title list | over_18 list | post_content stringlengths 0 9.37k ⌀ | C1 list | C2 list | C3 list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"If E=MC^2 and we've converted mass into energy, have scientists turned energy into mass yet?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The equation E = mc",
" is frequently misunderstood. It doesn't mean \"mass can be converted into energy\" or \"energy can be converted into mass\" it's telling you how much mass energy has. ",
"A scenario to explain what this means:",
"We often think of a nuclear bomb, for instance, as \"converting mass int... | [
"The short answer is yes: this happens at particle accelerators all the time, e.g. the Large Hadron Collider. You let particles collide at high energy and they’re able to convert that energy to create new particles with mass.",
"Source: I’m an astro particle physicist."
] | [
"A better question to ask is have scientists been able to turn energy into matter yet to which the answer is a definite yes."
] |
[
"How will melting polar caps raise sea levels, if melting ice in a cup doesn't raise that water level?"
] | [
false
] | If the mass of the ice is already displacing that amount of water, how will that ice melting effect the sea level? | [
"Much of the ice is locked up on land and not free floating. The Greenland Ice Sheet for instance:",
"\n",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet"
] | [
"In addition to the melting ice transferring water from land to oceans, also recall that water itself expands as it warms up. Warmer oceans require more volume"
] | [
"Antarctica is a continent, most of the ice there is on land. Currently 30 cubic miles of ice are melting off of Antarctica per year. Greenland is an island, currently 90 cubic miles per year are melting off of Greenland. The Arctic Ocean is an ocean. You are correct that none of the ice melting in the Arctic Ocean... |
[
"RNase trouble"
] | [
false
] | This is directed to some fellow lab workers. Do any of you have a recipe for a non-commercial RNase cleaning solution? Would appreciate if it would be as nontoxic as possible. It would help me tons since im working almost exclusively with RNA and want to save time and money. | [
"You mean for benchtops & the like? We used to use ~0.1N NaOH. Bleach works, too. "
] | [
"No. I mean bleach, sodium hypochlorite. ",
"H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide. Not the same thing, but it might work. Bleach is cheaper & more shelf stable, though."
] | [
"My old lab always used ethanol which seemingly worked well."
] |
[
"What causes someone's brain to not make serotonin?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Short answer: they are probably just wrong. But if they're right, it's probably genetic.",
"TPH2 is the gene encoding tryptophan hydroxylase in the CNS, the enzyme synthesizing serotonin from tryptophan. Somewhat surprisingly, the lack of it doesn't outright kill you. ",
"Mice bred with ablated TPH2 genes made... | [
"As far as I know, it doesn't run in the family or anything. Also I know he was put into a child clinic/ward for a few days and then the classified it as clinical depression (I don't know if they figured it out the actual cause or not).",
"If you still think it's a mistake, what could they have mistaken it for?"... | [
"Low serotonin levels and polymorphisms in the TPH2 gene have been linked to various psychiatric disorders including depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. However, that doesn't mean his brain is incapable of producing serotonin. That would be pretty catastrophic, and I'm unaware of a disorder in which a ... |
[
"Would an electromagnet inside a chamber provide thrust?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Any forces due to the magnetic on the chamber would be internal to the magnet-chamber system, so there can be no net acceleration of the center of mass of the system, by Newton's second law."
] | [
"But the magnet would be attached to the vessel. So wouldn't the vessel be part of the system? If you were to fire a bullet into a closed cone in space, wouldn't the bullet push the cone forward?"
] | [
"Yes, but the center of mass of the system wouldn't change."
] |
[
"Possibilities of chess moves"
] | [
false
] | How would one calculate how many different possible openings there are for a chess match up to the tenth move? | [
"The process is rather straightforward. You reinterpret the rules of chess into a set of grid based mathematical formula and logic dictating possible \"legal\" moves. From there, you move to combinatorial mathematics. Conceptually, for the first two moves, the only pieces that CAN be moved are pawns (each of the 8 ... | [
"most chess computers focus on strategy evaluation and eliminate moves that are mathematically disadvantageous from their calculations.",
"So in fact, they wouldn't calculate all scenarios?"
] | [
"No, there are far more move combinations than can possibly be calculated. They use heuristics, which are kind of like guidelines. Moves that make you more in control of the center of the board, for example, probably get +points, while moves that put a piece in immediate jeopardy likely get -points.",
"I know n... |
[
"Could 1.21 gigawatts really be harnessed from a bolt of lightning?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Actually, I think it was \"jiggawatts\" in the movie that Doc was referring to. ",
"According to Wikipedia, the peak output of an average lightning strike is more on the order of a terawatt, however a rare positive bolt is upwards of hundreds of terawatts. A Terawatt is a thousand gigawatts, so Doc was underesti... | [
"It is a ",
"valid pronunciation",
" of \"giga\" to use a soft g sound at the start like Doc Brown did. It has the same root as the word \"giant\"."
] | [
"The core problem here is that gigawatt is a unit of power, not of energy. A gigawatt is a lot of power, equivalent to that produced by a large electric power plant, but without knowing how much total energy is also required it's somewhat of a useless figure. Since 1.21 gigawatts over, say, a nanosecond isn't much ... |
[
"Why is it that we can die of sleep deprivation?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"die, apparently from the insomnia",
"This is not correct. Patients with FFI typically die of infection, like aspiration pneumonia from dysphagia."
] | [
"The ones who die from not infection presumably die from insomnia...",
"That is not what that source is saying. That source simply says that some patients remain conscious (although this is debatable, as they are not very responsive) and others are in a full coma when they die. But they typically die of infection... | [
"sleep deprivation itself in a single incident cannot kill you",
"Not so. See, for instance, ",
"Fatal Familial Insomnia",
". People with this disorder gradually lose the ability to sleep and eventually die, apparently from the insomnia, not accidents secondary to sleep deprivation."
] |
[
"Are the number of bytes output from a compression algorithm directly proportionate to the number of input bytes?"
] | [
false
] | Hello AskScience, For both lossless and lossy compression algorithms, is the size of the compressed data directly proportional to the size of the input data? For example, let’s say I’m using algorithm A on data d1, and the compressed output is size s1. If I run algorithm A on d2, and size(d2)==2*size(d1), will s2 == 2(s1)? I understand there are many different compression algorithms so this may be hard to answer truly in the general case, just want to get a basic understanding. | [
"No, in general it is not. Compression algorithms are more effective when there's more structure in the data. Exactly what type of structure leads itself to be more compressible will depend on the algorithm.",
"A simple test you can do is to take a photo file, open it in Paint and save it as Bitmap (.bmp). Then, ... | [
"The case I've always heard as an extreme example of data structure is a file format that could contain one of two things. Either it contains the complete works of Shakespeare (estimated to be around 5,600,000 bytes) or nothing. In that situation you can theoretically make a compression algorithm which compresse... | [
"That makes a lot of sense, thank you!"
] |
[
"The universe is said to be around 23% dark matter, 72% dark energy and 5% ordinary matter. If we don't know what dark matter and dark energy are, where do the percentages come from?"
] | [
false
] | Edit: I just want to clarify, I'm aware of what dark matter and dark energy are. I'm by no means an expert, but I do have a basic idea. I'm wondering specifically how we got those particular numbers for them. | [
"We can calculate things like gravity and energy density of the universe base on how the galaxies behave on a cosmic scale. We can also calculate how much stuff is out there by direct observation. When we look at the cosmos and look at how the galaxies behave, there is not enough material to generate the gravity ... | [
"Could these phenomena just be (but probably not likely) an incomplete understanding of how physical laws, which are already discovered, work?"
] | [
"In layman's terms: dark matter is ",
".",
"We can calculate the gravitational forces that impact everything we can see - stars, planets, black holes, dust, etc. We can calculate how much gravity the things we observe is generating. The problem is, they don't add up. There's way more gravity affecting everythin... |
[
"Where does water come from?"
] | [
false
] | Hydrogen formed shortly after the big bang, oxygen forms through stellar fusion, right? What causes them to bond together? Is it just that they bump into each other in gas clouds? | [
"While I don't know the process of planetary formation or what not that could form water, water is more energetically favorable and stable than a mixture of elemental hydrogen and oxygen so it presumably would spontaneously form under the right conditions."
] | [
"In addition to the other comments, something that's interesting to note is the process of fusion in stars. The process that you're often most familiar with is to keep sticking hydrogen ions (protons) together until 2 of them decay into neutrons and 2 remain protons and form a helium nucleus. But there's another cy... | [
"If you mix hydrogen and oxygen together and then set the mixture on fire, you get water vapour.",
"edit: hence the name 'hydro'gen."
] |
[
"Why do we sometimes keep strong memories of mundane or unimportant events in our lives? Is there a specific reason why we do so?"
] | [
false
] | We can recall very insignificant things like a statement, joke, image, or object from a particular moment even if we sometimes forget everything else about it. These memories can also feel very lucid, kind of like the popular statement, "I remember like it happened yesterday". Do we know the process behind it? | [
"There might be something behind that memory that effects you today, or you keep being reminded of that moment and after a while it becomes a normal memory that pops up at random times. The human mind is one of the most complicated things on earth (also gravity). It’s weird how some of the things that we ALL are in... | [
"Well this is a possible answer, but I don't know wether it will work for all cases. Studies have shown you are more likely to remember emotionally responsive events rather than \"boring\" ones. For example you might remember getting a toy as a child because at the time it happened you were overwhelmed with joy tel... | [
"does this mean that i would do better on my tests/exams if i wasn't getting so bored and actually tried to enjoy it?"
] |
[
"Do photons create some sort of friction when they hit on a moving object? And, if so, does the color of the object have any effect on it?"
] | [
false
] | I know that it is assumed for photons to have no mass. What we know, however, is, that an object absorbs different wavelengths depending on its color. A black car standing in direct sunlight for example becomes warm faster than a white one in the same position because it absorbs more light. This in further consequence means, that the car receives energy from the light. Now let's picture an object moving in a vacuum. When I now point a flashlight to this object, the object receives energy from it. Does this somehow make an impact on the movement of the object, and if so, does the color of the object matter as it does with the cars in the sun? | [
"Photons have momentum, despite having zero mass, given by p = E/c, where E = hf (h = Planck's constant, f = frequency). Since momentum is conserved, photons impacting an object do indeed exert a force on it (though it doesn't have anything to do with friction). ",
"Reflectiveness does make a difference - if a ph... | [
"The heat in this example isn't caused by friction it's caused by an energy transfer as the photon interacts with the surface. Black surfaces are more absorbent and less likely to reflect a photon causing them to heat up quicker where as white objects are reflective causing photons to be more more likely to rebound... | [
"As others have said, the radiation pressure is less \"friction\" but rather a momentum transfer or kick in the direction of the light.\nSomewhat tangentially, doppler cooling of atoms works in this way, by absorbing light doppler shifted into resonance of an atomic transition the atom is pushed in the opposing dir... |
[
"Is it possible to construct a non-trivial self-similar structure with integer Hausdorf dimension?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The ",
"3D version of the Sierpinski triangle",
" has Hausdorff dimension 2."
] | [
"Sure, the boundary of ",
"the Mandelbrot Set has Hausdorf dimension 2",
"."
] | [
"Sure, make a non-planar piecewise-linear path in 3 dimensions so that the Hausdorff dimension of the fractal you get by replacing each segment with scaled down version of the path etc. is 2. Actually do this in a program and show us for extra credit."
] |
[
"Allele question in regards to Paternity test (9 of 15 do not match)"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Genetic tests are based on ",
"Short Tandem Repeat Analysis",
".",
"The test splits DNA into areas of interest (the loci), and those areas are \"amplified\" (that is, another process is used to make a bunch of copies of each locus).",
"STR analysis works like this: The loci are chosen because they're inter... | [
"Thanks so very much! ",
"That really puts it into perspective. There IS room for \"slippage\", but not on the scale that he has experienced. ",
"Unfortunately, the woman that he chose to sleep with, has already taken a paternity test with who she thought was the father. With that partner (testing was done ... | [
"The important part is \"0% match\", and in your friend's case, it would've been better if they weren't provided with more detail than that.",
"For all I know, most people that share your friend's racial makeup might hit 40% of the child's genetic markers, haha."
] |
[
"How is it that I can see my retinal blood vessels when my eyes are subjected to bright light?"
] | [
false
] | Every time I go to the eye doctor, their apparatuses shine light into my eyes and I see flashes of my blood vessels that I assume are on my retina. How is the light being refracted/absorbed by them in order that I can see them? | [
"this happens to me as well. i wonder if we're weird. i'd also like an answer to this question."
] | [
"Well, I am relatively certain that this is common. I've thought a lot about this and the only thing that I can speculate is that it may have something to do with the red eye effect in flash photography. "
] | [
"Red-eye is caused by the light going into the pupil and reflecting off the blood inside, or so I was told..."
] |
[
"Why don't I feel pain in my sleep?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"\"Pain\" has two components: nocioception and conscious awareness. The prior occurs during sleep, but not the latter.",
"Nocioception is the physical or chemical stimulation of the pain receptor neurons (\"nocioceptors\") due to an aversive stimulus and the transducing and encoding of these signals. These signal... | [
"Ah sorry, I might have added an edit after you posted. Signals are reduced, not completely absent. Some signals get through, signals which the gating systems of your brain recognize as necessary. Different stages of sleep show different levels of inhibition. For more detail than that, you'll need to ask a neuro ex... | [
"How come we wake up if pinched, poked, or nudged, then?"
] |
[
"Is it possible to create 100% vacuum?"
] | [
false
] | Is it at all possible to create 100% vacuum here on earth, if yes. then how? | [
"Heh, finally my job is useful. I design vacuum chambers for a living. The short answer is no, we cannot achieve a perfect vacuum. Even the best pumps, like cryopumps, which actually condense gas molecules onto the pump surface, cannot get every single molecule. Even if you could capture all molecules all mater... | [
"Hmm, 30 mm mercury is 30 torr. The lowest vacuum I have heard of is in the 10",
" torr range using capture pumps. "
] | [
"Hmm, 30 mm mercury is 30 torr. The lowest vacuum I have heard of is in the 10",
" torr range using capture pumps. "
] |
[
"Could Black Holes be responsible for the Matter/Antimatter Imbalance?"
] | [
false
] | I just read an article on astronomy.com about black holes forming without a star. For some reason my first thought went to the very early universe. I remember a documentary, maybe the new cosmos, saying there was an equal pair of matter and antimatter in the universe, but due to something, there became more matter than antimatter... My question: could one of these primordial black holes have been responsible for the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the early universe? | [
"For a theory to explain the matter and anti matter asymmetry in the universe, it needs to satisfy three conditions, called the Sakharov conditions. The theory must have baryon number violation, C and CP violation (this ensures that processes involving matter and antimatter won't cancel each other out), and an out... | [
"The point is that a black hole could form in the early universe when their was an equal amount of matter and antimatter, and it could create or destroy matter. However, it will also create or destroy the equal and opposite amount of antimatter, and the rate at which it does both of these processes will be equal... | [
"I wasn't aware Black Holes were made of anything",
"They are not, ",
"/u/whippleball",
" is incorrect. Whatever the matter (or antimatter) was before becoming a black hole is irrelevant to the black hole after formation. All roads lead to Rome—at least in classical general relativity—which is also the source... |
[
"How accurate is our perception of time across space?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I doubt national geographic printed that because it's not true: The universe will not \"end\" in 5 billion years. In fact our current understanding of cosmology leads us to believe that we most likely live in a (\"flat\") universe that will go on expanding forever. ",
"You might refer to the ",
"heat death",
... | [
"here is the link: ",
"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101027-science-space-universe-end-of-time-multiverse-inflation/#.VcowjHSsCb8.facebook"
] | [
"Eventually there will be no hydrogen left and star formation will stop. This happens in about ",
"100 trillion years in the future",
", and a few trillion years after that the last red dwarf will burn out and the universe will be rather cold and dark.",
"I had absolutely no idea what you were talking about w... |
[
"Why does a bobsled travel faster when it has more mass?"
] | [
false
] | I've read that its because the higher momentum allows it to overcome the drag and friction. However, wouldn't the added mass increase the friction to begin with? I've also read that the thin metal runners somehow decrease the friction which doesn't make sense considering friction has no relation to surface area. If someone could correct me or clarify this that would be great. Thanks. | [
"Because the heavier bobsled is still the same size, which means it's got the same drag but more gravitational force. More force + same drag = higher terminal velocity. ",
"Basically, imagine a bowling ball and a similarly sized beach ball being dropped from a building. The bowling ball will end up going much fas... | [
"Since we've all been trained to believe that weight does not actually effect the rate at which we fall, let me try and explain this. ",
"The truth is that in a vacuum with no air friction, the bowling ball, and beach ball will fall at the same rate. However since we do have air resistance on earth we get what I ... | [
"F=ma",
"Acceleration (the rate we fall) is constant. The force depends on mass. The parachutes provide a resisting force to gravity. Thats why a heavier obiect needs more parachutes."
] |
[
"Would a large garden of photosynthetic microorganisms south of the equator have a significant effect on the ecosystem, and would it be sustainable?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Such a farm already exists pretty much. Most oxygen is produced by algae and plankton in the oceans. They are mostly microscopic. ",
"Edit: these are not farms per se but exist naturally. "
] | [
"Not a dumb question at all. There has been very serious research into ",
"fertilizing specific parts of oceans to produce algae blooms",
", which will hopefully sink and sequester carbon. Some experiments have been done, so far it looks like it could do more harm than good. ",
"But years of research and so... | [
"I did not mean to imply that was a dumb question. I was just very brief as posting comments from my phone is a bit annoying. "
] |
[
"Does gas under high pressure conduct heat better than gas under atmospheric pressure?"
] | [
false
] | My thought is that gas isn't very thermally conductive due to the extra space between particles compared to liquids and solids. So, if you squished a bunch of particles in a small area the distance would increase, would this also increase thermal conductivity? Thanks! | [
"Not by much. Thermal conductivity in gases happens by molecules gaining thermal energy and moving to a colder place. Adding more molecules gives you more energy carriers, but they can’t move as far before bumping in to each other. So the thermal conductivity of most gases increases only slightly with pressure.... | [
"But each time they bump into each other they bounce apart with shared energy. So the energy is still conducted but not by the original molecule which began with it."
] | [
"Well, gas has a hard time sitting still to \"conduct\" heat - convection and advection is inevitable.",
"And you have to be additionally precise in your setup.",
"More pressure means more gas matter or less gas volume, or somewhere in between.",
"But take it to its logical extremes: Almost 0 matter means a v... |
[
"Why did trees not \"take over\" the prairies like they did the rest of Canada?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"The southern part of the prairies is almost devoid of trees, but the north half is all forest. In ",
"this",
" picture, the dark blue represents the taiga and boreal forests. The yellow indicates grasslands. ",
"As for the actual cause of this happening, it can partially be attributed to the presence of the ... | [
"The current reason for the lack of trees in the southern \"Prairie\" provinces is that most land is under cultivation. ",
"However, the reality is that several species of trees can grow quite well without irrigation even in the Palliser Triangle which is one of the more severe prairie environments. This has been... | [
"This is all purely speculative. Please back this up with some real documentation on whether or not saline soil deposits or glacial till have anything to do with lack of forests over the great plains. Most of the southern extent of the current US on that map which were supposedly underwater are now covered by exten... |
[
"If gravity is caused by a curvature in space time, what is the idea behind the graviton?"
] | [
false
] | I'm very, very layman, and just starting to try to understand some of the theoretical physics developed over the last century. One of my main points of confusion is in fields and how their excitations are particles and the exchange of particles manifest the fields' forces...and that gravity is unique(?) among the forces - we haven't confirmed the existence of the graviton, I don't think. But if gravity is caused by curvatures in space-time, where exactly does the graviton fit in? Is gravity actually a field w/excitations? I'm a bit confused. | [
"You're probably tempted to think of it this way: a large object sends out gravitons, which each exert a slight pull on anything they encounter. Correctly, you've determined that such a vision would be inconsistent with general relativity's vision of gravity as spacetime curvature, and hit a contradiction.",
"Ins... | [
"One of my main points of confusion is in fields and how their excitations are particles and the exchange of particles manifest the fields' forces...",
"virtual particles aren't real. no actual particles are exchanged in an interaction. ",
"in general you get particles (or sometimes quasi particles) when you ha... | [
"It's certainly not correct to liken \"virtual particles\" to \"quasiparticles\" the way you do, if only for the fact that you can have virtual quasiparticles, too, much like virtual photons (nevermind that \"are emergent phenomena\" isn't saying much). You have quantised excitations of a field (maybe displacement ... |
[
"What kind of an experiment could prove String Theory to be false?"
] | [
false
] | I do understand that technology limits us in what we can physically do. I'm interested in what kind of an experiment would we need to do to disprove it. | [
"String theory makes three main \"large-scale general predictions\" that it won't budge on, regardless of the model under consideration:",
"-large-scale gravity follows GR exactly; the various modifications and extensions in the literature are false.",
"-Lorentz invariance is exact; other theories often predict... | [
"\"If you manage to find one idea that’s not obviously wrong, it’s a big accomplishment. Now, that’s not to say it’s right. But not obviously being wrong is already a huge accomplishment in this field.\"",
"-Nima Arkani-Hamed"
] | [
"Basically, colliding particles together with 100 trillion times as much energy as the LHC would show whether they have a stringy substructure or not."
] |
[
"How much does the earth need to move to/from the sun in order for life to end?"
] | [
false
] | Asked by my 8 year old daughter. | [
"There are various estimates",
" but we're probably closer to the \"too hot\" edge than the \"too cold\" edge. About 5-25% closer to the sun, the greenhouse effect is strong enough to cause much of the oceans to evaporate, which causes a stronger greenhouse effect, and eventually all Earth's surface water is blow... | [
"The habitable zone is where liquid water can typically occur due to radiation from the star (as opposed to, say tidal forces like some moons). As far as we know, liquid water is required for life. However, the habitable zone is quite large - if Earth was the size of a marble, the habitable zone would be the width ... | [
"Just to add to this, Mars is about as close to the \"outside\" of the habitable zone as Earth is to the \"inside\"."
] |
[
"What advances or changes in design have made modern engines so much smaller and more powerful than their older counterparts?"
] | [
false
] | I have always been pretty confused at the power discrepancy between modern engines and older engines. weighs 22 tons and only produces only 110 HP. Shouldn't the 22 ton engine have enormous displacement? I understand that, as a hit and miss, it fires only when it "needs to", but under maximum load such as when testing its maximum horsepower shouldn't it fire every time like a modern engine? If so what is the difference between it and a tiny outboard motor that produces 200 HP? Another question along the same vein: I was watching the trying to find an answer to this. "Otto's engines were much too large and clumsy for a car, but one of his employees called Gottlieb Daimler developed a much smaller engine" that "produced nearly as much power" as its larger counterpart. I thought "I've found the missing link!", but I haven't been able to find much information on Daimler's high speed engine. What exactly did he do to go from hulking behemoth to compact machine with nearly no loss in power? | [
"This is a pretty loaded question, and there are a couple different major factors at play here (with a slew of secondary supporting factors).",
"First and foremost, your example is not just comparing engines of different vintages, it's comparing two engines with extremely different designs. Among many things, th... | [
"Dude, sorry, but you don't seem to be qualified to answer questions on this topic.",
"The short answer is that if Engine A is huge and outputs 100HP, and Engine B is small and outputs 100 HP; Engine B is more efficient.",
"This is incorrect, or at the very least extremely vague and not in keeping with the stan... | [
"There are several factors that are combined to make the modern engine. First things first, the kind of engine is every important, for example electric engines have a lot of HP for their size thanks to fact that the shaft is the only moving part, so it's really only limited to current and keeping it cool.",
"Spe... |
[
"How do they make quartz vibrate at an exact number of gigahertz for chips? Is there a special way to size or cut them? What is involved?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"In watches, Quartz crystals are the norm now. Basically the Piezo-electric effect. When you apply a force on the crystal, it will release a voltage, so if you apply a small voltage, it will oscillate. Most quartz crystals in watches mainly use 32.768kHz frequencies, and so this is the amount of counts to advance b... | [
"First of all, you shouldn't post this as a comment but in the text field in your actual question.",
"You have mixed up CPUs with crystal oscillators. A crystal oscillator contains a crystal that does indeed vibrate at a very precise frequency. Processors, however, does not \"vibrate\" in the same way. A computer... | [
"There are no quarz-oscillators that vibrate at frequencys beyond 50Mhz. \nFor most digital circuits a PLL is used. This uses a slow quartz oscillator at some MHz as reference, to generate a clock signal at some GHz.",
"For RF stuff you also find osciallotors based on GUNN-Elements, YIG and other fun and interest... |
[
"Why do dogs tilt their heads sideways when trying to process something mentally?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"i've always seen it as a visual que of \" say that again, or come back again\" somewhat a partial understanding and interest"
] | [
"I don't think they do for the processing itself, rather for information gathering. IIRC, that's a visual aid--shifting one eye enhances depth processing by adding a new point of reference."
] | [
"It could also act as a social mechanism, showing a sort of inquisitive-curiosity body language might bring other members of the pack in to observe "
] |
[
"At what points on or above the Earth does a GPS stop functioning?"
] | [
false
] | I know in tunnels or in city areas it can be troublesome at times, but do GPS work in all places on the surface of the Earth generally speaking? Also, at what altitude would they stop working? If I were to go to space and be next to a GPS unit would it give me valid information? | [
"GPS units have ",
"been used in space",
" to track to position of satellites that are above the GPS satellites.",
"A GPS works based on information about where the satellites are (which is included in the signal), and the distance from the satellites (really the precise timing of how long it took to reach th... | [
"Well, legally you can't own a GPS receiver that operates above 11 miles due to weaponization concerns. That's a human law though, lets assume you had one that bypassed the restrictions.",
"I can't think of any reason they wouldn't work even if the receiver was right next to another GPS satellite. There are funct... | [
"You need a signal from at least three satellites to find your location.",
"Four, technically. With three, you still have two valid solutions to the set of time/distance equations - one where you actually are and one at the \"mirrored\" position with respect to the plane spanned by the three satellites."
] |
[
"Does centripetal force cause the same time dilating effects as surface gravity (i.e gravity generated from mass)?"
] | [
false
] | Hi All, I work in a stem cell lab and use centrifuges daily to spin cells to the bottom of flasks and what not. We measure the force generated from the centrifuge in RCF, which to my misinformed understanding kind of translates to G. Does the RCF or G experienced by my cells inside to centrifuge cause time to pass more slowly for these cells relative to me, standing outside the centrifuge? I wanted to put a timer inside the centrifuge (or two to balance it) and have another with me to try measure the effects, but thought I should ask first to limit to possibility of me breaking stuff. Thanks | [
"Last time I asked this question I got \"No\" as an answer, because the principle only holds locally. For example gravity results in tidal forces, acceleration does not. I'm a layman and on a cellphone, but if you're inclined you can scour my message history from when I asked this same thing here before.",
"EDIT:... | [
"The centrifuge would slow down time for your cells as it gets faster, thus increasing the Gravity in that location. I imagine space-time like blanket and when something has a high mass in comparison to other areas it possesses more gravity in comparison as well. The higher gravity \"weighs down\" the blanket. In ... | [
"When I first asked the question I did some research on Wiki, for example on the LHC. While you there have special relativity due to the relative high velocity you also have (what I can guess is) high acceleration in a circular path. This acceleration, according to what I could find, did not result in the same effe... |
[
"If you flash freeze water, will it still expand in the same way as 'normal', gradual freezing?"
] | [
false
] | One of the main issues for cryogenic freezing is that the water is the blood expands. The blood vessels housed in the haversian and volkman canals in turn expand and cause microfractures throughout the osteons. It is often quoted that flash freezing is a way to overcome this, but is that entirely true? Would it not be more effective to find a way to safely introduce an antifreeze chemical like that seen in some Arctic fish species? | [
"Water will expand regardless of how it is frozen; however, what changes is the size of the average ice crystal. When you slow freeze water it tends to build one giant crystal over time since water can slowly collect and arrange itself to form a unified solid. When you flash freeze each water molecule basicall... | [
"From a physics perspective, do you think it would be possible to near instantaneously freeze blood to the point where the crystals are small enough not to expand beyond the capacity of the Haversian canal? How would you go about doing this?",
"No. When ice crystals form, the space occupied by ",
" expands, so ... | [
"Thanks, that's really interesting. From a physics perspective, do you think it would be possible to near instantaneously freeze blood to the point where the crystals are small enough not to expand beyond the capacity of the Haversian canal? How would you go about doing this?"
] |
[
"What does this answer for the integration of sqrt{1+x^3} mean?"
] | [
false
] | So I'm using the sympy library in Python, and I wanted to see the result for the integration of sqrt{1+x^3}. The answer I got was . I only recognize the Gamma Function notation in this expression, but I don't know how I can evaluate this. What does the F_1( ) represent? Some observations: I tried using limits as (0,3) in this integral, and got a real valued . The intergration for sqrt{1+x^k} is , which is pretty neat! | [
"The function 2F1 is the ordinary ",
"hypergeometric function",
", here expressed with a = -1/2, b = 1/3, c = 4/3 and z = -x",
". You can check the documentation for ",
"sympy.hyper",
".",
"It's a power series type expression that can express a large family of parametrized functions with different choic... | [
"One of the better references for the hypergeometric function(and a whole lot more) is ",
"Abramowitz and Stegun",
" if anyone wants to look deeper.",
"It was written in the 50s for the US government so it's very nicely in the public domain and you can find in many places online."
] | [
"I can't break down this integration for you, because I simply don't know how it happens. But I can say that it's not at all difficult to find simple elementary functions whose integrals (antiderivatives) aren't elementary. Symbolic integration is just a really tricky problem.",
"The Gamma function is maybe even ... |
[
"How much does metabolism factor into alcohol tolerance?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"When people refer to metabolism they usually mean basal metabolic rate which is the amount of energy burned at rest. This doesn't really come into play with alcohol tolerance as alcohol breakdown is determined by alcohol dehydrogenase concentration in the liver and body composition. Regardless it only really var... | [
"That might be tricky problem to solve, because I'm sure some of it is perception as well. ",
"Have access to a breathalyzer? That'd be a fun experiment, take readings from each in the am and see if there's really a difference in metabolism or if the difference is mostly perception based. "
] | [
"maybe your friend and you could go halfsies...for science! \nstill a bit much, but if you ever decide to go through with some experimentation, come back to the thread and let me know!"
] |
[
"Would a sharpie work in zero gravity?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"If you were correct, then you wouldn't be able to write with a sharpie for an extended period of time on the ceiling. Sharpies feed ink primarily based on ",
"Capillary Action",
". Try it."
] | [
"If you were correct, then you wouldn't be able to write with a sharpie for an extended period of time on the ceiling. Sharpies feed ink primarily based on ",
"Capillary Action",
". Try it."
] | [
"In the context of this discussion, positive Gs would pull ink towards tip when tip is oriented Down. Zero G would have no pull. Negative Gs would pull the ink in the opposite direction, i.e. towards the rear of the marker as it was pointed up towards the ceiling. A sharpie will work through ",
"Capillary Actio... |
[
"How/why do high-elevation limestone formations exist?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Tectonics / deformation. Most limestones are marine and form at / very near sea level (there are lake carbonates, which can form in high elevation lakes, but the vast majority of carbonates are marine). Deformation of rocks, driven ultimately by motion of the tectonic plates, can exhume or bury rocks depending on ... | [
"Portions of the rocks which make up the Himalaya are marine rocks, yes. This is pretty common in collisional mountain ranges (i.e. the Himalaya are not unique in this respect in any way) because the formation of a collisional mountain range is usually preceded by consumption of an ocean basin by subduction and the... | [
"For an even more dramatic example of this, the rocks at the summit of Mount Everest are composed of fossil-bearing ",
"marine limestones",
"."
] |
[
"After the nuclear explosion at Hiroshima, the shadows of some victims were left on the ground, and some are even etched in stone to this day. What causes this to happen?"
] | [
false
] | I would however like it explained very, very simply if possible. I'm a fairly simple man myself. | [
"As I understand it:",
"Light and/or heat from atomic bomb explosion bleached the concrete sidewalks. If someone was standing there, the light didn't hit the sidewalk to bleach it, so the shadows are the unbleached parts."
] | [
"Nuclear weapons are incredibly bright, so much so that a large portion of the blast energy and almost all of the heat comes from the light. Everything around the object is burnt/bleached when the flash occurs. It is such a quick effect(about 10 seconds), however, that even being out of direct line of sight will me... | [
"I noticed how that featureless cinderblock house took the blast way better than any of the other buildings, I wonder if that has anything to do with why they were such a popular design back then."
] |
[
"How do water-soluable ingredients, like sugar, affect the volume of a system?"
] | [
false
] | My fiancee and I were curious when we were measuring out ingredients for dinner tonight. If I have 1/4 cup of sugar and mix it with 3/4 cup of water, is the total volume of the system 1 cup, or because sugar is water-soluable, is the total volume less than that? | [
"Good question. It actually varies a bit, depending on the way that the molecules are solvated. Any solute going into water is going to disrupt the natural state of liquid water's structure. And that can go either way. Some salts will actually make the overall structure more compact than it was before, and you'll g... | [
"So then the question that follows from my fiancee would be, if I measured them in the same cup (in this case, measured out 1/4 cup of sugar and then filled it with water until it hit the 1 cup mark), would it be \"accurate\" or should we not be lazy with the measuring?"
] | [
"I'd say that you shouldn't be lazy, unfortunately. You're going to be off by a significant amount compared to measuring the dry ingredients (sugar) and the liquids in separate containers.",
"Here's an article on making nectar solutions for hummingbirds that goes into this exact problem:",
"http://www.museum.ls... |
[
"[Chemistry] How does a bond store energy?"
] | [
false
] | Hi! I'm currently studying Biochemistry and one of the fundamental molecules for all biochemical reactions is of course ATP. I still cannot grasp the concept however, how ATP stores energy. There is hydrolysis of bonds that releases phosphate groups and is I understand, forming a bond releases energy whereas destroying it needs energy. In the case of ATP you break a anhydride bond making it ADP and Phosphate - with a release of energy. Where does the energy stored in those bonds come from? I get that the Phosphate in the body is never actually used up - its just split off and then later reused. And when regenerating the ATP you have a proton gradient that drives the ATP Synthase. but how is a bond actually storing energy ? I'm really confused about that... | [
"I will try to give you a super simple answer to your question using an analogy.",
"So, imagine a ball on a hill, this ball is on the top of the hill in a small divot and isn't moving, but clearly would fall and release potential energy if it wasn't held in place. This ball is in a \"high\" potential energy state... | [
"In the case of ATP, from what I understand, the ATP is rather unstable. It takes a lot of energy to force three bulky phosphate groups into such a small area, so ATP easily hydrolyses to ADP+Pi. This reaction can be coupled to other ones to drive it. ",
"I.e. you take the weak ATP bonds with high energy electron... | [
"The triphosphate groups store a lot of electronegativity (P is fairly electronegative, O is very electronegative) and the individual phosphate groups sterically hinder each other. Getting rid of a phosphate can help that and release a lot of energy.",
"Also, any energy required to make a bond is what you get whe... |
[
"How is it possible that scars remain visible after decades?"
] | [
false
] | Doesn't the regeneration of cells in the skin eventually make the scar disappear? | [
"Asked three days ago",
". Please use the search function."
] | [
"A quick search will tell you when the cut goes past the skin cells scaring occurs, it is a connective-like tissue, not made of living cells "
] | [
"Pravusmentis was correct, it is not made of living cells. Scar tissue is the result of our blood-clotting response to cuts. We evolved the ability to stop bleeding within minutes/hours by compromising the regeneration of normal dermal layers in that area. Without normal dermal layers the area will not regenerate n... |
[
"Why don't satellites fall into an equatorial orbit around planets?"
] | [
false
] | The planets roughly orbit the sun's equator, right? Why can we send satellites in any directional orbit around a planet that we want? Why don't they eventually fall into an equatorial orbit? | [
"It's not that the planets have fallen on to the sun's equator, so much as that their creation shared a common angular momentum. The sun rotates in the same plane as the planets orbit because as these particles collapsed they preserved the net angular momentum.",
"But satellites are launched into orbit and then h... | [
"I don't think there's any reason for satellites if the Earth to \"naturally\" change from their current orbit to an equatorial orbit. In fact, near earth orbits along the equator are subject to more perturbations of their orbit than satellites in stable orbits at about 65 and 115 degrees IIRC.",
"Plus, Pluto is... | [
"Satellites actually do do that, to some extend. Nearly all satellites have some sort of stationkeeping capabilities to maintain their orbits from various perturbations. The thing is, those perturbations are usually extremely minor, and it would generally take tens or hundreds of years at the minimum to make real... |
[
"Why are drinks carbonated with carbon dioxide instead of another gas?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Another important reason is solubility. CO2 is about 200 times more soluble in water than nitrogen and oxygen, 100 times more than argon or helium, etc. That means a soft drink that's been pressurized with one of those gasses will go flat faster than a co2 drink.",
"There are gasses more soluble than CO2, like... | [
"CO2 was the first form of gas dissolved in soft drinks. When you make root beer from scratch the yeast will consume the sugar to produce CO2 as a waste product. When in a sealed container, the gas will dissolve into solution. It made for a nice effect, you open the container and the gas release would create a f... | [
"Thank you! This is the best answer of them all. CO2 is highly soluble in water, hence why it is found so often in nature."
] |
[
"Why do White Blood Cells not form clots in capillary beds?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"It isn't the size of sickle cells that's the problem. It's their shape. Their distorted shape causes them to not move through the capillaries as smoothly. These blockages accumulate and can lead to organ damage due to hypoxia.",
"It isn't the cells that clot; it's clotting factors (certain proteins) in the blood... | [
"Thank you for bringing up the rigidity. That is another aspect of the pathophysiology I hadn't thought to mention. I barely scratched the surface, just enough to answer OP's questions and correct some misconceptions. The pathophysiology is very complex and entire textbooks have been written about it.",
"But you'... | [
"It isn't the size of sickle cells that's the problem. It's their shape",
"I think it's more about rigidity/elasticity. Normal hemoglobin has charged amino acid residues which repel each other. In sickle-cell disease, they are substituted for valine, which is neutral. Rather than repelling, they stick to each oth... |
[
"How does shingles cause a rash when the infection is located all the way in the dorsal ganglia?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The varicella zoster virus (VZV) can lie dormant in the dorsal root ganglia for decades after the immune system has cleared the virus from the rest of the body (from an initial chickenpox infection). ",
"However, once reactivated, the VZV resumes replication and virions are transported through neural cells from... | [
"I see thank you"
] | [
"As a followup, how do we know that the cells are lying dormant in the dorsal root ganglia?"
] |
[
"What would happen if a drug addict was hit with amnesia?"
] | [
false
] | Would he lose his addiction? | [
"It's a fair question, because it's hard to imagine an addict who doesn't know their addiction.",
"A more polite answer would point out that they would suffer withdrawal symptoms and either stumble across something that \"fixes\"them, or seek medical treatment, or recover from them, or die."
] | [
"But would they know the source and solution to their pain?"
] | [
"There doesn't have to be dependence or tolerance for there to be an addiction. For opioids and alcohol and some other substances, yes that is the case, but the notion that there has to be tolerance and dependence to classify a it as an addiction or substance use disorder is a big misconception. ",
"Morphine does... |
[
"Is there a definitive moment where you transition from \"awake\" to \"asleep\"? What happens at that time, if it exists?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"There is not a precise moment when the transition occurs. In simple terms, this is because different parts of the brain can \"fall asleep\" at different times.",
"The way the onset of sleep is usually defined is in terms of ",
" brain activity, as measured using the electroencephalogram (EEG), i.e., electrodes... | [
"Sleep onset has associated amnesia that is normal as you transition to sleep. The amount of amnesia though, is variable. This is why you never remember when you fall asleep. Although generally sleep and wake is considered mutually exclusive, that is not always the case. So sometimes there is some bleeding of one... | [
"There seems to be a window of tiredness for falling asleep, and if sleep doesn't occur within that window the person feels more awake and has trouble falling asleep.",
"There are many reasons that this can occur. A common reason among people in modern society is light-induced delay of the circadian rhythm.",
"... |
[
"How can you melt styrofoam to remove the air and then reuse the raw material for remolding into something else."
] | [
false
] | I've seen how they recycle syrofoam by heating and melting it but it's used for hard plastics like windowframes and whatnot. What I'd like to know is, is it possible to use the dense material and remake/ mold it back into styrofoam? I've seen the machines in China do this but they all use a base powderlike material that expands 50 times its size when heated with steam and fuses into it's shape. Reason I'm asking is there's many environmental uses and applications for styrofoam. (insulation, building etc) getting hold of it is easy but meling it down and then reshaping back is proving difficult to find information on. Help ! | [
"Acetone will melt it, then it gets hard again after the acetone evaporates. Doesn't resemble Styrofoam anymore though, more like regular hard plastic."
] | [
"I was at a talk by Phil ",
"Jessop",
" not too long ago when he was talking about this. ",
"Recycling styrofoam is non-trivial to do (cheaply) because the air bubbles (and most of styrofoam is air) messes up extrusion and other large scale processes. It's simply cheaper to make new stuff from scratch. One ... | [
"Instead of just a question about the science, it sounds like you're actually trying to do ",
" with it (i.e., have an application in mind). What is it that you're trying to do? What does \"no chemical\" mean? What facilities do you have available? Where are you getting your scraps from? How are you getting ... |
[
"How does gravity work? How is it that something, just because it has mass, pulls everything towards it?"
] | [
false
] | Why is this big dead rock pulling on me just because it's a big dead rock? | [
"Well, at some level the answer to every \"how\" question just leads to more \"how\" questions.",
"Right now, our best understanding of gravity is that it's the curvature of spacetime, and that \"time\" bit is important.",
"Let's start with flat spacetime. In everyday, uncurved, flat spacetime (which is really ... | [
"If you find out, you can go get your nobel prize in Stockholm "
] | [
"Think of space-time as a fabric with a giant massive ball on it as your massive object. That ball depresses the fabric and other masses will roll down into it if they come too close. Time is also slower because space-time are linked. If the RATE of time depended on the smoothness of this fabric, an indentation wou... |
[
"How does neutral odor-neutralizers work?"
] | [
false
] | I just got to thinking about this. I remember in "Police Academy" (Movie), one of the guys used an air freshener to remove the gas (did not work ofcourse). Got me thinking, those neutral ones, how do they remove smell? I guess the same can be applied to deodorants too. | [
"Some of them contains a molecule that's donut-shaped, with the donut-hole having affinity to smelly molecules; an example of this pairing is ",
"cyclodextrin",
" (as host), and ",
"thiols",
" as guest. As the smelly molecules are now sequestered, they are no longer available for your odor receptors, thus ... | [
"He's asking about products that ",
" use a masking scent, but rather neutralize the smell completely."
] | [
"Thank you! Good fun fact too :)"
] |
[
"How small is the smallest possible rocket that can reach space?"
] | [
false
] | To make it simple: A regular cigar-shaped solid-fuel rocket. It can be multi-staged if necessary, but stages are sitting on top of each other (i.e. no strapped-on boosters). Space is defined as begining at 100km above sea-level. Launched from equator. Propellant, can be any solid propellant (not sure what is the best). I am not sure how to do the math. I am looking for diameter and length of the rocket as well as amount of propellant on board. I am sure someone must have calculated this before. Can anybody point to some references? | [
"Data point: ",
"this amateur rocket",
" reached an altitude of 115 km and it is 21 feet long, 10 inch diameter with a launch weight of 724 lbs."
] | [
"That's pretty awesome."
] | [
"Nice find! thank you."
] |
[
"What state of matter do soap bubbles fall into?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"the bubble part is liquid, the air inside is gas"
] | [
"At the interface between the air and the water, there will be a layer of ",
"surfactant",
" molecules (the soap). Part of the surfactant molecule is hydrophilic, and part is hydrophobic. The molecules arrange themselves along the surface so that the hydrophilic part is facing the water and the hydrophobic pa... | [
"Byron690 has it exactly right. Something interesting to note is that if it was a bubble of just a pure liquid and gas, it probably wouldn't be stable. You need what is known as a surfactant, in this case soap, to lower the surface tension. This effect helps stabilize the bubble. "
] |
[
"How strongly does the IQ bell curve correlate with achievement?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Here's",
" a paper that attempts to relate Piaget IQ tests to standardized test scores for school achievement, and finds little overlap.",
"This",
" study states >When success measures were regressed against intelligence and personality scales or factors, intelligence did not account for variance beyond that... | [
"They do answer your question. The answer is \"less than the majority\". Especially that 3rd paper I referenced. I realize you probably don't have access to the full article, but allow me to pull out some key points.",
"Under the section: Employment Prospects and Wealth Generation ",
"To what extent do IQ score... | [
"Define success. "
] |
[
"What is the reason for goosebumps?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Yup! Here's some copy pasta: \nGoosebumps are a physiological phenomenon inherited from our animal ancestors, which was useful to them but are not of much help to us. Goosebumps are tiny elevations of the skin that resemble the skin of poultry after the feathers have been plucked. (Therefore we could as well call ... | [
"If were as hairy as our ancestors, goosebumps would fluff our coat to make us look bigger and scare off attackers. ",
"At least that is what my 10th grade biology teacher told me back in 1979. If science has come up with a better answer since then, I apologize. "
] | [
"By erecting hairs in animals that haven't lost their fur, more air is trapped in the fur, keeping the animal warmer. "
] |
[
"Why don't they power comet landers like the Philae with small, reliable nuclear generators like they did with Voyager II (which is still generating power now 37 years later)?"
] | [
false
] | Philae has been with very low power levels since it set down on the comet a few weeks ago, because its solar cells are not receiving enough direct sunlight (press says it's likely in a shadowy area of the comet). Why did mission designers subject such an important aspect of the mission (power!) to the variability of sunlight coupled with the highly variable landing conditions and terrain? Aren't reliable, small, tested and tried radioisotope thermoelectric generators readily available? Haven't they been successfully used in space exploration for many decades? | [
"Aren't reliable, small, tested and tried radioisotope thermoelectric generators readily available?",
"No, they're rare and very expensive. The United States stopped producing plutonium ",
"238",
" (the kind used in Voyager) in 1988, and starting purchasing it from Russia. ",
"Now even Russia is running out... | [
"It's not a nuclear reactor per say. It's a radioisotope thermal generator, which takes heat and converts it to electricity using the thermoelectric effect. RTGs use radioactive material but they do not utilize fission or fusion and are not reactors. ",
"RTGs have a lot of mass for their power output. If you put ... | [
"Pity Philae was sent by the Europeans then?"
] |
[
"If our intestines are filled with other living creatures, how did THEY get there?"
] | [
false
] | Its said that the majority of our digestion is owed to a staggering host of bacteria that preside within our flesh-guts. Its the reason we can process grains and such, but how did they get there? Is a fetus in a womb containing the same bacteria we are? Are they getting them from their mother, or what? | [
"Initially, the microbiota in the guts is seeded by the mother during birth. There are bacterial populations in the birth canal that essentially get smeared on the baby's face during birth, and these are the first species that get into the gut. These are really important too, and not just for digestion. The gut ... | [
"In theory it's possible, but I don't think elective C-section is ever a good idea, because it's still pretty major surgery. I also don't think it's necessary, as having 'poor' microbiota is due more to absence of good species than presence of bad. If there are concerns about the quality of microbiota, a ",
"fe... | [
"During a vaginal birth, the doctors/nurses don't need to take any care to ensure the bacteria colonize. Bacteria are hearty fellows, and if they get on the baby's nose/mouth (which they will), they will assuredly find their way to the digestive tract.",
"As for babies born via C-section, I can't speak as to the... |
[
"Why do we care about the heavy elements like 119 and 120 that decay in like .00002 seconds? What could we possibly use it for?"
] | [
false
] | why do we care tho? to prove we can? | [
"Producing and studying them allows us to constrain theoretical models of nuclear structure, and possibly atomic structure as well.",
"There are around 3000 known nuclear species and about 7000 predicted to exist. Many of these 4000 undiscovered nuclides are either producible using existing technology, or will be... | [
"We want to confirm the laws of physics as we understand them. Say we are looking for 119. Our models will give us an idea of that that nuclei will look like. The geometry of the nuclei is very important in understanding and calculating the energy of an emitted particle. So we make predictions about the alpha decay... | [
"ANY information we can gather is good for the overall model. If it exists someone will be studying it."
] |
[
"Does the average person think s/he is smarter than the average person?"
] | [
false
] | ...much like the average person thinks s/he is more attractive than they actually are (from a study I've read on here before). Seems like the more people I meet, the more I realize how many ignorant fools think that they're more informed/intelligent/cultured than the great majority, when they usually aren't. | [
"Yes! It's called the ",
"Dunning-Kruger effect",
"."
] | [
"Im on the phone right now, so I can't look up the article. But they once held a study in which people were asked to rate their intelligence and whether or not they were above average. Afterwards they were told almost everyone claimed to be above average and explained how this was impossible. Then, they offered sub... | [
"Damnit. I guess I overestimated my ability to post this first."
] |
[
"What causes nightmares?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"According",
" to Dr. Antti Revonsuo nightmares are rehearsals (training) for the daily struggle to survive. I.e. they are simulations which allow us to act accordingly in real situations. For example, a wolf pack is chasing you, you run and keep running no matter what. ",
"In modern days it is not very likely ... | [
"They did a study, and sorry askscience im on my phone so i cant link it, but basically they took mice and stuck them in cages filled with water at the bottom and a doughnut shaped object in the middle of the cage. The mice would attempt to sleep by climbing on top the doughnut but as soon as they fell into the dee... | [
"I think this goes a little too far in assuming that dreams and nightmares are a purposeful action by the mind. It would be just as valid to suppose that with the necessary reduction of sensory input that occurs during sleep, the brain is free to continue cycling through memories and predictions.",
"If this does... |
[
"Based on order of magnitude, are humans closer in size to the Planck length or the diameter entire observable universe?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Human: 1 m. Plank Length: 10",
" m. Observable universe diameter: 10",
" m."
] | [
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe"
] | [
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe"
] |
[
"Why does your throat get sore?"
] | [
false
] | This might be a really silly question, sorry. When you get a cold, why does your throat get sore? I understand why your nose might run or get blocked and why you might have a cough or a headache etc, but I can't think of why your throat gets sore. What immune purpose does it serve? | [
"The confusion here seems to stem from “purpose” of immune reactions. While the other symptoms you mentioned do serve a function (like coughing to get the pathogen out), not all immune reactions are for the same reason. A sore throat (a sore anything, really) is cause by inflammation in the area, which really just ... | [
"This is perfect because I woke up with a sore throat today. The covid test was negative so just some other annoying virus."
] | [
"This is perfect because I woke up with a sore throat today. The covid test was negative so just some other annoying virus."
] |
[
"If everyone started driving electric cars tomorrow, how would it effect our power requirements? Would there be a significant increase in power draw?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"There are about 254 million vehicles in use in the U.S., and they're driven about 3 trillion total miles.",
"If all of those miles were driven in EVs, and those EVs averaged about 3 miles per kwh (at the power plant), then that would require about 1 trillion kwh.",
"The U.S. produces about 4 trillion kwh / yea... | [
"Very interesting. I suppose the increase of EVs could wind up balancing out the reduction on power use being noticed by power companies due to solar panels.",
"Thanks"
] | [
"Perhaps, except EVs don't typically charge when solar is producing. Rather, a concurrent increase in both solar and EVs might mean a leveling out of the load profile curve.",
"Other forms of generation will be needed less during the day and needed more overnight, so plants can be operated in a more continuous fa... |
[
"Due to the effects of time dilation, would a computer placed on Pluto outperform an identical computer placed on Earth over the same Earthly time period?"
] | [
false
] | Pluto has a lower equatorial surface gravity, equatorial rotation velocity and orbital speed. Relative to Earth, time should be faster, right? Would the Plutonian computer be able to accomplish more tasks in an Earth year than it's Earthly counterpart? | [
"Relativistic effects can be caused by gravity; blackholes, satellites, and Mercury are all impacted by this.",
"Why do you dismiss such effects as relevant for a computer on Pluto versus Earth?"
] | [
"Your question is ambiguous because you don't specify how you measure time for the respective computers. ",
"If you have a clock next to each of the computers, and you measure how long it will take for the computer to perform a particular calculation, then you would get the same result on Pluto and Earth, because... | [
"the computer on Earth would say it is working faster than the one on Pluto.",
"No it would not. What general relativity says is you cannot tell the difference between uniform gravitation and uniform acceleration. It is however quite possible to tell the difference between being neither accelerated or affected by... |
[
"Why does Saturn's belt always look extremely smooth in pictures?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Each rock that makes up Saturn’s rings is incredibly small when compared to the size of the planet and the ring itself. Most pictures are taken at a pretty big distance. ",
"Earth looks fully smooth when we see pictures of it in space, but we know from living here that it’s anything but."
] | [
"The surface of the earth is basically as smooth as your skin.",
"There’s obviously some texture there, but fairly homogenous."
] | [
"The surface of the earth is basically as smooth as your skin.",
"There’s obviously some texture there, but fairly homogenous."
] |
[
"What would the gravitational pull of earth be if it wasn't spinning?"
] | [
false
] | Or is the spin too slow to have a significant effect on gravity. | [
"About the same. The centripetal acceleration you feel is about 0.3% as strong as the gravitational."
] | [
"3.5oz = ~100 grams",
"\nSeeing ounces in there with all the metric makes me uncomfortable."
] | [
"If you weighed 60 kg and the earth stopped spinning you would weigh about 3.5 ounces more. your mass multiplied by velocity squared divided by the earths radius is equal to the centripetal force working against gravity.",
"Earth rotates at ~465m/s radius of the earth is ~6370 km plug in your weight do the math ;... |
[
"What is happening in your stomach when you hear it \"rumble\"?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"From a Google search of 'stomach rumbling':",
"The \"rumble\" or \"growl\" sometimes heard from the stomach is a normal part of digestion. It originates in the stomach or upper part of the small intestine as muscles contract to move food and digestive juices down the gastrointestinal tract and functions as a sor... | [
"From an article in the citations of the Wiki:",
"Though stomach growling is commonly heard and associated with hunger and an absence of food in the stomach, it can occur at any time, on an empty or full stomach. Furthermore, growling doesn't only come from the stomach but, just as often, can be heard coming from... | [
"It's called the cephalic phase of digestion in which the gastrointestinal tract readies itself for food delivery in response to smelling or even thinking about food. There is a release of certain chemical messengers which cause the secretion of hydrochloric acid and enzymes, and also stimulate the muscular layers ... |
[
"[Archaeology] Why is all the ancient stuff buried? Like wells, roman walls an such. Does the earth eat it?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Think about it this way: We find these archaeological sites thousands of years after they were inhabited. What happened in those thousands of years?",
"Well one scenario is that it was probably underground to begin with. Many archaeological sites consist of graves, garbage pits, wells, things that are built to b... | [
"I would also like to add, while not in all sites and the opposite can happen as well, in the majority of sites sinking and swallowing happening at differing rates.",
"Water, floods or rain water in general permeate the ground which allows solid structures to sink over time.",
"How much of a difference that mak... | [
"Lots of good points here. It all depends on the environment. In southern Ontario, where I've done a lot of work, the typical topsoil is on average about 20-30cm thick, and that's where all the archaeological materials are. Below that is the strata that was deposited when the glaciers were still around, so that 30c... |
[
"if perpetual motion isnt possible, then how have things been moving for 16+ billion years? isnt that essentially perpetual motion?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"What's referred to by a \"perpetual motion machine\" is something that does work for free. So for example you can have a pendulum that rocks back and forth in perpetual motion (though in reality friction will slow it down) but what is forbidden is extracting some ",
" energy out of it. So you can't use a pendulu... | [
"so why does the universe overall seem to have perpetual motion, but we cant make a perpetual motion machine without feeding it energy from outside?"
] | [
"Inertia, conservation of energy, and conservation of momentum all keep things moving. "
] |
[
"How strong is the evidence for alternative hypotheses for the dinosaur extinction event?"
] | [
false
] | Meteorite strike: I get it. Big bump, irridium, dinos dead. But recently I ran into a geologist who is pointed out that there are other, bigger, craters that are not associated with mass extinctions, and who is convinced there story behind the K-Pg mass extinction event is more complicated. I'm not asking what happened per se, but if there any sense to these alternatives, scientifically speaking? Is this just crackpot pseudoscience or is there some merit? How can you tell? | [
"What caused the end Cretaceous, i.e., the K-Pg (or K-T in older publications) extinction remains a point of argument. The two important things workers quibble over, both for the impact hypothesis or others, are (1) timing (i.e., did the supposed event that caused the extinction occur coincident with the extinction... | [
"This is an excellent answer that puts it all very succinctly and has a couple of interesting references I’ve not come across before (it’s so easy to get fatigued of reading through people’s arguments against the ",
" cause than the one they’re researching, I think I kinda gave up on news about the K-Pg boundary)... | [
"That's a fair criticism to the \"there have been bigger impacts without mass extinctions\" point. You get sort of a similar issue with the Deccan Traps argument as well, i.e. \"We've had other continental flood basalts that didn't cause a mass extinction\". The poster child for continental flood basalts causing a ... |
[
"Why does blood testing make us feel lightheaded if we don't consume food beforehand?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"A simple blood test does that to you?",
"I'd say that's more of a mental thing. The small amount of blood taken for blood tests (2 or 3 teaspoons) usually isn't enough to cause light-headedness, unless you're very tiny."
] | [
"As others have said, this is not due to loss of blood glucose, blood pressure/blood volume, or any other mechanical process. This is caused by a process called vasovagal syncope. Certain stimulants (such as seeing blood, pain, needles, etc) cause a rapid increase in parasympathetic tone via the vagus nerve. This c... | [
"What you describe has nothing to do with blood volume - it's a nervous response. The small volume of blood taken for testing is insignificant as far as your total blood volume goes, even if you are a small skinny person.",
"My wife has this as well - she often passes out during blood tests. She's not scared of n... |
[
"Why does sound from the TV sound fine when played back to us, but if it's recorded by another device, and then played back, it sounds horribly weird?"
] | [
false
] | You can always tell when someone doesn't have a digital PVR and are just recording shows with a camera pointed at the screen. One factor is the audio. Why is it that the TV can sound fine, but if you record that audio, it sounds horrible when played back? | [
"Mostly it'll be a combination of a low quality microphones being used, low quality speakers in the TV, and coloration of the sound from the room. This situation is analogous to a JPEG being recompressed over and over."
] | [
"also lets say you are watching a movie. When they edit the movie they make sure to take out all ambient sounds out and digitally enhancing it so that you only hear what they want you to hear. When you record it most people don't bother to do this"
] | [
"For the same reasoning if you took a digital picture of a painting, and then took a picture of your picture with your cellphone camera. Why doesn't the cellphone camera's picture look as good as the painting?"
] |
[
"Why do animals have a much shorter lifespan than humans?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"We are animals. We've found cures and treatments to extend our lives. The average human life expectancy was ~26 in pre-agricultural times.",
"There are also plenty of animals that live longer than us, such as tortoises, lobsters, several species of birds, Sturgeons, Eels, Whales, Some sharks, mussels, clams, etc... | [
"The lifespan of an animal is going to the the one that has been selected by evolution as being optimal for passing the animal´s genes to the next generation. \nYou can have a species that has a long lifespan and has one/two offspring per year for 50 years. Or you produce 1000 offspring in one day and die afterward... | [
"Ah, so it's not about living longer, but simply living long enough to reproduce."
] |
[
"When lightning strikes the ocean, how far do the effects of the electricity go?"
] | [
false
] | It is well known that water is a good conductor of electricity. So when it gets struck, how far away from the original strike can the electricity be detected. Also, do the fish in the area feel it or have they evolved in such a way that they are "immune" to the electricity? Edit: So what actually inhibits the electricity from traveling an infinite distance. Also, when the lighting strikes and travels, does travel along a chain of positively charged Na ions or is there a field of ions created? | [
"Pure water is not a good conductor of electricity, but salts in the water can make good conductors. ",
"The lightning follows the path of least resistance, and does not enter the water immediately. Instead, it creates arc channels in a disk-shape on the surface of the water before entering the water. The voltage... | [
"Yes he meant less current.",
"The lightning follows the path of least resistance,",
"Not true. Lightning, like all electricity, follows all paths, not just the least resistant one. However, the current that flows to each path, is based on its resistance. So the extreme majority of current travels through the p... | [
"will experience less voltage",
"You mean less current, right?"
] |
[
"Is there a way to see if condensation will form given a set of conditions?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"the surface needs to be cooler than than the air otherwise the reverse reaction will happen and the water will evaporate"
] | [
"what your looking for is dew point tables"
] | [
"Ok, so why doesn't water condensate on me when I step outside if I'm 98F?"
] |
[
"What do we know about dinosaur agility?"
] | [
false
] | Were they quick and as mobile as their featherless representations in the Jurassic Park movies or slow and sedentary like modern reptiles? Does this have to do with the question of whether or not they were warm blooded? | [
"It's hard to give concrete estimates of speed from just fossils - certainly much harder than just measuring a living animal. Usually, some component of muscle reconstruction, range of motion analysis, and other facets of biomechanics go into estimates of speed. Different estimates have different advantages and dis... | [
"There was a recent Scott Hartman blog post about the mobility of Dromaeosaur tails, called ",
"Tails of Woe",
". Essentially Hartman points out that while Dromaeosaurs did have some limited flexibility at the base of their tails, particularly the ability to angle it upwards away from their body at about 80 de... | [
"There are fossilized footprints of dinosaurs, they were preserved as the mud petrified. From fossilized bones we know the length of the leg and the size of the dinosaur's body. Several clues are encoded behind this evidence. For instance, modern reptiles \"drag\" their bellies or keep them very close to the ground... |
[
"Can I use quantum entanglement to keep synchronized timing information in different frames of reference?"
] | [
false
] | Quantum Entanglement is nifty. Let's assume I can mass produce entanglement such that I've got two big vats of entangled stuff and I get slowly dribble it out so that I know I'm looking at the 'same' particle on Mars as is being messed with on Earth. Could I transfer TIMING information? Say by setting value A during even seconds and value B during odd seconds but with EXACT precision, say by examining one particle per millisecond? The question came up by wondering if I could use entanglement to keep time and avoid all the relativistic error handling that seems to have led to the FTL neutrino conundrum? | [
"I am totally not at all experienced in the quantum arts, but measuring an entangled particle in vat A wouldn't make its corresponding particle in vat B known to the Martians. The only thing that would happen is that if the Martians measured that particle in vat B and told us Earthians with conventional communicat... | [
"What some others have said here is only partly correct, because you can indeed use entanglement to improve clock synchronization, just not the way you suggested.",
"This paper (and related papers by the same authors) explains how: ",
"http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0103006",
"That wouldn't solve the problem w... | [
"If you have particles X and Y in an entangled state, observing either of them will destroy the entanglement.",
"What you are proposing is X being on Earth and Y being on Mars, and both X and Y can take values A and B. When you switch X from one state to the other, the people on Mars will have no idea of what has... |
[
"Does cancer evolve?"
] | [
false
] | So, i'm asking this partly based on some recent events in my life, though i'd prefer not to get into too many details. I know someone who was diagnosed with malignant melanoma, but they were lucky enough to qualify for a drug trial that specialized in late stage melanoma patients. The drug in question was only for patients whose cancer fit a particular genetic profile. Additionally the drug's effectiveness is known to decrease over time, partly because the cancer adapts around what the drug is inhibiting. This got me thinking however... Do cancers evolve similar to natural selection in more traditional organisms? Does this mean the likelihood of finding 'cures' for types of cancer would be tempered with a shelf life on how long that cure remains viable? It seems fascinating because on one level you have cancers which survive and adapt inside the ecosystem of their host, but on another level you have humans who are (sometimes) genetically predisposed to certain cancers. Successful treatment options presumably gives them an opportunity to spread those genes back into the greater population, giving those cancers more chances to be treated and (presumably) mutate around existing treatment methods on a long enough time line. Am I radically incorrect here? Is it possible, on a long enough time line, successful treatment of cancer will lead to more treatment resistant forms of cancer? | [
"Cancer is a clonal process, i.e. a single mutated cell starts dividing and progressively mutating further,and acquiring new characteristics over time, like losing the proteins necessary for attaching to other cells (and thus invading other places) or metastasizing. It is a Darwinian process. ",
"Nature paper on ... | [
"Are you familiar with the difference between somatic cells and germ-line cells? Germ-line cells are the cells that pass genetic information to offspring; human germ-line cells are sperm or eggs. Somatic cells are everything else. Cancer typically develops from somatic cells, and even if sperm or eggs became cancer... | [
"That makes total sense. I think my question is slightly different, however. ",
"For the part of the question relating to an increase in less-treatable cancers, I'm more curious if the fact that people can reproduce more and more frequently because of more successful cancer treatments will lead to a net increase ... |
[
"What is the coolest Astronomy fact that you know?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"The \"luminosity\" (i.e., energy produced per unit time) in gravitational waves as two black holes merge is greater than the luminosity of all the stars in the observable universe."
] | [
"That every atom in our bodies came from stars that exploded and died sending those building blocks out.",
"If you want it in Christian terms \"the sun died so we could live\" "
] | [
"Actually Christians think \"If the sun is a star, then how come it is a circle?\""
] |
[
"What would be the short and long term ramifications of being on an all-liquid diet vs a traditional solid food diet?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"I did it after a surgery. I can tell you my symptoms:",
"Diarrhea.. Assuming you're taking in the correct amount of calories and nutrients.. this will subside as your system adjusts. You will need to increase the amount of salts, or \"electrolytes\" to compensate for the high water intake.",
"An heavy increase... | [
"I've just recently started drinking a LOT more water, for health reasons. Could you elaborate on the health benefits you've experienced with the increased water consumption? :)"
] | [
"Almost noone is going to see this comment because it wasn't a very popular post, but it's a good question, and I'd advocate water any day. Probably going to go a little overboard on it, though.",
"I drink a bare minimum of 64oz of water per day. That's two xlarge gas station soda-fountain cups.",
"A few basics... |
[
"Which line of latitude divides the land-surface area of Earth into equal parts?"
] | [
false
] | Related questions: Which line of latitude divides the water-surface area of Earth into equal parts? Which line of latitude divides Earth's population into equal numbers? I would answer the question myself, but I have no experience with or access to GIS software. Maybe someone with an ArcGIS license can help me out? Question inspired by . . | [
"So, I calculated it using Mathematica and the WorldPlot package.",
"Here are the results:",
"For land",
"For Water",
"NOTE: I used the ",
"Mollweide projection",
" to ensure equal areas on the map.",
"For water, It is substantially at the equator (actually +1 degree), as for land, it appears to be at... | [
"I'm having trouble understanding how the water cut off can be at the equator when the land cutoff isn't. Isn't every point on the surface defined as either land or water?"
] | [
"You're right, see my other comment ",
"here",
", doing the calculation a little more carefully puts the line for halving the water in the southern hemisphere, and at a less extreme value (as we should expect since there is more water than land anyway)."
] |
[
"What possible ecological purpose could fleas and ticks serve? Could they ever be eradicated?"
] | [
false
] | [deleted] | [
"Asking for the ecological purpose of something is akin to asking-- ",
"What is the evolutionary purpose of...?",
"This is from our Biology FAQ. Such questions a difficult to answer as an animal may be successful to the detriment of others. However, there are some animals which feed on ticks such as ",
"Guin... | [
"To this type of biological enquiries you need take this step: stop thinking that every organisms has a role and everything is anthropocentric.",
"Organisms aren't in the ecosystem because they have a role they perform inside of it, they ",
" on the ecosystem, in nature nothing is good or bad, ",
". The sudde... | [
"Thank you for your reply. I guess many like to train people to think that every living thing has a role, and we should never try to eradicate a species because humans are bad and unnatural, while animals are helpless and important. I just do not view fleas and ticks in this light, and I wish that we could eliminat... |
[
"Could enough neutrinos gather within a small enough spot that their gravitational pull would keep them together?"
] | [
false
] | I know that they are virtually massless, and therefore they are traveling at near light speed but I am curious to the theorical ability of this happening. | [
"In fact, massive neutrinos should cluster gravitationally. We have never observed it becasue it is very difficult to observe their gravitational effects, because they make up such a small fraction of all them dark matter mass. ",
"However, the trick to their clustering is not to put them all in a small spatial v... | [
"Yes, I think quite likely. This is how dark matter is postulated to be distributed. It overlaps with regular matter, providing for example giant potential wells in which galaxies could safely form."
] | [
"If you did have an exotic neutrino gas planet, how would it interact with normal interstellar gases? Could it eventually form a spatially overlapping planet made of both neutrinos and regular atoms?"
] |
[
"How do Saturn's rings spin in relation to the planet's spin?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Saturn’s rings orbit at the orbital velocity of their altitude, between 24000 m/s at the innermost rings to 1470 m/s at the outer edge. The equatorial rotational speed is about 9600 m/s, which is much slower than surface orbital velocity (as expected, otherwise the planet would fly apart)."
] | [
"Left unsaid in this otherwise excellent answer: they rotate in the same direction, on the same axis, directly over Saturn's equator."
] | [
"Most of the moons in the ring do rotate with the ring. Some of the outer moons don't."
] |
[
"Is there a difference in power usage when using the volume connected to headphones as opposed to the volume on your phone (when listening to music)"
] | [
false
] | In the interest of prolonging battery life (and hence music listening duration): Say I am listening to music on my phone with headphones in. Not those normal ear bud ones, but a good gaming set. Normally I pump the phones volume up to max and control the volume with the headphones. But today I thought that this might be 'using the most power' from the phone, at no matter what volume I put the headphones. Would I be better off controlling the volume on my phone to give the best chance of the longest battery life or is the power required to output sound through headphones so insignificant anyway? | [
"So this can be tricky. It really all depends on the architecture of the amplifier circuit being utilized. A lot of differential amplifiers are biased using a current source and are actively loaded. This means that they pretty much have the same amount of current flowing through them regardless of how much gain is ... | [
"That's mostly true, though some portable devices have a transition where turning the volume up goes from one amplifier mode/class to another, which can cause a substantial bump in power consumption at a certain level."
] | [
"I knew the difference would be pretty pathetic (very small currents involved etc). ",
"Is it safe to consider this like a circuit with 2 variable resistors in series? Where the overall resistance affects the power consumed?"
] |
[
"electron transitions releasing photons. What is going on?"
] | [
false
] | Chemistry student here. So, when an electron moves from an excited state down to its ground state it can release a photon with energy equal to the energy lost by the electron, which we then detect as electromagnetic radiation. Is this photon created because the motion of the electron causes an oscillation in the electric field, which creates electromagnetic waves? If so, how can this photon have any sort of defined direction of motion? shouldn't the single photon be emitted in all directions sort of like dropping a stone on a calm pond? What is going on here physicists? | [
"Yeah in chemistry only delta-l = 1 transitions are allowed which makes the spectral lines of these transitions very strong but coupling of the electronic and vibrational wavefunctions can give delta-l = 0 transitions. ",
"What does it mean to have a multipolar transition, i'm assuming that's an l=2 to l=0 transi... | [
"Yeah in chemistry only delta-l = 1 transitions are allowed which makes the spectral lines of these transitions very strong but coupling of the electronic and vibrational wavefunctions can give delta-l = 0 transitions. ",
"What does it mean to have a multipolar transition, i'm assuming that's an l=2 to l=0 transi... | [
"Interesting, thanks for the link"
] |
[
"what body organ actually generates the body heat? by what chemical process is it created?"
] | [
false
] | as far as i know (please correct me), we pretty much have all the same organs as cold blooded beasts, except i guess some have jacobson's organ. so how is it that cold-blooded creatures don't make heat like we do? what do we have that they don't have? consider birds, even: warm blooded and they're closer to reptiles than we are. what's the x-factor there? | [
"Heat is generated across the body with burning of sugar. The difference between cold and warm blooded has to do with temperature ",
". Warm blooded (and this a range, not a binary state) organism generate heat for the purpose of maintaining a temperature. Thermoregulation involves cooling (sweating, flushing, et... | [
"Since the parent comment is gone, I'll fill in the gap. Thermogenesis, or the generation of heat, occurs mostly in brown adipose tissue, and by uncoupling the electron transport chain complexes from ATP synthase. The ETC complexes work to establish a proton gradient, which ATP synthase breaks down by allowing pr... | [
"Since the parent comment is gone, I'll fill in the gap. Thermogenesis, or the generation of heat, occurs mostly in brown adipose tissue, and by uncoupling the electron transport chain complexes from ATP synthase. The ETC complexes work to establish a proton gradient, which ATP synthase breaks down by allowing pr... |
[
"When will we have enough data to understand whether a 12 week gap between mRNA vaccines (as in the UK) affects long-term protection?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Questions based on discussion, speculation, or opinion are better suited for ",
"r/asksciencediscussion",
"."
] | [
"Fair enough. I thought there would be a fairly definitive answer to this, but perhaps I was mistaken."
] | [
"Probably another 6 months before there's a writeup, I would estimate"
] |
[
"Portuguese Man O' Wars are a collection of organisms that function as one entity. How do they come together to begin with?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"These guys are really cool! They are part of the class Hydrozoa which is part of the phylum Cnidaria which includes jellyfish and corals etc. All of these types of animals have some sort of life cycle that cycles between two forms. The medusae which are what your traditional jellyfish is and a polyp which is a ses... | [
"What differentiates \"one organism\" from \"many organisms living in a colony\"? Surely there are many simple many-celled organisms that are like the Man o War."
] | [
"Sure! I'm not actually too familiar with Praya but I do know it is also a colonial type of organism similar to the Portuguese Man o' War. So it too has specialized zooids and what makes it so long is that its \"tentacles\" are extraordinarily long. It is a predator like all Cnidaria because it eats other non-plant... |
[
"How many fields are there in QFT?"
] | [
false
] | Let me explain. Particles don't exist. What we experience as a particle, is actually the excitation of a field that extends throughout space. So here is my question. Say you have two electrons sitting next to each other. Is there one field that is excited in two places to produce two electrons, or is there a field for each electron? Do all electrons emerge from the same field or does each electron emerge from their own individual fields? | [
"There is one electron field. All electrons and positrons emerge from this one field."
] | [
"Yes, one field for each type of particle. A field is something that can take different values at different points in spacetime. (Classically, these are just functions, while in quantum field theory, of course, the math changes a bit, but the idea is basically the same.) Of course, a field can vanish at some loc... | [
"I have a (reasonably important) nitpick: ",
"What we experience as a particle, is actually the excitation of a field that extends throughout space.",
"does not mean",
"Particles don't exist",
"What it does mean is that particles are not simply small hard spheres as people initially imagined. Even the much ... |
[
"How much radiation is still on Marie Curies notebooks?"
] | [
false
] | I just read that Marie Curies notebooks will still be radioactive for another thousand years at least because of the masses of radium and polonium that she and her husband handled. The books are kept in a box lined with lead in Paris - but what I could not find was the level of radiation in a unit like Sievert or Becquerel. Does anybody on here know this by chance? | [
"A distinction to make: Bq is a unit of activity, it is a measure of disintegrations per second of a radionuclide. Sievert is a unit of dose equivalent, it is a measure of ionizing radiation absorbed by the body. You measure the activity of a particular radionuclide (like radium or polonium) in Bq, but the biologic... | [
"Much obliged!",
"Also thank you for clearing up the difference between these two units. I just looked up how to convert Bq to Sv and apparently this can not be done easily. Yet my intend of the question was to find out how dangerous these notebooks really are. So Sv would be the better unit I guess, therefore ju... | [
"Bq is a measure of the activity of a radionuclide, whereas Sv is a measure of biological effect of radiation. The unit of Bq is just s",
" Sv is J/kg, or energy absorbed per mass. The conversion from the radioactivity of a source (in Bq) to the biological effect in the body (in Sv) is not very clear for a few re... |
[
"Is it theoretically possible for a particle accelerator such as the Large Hadron Collider to create a black hole since such high forces are involved?"
] | [
false
] | -If so, is this helpful in any way? eg: Insight into other dimensions. -If so, could it be controlled/eliminated? -Or would it consume Earth eventually if one was created? | [
"And even without black hole evaporation, a black hole that tiny would never get close enough to anything to absorb it and gain any mass. And cosmic rays constantly bombard the earth with more energy than the LHC can produce, so if destroying the world was that easy, we'd already be dead."
] | [
"And even without black hole evaporation, a black hole that tiny would never get close enough to anything to absorb it and gain any mass. And cosmic rays constantly bombard the earth with more energy than the LHC can produce, so if destroying the world was that easy, we'd already be dead."
] | [
"And cosmic rays constantly bombard the earth with more energy than the LHC can produce, so if destroying the world was that easy, we'd already be dead.",
"This is the most common argument used to placate people who worry we might destroy the universe, or at least our corner of it, with the LHC or other colliders... |
[
"In modern understanding, how [in]valid are IQ scores?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"IQ scores are extremely good indicators of what they are meant to measure: generalized reasoning ability, such as the ability to learn from past experience. ",
"This study",
" and ",
"this one",
" found that childhood IQ was an excellent predictor of various indicators of success later in life; often bett... | [
"IQ scores compact results based on a vast array of topics related to conceptual understanding and use the average performance in comparison to a general population. While intelligence does have a tendency to correlate with scores due to one's awareness and ability to interpret patterns rising with intelligence, of... | [
"I haven't read up on the Flynn effect, but it would seem to me that the correlation found between higher IQ and industrialization/modernity/education may really just be a correlation between IQ and wealth. If you can afford to eat well, nourish your child, talk to them a lot and give them stimulation when they're ... |
[
"How do you study microbes that don't respond to lab cultures?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"It's really difficult! For those few brave souls who do venture into this line of work (not me), there are a few options.",
"If you're thinking that this sounds like sort of a contrived, artificial system, and that you might lose valuable information by taking the protein out of the context of the rest of the ba... | [
"Great question. What you are describing is the Great Plate Count Anomaly problem. It isn't necessarily that they are impossible to culture but rather you have to find that special combination of conditions which enable them to grow. This can go from almost impossible to difficult. As an example we had numerous... | [
"Good answer. Just wanted to add that species representing unknown domains of bacteria are present everywhere, even in your mouth. For instance, ",
"TM7",
".",
"No one knows how to culture them.",
"I always thought that this would be a great project for an amateur interested. Because, I don't know of an... |
[
"What are the scientific facts against governmental mind control?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Hi there. That Putin mind control ray thing is not evidence. The link it sends to is a page which no longer exists which is published by a tabloid newspaper. That is not a primary source. While certain electromagnetic (and even ultrasonic) emitters can certainly cause pain, there is not a scrap of evidence to dem... | [
"Thank you for your in depth reply. I did not read the side bar, because I didnt think this would be common. Should I delete it? I just don't want to lose your response in my archives. Also, this was very kind of you"
] | [
"NO need to delete it, I've removed it from our queue so no-one but you and I can see it now.",
"My pleasure to help, and good luck with whatever you decide to do. Mental health problems and conspiracies are unfortunately common bedfellows (see the psychology section on that wiki article for examples). I can only... |
[
"What's the deal with Sodium Laureth/Lauryl Sulfate and should I be worried about it?"
] | [
false
] | Full disclosure: I'm writing an article for a mag and I need to touch on this a bit. My understanding so far is that people dislike it because it (they? not sure of the difference between the two) is a surfactant which means its function is to break surfaces down (ie your hair to allow the moisturiser etc to penetrate) and there are worries that it could break down the surface of your skin and get into your brain and cause cancer? Do I have the basics of that right? And, as with other ingredient worries, like BPA, is this mostly shrugged off by the scientific community? It certainly seems like every other shampoo still has it in. Are there ingredients other than SLS we should 'be worried' about? | [
"I'll give you two answers:",
"1) You're writing an article for a magazine? Shouldn't you be interviewing a scientist like, in person? You don't know who the hell we are...I could be making this shit up!",
"2) Full disclosure: I spent a summer interning for a major soap company.",
"I'm a materials person, so ... | [
"In that case, I'd stay away from cosmetic chemists. Good people, I'm sure, but probably not the best to answer these types of questions about SLS for you. You're going to want to find a biophysicist or a biochemist who works with cell walls or cell membranes. There are even people who do surface chemistry with cel... | [
"Chemist working with membranes here. SDS is a surfactant, and certainly busts cell membranes when in contact with them; this is generally not a concern for skin application, since skin is keratinous \"dead\" layer whose function is precisely to keep your cells protected from unwanted chemicals."
] |
[
"How are some drugs capable of entering the blood stream through the mouth?"
] | [
false
] | Drugs like immodium have variations that allow them to enter the blood stream through the mouth, and therefore faster. Why do some drugs, like painkillers, not have this? | [
"Short answer, they do. A significant number of drugs have ODT versions.",
"Pain killers, for example, have IV, Sub-dermal, topical, Intramuscular, intranasal, inhalation, etc.",
"If you're curious, look into first pass metabolism (liver breaks down the drug before the rest of the body gets it). Will explain it... | [
"The best way to administer most drugs if you want bioavailability is IV. That, by definition, is 100% bioavailable. Drugs that go through the oral route must be absorbed in your intestines, progress through the portal venous system, where most undergo first-pass metabolism by your liver before entering your system... | [
"So regarding immodium specifically I think you might be mistaken. There is very little immodium that successfully goes from the GI tract to the bloodstream, except in the case that the user has lesions/breaks in their GI tract that could allow more to enter the blood or if the user drinks an excess of immodium. Im... |
[
"What keeps everything in place in your body when you're in space? How comes the food doesn't float in your oesophagi when you try to eat?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"same reason you can eat while upside down. Gravity helps but the muscles do the work."
] | [
"I assume you meant 'red.' On earth gravity pools the blood wherever the body is closes to it, meaning your feet when standing and your head when upside down. In microgravity(space) blood will will spread evenly evenly around body, but not to the degree being upside down on earth would cause.",
"http://en.wikiped... | [
"wow you can eat upside down? I never tried. What about our head becoming red when we're upside down, why doesn't it do the same thing in space?"
] |
[
"Black holes \"slow down\" time. Is there an astronomical phenomenon that \"speeds up\" time for a handful of people? Could we use it to \"get ahead\" in the galactic race for domination/survival?"
] | [
false
] | The question is serious, although it might sound like it's from a c-movie of sorts. You might need to cut me some slack here. From what I understand (and the movies tell me), time "slows down" considerably close to a black hole. It doesn't slow down noticably for the one being close to the black hole, only for the spectator far away. That's relativity, right? A couple of hours too close "make time fly" for the rest of the universe. Is there an opposite phenomenon, where times starts flying by for a few whereas the rest of the universe "slows down"? Maybe what I'm asking is this: is there such a phenomenen and a way to use it to sort of "cheat" on the speed of advancement and development in relation to the rest of the universe? A chance to "get ahead"? | [
"Let's take a few steps back. First of all there is no absolute notion of time to talk about. Second of all you have this mixed up a little, a slow clock gives you what you want.",
"Let's just talk about special relativity, to talk this stuff in general relativity is not much more complicated at this level but re... | [
"So to see what the state of technology on the Earth is in some amount of time you \"just\" need to accelerate hard enough away from the Earth and then return.",
"It should be added that there is no way to get back to the time where you started, so you can't turn that new knowledge into an advantage."
] | [
"But you could use it to pass time while you were waiting on something to be developed. Say a disease. You zip off really fast and hope they have a cure by the time you get back, but if you stayed you wouldn't survive long enough to see that cure."
] |
[
"Why are Electron Microscopes called Electron Microscopes?"
] | [
false
] | null | [
"Electron microscopes use electrons for imaging instead of light."
] | [
"Do you know how they do that? That sounds fascinating. I wonder if the photons and electrons display similar properties with imaging, or if they have to use an entirely different method?"
] | [
"There are different kinds of electron microscopes. I think the ",
"Wiki",
" is a good introduction to them."
] |
[
"If Dark Matter is particles that don't interact electromagnetically, is it possible for dark matter to form 'stars'? Is a rogue, undetectable body of dark matter a possible doomsday scenario?"
] | [
false
] | I'm not sure If dark matter as hypothesized could even pool into high density masses, since without EM wouldn't the dark particles just scatter through each other and never settle realistically? It's a spooky thought though, an invisible solar mass passing through the earth and completely destroying with gravitational interaction. | [
" There actually could have been stars in the early universe, more massive than any that could exist today, powered by dark matter annhilation. ",
" Dark matter doesn't really all clump in one spot on top of itself for the same reason that stars don't - they just don't tend to bump into each other. When you squee... | [
"I think you emphasize the concept of dark matter heated stars too greatly. We don't yet have solid evidence that annihilation does occur, which is the biggest assumption powering this idea and I don't believe there is any current observational evidence to support it either. It's certainly a cool idea, but I feel y... | [
"Yeah, and maybe it's worth specifying that neutralinos are the top dark matter candidate considered for dark stars. "
] |
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