, why does a red sky at night not mean bad weather, but the red sky in the morning does? | [
"Let me google that for you....",
"Red sky at night, sailors delight.\nWhen we see a red sky at night, this means that the setting sun is sending its light through a high concentration of dust particles. This usually indicates high pressure and stable air coming in from the west. Basically good weather will follo... | [
"Because of the Coriolis effect, wind on the ocean generally travels in the same direction, and locally speaking, storms like to travel eastward."
] | [
"well surely this all depends on where you are in the world, and what direction weather usually comes from etc."
] |
[
"Would it be feasible to create artificial \"mini-supernovas\" on Earth in order to synthesise elements that are scarce?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Supernovas do create most of the atoms heavier than iron.",
"Yes, it is feasible to create heavier elements, and we do this already in particle accelerators or by neutron capture in fission reactors. We've been creating plutonium this way since the Manhattan Project in the 1940s, because it doesn't occur natural... | [
"This is how we make isotopes for radiation therapy."
] | [
"You mean nuclear fusion, super novas don't create the elements, they disperse them after they were already manufactured in the cores of stars.",
"Edit: I'm an idiot."
] |
[
"At what pH level (base and acid) would a substance be dangerous for human consumption?"
] | [
false
] | My friend asked me this question over email, and I did my best to answer. I would love to hear what thinks! I told her that the likelihood of the strong acid/base reaching the stomach was low, seeing as it would either burn the mouth/esophagus or saponify tissues before reaching the stomach. Though, no foods have the ... | [
"Generally speaking, strong acids (pH<2) and some strong bases (pH>12) start to cause caustic damage to the esophagus and various linings of the tract. More information can be found ",
"here",
". If a food were quite basic, it would adversely affect the acidic environment of the stomach and most likely cause in... | [
"Are you allowed to cheat and use tiny amounts of acids/bases, if so the sky is the limit. go for either ",
"magic acid",
" or any of the other super acids. In small ammounts it just becomes a game of consuming so little that only relatively useless molecules are BBQed"
] | [
"Strong bases cause saponification of lipids, which is quite bad, worse than the effects of any comparably strong acid (say, pH 13 vs. 1). We regularly eat rather acid chemicals (lemon juice, vinegar), while we couldn't do that with bases."
] |
[
"Hyper saline lakes such as the Dead Sea have extra buoyancy. Would a boat have to be designed differently than for a normal lake, and how well would a normal boat work on a hyper saline lake?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"you'd just have a lower water line with more of the boat sitting out of the water. in most cases it wouldn't make that much of a difference. an inch or two probably. in the case that the boat was sitting so high that it wasn't stable, you could just add weight, but that's highly unlikely. the difference made by t... | [
"/u/MediocRedditor",
" gave an OK answer, but it's not complete.",
"There are two critical balance points to a boat: the ",
" (CoG) of the boat, and the ",
" (CoB). If the boat rotates in the water, this is the spot around which its mass will rotate. The CoB is not well defined, in the sense that it's di... | [
"Since the waterline is lower, would it be easier to row the boat because there would be less friction / a sharper prow?"
] |
[
"What is the current research on prions?"
] | [
false
] | For those of you haven't heard of , they're infectious proteins, and terribly interesting. | [
"http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=prions&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2011&as_vis=0"
] | [
"Thanks, wasn't aware there was a google scholar search."
] | [
"For biological/medical research, Pubmed.gov is the standard search engine. You might want to find review articles.",
"But what exactly were you trying to find about prions?"
] |
[
"Do the same areas of the brain 'light up' when we read a book versus listening to it?"
] | [
false
] | Inspired by made by from . I also have a follow up question: How does listening versus reading pertain to the permeance of memory. I understand that we all learn differently, but what I'm more interested is the 'storage of the data' (and I guess accessing the data too). | [
"When we view a picture, or a word in this case, there are visual regions of the brain that process this incoming sensory information. The same goes for auditory information, and the primary auditory and primary visual areas are separated in the brain. At this point different areas of the brain would be active wh... | [
"Partly. We have different brain areas for auditory and visual sensory information. Language comprehension, however, is a specific part of the brain (Wernicke's area). So, in both cases you will probably have activity in Wernicke's area, and in the Occipital lobe (the back of the brain) when reading the book, and i... | [
"For me,when I listen to an audio book,or read a book,it's like watching a movie in my head.Why would this be happening if I'm hearing the book rather than reading it?"
] |
[
"When an charged particle slows down, an electron for example, it radiates photons that have spin, where does the angular momentum come from?"
] | [
false
] | An electron can only spin up or down, from .5 to -.5 in steps of 1 How does it emit multiple photons while being decelerated from high speed? and where does that angular momentum come from, if it didn't come from the electron? | [
"The only way the electron can slow down is by interacting with something. The angular momentum comes from that interaction. "
] | [
"The Bohr model is correct. It accurately predicts the energy levels of the hydrogen atom and the Rydberg formula. It's why he won a Nobel prize. ",
"The Schrodinger model is a more sophisticated model that contains al the results of the Bohr model. It describes \"shells\" of the Bohr model in terms of probabilis... | [
"Total angular momentum of an electron is the sum of its angular and orbital angular momentums. When it falls down to a lower orbit, orbital angular momentum of the electron decreases. "
] |
[
"Why can we only see light after it bounces off something or when it is at the source of the light? Why don't we see light energy as a sort of mist?"
] | [
false
] | What I mean here is like if you point a laser at a wall, you can see the dot, but not the beam of light going to or coming from the dot, making it only visible if powder or dust or smoke enters the beam. Why does light seem to be completely invisible while travelling through air? What changes when it bounces off a surf... | [
"The key point is the simple fact that you only see light that makes it to your eye. It can either come directly from the light source or bounce off the wall first. For the laser beam example, if you look directly in the beam you obviously see light. You also see light being bounced off the wall. But why should you... | [
"Imagine that you're Superman and you're blindfolded and somebody is shooting a machine gun.",
"If they shoot the bullets directly at you, then you can feel them hitting you. If they shoot them in some other direction, then you can't feel them hitting you. If they shoot them so that they ricochet off an object a... | [
"Because the tiny particles of light have to actually hit your eyes. If they are all going in the same direction, and aren't pointing at your eyes, you can't see. Your eyes work by detecting photons hitting your retina. ",
"So it's not necessary for them to bounce of something to see them, but they have to litera... |
[
"Anti-choice talking point or point taken?"
] | [
false
] | A comment sends me looking for an expert response: "Adult stem cells (stem cells taken from a donor) are proven effective...fetal stem cells are not. In fact, in several cases using fetal stem cells, the patients have developed tumors. To use fetal stem cell research as a justification for abortion is assine and morall... | [
"Fetal stem cells come from cord blood taken from living newborns. Or more properly, from the placenta, which is sort of … you know. Newborn-adjacent. Your friend is thinking of embryonic stem cells which, as I understand it, are indeed quite useful if you want to give someone a teratoma."
] | [
"There are less sinister ways to attain embryonic stem cells. They can be taken from ",
"surplus embryos that were harvested for use in in vitro fertilization but never implanted",
". They can be used for awesome stem cells or basically discarded."
] | [
"I was going to say the exact same thing, glad I read the comments before posting though"
] |
[
"Can the human ear adjust to volume?"
] | [
false
] | I’ve noticed that without changing the volume, I can go from barely hearing the tv to it being too loud. For example, I had to turn it to 15 (loud for our tv) to hear it at first, but after watching for a few minutes I was able to hear it fine at volume 3. | [
"Yes. Your brain will dampen constant levels of noise in an effort to make out important bits because it responds to ",
" in sound pressure levels. Sound Pressure Level refers to the acoustic pressure caused by vibration in a material propagating to nearby air molecules. SPL is its measurement, but the subjective... | [
"Similar phenomenon occurs when one stands near a loudspeaker. It may seem unbearable at first, but gradually doesnt feel as loud. On mechanical level, this is controlled by the stapedius muscle in the middle ear. When it gets taught, the vibrations of ear ossicles dampen, and lesser vibrations are transferred from... | [
"Yes it sure does, but is more important for sounds originating in pharynx and mouth, such as during chewing or swallowing"
] |
[
"Can Animals Have OCD?"
] | [
false
] | Have there ever been any documented cases of an animal showing similar traits of OCD? What about any other human disorders? | [
"Not really my area, but I just googled it and found this interesting ",
"article",
" on the neurological basis for OCD in animals. ",
"Here",
" is a news article where people observed mental illness like behavior in some Chimps. Animals experience emotions similar to humans and even dogs ",
"\"simle\"",
... | [
"Yes, dogs and cats can have OCD. It can manifest in over-grooming (such as licking, which can lead to inflammation of the skin), urinating, sucking, chewing, self-mutilation, hallucinations, or constantly chasing the tail. The last one sounds almost cute, but it really is somewhat heartbreaking to see a dog so anx... | [
"My favorite animal from psychology is a Chimp who would read Cosmo, make tea & martinis and masturbate to human porn. ",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Temerlin"
] |
[
"How can DNA encode \"instinctive\" behaviour?"
] | [
false
] | When an animal shows behaviour we describe as instinctive, that is it was born "knowing" to do the behaviour, without training or learning, that knowledge has to come from it's DNA. But how can DNA do this? | [
"DNA codes for proteins. Proteins affects cell growth, migration, differentiation and control what other proteins will be expressed. Slowly you end up with an entire organism. Let's say it's a dog. That dog, with the help of expression, migration and differentiation control has develloped neuronal circuitry that ha... | [
"DNA codes for proteins",
"Not all DNA does. In fact only about 2% of DNA actually codes for proteins. Other regions include transposons (so called 'jumping' genes), others which serve important regulatory functions, as well as areas whose functions we're not entirely sure about. The point is that while the rest ... | [
"You are right about the other regulatory functions of DNA. I didn't want to get into the details. I think though that for the layman, saying that DNA is a recipe for proteins and that proteins are tools to build, organize and maintain cellular prosseces and functions is an acceptable simplification."
] |
[
"Poisonous creatures: why do they live in warmer climates?"
] | [
false
] | As a Norwegian, we have like one species of snake which is poisonous and a couple of plants. None are lethal. Yet in other places such as Australia, or the different jungles, there seems to be hundreds if not thousands of fatal beings. Why is this the case? | [
"While I can't help you with your question, I can help you with your use of the word \"poisonous\". ",
"Poison is a toxic substance excreted by a living thing that is present in the tissues/skin and is usually used to deter predation",
"Venom is a toxic substance excreted by a living thing that is usually injec... | [
"Competition. Being poisonous is an advantage just as being able to survive the winter is an advantage. These are two different evolutionary strategies. Reasons for having less poisonous animals in the north may be due to the lower number of species ie less competition or that the extra energy going into poison is ... | [
"actually if the goal is survival doesn't less energy=more competition?"
] |
[
"Are there sounds that can be made by humans that aren't included in the alphabet of any language?"
] | [
false
] | What I mean is, is it possible that there are phonetical sounds that haven't been explored or covered in any alphabet around the world. | [
"There are some non-pulmonic sounds that aren't part of any languages inventory. Pulmonic ingressive sounds are especially rare, they occur in some dialects of Swedish. ",
"I can't of the top of my head think of a sound that isn't used in any language. "
] | [
"There are lots of sounds you can make with your mouth that no language uses, of course. You can e.g. clack your teeth.",
"But if you're going for something more traditionally \"phonetic\", i.e. some sort of airstream mechanism and a configuration of velum, tongue, and lips, I can e.g. think of the linguolabial t... | [
"Usually the letters of a single language are quite vague. The pronounciation accepts multiple non-indetical sounds. This can code information about locale or subculture. It's easy to hear a japanese background persons r differing a lot form a westeners (because within japanese r and l are actually part of the same... |
[
"How do the center of planets/stars behave?"
] | [
false
] | Is the material in the center of planets and stars just held there by the pressure of everything above it. Is it "weightless" in the center of planets/stars? It seems counter initiative that there is more mass outside the very center point of a planet/star so shouldn't that gravity be pulling it apart all around and aw... | [
"Your intuition would be correct. The ",
"shell theorem",
" says that gravity from a hollow sphere of material will behave as follows: To someone inside of it, the gravity will cancel out. To someone outside of it, the gravity behaves in the same was as it would if all of the mass was concentrated at the center... | [
"\"If the body is a spherically symmetric shell (i.e., a hollow ball), no net gravitational force is exerted by the shell on any object inside, regardless of the object's location within the shell.\"",
"In other words, as long as you are inside of the shell, you will not experience a net force in any direction."
... | [
"I believe for Earth and other planets this is isn't quitr true due to non uniform density. Theres a point between the outer core and mantle where accel due to gravity peaks about 10.5 m s",
" ",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EarthGravityPREM.jpg"
] |
[
"Rosetta implications - other life forms in space?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Organic molecules have been detected in hundreds of different environments in space dating back to the detection of formaldehyde (H2CO) in 1969 in a variety of molecular clouds. Here, we can take \"organic molecule\" to mean anything with carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. That is what the scientists and press releas... | [
"You probably don't want it. In space, it's commonly mixed with ",
"urea",
" (piss), ",
"ethyl formate",
" (raspberry/rum flavoring), and just straight up ethanol...",
"Along with a lot a lot of PAHs (",
"Polycylic Aromatic Hydrocarbons",
" - i.e. soot)."
] | [
"Well, if you like to drink alcoholic bottled cancer, then yes, you could call it Space Liquor. "
] |
[
"Does the sensation of hunger come from the emptiness of our stomach or the lack of calories?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Motilin is a hormone released by M-cells in the stomach and upper duodenum of a fasting person. This hormone causes migrating motility complexes, a.k.a. peristalsis, to occur in the digestive tract in 90-minute intervals to ensure that the intestines are clear and ready to receive food."
] | [
"The short answer is both, but the basic mechanism of action that each uses to stimulate hunger is related. One of the main players you'll read about in relation to regulation of food intake is ghrelin. Ghrelin is thought to stimulate hunger as circulating levels have been shown to increase before meals and decreas... | [
"What causes that gurgling and rumbling feeling in your stomach when you're hungry? What's going on there?"
] |
[
"What is the most exotic element known?"
] | [
false
] | I just seen some stuff about anti matter and got to thinking. What is the most exotic element known to us? Bonus points if you can tell me a little bit about it. Chemistry has always been a sudo hobby of mine. | [
"Well, how do you define exoticness? The element with the highest atomic number we've currently discovered is Onganesson (Z = 118).",
"Some elements have some very exotic isotopes. For example, ones near or beyond the ",
"driplines",
".",
"You may not be aware, but hydrogen actually has 7 known isotopes, he... | [
"Every element has its own properties which makes it interesting in a way or another. They all have some \"exoticness\" if you allow the term. From hydrogen being the most common element in the universe to uranium with its incredibly long lifetime and to the many artificially made elements, which we do not find in ... | [
"Since your question is open to discussion you might open a ",
"r/AskReddit",
" thread in parallel to this one (with the \"Serious\" tag otherwise it's going to be weird).",
" ",
"I'll pick a cool one with ",
". We have a lot of Uranium on Earth, and all of it was produced by a supernova that happened lon... |
[
"Steam as a solvent"
] | [
false
] | I know that supercritical steam can be used as a solvent, but does anyone know the effect on solubility of steam at different pressures and temperatures below the supercritical point? | [
"So, if your below the super critical point, your solubility should decrease as you are no longer acquiring liquid-like behavior, meaning that your losing how densely packed your system is (I'm assuming your dropping below the super critical point on the side of steam, rather than on the liquid side, otherwise you... | [
"Water's Phase Diagram",
"It's called a critical point (rather than a line) for a reason, particularly because it doesn't have a phase change associated with it, meaning that you dont see an abrupt change in it's propeties. This is what makes super critical fluids tricky, because they share both gaseous and liqui... | [
"I know that solubility will decrease when steam is not super critical, I am wondering by how much, and does all the solubility go away at once, or does it gradually decrease as temp. and pressure decrease."
] |
[
"Exactly what is the process of determining a structure of a molecule using NMR?"
] | [
false
] | How does 1H NMR work? How do chemists go about finding out a completely unknown structure of a molecule they haven't seen before using just NMR? | [
"We use reference data and splitting patterns. The chemical shift of a particular proton is affected by its chemical environment and we have tables of the likely chemical shifts of protons in certain environments. For example, a CH",
" proton typically has a shift of 1ppm, but a CH",
" proton adjacent to -OH is... | [
"H1 NMR takes advantage of the spin states of (as the name suggests) hydrogen atoms. These atoms can have a spin quantum number of +1/2 or -1/2. Now under normal conditions these two states are degenerate (IE no determinable difference between the two), but the instance you put the hydrogen atoms in a magnetic f... | [
"Check out ",
"this Youtube channel",
" for introductory videos on NMR.",
"NMR exploits the fact that some nuclei have a magnetic moment. By subjecting them to a large external magnetic field, it'll give rise to a population difference, where more of those magnetic moments prefer to point somewhere in the dir... |
[
"What properties make an object heat faster in a microwave?"
] | [
false
] | I have noticed that different plate materials will have very different reactions to being microwaved, as will different types of food. What properties make an object heat faster or slower in a microwave? | [
"This is 100% wrong, microwave photons have energies well below .001 eV nowhere near high enough to create free electrons from the PE effect.",
"Microwaves do not induct enough current to joule heat materials either so that is wrong.",
"Microwaves DO heat water molecules, but that is not the exclusive mechanism... | [
"It has to do with the polarization of the molecules in the material. If they are strongly polar, then the EM waves from the microwave will have a strong effect. The polarity of water is the reason that it is heated by microwaves, not any resonance effect."
] | [
"You are observing the dielectric properties of the various materials. Some materials like dry ice are transparent to microwaves and will not heat up in a microwave because it has low dielectric loss. Some ceramic plates and bowls have higher dielectric loss than others meaning they couple with the microwaves and b... |
[
"If precious metals and gems are found near impact craters, does that mean the moon is loaded with gold and diamonds?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Not really. The main issue is the composition of the moon. ",
"For instance, a lot of gold ",
"forms in the presence of water",
" (hydrothermal fluids). "
] | [
"Diamonds are formed by carbon under immense pressure. That's it. That's all the equation needs... If carbon is under enough constant pressure for long enough the atoms will naturally align into a crystalline structure and form the diamonds we know. Yes it does need energy for the atoms to move, whether by heart or... | [
"The leading theory on how gold in the Earths crust exists nowadays is by asteroid impacts in the late heavy bombardment era. If those are correct there should be gold on the moon. ",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Occurrence",
"LCROSS detected gold in October 2009 during an impact test: ",
"http://www.pb... |
[
"Another post read that we can achieve temperatures as low as 0.0000001 K in laboratories. At this temperature, can we view molecular reactions in real time?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Sort of. The technology to \"see\" molecules in the sense that we think of the word generally is too slow to watch things changing. Other techniques involving spectroscopy can observe things happening in real time (using very fast pulse lasers), but the results aren't meaningful if you're not familiar with spectro... | [
"AFM really has nothing to do with light. It's not possible to image things that small conventionally with visible light. In a nutshell, AFM involves dragging an atomically sharp probe on a cantilever over a surface and measuring the deflection. In this case, non-contact AFM is used with a single CO molecule deposi... | [
"In those images with atomic force microscopy, what data is being gathered? Is that actually light data or is it something else that was visually constructed using a computer?"
] |
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