AskScience AMA Series: We run a large conservation and research center in Montana focused on restoration and ecology - ask us anything!

---

• AskScience AMA Series: We run a large conservation and research center in Montana focused on restoration and ecology - ask us anything!
• In explosive shockwaves, like the Beirut explosion, how thick is the propagating shockwave itself?
• Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology
• How do you survive a Blastwave/Shockwave?
• If you bombard an iron-56 with neutrons, is there a limit to how many neutrons it can gobble?
• Why don‘t we manipulate the DNA of trees and plants to make them grow faster?
• Why are there random mountains in the middle of flat plains?
• What is behind the destructive force of explosive chemical compounds?
• Question regarding the Special Theory of Relativity. Shouldn’t both observers see the other as having slower time?
• Historically how important have viruses been to our evolution?
• Why can methylation donors (like folate) increase cancer risk?
• When I touch something, do I feel the absolute temperature, or the temperature difference?
• Why are mesh elements in Finite Element Analysis tools like COMSOL or Synopsis triangular?
• Do vaccines ever have side effects that don't show up until after an extended period of time?
• Where did the rest of the antimatter go in the universe?
• Does your DNA still have memory of things that happened million years ago?
• How are we able to make rotation curves of galaxies if orbits are usually elliptical?

AskScience AMA Series: We run a large conservation and research center in Montana focused on restoration and ecology - ask us anything! Posted: 05 Aug 2020 04:00 AM PDT MPG Ranch is 15,000 acres of conservation property in Western Montana, focused on restoration and ecology. We seek new ways to understand and restore lands affected by invasive weeds, herbicide use, and other management practices that create disturbances. MPG works closely with local conservation groups and researchers to offer educational opportunities to students of all ages. The health of wildlife and plant populations are some of the central responses we use to gauge our restoration's success. Through various research projects we've been able to capture and record some incredible data on the area's species, such as the elusive mountain lion population, activity of local bears and the migration of raptors, to name just a few. You can learn more about the work the ranch is doing in a new PBS Nature short film, "Inside Montana's Living Laboratory." Today's participants: Joshua Lisbon, Education & Community Outreach Manager, MPG Ranch, /u/MTCougarDude Mike McTee, Environmental Researcher, MPG Ranch, /u/Mike_at_MPG We'll see you all at 2 pm ET (18 UT), ask us anything! submitted by /u/AskScienceModerator [link] [comments]

In explosive shockwaves, like the Beirut explosion, how thick is the propagating shockwave itself? Posted: 05 Aug 2020 03:27 AM PDT submitted by /u/Random-Mutant [link] [comments]

Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology Posted: 05 Aug 2020 08:09 AM PDT Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology 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! submitted by /u/AutoModerator [link] [comments]

How do you survive a Blastwave/Shockwave? Posted: 05 Aug 2020 03:04 AM PDT After watching footage of the incident in Beirut today there's quite a few videos where you see the blast wave/shockwave coming and have a few seconds to react. The same was true in Tianjin in China a few years ago and we know from that incident (and likely from Beirut) that many people lost their lives not to the blast itself but the proceeding shockwave. So, if your ever unfortunate enough to see that pressure wall coming at you, what do you? Find a wall? Lay down? Go rigid? Go slack if you can? submitted by /u/SirPolyBear [link] [comments]

If you bombard an iron-56 with neutrons, is there a limit to how many neutrons it can gobble? Posted: 05 Aug 2020 05:12 AM PDT submitted by /u/ganymede97 [link] [comments]

Why don‘t we manipulate the DNA of trees and plants to make them grow faster? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 11:20 AM PDT submitted by /u/JuliMonkey [link] [comments]

Why are there random mountains in the middle of flat plains? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 01:54 PM PDT So I was driving from Utah to California recently, and a lot of the journey is just very flat land for 10's of miles, but then I would see this lone, very sharp and jagged mountain and then more flat land for 10's of miles. Why are there these huge, rugged features in the middle of very flat land with seemingly no other geographical features anywhere near it? Is this weird or is this just totally normal (that mountains can just be anywhere)? submitted by /u/DrGregoryHouse2 [link] [comments]

What is behind the destructive force of explosive chemical compounds? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 07:47 PM PDT There are nuclear explosions, and non-nuclear explosions. Of the non-nuclear explosions of note, we've seen West, Texas; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Port Arthur, California; Tianjin, China; and now Beirut. Tianjin had a much more impressive fireball, but didn't break windows from several miles away like what we saw in Beirut. Explosive, as a layman, is something I thought of as binary, but it doesn't seem that's the case. So I had a few questions: When something is measured in "X tons of TNT," what are we actually measuring? If you compared A amounts of explosive material vs B amounts of explosive material, what are we looking at? Gasoline is explosive, but probably not as explosive as C4 for the same mass. Why would something explode and make an enormous fireball like in Tianjin vs exploding into a ruinous shockwave like in Beirut with less fire, all other factors being equal? I think this is a word but there are theremoacoustic properties that I was listening for in comparing these explosions--wondering which one was loudest for equivalent distance and how atmospheric conditions and the conflaguration itself affected the sound in the blast radius. Are there scales to any of the above? submitted by /u/combuchan [link] [comments]

Question regarding the Special Theory of Relativity. Shouldn’t both observers see the other as having slower time? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 10:39 AM PDT If I were to observe someone moving at say half the speed of light, I would see the flow of his time to be going slower than mine, yes? However, from his perspective.. shouldn't it be me who is moving at half the speed of light and thus, he would observe my flow of time to be the slower one? What exactly am I missing/misunderstanding? submitted by /u/Tortugato [link] [comments]

Historically how important have viruses been to our evolution? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 07:38 AM PDT I've seen that something like 8% of human DNA is derived from viruses. And riding out this covid pandemic has made me wonder the role and the importance viruses have played in our evolutionary development. submitted by /u/john22544 [link] [comments]

Why can methylation donors (like folate) increase cancer risk? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 10:31 PM PDT submitted by /u/inquilinekea [link] [comments]

When I touch something, do I feel the absolute temperature, or the temperature difference? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 06:29 AM PDT So a same cup of water will sense different temperatures to two different persons coming from a hot desert, and a cold desert. They experience different temperatures. They're experiencing the delta. If my body temperature is X, and I touch a vessel of (X+10)°F, I will experience a 10° high temperature, but when my temperature is (X+10), and I touch (X+20) I will still feel 10° high temperature. So am I going to experience relative temperature, or absolute? This question could be outright dumb lol, my brain cells aren't active today ig submitted by /u/mysterydreamerhyd [link] [comments]

Why are mesh elements in Finite Element Analysis tools like COMSOL or Synopsis triangular? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 07:32 PM PDT Is there a reason why they can't be squares for example? submitted by /u/dredged_chicken [link] [comments]

Do vaccines ever have side effects that don't show up until after an extended period of time? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 09:26 AM PDT It's probably obvious that I'm interested in if the months long SARS-CoV-2 stage 3 trials will be sufficient to identify serious side effects that might not show up, or may not be obvious, until after a few months. Is that even a realistic concern? i.e. is it expected that any and all possible side effects would manifest within a few months? submitted by /u/Pointede8Pouces [link] [comments]

Where did the rest of the antimatter go in the universe? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 05:22 AM PDT During the Big Bang, there should've been an equal amount of matter and antimatter but as of the present day, antimatter is much rarer than regular matter. So where did all the antimatter go? submitted by /u/BakedSweatHam [link] [comments]

Does your DNA still have memory of things that happened million years ago? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 12:30 AM PDT submitted by /u/afilipinoweeb [link] [comments]

How are we able to make rotation curves of galaxies if orbits are usually elliptical? Posted: 04 Aug 2020 06:41 AM PDT The problem of galactic rotation curves is about the discrepancy between classical physics predictions of how orbital speed should fall off with 1/sqrt(r) and observations showing orbital speed remains approximately constant. The reason for this is often attributed to dark matter. Yet, creating such a curve implies that for reach value of 'r' I can assign one unique value for 'v'. But does this not clash with the elliptical nature of orbits? They do not just have one value for 'r' but many throughout their orbit. Which orbit do we 'choose' to determine an orbital speech from for the curve? Do we just look at an average 'r' and 'v' or something? I would be very interested in how these rotation curves are set up in practice given elliptical orbits. Thanks! submitted by /u/Pax_Pacis [link] [comments]

You are subscribed to email updates from AskScience: Got Questions? Get Answers.. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States