AskScience AMA Series: I am Scott Solomon, evolutionary biologist, science writer, and university professor, out with a new book on predicting the evolutionary future of humans. Ask Me Anything! |
- AskScience AMA Series: I am Scott Solomon, evolutionary biologist, science writer, and university professor, out with a new book on predicting the evolutionary future of humans. Ask Me Anything!
- What's the estimated pressure on Enceladus' sub-surface ocean?
- Does antimatter reflect photons?
- What is the inside mechanism of an Operational Amplifier? I mean p-type and n-type doped region diagrams and total working procedure on electron and hole movement basic?
- What differentiates two similar elementary particles?
- Where exactly at black holes does hawking radiation occur?
- How does one calculate inductive voltage spikes?
- When physicists talk about energy scales, what does that mean?
- How do attractive forces actually work?
- Do any species have social hierarchies independent of gender?
- If all the planets aligned, would the gravitational forces of all the planets in line with each other change the Earth's orbit?
- [Physics] Do nuclear (or other radioactive) weapons actually make objects radioactive or do they just spread and cover them in radioactive particulates?
- When crab and other sea animals are hauled up from deep depths and then tossed back into the ocean, why don't they die horribly from the pressure change like a human would?
- Does the Radial Probability Wavefunction tell us anything on its own?
- Why does a wood stove burn more vigorously when the door is slightly ajar than when fully open?
- [Physics] Why does refrigerating food make it last longer?
- Is there any relationship between antibonding orbitals and pi bonds?
- Why is Single-Mode Fiber Optic named as such?
- If Jupiter was to just disappear suddenly and the asteroid belt would start accreting into a new planet, how long would it take for the accretion to finish?
- How can people be allergic to metal? What does their body do that makes them react with metal?
- Do objects constantly lose a tiny bit of mass due to emitting infrared radiation because of e=mc^2?
- How often do 'typical' particles change state? E.g electrons flipping spin in the terahertz range, etc.
- eyesight, is it rgb, cmyk or spectrum?
| Posted: 14 Apr 2017 05:00 AM PDT I'm Scott Solomon, an evolutionary biologist, science writer, and university professor. My new book, Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution, considers how we can use science to make informed predictions about our evolutionary future. Recent research suggests that humans are indeed still evolving, but modernization is affecting the way that natural selection and other mechanisms of evolution affect us today. Technology, medicine, demographic changes, and globalization all seem to be having an impact on our ongoing evolution. But our long-term fate as a species may depend on how we choose to utilize emerging technologies, like CRISPR gene editing or the ability to establish permanent colonies on other planets.
I'll be on between 3-5pm eastern (19-21 UT). AMA! [link] [comments]  |
| What's the estimated pressure on Enceladus' sub-surface ocean? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 04:00 PM PDT Recently NASA made a press release discussing the possibility of life in Enceladus' sub-surface ocean. Enceladus is much smaller than Earth and therefore has far weaker gravity, which would correlate with smaller pressure at a given altitude. However, its ocean seems to occupy a larger percentage of the planet's volume compared to Earth's, in addition to being buried under a thick sheet of ice. Given Enceladus' size, gravity, and nature of it's sub-surface ocean, what would its water pressure ranges be? Could a human swim in it without a pressure suit? Could a submarine reach any depth? Bonus question is to estimate the temperature range of the ocean. Since it's liquid, it'd have to be above zero celsius unless it's highly saline. Is there expected geothermal or tidal friction heating? How warm would it be purely from solar exposure, or radiation coming from Saturn? [link] [comments]  |
| Does antimatter reflect photons? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 05:57 PM PDT If we could somehow make enough antimatter, could we see it? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Apr 2017 04:34 AM PDT |
| What differentiates two similar elementary particles? Posted: 14 Apr 2017 03:27 AM PDT If elementary particles are the fundamental building blocks of everything, this means that they themselves are not made up of anything but themselves. So what is it that distinguishes, say, two distinct up charms? [link] [comments]  |
| Where exactly at black holes does hawking radiation occur? Posted: 14 Apr 2017 02:42 AM PDT Apparently some say it occurs at the event horizon, others say much further away. I would've thought it's close to the "surface" of the mass. So let me start here. I assume that a black hole is a spherical piece of mass such as a neutron star, just denser, and massive enough to "capture" light as well as creating a no light zone around it. The more massive a black hole, the bigger this zone is. The more massive a black hole (bh), the less hawking radiation (hr). Now my problem: If hr occurs at the event horizon, the virtual particle escaping it would need to travel close to the speed of light but would be a lot of energy for a random occurence with very little energy (?). If it occurs millions of km away and the escaping particle just barely hits just the distance from the bh where it's velocity would allow it to not instantly get dragged back, wouldnt it just go into orbit around the bh and then not be hr? (I realize we don't really know too much about virtual particle's interaction with gravity, or do we?) Now the only logical way for hr to work for me is this; hr only occurs directly on the surface of the piece of mass. (not the event horizon) Virtual particles are not affected by gravity in any way. The virtual particle annihilating in the bh just happend to travel right into the surface when it was created while the other one just happend not to, because it went the other way and continues to do so beacause it's counter part found another counter part in the bh. In my theory black hole's surfaces are smaller, the more massive they are, because they attrack it's own mass more and don't care about density limitations. Meaning the less massive a bh, the more surface, the more likely one of these hr processes becomes, thus increasing hr effectively. This would explain exactly why more massive black holes have less hr and not more. Sorry if it's dumb or obvious and I am not a native speaker, so sorry for ineffective or unclear language. Thanks for reading. [link] [comments]  |
| How does one calculate inductive voltage spikes? Posted: 14 Apr 2017 02:32 AM PDT So yes I understand that the voltage is related by di/dt and we have discussed how to mitigate it away from sensitive components, but how do you calculate how large the voltage will be or more specifically an estimation of Δt for "sudden" changes in current. I assume for transistors rise and fall times would be a good estimation. What about for mechanical relays and switches? And semi-related do audio speakers create inductive spikes even though they are rated in ohms? I assume the resistive characteristics outweigh the inductive but could it cause damage to a transistor? [link] [comments]  |
| When physicists talk about energy scales, what does that mean? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 07:37 AM PDT You often hear about what theory predicts will happen at the GUT scale or the Planck scale or a scale of 1016 GeV. What do those mean? Is it saying that, we expect that if a system of particles collides with a kinetic energy of X we expect Y? How microscopic does a system have to be before you can consider it "at that scale?" Macroscopically speaking 1016 GeV is pretty small, like the energy of a car crash or the electricity to run the average American house for less than an hour, but clearly we aren't seeing Grand Unification in happen in a car crash. [link] [comments]  |
| How do attractive forces actually work? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 08:54 PM PDT For example gravity, magnetism and electrostatic. Do particles pull towards each other by some link like an elastic band or do they emit particles in the opposite direction to each other to push them together (if so how do they know to do that?) or is it something else entirely? [link] [comments]  |
| Do any species have social hierarchies independent of gender? Posted: 14 Apr 2017 05:35 AM PDT For example, it is the lion's role to 'protect' lionesses of the pride, and the Queen Ant is the one to lay eggs whilst the male drones scavenge for food, but do some (or many) animal species have social structures without differences in gender/sex? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 13 Apr 2017 11:10 AM PDT |
| Posted: 13 Apr 2017 12:28 PM PDT and as a follow-up if it's the latter is there any effective way of cleaning said object(s)? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 13 Apr 2017 03:58 PM PDT |
| Does the Radial Probability Wavefunction tell us anything on its own? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 07:23 PM PDT Hello everyone. In one of my recent lectures, we've been learning a bit about Schrodinger's Equation, in particular how it applies to the Hydrogen Atom. In deriving the wavefunction for this, we came up with the Radial Probability Wavefunction, but my professor also mentioned that, despite its naming, it did not give us the most probable radius for an electron to be in, but that was rather given by a different form that took into account volume. In relation to my above question, what does the Radial Probability Wavefunction tell us on its own? Is it a measure of radius, like its name implies, or something else? Or is it meaningless without taking into account volume? [link] [comments]  |
| Why does a wood stove burn more vigorously when the door is slightly ajar than when fully open? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 08:43 PM PDT It seems like the opposite should be true, since a fully open door is a larger opening for oxygen. [link] [comments]  |
| [Physics] Why does refrigerating food make it last longer? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 10:59 PM PDT |
| Is there any relationship between antibonding orbitals and pi bonds? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 09:15 PM PDT Antibonding orbitals have higher energies and I was simply wondering if that is in any way connected to the concept of sigma/pi bonds since pi bonds are typically more unstable/filled last. Does each individual sigma and pi bond have its own bonding/antibonding orbital(s)? Also, if the conduction band simply corresponds to electrons in antibonding orbitals, are these electrons not still bound? Is the term conduction band not then a misnomer? [link] [comments]  |
| Why is Single-Mode Fiber Optic named as such? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 09:20 PM PDT To my understanding in order for light to traverse a bend in the fiber optic it must reflect of the cladding, creating dispersion and multiple modes. What am I missing? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 13 Apr 2017 02:37 PM PDT |
| How can people be allergic to metal? What does their body do that makes them react with metal? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 01:00 PM PDT |
| Do objects constantly lose a tiny bit of mass due to emitting infrared radiation because of e=mc^2? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 08:25 PM PDT |
| Posted: 13 Apr 2017 11:48 PM PDT My thought is that measuring a particle usually just looks at a brief slice of it's lifetime, and it's usually lost and always altered randomly by the process. If one were track the 'realtime reality' of a vast number of particles, would one expect most of them to stay mostly constant until each interacted with something else, or would it be a 'glitter' of constantly changing spins and polarities? Does the polarity of a photon emitted from a distant star maintain a static polarity until measured, or does it change many times along the journey? [link] [comments]  |
| eyesight, is it rgb, cmyk or spectrum? Posted: 13 Apr 2017 08:01 AM PDT I know that light is a spectrum, and our eyes see many variances. and that most of our vision is black and white and blurry, and that detail is like looking through a toilet roll middle. but do we see in rgb, cmyk or is it a whole spectrum that gets decoded in the brain? [link] [comments]  |
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