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Sunday, November 6, 2016

AskScience AMA Series: I am Dr. Derek E. Lee, a wildlife conservation biologist currently studying giraffes in Tanzania and spotted owls in California. I have worked on several species in some wild, unusual places during my 16-years as a research ecologist, Ask Me Anything!

AskScience AMA Series: I am Dr. Derek E. Lee, a wildlife conservation biologist currently studying giraffes in Tanzania and spotted owls in California. I have worked on several species in some wild, unusual places during my 16-years as a research ecologist, Ask Me Anything!


AskScience AMA Series: I am Dr. Derek E. Lee, a wildlife conservation biologist currently studying giraffes in Tanzania and spotted owls in California. I have worked on several species in some wild, unusual places during my 16-years as a research ecologist, Ask Me Anything!

Posted: 06 Nov 2016 05:00 AM PST

Hi Reddit! I am Dr. Derek E. Lee, a PhD wildlife conservation biologist who has worked on remote Pacific islands in Hawaii and California, the African savanna, and Western US forests. I've studied spotted owls, forest fire, elephant seals, seabirds, woodrats, salamanders, wildebeests and giraffes. I founded and run The Wild Nature Institute, an independent scientific research, education, and advocacy organization. I split my time between Tanzania, Switzerland, and the USA doing fieldwork, statistical analyses, paper writing, and fundraising. My research could be classified as population ecology, wildlife ecology, wildlife management, conservation biology, or just plain old ecology. I'll be on at 10 AM pacific time (1 PM ET, 18 UT), ask me Anything!

submitted by /u/AskScienceModerator
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Eletromagnets question, would making the coils closer togeather with thinner wire make the magnetic field stronger?

Posted: 06 Nov 2016 03:38 AM PST

Does a mirror have resolution?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 10:27 PM PDT

Hi reddit, I was reading up on the use of mirrors in stellar photography today and was wondering if mirrors are able to perfectly reflect light, even from extremely far distances.

For example, if you pointed your telescope at a mirror pointed to the sky, would you be able to see everything that you could by simply looking at the sky? Or is there some light distortion/absorption from the mirror?

Thank you!!

submitted by /u/juicebat
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How long does it take an electron to orbit a nucleus?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 11:23 PM PDT

How many different supernovae contributed the carbon on Earth?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 06:01 PM PDT

Is it possible that the carbon (for example) that ended up on Earth all (or mostly) came from the same supernova? If not, how many supernovae contributed to the molecular cloud that coalesced to form our solar system?

submitted by /u/Spirko
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If you're stranded at sea with a 50ft roll of tin foil, can you spread it out or some other arrangement to make you radar visible?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 08:03 PM PDT

Just curious as I was reading about modern stealth warships and radar tech. Also watched Castaway recently and being stranded is a fear of mine!

Can tin foil save your life at sea? If so, how much would it take and how would you have to set it up?

submitted by /u/kickflipper1087
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Biologically, what causes a memory to become more permanent (become "learned") versus just being forgotten?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 10:12 AM PDT

About what percentage of current American Citizens are descendants of colonial Americans?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 09:15 AM PDT

I am referring to the U.S.A and Britain's 13 colonies for clarification. Alternatively: How many American Citizens have ancestors who immigrated to the country? I realize that this could be a difficult figure to come up with, if so what is the best estimate we have/can make?

submitted by /u/insanetheysay
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Why do things like bread not mold immediatly? What prevents the mold fungus from expanding earlier?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 03:37 PM PDT

When increasing the temperature of a system, is the energy needed to increase the temperature linear, or something else?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 02:29 PM PDT

To clarify, do I need the same amount of energy to increase a system from 400-500K as I do to increase the temperature from 1000-1100?

submitted by /u/Surrender_monkey21
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Why do leafs change color in the fall?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 06:07 PM PDT

Why do quasars have a circular accretion disc versus a spherical one?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 11:01 AM PDT

Is there a relationship between the Geometrical concept of a Secant/Tangent and the Mathematical concept of a Secant/Tangent?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 09:42 AM PDT

So, in mathematics, secant is a mathematical function equivalent to 1/cos. But in geometry, it is also defined as a line that divides a curve. Tangent similarly has a mathematical definition and a geometrical definition. Is there a relationship between each of those two definitions?

Also, is there some geometric line called a sine that relates to a curve in some way?

submitted by /u/ikefalcon
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Aside from height, did homo sapiens look significantly different in the distant past?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 04:18 AM PDT

As I understand it, modern humans have been around for about 150,000 years. Did we look significantly different then? What about 10,000, 1,000, or even 500 years ago?

submitted by /u/RPShep
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How does a gene mutation actually cause it's effect?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 10:17 AM PDT

So I understand our genes can effect all sorts of things about us. For example hair colour. If we have two people A and B that have identical genes except A has the gene for red hair and B has the gene for black hair, what happens differently between A and B for A to get red hair and B black hair?

A bonus question, I have heard DNA being described as code. But would a config file be a better analogy? Or does DNA also contain the instructions for different mutations.

TIA

submitted by /u/Stevetrov
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Why Are Historic Settlements Often Found Buried?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 09:14 AM PDT

There's probably an obvious answer to this but this has always perplexed me. When they find ancient cities and such they are often buried. How did they get buried? Where did all this extra dirt come from? Did the city sink?

submitted by /u/TheRealGuncho
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Saturday, November 5, 2016

Why do flames take a clearly defined form, rather than fire just being a glow of incandescent radiation?

Why do flames take a clearly defined form, rather than fire just being a glow of incandescent radiation?


Why do flames take a clearly defined form, rather than fire just being a glow of incandescent radiation?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 08:15 PM PDT

I think I've got a decent understanding of what fire is, insofar as it's hot air making things look wavy while the rapid oxidation of the fuel creates heat that emits a lot of visible light due to incandescence. However, this still doesn't explain to me why there's generally a very clearly defined flame, with sharp edges to it. Why wouldn't the glow of the oxidizing fuel (let's say, wood in a campfire) just glow in all directions equally, kind of like a red-hot piece of metal? What creates the appearance of the flame itself?

submitted by /u/graaahh
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How do we know chemical reactions doesn't react with air?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 10:20 AM PDT

for example

A+B-> C

How do we know there isn't air involved in A+B?

Don't you need to have a vacuüm to be 100% sure there is no air involved?

submitted by /u/PekkyFTW
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When heavy elements, like gold, are made in supernovae are they formed uniformly before coalescing into larger clumps or are they formed irregularly in different areas of the supernova?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 10:15 PM PDT

Do animals other than humans find sex pleasurable? If not, why are humans the only species that seeks out sex for pleasure rather than for reproduction?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 07:32 AM PDT

Since CERN recently found out that atoms are pear shaped, and point in a certain direction that dictates time direction, is it possible that time moves in a different way we don't comprehend in different universes?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 06:40 PM PDT

I'm probably stupid but I'm curious and I guess that what matters, I'm a high school sophomore so please explain in terms I can understand

submitted by /u/FinnTheCunt
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How many Logs base 3 would we have to apply to Graham's number to bring it below 10?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 11:22 PM PDT

In relation to the quantum eraser - what constitutes as 'information'?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 06:01 AM PDT

I've been reading on the double slit experiment, and I have an interesting question to ask.

My understanding of the quantum eraser is this: If measurements are made to determine which of the two slits the photon goes through, it behaves like a particle. However, if the results of the measurement is erased before checking the pattern, an interference pattern is produced.

So it would seem that the determining factor is information. If there is any information stored about which slit the photon went through, it behaves like a particle, and if that information is erased before the pattern is observed, it will be an interference pattern.

My question is this - if the result of the measurement were shown to a rat before being erased, the rat's brain would hold the information about which slit the photon went through, but he wouldn't be able to process it. Would there be an interference pattern? What if immediately after the rat was shown the results of the measurement, he was incinerated, destroying the brain and all memories in it. Would there be an interference pattern?

Thank you!

submitted by /u/MUSICEATPEOPLE
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What is it about a gene that makes it dominant or recessive?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 05:42 AM PDT

We all know from middle school/high school biology that dominant alleles mask recessive alleles. But what concretely about a gene, chemically, biologically, or physically, makes it more likely to be expressed? Where does dominance come from?

submitted by /u/feynman1729
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Can electricity wear down conducting media, like wires?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 06:52 PM PDT

I know transistors can be worn down by flowing current, but can wires/cables too?

submitted by /u/broccholio
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Why do electrons have spin 1/2 and photons have spin 1?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 07:40 PM PDT

I learned in quantum mechanics that electrons are fermions and fermions have half integer spin, and that photons are bosons and bosons have full integer spin. However, this was always just stated as fact, and we didn't derive it. Is this just one of those measured quantities, like the charge of an electron? Or is there some theoretical way of showing that electrons must have half integer spin and photons have full integer spin?

submitted by /u/x3nodox
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How were Quarks and Antimatter discovered?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 07:59 AM PDT

Hi, I'm currently reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, and I've reached the part where he talks about discovery of Quarks, and he mentions that they are classified by colour and flavour. Can you guide me to the experiments that drove the discovery of multiple quarks and classification (what made them think there are multiple of these quarks and the experiments that proved this)? Another thing he mentions is the discovery of the positron, yet he doesn't mention the how and why that drove the discovery. Can you guide me to the evidence that suggested the existence of antimatter and the experiments that proved it? Thanks in advance.

submitted by /u/DudeElite
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How much of a drop of water is contained the the splash formed when it hits another liquid?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 07:49 AM PDT

This question was much harder to phrase than I was planning on, but here goes. For example, if I were to let a drop of liquid X fall into a large amount of liquid Y, it will form a neat little splash like this. Do we have any information on how much of that splash will be liquid X and how much will be liquid Y? How does it vary with liquid viscosity, density, etc? Speed of the drop? Angle of impact?

submitted by /u/sjones92
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When a Pistol Shrimp snaps its claw and forms a cavitation bubble, what forms in the bubble? Does the air have normal gas concentrations or is it something altogether different?

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 07:37 AM PDT

Why are Pulsars rates not slowing down despite Hubble's law?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 09:50 PM PDT

Hubble's law tells us faraway objects are receding form us. That means that with each revolution (or set of revolutions) it should take light longer to reach us. Would that not have the effect of making the frequency of the pulsars appear to decrease with time?

I've ran the math on some known millisecond pulsars and the difference should be SIGNIFICANT. They shouldn't even be millisecond pulsars after even one year.

submitted by /u/alikp
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What determines if a star (after going red super-giant and supernova) Will become a Neutron Star, or a Black Hole?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 08:43 PM PDT

Say the original massive star had a mass 8 times that of our Sun, it goes Red Super-Giant and then goes supernova. What determines what the supernova will become, and how can you tell if you're given its approximate mass? (Neutron Star or a Black Hole) Any replies will probably help. I have looked it up, but I'm finding a few different answers around, and it's mostly just confusing me more. Thanks!

submitted by /u/inwe-meneldur
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Re: the famous experiment where they put little stilts on ants before their walk home, and they walked too far (meaning the ants must remember either how many steps it was or how long it took)... If they had just moved the ants 50 feet further away, wouldn't they have looked for home 50 feet sooner?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 06:39 PM PDT

Seems like that would have proven the same thing, without the need to glue tiny stilts onto their legs...

submitted by /u/OmitsWordsByAccident
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What is the smallest theoretical size a nuclear fusion reactor capable of 'breakeven' could be?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 03:24 PM PDT

Why does gravity accelerate everything at the same rate?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 10:51 PM PDT

Rockets and other means of acceleration slow dow with greater mass, but gravity always accelerates everything the same rate.

submitted by /u/rodrick160
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Why is it favorable for anesthetics levobupivacaine and ropivacaine to be S-enantiomers?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 09:02 PM PDT

Say I have a black Asphalt roof tile and I have a Solarcity glass Photovoltaic panel. Which one would have less heat?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 05:10 PM PDT

Would the fact energy from the bombardment of solar photons into the metal leafs in the glass actually remove infrared heat as the electron is passed out and down into a battery or house? Or would it be the the same level of Infrared energy produced from the photons hitting the surface with no easier dissipation of built up heat?

submitted by /u/PatrickPlan8
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Why are atomic subshells shaped the way they are?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 04:37 PM PDT

Looking at pictures, in a way, it looks like l represents the number of linear divisions, while n represents the number of radial divisions. Is this true, and if so why?

submitted by /u/mopperv
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If Neanderthals were a separate species, how were Homo Sapiens able to produce fertile offspring with them?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 12:46 PM PDT

What is the difference between "Fast Charging" and regular charging? What processes are Involved?

Posted: 04 Nov 2016 01:51 PM PDT

I have rudimentary knowledge of how the lithium-ion batteries function and how "recharging" works in them. However, with a lot of high-tier phones implementing this tech over the last few years, I'm curious as to what it actually does, and how it works.

submitted by /u/ThatCollegeUndergrad
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Friday, November 4, 2016

Why are there so few lakes in South America?

Why are there so few lakes in South America?


Why are there so few lakes in South America?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 11:29 AM PDT

South America receives plenty of water, but has few natural lakes, and these are smaller, contrasted to other continents. Australia has few as well, but is considerably drier.

What about South America makes it less likely to form lakes?

submitted by /u/Jaicobb
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If you are inside a perfectly sealed, hollow metal sphere, would an electric current applied to the outside of the sphere affect you considering electricity travels along a surface?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 07:04 PM PDT

Edit: specifically, I'm under the impression that in an electrical cable, the electricity travels on the outside of the copper wires, so in this scenario, would any electricity penetrate the sphere or would the fact that electricity travels on the surface mean you would be protected

submitted by /u/gordles
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If a substance of any kind gives off an odor then does that mean it's losing mass even if it's on a very small scale?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 12:19 PM PDT

Example -- If I have a container of poop and open the lid I start to smell poop. So my thinking is that if it smells like poop then it must have been a part of the substance in the container but is no more and free to roam about the air I breathe. So the original substance it came from must be lighter in weight because some of it is free and allowing me to smell it.

submitted by /u/BetaFuckingMax
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Do our bodies adjust physiologically to changing seasons/temperature?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 09:44 AM PDT

I've noticed that in the fall as the temperature starts to drop I always feel cold; but, in the spring time the exact same temperatures feel comfortable or even warm. Is this phenomenon purely psychological or do our bodies adjust in some way for the changing seasons.

submitted by /u/AXP878
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[physics]Can a fusion reactor be designed to fuse elements heavier than hydrogen?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 09:51 PM PDT

In partucular, could a reactor be made that would fuse the helium a hydrogen fusion reactor would leave behind? Could this process be repeated until we are left with iron?

submitted by /u/kdeff
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What would the discovery of a Lorentz Violation imply?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 10:29 PM PDT

Why does mucus dry out when you sleep?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 01:54 PM PDT

Might some irrational numbers be a terminating decimal in another base?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 06:05 PM PDT

For example, would 1/3 be a terminating decimal in another base? What about the square root of two? I can't find any calculators for different bases with decimals anywhere, so I wanted to see what you guys could tell me about this.

submitted by /u/comphacker
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Why doesn't the electromagnetic force have the property of asymptotic freedom?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 03:59 PM PDT

My understanding is that the colour of a quark is distributed throughout space so that it becomes whiter the closer you get to the centre. Shouldn't the measured charge also decrease as you get closer and closer to the centre (in the same way the gravitational field goes to 0 at the centre of the earth)? I understand that the electron's electric field causes a preferred direction of electron-positron fluctuations leading to vacuum polarization and causing a screening effect which makes the measured electron charge less that the true charge but I can't see a difference between the two cases. Shouldn't there also be gluon fluctuations that have give rise to the same screening effect as the electromagnetic force?

submitted by /u/BAOUBA
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Why is YBCO used in superconducting wires instead of higher temperature superconductors like HgTlBaCaCuO or SrFFeAs?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 01:53 PM PDT

There are many higher temperature superconductors than YBCO (graph here ) but why is YBCO always used? The ones that require high pressures to exhibit superconductivity are the only ones that make sense because it would be much more expensive to decrease the temperature and increasing pressure.

submitted by /u/LeedleLiang
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How can doctors tell if you've had a heart attack well after the event?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 12:37 PM PDT

I had a family friend recently suffer a heart attack and she said that for a week she was feeling really bad and slightly disoriented. She went to the doctor and they said she had a heart attack earlier in the week. How do they determine that? Are there biological markers that stick around for a while? How long? Is something permanently changed in your body from that point?

submitted by /u/cincyfan04
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Why is non-linearity such an obstacle in solving differential equations?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 10:18 AM PDT

Audio interpretation coupled with visual input - does one affect the other?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 12:27 PM PDT

Hey,
So I've heard that visual stimuli change the way we perceive sound - I've often heard about when people talk about working with Digital Audio Workstations and why they look 'bland and dull'. Though I'm wondering if there is any substance to the quote; Does having multiple colours instead of a solid grey interface change how the sound is perceived - and if so, how so.
Essentially, does observing a colour/light (any sort of visual stimuli) change the perception of sound as opposed to hearing the sound in complete darkness.

Thanks

submitted by /u/Hawxflight
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How does heat effect radiometric dating?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 11:05 AM PDT

I am an accounting major taking an astronomy course so I am not educated on physics.

My professor was speaking about radiometric dating of rocks here on Earth and explained that radiometric dating is not as effective on meteorites as they have been heated up. Someone asked the question of why this is the case since If uranium decays to lead then the composition of the rock did not change, it is still uranium/lead and other material so how does the atomic clock reset? He didn't really know how to answer it or just could not articulate it.

submitted by /u/ssmith91
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How do we know HIV has only been around a few decades? Isn't it possible, for example, that a few people had it a century ago but nobody noticed because they seemed to die of pneumonia?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 10:55 AM PDT

Do clothes with sweat wicking fabric prevent your body from cooling itself by not allowing sweat to evaporate?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 08:34 AM PDT

Why doesn't B-cell VDJ rearrangement produce TRECs?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 01:01 PM PDT

Aside from the fact that TREC stands for "T-cell receptor excision circle," I don't quite understand why they don't occur in B-cells. How does VDJ rearrangement take place in B-cells without producing these hairpin loops? What happens to the extra material?

submitted by /u/doodki
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If the 3' hydroxyl group is the only location for nucleotides in DNA, is the 2' hydroxyl group on RNA a place where nucleotides can bond as well?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 09:56 AM PDT

Question came up in my intro bio class and the professor didn't have an answer. I was also wondering if this may contribute to the linear shape of RNA as opposed to the helical shape of DNA

submitted by /u/jonasb907ak
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Can we see back to the big bang?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 05:51 AM PDT

Okay so I could be wrong about this but my understanding is the big bang resulted in our expanding universe. I believe the expansion was so fast that the mass of our universe expanded faster than the speed of light hence there being an event horizon that we cannot see past as light has not traveled that far.

Now if for some reason there was an incredibly large reflective object at the edge of the light event horizon, would we be able to see the moment of the big bang by looking at it? The time for the light to reach it and bounce back would give us a look of the big bang as it happened no?

submitted by /u/aeppacher
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How does lightning interfere with AM radio and not FM?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 09:14 AM PDT

What impact do adverse effects have on the placebo effect?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 06:41 AM PDT

E.g. if a patient with depression would take a pill that "doesn't do anything" but cause mild nausea, could this alone enhance his believe that the medication is potent, hence enhance the placebo effect?

Wouldn't any medication with side effects have an advantage over a sugar pill in a placebo controlled study?

submitted by /u/Kongsi
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Can normal light provide Vitamin D or is that something only Sunlight can do?

Posted: 03 Nov 2016 06:23 AM PDT

I imagine if you left someone in a dark room, they'd get weak legs, and we say they need sunlight. What if I put a candle or light bulb, will there be a positive difference?

Does it depend on wavelength or some other physical factor or something else entirely?

Also, what is the process behind the scenes, what happens to cause this effect in humans?

submitted by /u/Ahdilable
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