Will a gyroscope suspended in the air for a long time eventually turn upside down 12 hours later, because it doesn't rotate with the Earth's rotation? | AskScience Blog

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Saturday, March 19, 2016

Will a gyroscope suspended in the air for a long time eventually turn upside down 12 hours later, because it doesn't rotate with the Earth's rotation?

Will a gyroscope suspended in the air for a long time eventually turn upside down 12 hours later, because it doesn't rotate with the Earth's rotation?


Will a gyroscope suspended in the air for a long time eventually turn upside down 12 hours later, because it doesn't rotate with the Earth's rotation?

Posted: 19 Mar 2016 12:05 AM PDT

what will happen

submitted by /u/butthead
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When research shows some people share 2-4% of their DNA with Neanderthals, what DNA are they talking about?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 08:31 AM PDT

I read in an article recently that some people share 2-4% of their DNA with Neanderthals. However, we also share loads of DNA (>95% IIRC) with less similar species such as Chimpanzees. So, when we say we share 2-4% of DNA with Neanderthals, is that only some part of our DNA that is measured separately, like repetitive sequences?

submitted by /u/Fnottrobald
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Does the placenta have the DNA of the mother or the baby? What about the umbilical cord?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 09:15 AM PDT

AskScience AMA Series: Scientists are on board the R/V JOIDES Resolution for two months to drill in four different sites along the eastern coast of Africa to study one of the largest “rivers in the sea” and its implications on past climate, Ask Us Anything!

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 09:11 AM PDT

The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) conducts scientific ocean drilling expeditions throughout the world's oceans in search of clues to Earth's structure and past. The current expedition is Expedition 361: Southern African Climates, aboard the U.S. vessel for scientific ocean drilling, the JOIDES Resolution (www.joidesresolution.org). The Agulhas Current carries an enormous quantity of really salty, really warm water southward along the east African coast. Most of this water flow curls back around at the southern tip of Africa to stay in the Indian Ocean, contributing indirectly to the monsoon season. However, 20-25% of the current leaks westward into the southern Atlantic Ocean in massive swirls, known as the Agulhas rings. The heat dissipates quickly, but the salt remains, keeping the surface salinity relatively high. High salt content causes high water density, and this slightly denser water can make its way into the North Atlantic via the Gulf Stream, where it eventually cools further and sinks, transporting more water northward and maintaining the global conveyer belt of ocean currents in a process that is known to influence northwest European and global climate change.

Recent studies point to an increase in Agulhas leakage over the last 30 years or so, caused primarily by human-induced climate change. This discovery is important, because it suggests that increased Agulhas leakage could help maintain the Atlantic conveyor circulation, at a time when warming and accelerated freshwater input into the North Atlantic (from the melting Greenland ice sheet) has been predicted to weaken it. Likewise, paleoceanographic studies also provide exciting evidence from sediment cores suggesting that leakage from the Agulhas Current - in other words, the exchange of warm salty water between the Indian and Atlantic - has been involved in large global climate swings over the past 100,000 years. The most recent example is the drastic global warming that occurred after the last ice age.

By examining Expedition 361 sediment cores in detail, we expect to find evidence of how the Agulhas Current has influenced the regional and global climate over much longer timescales of the Plio-Pleistocene (0-5 million years ago), and therefore detail how connections within the climate system operate. This has implications for understanding how the future climate system may operate in a warming world.

A team of 30 scientists from around the globe are on board for two months to work on these questions. Hand-in-hand with the amazing technology required to drill deep into the ocean floor, we are collecting the core samples that hold clues to answer these questions.

Join us to ask us anything about this intriguing science, how we got here, what we hope to discover, and our lives on board the ship!

We'll be back at 5pm EST to answer your questions, AMA!

submitted by /u/IODP
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Theoretical gravitational forces in center of earth?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 07:00 PM PDT

In the very center of the earth, if there were to be a hollowed out sphere, would an object be floating or pulled apart from all sides? What would happen to it?

submitted by /u/m00tchacho
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Does the colour of your eye affect it's sensitivity to light?

Posted: 19 Mar 2016 06:25 AM PDT

Wondering if blue eyes are more sensitive than brown eyes for example.

submitted by /u/Cuziman43
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Would it be theoretically possible to build a "photon engine" for spaceships?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 01:31 PM PDT

Solar sails exploit the momentum of solar photons as a propellant, but what if we tried to build a photon engine (basically a big laser)? Tsiolkovsky rocket equation says delta-v is proportional to exhaust velocity, which photons certainly have a lot of. It is also dependant on mass, which photons don't have, but they have momentum. So my question is: would a laser of adequate power and size be able to exhert a force on an object like a small space probe in an inertial frame of reference?

submitted by /u/PsychoticLime
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Why don't whales and other marine animals get the bends while surfacing quickly?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 02:12 PM PDT

In the case of humans, surfacing too quickly is catastrophic, and can lead to a whole slew of problems but this doesn't seem to be the case in marine animals like this whale why not?

submitted by /u/Smellvin
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How do some predators know the vulnerable spots of prey animals?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 01:05 PM PDT

I'm thinking here of big cats, such as lions and leopards, but I'm sure this occurs in non-feline predators, too. In most nature documentaries, you see lions taking down a zebra by going for the neck, and then sometimes holding the zebra's mouth and nose shut to stop its breathing. How do lions know to do that? Eons of watching their parents do the same? How did this practice evolve in the first place?

submitted by /u/bigdamnhero2511
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How is water collected?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 07:07 AM PDT

How is water extracted from Oceans and Seas on industrial scales? Or maybe what's the term used for that sort of thing so I can look it up? I wanted to learn about the potential impacts of this behaviour on the environment.

submitted by /u/Nottabird_Nottaplane
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How large would your field of view of the surface be if earth was completely flat and clear of objects blocking your view?

Posted: 19 Mar 2016 01:42 AM PDT

With flat I dont mean flat earth I mean globe without mountains and valleys

For an average high person that is standing still, up, and can look around 360 degrees.

submitted by /u/slowbrowsersarefunny
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Why did it take more than two decades for Andrew Wiles to win the Abel Prize for solving Fermat's Last Theorem?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 11:11 AM PDT

This was one of the most famous problems and events in Mathematics, so I'm wondering what took so long.

submitted by /u/Robotman1974
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What is Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) and what it seems a superior technology for camera?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 07:34 AM PDT

I was trying to understand what is PDAF. I kinda know that most phones don't have PDAF, and what is that?

submitted by /u/aifrantz
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What's the difference between a regular quad core PC and a workstation with two dual cores?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 01:35 PM PDT

Given a function, can we tell if we recursively take its derivative if it will eventually resolve to a real number?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 12:18 PM PDT

A couple college calculus courses are the extent of my mathematics education, so I'm not sure of the correct terminology, but if I have function f(x), and I take the first derivative f'(x), and then the second derivative f''(x), and so on, can I always tell if I will eventually arrive at a real number? Obviously many functions can just be resolved or shown to resolve to some pattern (like sin(x)), but are there some functions which may never resolve?

What got me thinking about this is the expansion of the universe. Through observation we know the universe is expanding and the expansion is accelerating. I know we don't have an equation to describe it because we don't understand it, but if we did then could we definitely tell if the acceleration is speeding up or slowing down? What about if the acceleration of the acceleration is speeding up or slowing down, etc? Would we be able to definitively tell if the acceleration may slow down and reverse into deceleration and therefore tell if the universe will eventually contract (big crunch)? Purely hypothetical and, yes, these are the types of things I think about for fun.

submitted by /u/we_are_all_stupid
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Why are oranges, garlic, etc. separated into edible cloves?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 09:43 AM PDT

As I understand it, most fruits/herbs/vegetables/plants strive for survival and reproduction. Are these any different? Have this behavior benefited them in any way, historically?

Thanks in advance!

submitted by /u/maow45
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How "terminal" is terminal velocity?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 11:05 AM PDT

I was thinking and remembered that the pull of gravity (of a large object such as earth) gets stronger as you get closer to the center. Does this mean that the acceleration of something falling is accelerating, meaning it's experiencing a jerk? And if this is true, then how can terminal velocity exist is there is a constant increase in force?

submitted by /u/TheWierdAsianKid
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Why do mixed race people tend to be somewhere between white and black instead of either white or black?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 01:00 PM PDT

I would imagine there would have to be different alleles to control skin colour for this to be possible? Or perhaps different alleles for the mechanisms that produce melanin?

submitted by /u/FuzzBall99
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How big can a crystal get?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 12:15 PM PDT

I'm sure many of us have heard about some planets being discovered that could basically be giant diamonds. (And that's a whole other complicated can of worms, but let's not open it here.) I think a lot of people probably hear "diamond" and think that this is the type of thing where you'd be able to see some sort of crystaline structure from space - facets, planes, etc.

I assume that that's not possible, because that would require the crystals to form at a massive scale. However, I don't actually know if my assumption is correct, nor why.

What prompted this line of thinking was a discussion in another sub where an obviously-altered image of the Omega/Swan/Horseshoe nebula was being (needlessly) debunked by Phil Plait. It's clearly fake, but it got me wondering how large a crystal formation can actually get. There are those amazing ones in the Cave of the Crystals, though obviously there's a huge difference between a crystal that's 39ft tall and one that's 15 light-years tall.

Is there an upper-boundary for how big a crystal can get? Gravity and mass are probably the biggest factors, of course. And even if you had the material and conditions to form a 15 light-year tall crystal formation, the mass would probably collapse into a black hole.

But let's speculate a little. Could a mile-long crystal exist, for example? If we ignored mass and/or gravity (except for what is needed for crystal formation in the first place), and assumed a limitless supply of source material, could a crystal theoretically grow forever?

I really don't know anything about crystallography, or even anything beyond the most basic mineralogy. (I'm a web designer.) I apologize if I'm using terms incorrectly.

Thanks!

submitted by /u/BevansDesign
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If I'm in a car going at 100kmph, and I see another car going the opposite direction at the same speed, will it be the same if there's a stationary car and me going at 200kmph ?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 04:36 PM PDT

That may sound very stupid, and it probably is.

I was the the bus watching cars going by on the other side of the road, and asked myself "If I'm going at 100kmph, and they go at the same speed, will I see them the same way as if they weren't moving at all, but I was going at 200kmph ?"

Sorry about my grammar, and also my lack of science knowledge, haven't done a single science class in over a year now.

submitted by /u/Etoribio_
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How can a molecule be polar, but hydrophobic?

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 09:38 AM PDT

Lookin' at you, PLA.

submitted by /u/yayaBamboo
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How does Blancco erase SSD's? I thought you couldn't erase SSD's.

Posted: 18 Mar 2016 04:40 AM PDT

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