What do swordfish use their sword for? | AskScience Blog

Pages

Sunday, April 7, 2019

What do swordfish use their sword for?

What do swordfish use their sword for?


What do swordfish use their sword for?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 03:48 AM PDT

What mathematical language did Gerardus Mercator use to describe his projection?

Posted: 06 Apr 2019 04:10 PM PDT

In the Mercator projection, the y-position of a coordinate is given by the log of the tangent of its latitude. This was laid down in the 1500s. The concept of using functions to describe geometry came a bit later with Decartes, and the logarithm wasn't described until the next century either.

So what tools or language did Mercator use to describe how coordinates on his map could be constructed?

submitted by /u/iorgfeflkd
[link] [comments]

What is the distinguishing factor between a forest and a jungle? Is it a climate thing? Type of trees?

Posted: 06 Apr 2019 06:07 PM PDT

If fever is used by the body to kill bacteria or viruses, does this not also damage the useful bacteria in the gut?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 05:16 AM PDT

If you relocated a sea turtle's nest to a completely different location, would the babies return to where the mother laid them or where the human relocated them to nest?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 04:20 AM PDT

What biological differences in some mammals allow for advanced movement very soon after birth?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 07:43 AM PDT

For example, why can horse foals walk so soon after being born, versus human babies who require ~8-9 months before they can crawl, when horse gestation is only a couple months longer than human gestation?

submitted by /u/UPPERCASE_THOUGHTS
[link] [comments]

Is the human ear more sensitive to certain frequencies?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 07:51 AM PDT

I came across this website to test my subwoofers. I noticed that around 128 Hz, the sound becomes very loud compared to say around 142 Hz. I don't think the application is faulty, could it be that my ears just are more sensitive to sound at that frequency?

submitted by /u/Akainu18448
[link] [comments]

How are entire ecosystems largely consistent between continents, but entire classes of animals therein aren't represented at all?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 07:28 AM PDT

I was recently reading Teddy Roosevelt's The Wilderness Hunter, and an excerpt from the first chapter caught my interest:

"The untrodden American wilderness resembles both in game and physical character the forests, the mountains, and the steppes of the Old World as it was at the beginning of our era. Great woods of pine and fir, birch and beech, oak and chestnut ; streams where the chief game fish are spotted trout and silvery salmon; grouse of various kinds as the most common game birds; all these the hunter finds as characteristic of the New World as of the Old. So it is with most of the beasts of the chase, and so also with the furbearing animals that furnish to the trapper alike his life work and his means of livelihood. The bear, wolf, bison, moose, caribou, wapiti, deer, and big horn, the lynx, fox, wolverine, sable, mink, ermine, beaver, badger, and otter of both worlds are either identical or more or less closely kin to one another."

This is a really wide swathe of these biomes that has life similar enough to reside (in many cases) in the same genus and sometimes the same species. How is it that these areas can simultaneously be so similar, while in other areas - songbird populations, reptiles, etc. - they remain almost totally distinct? For instance, while both locations have rat snakes, that's an enormous subfamily of colubrids that often aren't all that similar. Similarly, both regions have vipers (family Viperidae) but the genuses are distinct and the animals are very different (Crotalus in NA; Vipera in EU).

In general, I don't think I understand why phenomena that allow genetically similar species to be extremely geographically distinct - such as land bridges and conjoined continents - have results that appear to be so selective.

submitted by /u/bibliophile785
[link] [comments]

Why do levers work? Or in other words, why does work equal force times distance?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 07:28 AM PDT

Every explanation I find about the principles of levers is that they apply the rule of physics that work equals force times distance. But why does work equal force times distance? What about the distance being greater increase the force that is applied?

submitted by /u/TheOnlyArtifex
[link] [comments]

What causes the two big population spikes in China's population pyramid?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 07:06 AM PDT

China's population pyramid is unique, as it has two large groups of people at the age 25-35 and 45-55. I would guess this has something to do with their one-child policy and their explosive population growth since the 1900s. but i haven't found any sources on this. Could anyone help me out?

submitted by /u/Kulfyr3
[link] [comments]

Why do we sneeze?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 01:09 AM PDT

How do astronauts suits protect them from extreme temperatures in space?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 12:48 AM PDT

I'm curious to know what those suits are made out of and how they aren't affected by heat, cold, or even radiation when it apperintly can get pretty severe.

submitted by /u/XBlackRookX
[link] [comments]

Why are steroids used to treat certain infections?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 06:41 AM PDT

For example, part of the treatment for acute infective exacerbation of COPD includes 200mg IV hydrocortisone and 30mg oral pred but wouldn't these steroids have immunosuppressive effects - the last thing you want in an infection?

What's the logic behind this?

submitted by /u/Aristo_socrates
[link] [comments]

How do volcanoes grow?

Posted: 06 Apr 2019 07:41 PM PDT

As I understand it, volcanoes grow as a result of pressure from magma below and the layering of ash and lava. However, from what I remember from school - this is a slow process. How can it compete with the massive losses associated with eruptions?

submitted by /u/deathkill3000
[link] [comments]

Why are there no nuclei consisting exclusively of neutrons?

Posted: 06 Apr 2019 01:53 PM PDT

Why can we arrange colours in a circle?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 12:22 AM PDT

As far as I understand it, colours are our perception of different wavelengths of light. There is a starting point at a low wavelength and an end at a high wavelength. By that, I have an intuition that there is a 'starting colouring' and an 'ending colour', with a gradient of all other colours inbetween. But yet we are able to arrange colours in a circle! Why is that?

submitted by /u/Galatheon
[link] [comments]

How widespread were mental illnesses in the past?

Posted: 07 Apr 2019 03:58 AM PDT

People are always talking about how recently (due to things such as social media, isolation and higher social expectations) there has been a very large spike in mental illness.

But it's not like the past was exactly great either. Thinking back to 50 years ago, in real life bullying was (likely) much more prevalent, racism was everywhere, pretty much all minorities were hated (LGBT, people of colour, women, etc). Among other things.

Looking even further back into medieval times, on top of all the issues mentioned above, conditions were horrible for the vast majority of people, dictators were not at all uncommon, and things just in generally sucked.

So to me, I'd say overall compared to the past, despite technology, things seem like they have really improved in just about all areas. So it's hard for me to believe that mental illness is a lot more prevalent than in the past.

My hypothesis (keep in mind I'm not educated in psychology or history or anything like that) is that people have just been more accepting of people with these conditions and that are methods of detecting (and treating) these issues have improved massively, leading to more people being diagnosed. Not necessarily that there are MORE people with these issues.

So, how widespread were mental illnesses in the past?

submitted by /u/Sol33t303
[link] [comments]

Why does bending the ring finger cause the middle finger and pinky finger to involuntarily bend also?

Posted: 06 Apr 2019 11:37 PM PDT

In the context of Astronomy, we often hear that space contains gases and dust. What is space dust and what is it made of?

Posted: 06 Apr 2019 11:24 AM PDT

No comments:

Post a Comment