When does a mushroom die? When it's picked? When it's packaged? Refrigerated? Sliced? Digested? | AskScience Blog

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Monday, February 19, 2018

When does a mushroom die? When it's picked? When it's packaged? Refrigerated? Sliced? Digested?

When does a mushroom die? When it's picked? When it's packaged? Refrigerated? Sliced? Digested?


When does a mushroom die? When it's picked? When it's packaged? Refrigerated? Sliced? Digested?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 06:40 PM PST

12 hours later:

Thank you all for your answers.

I was eating a raw mushroom at the time I asked the question (that's why I did not include "cooked" in my list).

From your answers:

  • a mushroom is an organ, not a complete life form, so it's not alive in the sense that my cat is alive
  • what I was eating was "alive" in the sense that a seed is alive (able to start a new organism) yet died in my digestive system

I was particularly interested in a mushroom (rather than, say, a carrot), because a mushroom is a fungus, not a plant.

submitted by /u/1Davide
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As a snake grows in length, does it grow additional ribs and vertebrae, or do they have a set number?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 12:34 PM PST

When a Li-ion battery is first manufactured, is it already charged? If so, how much and why that amount?

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 04:29 AM PST

When I get a new phone sometimes it arrives with some charge (around 20%), other times is more, sometimes less. I was wondering if the battery leaves the factory at 100% and it decreases until it gets to the user or if it's already almost empty from the start. Thank you.

submitted by /u/eduazy
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What is special about sunlight versus artificial light that plants need it?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 03:41 PM PST

If all light is just photons, and plants convert photons into sugar through photosynthesis then why do plants die when placed indoors even if given enough artificial light?

submitted by /u/KarkatTheVantas
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Why isn't Boron created through normal stellar nucleosynthesis (i.e. nuclear fusion in stars)?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 05:45 PM PST

It just seems weird that Boron isn't synthesised like normal elements, since it's atomic number is not particularly high (5). I know that elements heavier than Iron (26) need the special conditions of supernova to be formed, but Boron is so light that I would really think that fusion would work.

submitted by /u/052934
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Are mitochondria significantly different in different species?

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 01:22 AM PST

If it were possible to replace the mitochondria in, say, a giraffe cell with mitochondria from a hyena cell, would it work?

submitted by /u/BotiaDario
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If the four dimensions of space and time are intertwined, why can we not rotate an object into "time" the same way we can rotate an object in 3D space?

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 01:15 AM PST

Forgive me for being naive, but this seems like an intuitive question.

submitted by /u/InAFakeBritishAccent
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Do other animals have 'accents' like humans do?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 03:08 PM PST

Why do things like saliva or melted cheese pull into strings when you try to separate them?

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 07:34 AM PST

How much complexity can nuclear pasta phases in neutron stars support? Could one potentially have strong-force-based life in a neutron star?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 08:56 PM PST

Normally nuclear interactions don't come close to the complexity of chemistry, forming simple balls instead of complex molecules. But I've read that during the transition from the atom-dominated crust of a neutron star to the neutron-dominated interior much more complex structures called "nuclear pasta" exist, where nucleons group together into strands, planes, bubbly structures, etc. How much do we know about these phases? Does its complexity approach that of chemistry? Could one potentially have life on nuclear length- and time-scales there?

submitted by /u/amaurea
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At an atomic level, what makes a material better at compression or tension?

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 02:48 AM PST

Has there ever been a trench deeper than the Marianas Trench in Earth's geologic history?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 11:05 AM PST

Do male species having lower life expectancy than female also occur in other animal species than human?

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 01:26 AM PST

I know male humans have lower life expectancy because they risk more, but isn't that the case for other animals too? Might be a dumb question, but I'm a big ear.

submitted by /u/Crypterion
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What makes an organism a plant-like protist over an animal like protist?

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 12:41 AM PST

Confused at something my biology teacher told the class while he was explaining the different kingdoms. What key feature puts an organism in one protist group over the other?

For example, if an animal cell had a cell wall (not even sure if this is possible) would it be considered an animal-like protist or a plant-like protist?

submitted by /u/devilmonk
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Do Lagrange points exist for planets in elliptical orbits?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 05:51 PM PST

If so, how are they different than the mostly-circular orbit of Earth? Is there some cutoff point where the orbit is too elliptical to have langrange points?

submitted by /u/mienaikoe
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Why does halorhodopsin only activate when exposed to yellow light and channelrhodopsin with blue light?

Posted: 19 Feb 2018 03:38 AM PST

How do liquid fueled rockets manage to stay on track during launch with fuel constantly moving around in the fuel tanks?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 05:47 PM PST

Have we ever seen a stellar ignition?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 01:10 PM PST

The moment when a contracting cloud of gas first begins thermonuclear fusion. We call them stellar nurseries, we know new stars are being born there. My question is if we have ever been looking at the right bit of the right cloud at the right time to see the event as it happens!?!

submitted by /u/diogenes_shadow
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Do "aeroelastic" phenomena occur for structures submerged in liquids?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 08:17 PM PST

I couldn't find anything on this subject after a cursory google search.

Basically I'm wondering if watercraft designers have to account for some liquid-specific version of flutter the same way aircraft designers do.

It would make sense to me that some dynamic instability would arise from high speed motion of an elastic structure submerged in liquid the same way aeroelastic phenomena occur in air.

Any fluids experts care to weigh in?

submitted by /u/SlugsPerSecond
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Why are green aurora borealis more common than the red/ purple ones?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 10:32 AM PST

To my understanding green ones are from oxygen and purple/blue ones are from nitrogen. Why are the ones from nitrogen more rare since nitrogen is more common in the atmosphere than oxygen?

submitted by /u/Waden10
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Quantum tunneling real or proven or just our best estimation?

Posted: 18 Feb 2018 11:57 PM PST

When I teach electronic orbitals in college chemistry, I like to pose a question to my students, "How does an electron travel to different lobes in the orbital if we know it goes throw a point that has a 0% chance of it being located there? We know it never passes through this small point, but it's the door to the other side. How does it get there?" The answer is quantum tunneling but that just seems like an answer scientists had to has because there has to be one. It seems like a cop out. Some how a cat is involved in all this as well :)

submitted by /u/Team-CCP
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