AskScience AMA Series: We're Chris Joyce, a science correspondent for NPR, and Rebecca Davis, a senior producer with NPR's science desk. Ask us anything about plastic pollution! |
- AskScience AMA Series: We're Chris Joyce, a science correspondent for NPR, and Rebecca Davis, a senior producer with NPR's science desk. Ask us anything about plastic pollution!
- If a 20 year old gets an organ transplant from a 50 year old, 30 years later is that organ functioning as if it were 80 years old or 50 years old?
- [Physics] if you cool the radioactive isotope to absolute zero, would it decay?
- Does be under heavy anesthesia for 8 hours function the same as sleeping for 8 hours? (are you "rested"?)
- Why do these polar vortex things keep happening?
- What plesiomorphic traits have Humans retained from our Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) with Chimpanzees and Bonobos which Chimps and Bonobos have lost or modified?
- When launching a rocket into space on the West Coast, does it require more energy since your going against the rotation of the Earth?
- Ask Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology
- How accurate are people when self-diagnosing mental illness, and how accurate are people at identifying contributing factors to their own disorders?
- When a new particle like the Higgs Boson is discovered at LHC, how can physicists tell that the particle they’re “seeing” is one they’ve never seen before?
- Does the pressure at the bottom of the ocean affect its freezing temperature?
- Can someone help me understand how cryolipolysis or "cool sculpting" actually works and any negative affects it may have?
- Given Dark Matters proposed gravitational effects, why is it more often represented as a halo around a galaxy as oppose to spheres similar to stars?
- Why are flights being cancelled throughout the midwest due to freezing cold weather? At cruising altitude, aren't the temperatures just as bad?
- What variables account for the chances of an asteroid striking the earth? If scientists say X rock has a one in a thousand chance of hitting the earth, how do they come up with these odds?
- Why are some drugs injected directly into the vein while others can just be injected into the arm or leg?
- In a zero-gravity environment, does acceleration of a spacecraft opposite the inertial vector generate "artificial gravity" for the passengers? E.g. decelerating from high speed upon reaching the halfway point of an interstellar journey.
- Does solar exposure affect soil pH?
- Is the process of looking at something very small the same as looking at something very far away? If not how and why is it different?
- Do different animals have different tolerance levels for radiation?
- Why is iron-56 less abundant in the Earth's crust than in its core and mantle?
- How does the Earth's outgoing radiation attain equilibrium with incoming radiation?
| Posted: 30 Jan 2019 04:00 AM PST We've been taking a closer look at plastics and the plastic waste that's showing up all over the world. Global plastic production has grown to 420 million tons in 2015, and some plastics will last for centuries or even longer. NPR most recently published a story looking at efforts in the Philippines to hold major brands accountable for the plastic waste from their products and another story profiling two teenage sisters from Indonesia who've been campaigning to ban plastic bags. Here we are ready to go at 1 PM (ET, 17 UT)! Follow Chris and Rebecca or the NPR Science desk on Twitter, and ask us anything! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2019 04:32 AM PST |
| [Physics] if you cool the radioactive isotope to absolute zero, would it decay? Posted: 30 Jan 2019 07:08 AM PST in theory, at least. If I remember correctly I don't think you can cool things truly to absolute zero. Would the half-life change at a temperature very close to absolute zero? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2019 03:02 PM PST |
| Why do these polar vortex things keep happening? Posted: 30 Jan 2019 04:33 AM PST |
| Posted: 30 Jan 2019 08:29 AM PST |
| Posted: 30 Jan 2019 08:01 AM PST So when SpaceX launches a rocket from Cape Canaveral the rocket is going with the rotation of the Earth (over the water) But when SpaceX launches from Vandenberg and the rocket goes against the rotation of earth (over the water) does it require more energy? For example: If the rotation speed at the launch site is 500mph does it slow the rocket down 500mph (if on the west coast) as for the East Coast it "gives" 500mph for free. [link] [comments]  |
| Ask Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology Posted: 30 Jan 2019 07:11 AM PST Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...". Asking Questions: Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions. The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists. Answering Questions: Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience. If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here. Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here. Ask away! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2019 03:00 PM PST On the one hand, people have privileged information about themselves. On the other hand people have inherent bias about themselves! Is there any research on the ability of people to accurately self diagnose or identify things like depression, PTSD, anxiety, etc? And then further, are people generally accurate when identifying likely contributing factors such as events, environmental conditions, etc. to their own disorders? Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2019 04:45 PM PST For example they say they have evidence of seeing the Higgs boson, but what do they physically interpret that tells them "oh, this is a new thing we haven't seen?" [link] [comments]  |
| Does the pressure at the bottom of the ocean affect its freezing temperature? Posted: 29 Jan 2019 03:12 PM PST First, let me clarify something. If I fill a relatively unbreakable container completely with water and place it in the freezer, it won't freeze. This is because water expands when it freezes. Assuming I'm right about that, lets say the water beneath the polar ice cap drops below 0 degrees Celcius. Salinity aside, would the pressure at that depth prevent, or at least make it more difficult for, the water to expand as it freezes? And if so, would it still freeze, but just at a lower temperature? Is the pressure created by water depth the same thing as pressure from an outside source? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2019 03:09 PM PST All the articles i read tell me how it works but nothing really explaining why it works, any help connecting the dots is fully appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2019 11:07 PM PST |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2019 08:35 PM PST (Not sure whether to flair as Engineering, Physics, or Chemistry.) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2019 08:10 PM PST |
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| Does solar exposure affect soil pH? Posted: 29 Jan 2019 09:19 AM PST When I search the literature I'm only finding articles about plants and microorganisms in the soil but I am talking about direct effects on soil pH. My guess is that photons don't have an effect on the hydrogen ions in the soil directly but this is not my field of study [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2019 11:26 AM PST |
| Do different animals have different tolerance levels for radiation? Posted: 29 Jan 2019 03:10 PM PST As an example of what I mean, would a source of radiation that would kill a human in ten hours kill a rabbit for example in only one or two? I'm aware that no amount of radiation is "safe", but what I mean is, are the lethal levels different for different animals? [link] [comments]  |
| Why is iron-56 less abundant in the Earth's crust than in its core and mantle? Posted: 29 Jan 2019 04:26 PM PST I understand that 56Fe is the most stable nucleus that forms in the universe, and though it is abundant on Earth, it is only the fourth most common element making up the Earth's crust. What processes in the formation of Earth caused it to be so concentrated at the core in particular? If it has to do with the high density of the element, why does it still exist in the crust in relatively high amounts compared to other elements? Thanks! : -) Sorry if this is a bit confusing... I'm a second year geology student studying geochemistry. [link] [comments]  |
| How does the Earth's outgoing radiation attain equilibrium with incoming radiation? Posted: 29 Jan 2019 04:21 PM PST Apologies that this is so long. I'm not really sure that I could summarize it any more succinctly, so thanks in advance to anyone who bothers to read through it all! Science has always been a difficult subject for me to understand, and I lack much of an education in even basic physics - which means that my decision to try and learn the science behind climate change through the internet was probably a bad idea, haha. One concept that's been explained to me by several people is that if the Earth had no greenhouse gases, the amount of radiation emitted by the Earth's surface would be in equilibrium with the amount of radiation absorbed by the Earth. But because the Earth's atmosphere does have greenhouse gases, most radiation emitted by the Earth's "surface" can't escape into space. And so, instead, there's an altitude in the atmosphere called the "effective emission height", at which outgoing radiation is equal to incoming radiation. In order for the effective emission height to actually emit as much radiation as the Earth absorbs, it has to have a temperature of 255.20 K, which is known as the Earth's equilibrium temperature. But currently, the Earth's effective emission height is only 255.04 K, which means that the amount of radiation emitted from that altitude is actually somewhat less than the amount of radiation absorbed by the Earth. This is why the Earth's average temperatures are currently increasing, and the Earth's temperatures will continue to increase until the effective emission height warms up to the equilibrium temperature. Because the amount of radiation absorbed by the Earth currently exceeds the amount of radiation emitted by the Earth, the amount of thermal energy present on Earth is increasing. Some of this additional thermal energy remains around the Earth's surface, increasing surface temperatures, and some of this additional thermal energy is making its way up through the atmosphere, increasing temperatures at higher altitudes. Once enough thermal energy is added to the Earth to warm the effective emission height's temperature to 255.20 K, the Earth will regain equilibrium and stop warming - so long as the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere doesn't increase (and obviously, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is increasing, which shifts the effective emission height to a higher, colder temperature, and so we're unlikely to attain equilibrium anytime soon). Or at least...that's how I understood what was told to me. But it's now starting to seem like I'm not putting this together properly. I was recently talking with someone who seems to have a very strong physics background. Early in our conversation, this person said:
This seems to match-up with what I just summarized. But later in our conversation, this person said:
When I pointed out that this second statement seems to contradict the first and asked for clarification, this person replied that they were unable to explain the distinction between their two statements, because my background in physics wasn't strong enough (and again, it's quite true that I barely understand any basic physics, aside from a scattering of things that have been explained to me on Reddit over the last few months). The person also recommended that I watch this video, paying special attention to the part about the "adiabatic lapse rate". So I watched the video and pointed out that the instructor makes the following two statements:
Both of those quotes seem to support my initial understanding of the concepts, and also seem to line up with this person's first statement that I quoted. But when I asked the person again if they could clarify their second statement, they said that they couldn't. They also said:
I have absolutely no idea what this person is trying to communicate to me, so I thought I'd start a new thread and see if someone else is following what the person is saying. Can anyone with a firm grasp on this topic understand what it is that I'm missing? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
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