Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology

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• Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology
• is it possible to move an object in circular motion using magnets?
• If the moon was created from an impact with Earth, could there be “Earth rocks” deep within the Moon?
• Whats the truth about applying water to burns? Will cold water cause it to blister or stifle it? What about lukewarm water?
• If capacitance increases as distance between plates decreases, why aren't there very small 1F capacitors?
• What happens to the spin of an electron when it leaves a nucleus?
• If both the liver and the kidney are filtering organs, what are their different responsibilities? Are there other organs that perform similar functions?
• Are there positions of a chess board that are impossible to achieve legally?
• Are there any materials that only allow radio waves to pass through in one direction?
• What triggers beta particles to form, and for what reason can they not penetrate substantially thick aluminium?
• Why do martian rovers last so much longer than planned?
• Why does water make paper products translucent?
• What was going on in the science community when the first dinosaur bones were discovered? Did we realize early on what we were looking at? What was the attitude of the community towards the discovery?
• How exact do orbital speeds need to be so you don't fly off into space (too fast) or fall into the atmosphere (too slow)?
• How did chemists determine the structures of molecules before they had high power microscopes?
• How are the eggs of birds formed and what is the process called? Are they formed to the size that they are eventually hatched?
• Is there a theoretical limit to how many protons an atom can contain?
• How do scientists assess/prove the age of ancient foot prints?
• What physically happens inside a computer when it crashes or freezes?
• At what frequency does a repetitive sound become a solid sound?

Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology Posted: 21 Feb 2018 07:07 AM PST 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]

is it possible to move an object in circular motion using magnets? Posted: 21 Feb 2018 06:33 AM PST hello I'm trying to make a device which uses magnetism. my device is like a windmill but instead, I'm planning to use magnets to move the blades. I created a miniature using a pc fan and a dynamo generator. So far it doesn't work. Is it possible to move an object in circular motion with the use of two opposite magnetic poles? submitted by /u/Shiniross [link] [comments]

If the moon was created from an impact with Earth, could there be “Earth rocks” deep within the Moon? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 09:57 PM PST Could we learn about early Earth geology with rocks we found on the Moon? submitted by /u/MindCologne [link] [comments]

Whats the truth about applying water to burns? Will cold water cause it to blister or stifle it? What about lukewarm water? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 06:17 PM PST submitted by /u/BertMcDerp [link] [comments]

If capacitance increases as distance between plates decreases, why aren't there very small 1F capacitors? Posted: 21 Feb 2018 06:41 AM PST Is there a point where we cannot bring the plates any closer (engineering problem)? submitted by /u/j_pierce3 [link] [comments]

What happens to the spin of an electron when it leaves a nucleus? Posted: 21 Feb 2018 05:31 AM PST Lets say a photon collides with an atom, causing an electron on the outer shell to be knocked from orbit. From a classical sense, I would assume it takes some amount energy to change the spin of a particle, and that this amount of energy would depend on how far it's rotated. But, if an electron flies off of a nucleus, there could potentially be a magnetic field in ANY direction that the electron will then encounter. This means that the electrons spin could change to be oriented in any direction after it leaves the nucleus. Now, please correct me if I am wrong, but if I am right that changing the spin takes energy based on how much it has been rotated, there is a violation of energy conservation somewhere here, as the photon would contribute a quantized amount of energy that wouldn't be able to account for the future measurement at an arbitrary angle with respect to its original orientation. Or, am I wrong about energy and if the spin on the electron was originally up, will it just be measured as up in the magnetic field? Thanks! submitted by /u/Tablecork [link] [comments]

If both the liver and the kidney are filtering organs, what are their different responsibilities? Are there other organs that perform similar functions? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 06:05 PM PST I know that the liver does about a million different things and secretes bile, while kidneys remove urea, but are there any overlapping functions? submitted by /u/OgreAttack [link] [comments]

Are there positions of a chess board that are impossible to achieve legally? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 03:15 PM PST If I were to pick up a bunch of chess pieces and put them arbitrarily onto the board, is it possible for me to arrange them in such a way that two players could not eventually create the same state from the start of a game? Assuming a legal number of each piece, obviously. submitted by /u/AndrewBot88 [link] [comments]

Are there any materials that only allow radio waves to pass through in one direction? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 06:12 PM PST Basically the title. I'm curious to see if there any materials that block radio waves coming in from one direction, but completely reject them from the opposite direction. If not in the radio part of the spectrum what about other parts of the em spectrum? submitted by /u/BigDaddyDeck [link] [comments]

What triggers beta particles to form, and for what reason can they not penetrate substantially thick aluminium? Posted: 21 Feb 2018 07:56 AM PST submitted by /u/Antoni2000 [link] [comments]

Why do martian rovers last so much longer than planned? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 07:58 PM PST It almost seems as if NASA underestimates the missions durations on purpose to then be able to say that some rover lasted X times more than planned. Like Spirit who was only supposed to last 90 days, I find it hard to believe that the sent a super expensive robot to another planet and only expected it to work for a months and a half. Instead its 6 years of operational time seem more reasonable, even a little less than expected. So does NASA underestimates on purpose or what? submitted by /u/Frigorifico [link] [comments]

Why does water make paper products translucent? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 04:05 PM PST submitted by /u/homestar_ssbm [link] [comments]

What was going on in the science community when the first dinosaur bones were discovered? Did we realize early on what we were looking at? What was the attitude of the community towards the discovery? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 09:09 AM PST This is always something I have wondered and been fascinated with more so than the discovery itself. It had to have been something that shook the community to it's bones (pun intended) submitted by /u/JustinSchwimmer [link] [comments]

How exact do orbital speeds need to be so you don't fly off into space (too fast) or fall into the atmosphere (too slow)? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 08:05 PM PST submitted by /u/Mars_rocket [link] [comments]

How did chemists determine the structures of molecules before they had high power microscopes? Posted: 21 Feb 2018 02:40 AM PST submitted by /u/srrythtusrnmeistken [link] [comments]

How are the eggs of birds formed and what is the process called? Are they formed to the size that they are eventually hatched? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 05:36 PM PST submitted by /u/19surf75 [link] [comments]

Is there a theoretical limit to how many protons an atom can contain? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 12:35 PM PST I'm very interested in physics, but mainly study it by myself on the Internet. I see in the periodic table that new elements are made in particle accelerators, by bombarding an element with other particles. So is there a limit to how heavy an element can be, or could we in the future discover a stable element much heavier than we know today? submitted by /u/Valle37 [link] [comments]

How do scientists assess/prove the age of ancient foot prints? Posted: 21 Feb 2018 12:26 AM PST I seem to see a news article about every two or three months about archeologists finding a set of foot prints that are tens to hundreds of thousands of years old. Example article How do they determine how old the foot prints are? Thanks! submitted by /u/lojafan [link] [comments]

What physically happens inside a computer when it crashes or freezes? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 03:24 PM PST submitted by /u/8Kl7c8A2-y6N3Sk6G [link] [comments]

At what frequency does a repetitive sound become a solid sound? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 10:43 AM PST For instance, if you were able to beat a drum fast enough, at what BPM would it sound like a continuous noise? submitted by /u/ATLBMW [link] [comments]

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Can dogs observe and recognize aging in adult humans? Do they differentiate between young adult, middle-aged and elderly humans?

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• Can dogs observe and recognize aging in adult humans? Do they differentiate between young adult, middle-aged and elderly humans?
• If 2 people dislike the same food, are they then more likely to dislike other similar foods?
• Does the Mach Cone occurs only appears when crossing the 1 Mach speed or it can also appear later during the supersonic flight (> 1 Mach)?
• Why don't the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet tan or burn?
• Is it possible to trigger or "activate" a volcanic eruption?
• Is white light dispersed by a prism always the same? (angles to colour)?
• Is it possible to transform martian soil into fertile soil through bacteria and fungi?
• Do cats purr voluntarily or unvoluntarily?
• When you physically break or shatter a flash storage chip, to what degree is the data still readable from the fragments?
• Why is it that during winter it's not uncommon to have days with abnormally high temperature and summer-like weather, but in the summer it never drops to winter-like weather for a day?
• Are there any known mutations in drosophila melanogaster that cause a phenotype of folded downward wings?
• Could a planet with a highly eccentric orbit be tidally locked?
• Does energy accumulate in geographical faults in such a manner that the longer that energy isn't released, the bigger energy-releases we can expect at once? (i.e. earthquakes, volcanos).
• Are blood bags usually sealed (in a vacuum)?
• Are seatbelt/phone detection cameras a real thing? And if so, how do they work?
• What is the most amount of electrons forcibly added to an atom?
• Why does the taste of tap water vary between locations?
• I think I understand the difference between aleph-null and aleph-one as countable and uncountable infinities, but what is aleph-two?
• How do processors make sure their calculations are done correctly when out of the billions of transistors they have, a few will surely fail over time?
• Do any of the stars we can observe with tbe naked eye at night have planets orbiting them?
• How do developers of Nuclear Weapons either keep (or protect themselves from) radioactive materials like Plutonium-239 from potentially ‘leaking’ out particles? Are there any methods to contain these particles from escaping the material so they won’t hurt biological matter near the material?
• If the vaporization point of water can be changed by increasing pressure, is the freezing point also affected by pressure?
• Alternates to Xenon for Electric Propulsion?

Can dogs observe and recognize aging in adult humans? Do they differentiate between young adult, middle-aged and elderly humans? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 01:18 PM PST I guess I should also specify: If they do, can they make these distinctions instinctively, without training by human handlers? submitted by /u/Acidnapper [link] [comments]

If 2 people dislike the same food, are they then more likely to dislike other similar foods? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 07:02 AM PST submitted by /u/kr0n_cs [link] [comments]

Does the Mach Cone occurs only appears when crossing the 1 Mach speed or it can also appear later during the supersonic flight (> 1 Mach)? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 07:32 AM PST Hi. I m currently arguing with a colleague about the fact that the mach cone (example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0gvWhDgm_E ) appears only when the object is passing the "sound barrier" (Mach 1) or if it can appear whenever the plane flies at a speed > 1.0 Mach. My thoughts are that the video titles are missleading and always labelled as "Mach Cone while passing sound barrier". I think that if we could follow a plane at that speed we could see the mach cone randomly appearing. The appearence essentially depending of the air humidity of a given spot in the atmosphere. Thanks ! submitted by /u/Solidslip [link] [comments]

Why don't the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet tan or burn? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 02:34 AM PST submitted by /u/lilithofthefair [link] [comments]

Is it possible to trigger or "activate" a volcanic eruption? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 05:48 AM PST I just saw a post that showed the Indonesian volcanic eruption and got curious. Can a person cause volcanic activity? For example, what if a person mined near a volcano or used explosives near one? submitted by /u/doctor_utopia [link] [comments]

Is white light dispersed by a prism always the same? (angles to colour)? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 07:07 AM PST I'm not entirely sure how to articulate my question correctly but hope that below makes sense: If you shine a white light through a prism, you will get the colours of the rainbow dispersed. When you move the prism on its axis, the rainbow of course moves along with it. If you go back to the exact same position as before, will the exact same dispersion occur as before? What is the mathematics behind this? submitted by /u/cwinhall [link] [comments]

Is it possible to transform martian soil into fertile soil through bacteria and fungi? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 04:14 PM PST submitted by /u/TimeIsGrand [link] [comments]

Do cats purr voluntarily or unvoluntarily? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 06:15 PM PST For example if we're petting a cat, does it purr voluntarily to tell us that its enjoying the attention, or is it more of a reaction, like when we laugh if tickled? submitted by /u/AnDuToit [link] [comments]

When you physically break or shatter a flash storage chip, to what degree is the data still readable from the fragments? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 02:28 AM PST If you have confidential data on a flash chip, like in a phone, flash drive or SSD, and you physically break it into pieces (not pulverize it into dust, just shatter it into fragments), is the data still accessible if an attacker can get access to the chip fragments? Will physically breaking the chips cause the electrical charges that data is stored as to discharge completely in a reasonable amount of time (several days, one or two weeks)? In other words, if the data is recoverable, will it become unrecoverable anytime soon? submitted by /u/120978 [link] [comments]

Why is it that during winter it's not uncommon to have days with abnormally high temperature and summer-like weather, but in the summer it never drops to winter-like weather for a day? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 08:23 AM PST I live in the USA Midwest submitted by /u/This31415926535 [link] [comments]

Are there any known mutations in drosophila melanogaster that cause a phenotype of folded downward wings? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 08:23 AM PST I was in lab doing crosses of fruit flies and trying to grow them at an optimal temperature to get the correct expression of a certain gene. One of the crosses showed folded wings pointing downward as if the wing was folded like paper. I tried looking up folded wing phenotypes but couldn't find anything and was just wondering if anyone else knows a specific mutation that may cause a phenotype like the one above. submitted by /u/Wakkapacman [link] [comments]

Could a planet with a highly eccentric orbit be tidally locked? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 08:07 AM PST submitted by /u/OgodHOWdisGEThere [link] [comments]

Does energy accumulate in geographical faults in such a manner that the longer that energy isn't released, the bigger energy-releases we can expect at once? (i.e. earthquakes, volcanos). Posted: 20 Feb 2018 06:18 AM PST I'm not talking about predicting earthquakes or other natural disasters. With the number of variables to be taken into account, I know that's an impossible task. My question is more about the accumulating energy in the earth and it's existing (or not) relationship with one time releasing of large quantities of energy. Maybe my whole question is dumb because maybe energy does not accumulate? I'm clearly no expert in geology (or even basic physics for that matter) but I have tried the internet with no success. submitted by /u/VeinyBrain [link] [comments]

Are blood bags usually sealed (in a vacuum)? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 06:12 AM PST I didn't know exactly where to post this, but I was calculating the pressure of blood coming from a blood bag for a physics problem and was curious to know if blood is normally stored in a vacuum (so no additional pressure from air). submitted by /u/PacoTheLegend [link] [comments]

Are seatbelt/phone detection cameras a real thing? And if so, how do they work? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 10:39 PM PST They've been talking about implementing those where I live and I find it a little hard to comprehend how that can work in a real life setting. Thanks! submitted by /u/HishamYahya [link] [comments]

What is the most amount of electrons forcibly added to an atom? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 04:14 PM PST So like the title says, I know ionization energy increases with each additional electron taken away, I assume the reverse is true for adding electrons. How many electrons has someone tried to add to an atom in a laboratory? How unstable was it, how long did it last? What chemical properties were attained from the extremely negative ion? submitted by /u/swagrons [link] [comments]

Why does the taste of tap water vary between locations? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 05:10 PM PST submitted by /u/mmm_toasty [link] [comments]

I think I understand the difference between aleph-null and aleph-one as countable and uncountable infinities, but what is aleph-two? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 09:37 AM PST My understanding is that aleph-null is the set of natural numbers or any set of numbers that can be mapped to the set of natural numbers, and that aleph-one is the set of numbers that, like real numbers, can't, as proven by Cantor's diagonal argument. This is pretty intuitive and I think I understand how that works. But what is aleph-two and above then? By analogy it would be something that can't be mapped to the set of real numbers, but I don't know what that looks like. submitted by /u/Usedpresident [link] [comments]

How do processors make sure their calculations are done correctly when out of the billions of transistors they have, a few will surely fail over time? Posted: 20 Feb 2018 12:02 AM PST submitted by /u/ironfist221 [link] [comments]

Do any of the stars we can observe with tbe naked eye at night have planets orbiting them? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 04:07 PM PST submitted by /u/shatthebedpan [link] [comments]

How do developers of Nuclear Weapons either keep (or protect themselves from) radioactive materials like Plutonium-239 from potentially ‘leaking’ out particles? Are there any methods to contain these particles from escaping the material so they won’t hurt biological matter near the material? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 04:03 PM PST I was just thinking about a documentary I saw about World War 2, specifically about Atomic Bombs like Fat Man which were thrown over Japan. In the documentary, someone said that the bomb had to be armed manually with several pins before it was dropped. My assumption is that for anybody to feel comfortable enough to be near such a dangerous source of radioactive material, they must have felt pretty sure that there was no actual harm in being near the thing in it of itself, and it's not especially dangerous at rest. But Beta radiation decay is strong enough to pass through aluminum, and gamma radiation is strong enough to pass through lead, right? I get that the bomb could have a protective outer casing, but is that really all there is between the bomb and it's surroundings? Is that enough to contain the nuclear decay? I guess my vision of nuclear material is that it's kinda like pure acidic material thatis strong enough to tear through any metalthat is trying to hold it, but that is seemingly not the case. It just seems like something so potentially dangerous that I wouldn't dare go near it, no matter what it's stored in. submitted by /u/VentrustWestwind [link] [comments]

If the vaporization point of water can be changed by increasing pressure, is the freezing point also affected by pressure? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 03:09 PM PST last year I learned about basic hydraulics in my 4th class Power Engineering class and I remember that the boiling point of water is affected by pressure. For instance; Water boils at 212 Fahrenheit at 0 psi, Water boils at 240 Fahrenheit at 10 psi, Water boils at 250 Fahrenheit at 15 psi, and so on. My question, and what I thought about was, does pressure also change the freezing point of water. Using pressure, could we have super cooled water? or is there other factors that would need to be in place. If possible, would the super cooled water suddenly turn into ice as the pressure was released? submitted by /u/_Max_e_Pad_ [link] [comments]

Alternates to Xenon for Electric Propulsion? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 10:28 PM PST Hello, I have been researching some stuff on electric propulsion. I understand why Xenon is the most preferred choice. But technically any element/chemical could be used instead, am I right? Do we have systems that run on other propellents? other than the noble gases. (any compounds?) Any help is much appreciated. Thank you. PS: I did not really find anything with Google. submitted by /u/Redditor23005 [link] [comments]

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When does a mushroom die? When it's picked? When it's packaged? Refrigerated? Sliced? Digested?

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• When does a mushroom die? When it's picked? When it's packaged? Refrigerated? Sliced? Digested?
• As a snake grows in length, does it grow additional ribs and vertebrae, or do they have a set number?
• When a Li-ion battery is first manufactured, is it already charged? If so, how much and why that amount?
• What is special about sunlight versus artificial light that plants need it?
• Why isn't Boron created through normal stellar nucleosynthesis (i.e. nuclear fusion in stars)?
• Are mitochondria significantly different in different species?
• If the four dimensions of space and time are intertwined, why can we not rotate an object into "time" the same way we can rotate an object in 3D space?
• Do other animals have 'accents' like humans do?
• Why do things like saliva or melted cheese pull into strings when you try to separate them?
• How much complexity can nuclear pasta phases in neutron stars support? Could one potentially have strong-force-based life in a neutron star?
• At an atomic level, what makes a material better at compression or tension?
• Has there ever been a trench deeper than the Marianas Trench in Earth's geologic history?
• Do male species having lower life expectancy than female also occur in other animal species than human?
• What makes an organism a plant-like protist over an animal like protist?
• Do Lagrange points exist for planets in elliptical orbits?
• Why does halorhodopsin only activate when exposed to yellow light and channelrhodopsin with blue light?
• How do liquid fueled rockets manage to stay on track during launch with fuel constantly moving around in the fuel tanks?
• Have we ever seen a stellar ignition?
• Do "aeroelastic" phenomena occur for structures submerged in liquids?
• Why are green aurora borealis more common than the red/ purple ones?
• Quantum tunneling real or proven or just our best estimation?

When does a mushroom die? When it's picked? When it's packaged? Refrigerated? Sliced? Digested? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 06:40 PM PST 12 hours later: Thank you all for your answers. I was eating a raw mushroom at the time I asked the question (that's why I did not include "cooked" in my list). From your answers: a mushroom is an organ, not a complete life form, so it's not alive in the sense that my cat is alive what I was eating was "alive" in the sense that a seed is alive (able to start a new organism) yet died in my digestive system I was particularly interested in a mushroom (rather than, say, a carrot), because a mushroom is a fungus, not a plant. submitted by /u/1Davide [link] [comments]

As a snake grows in length, does it grow additional ribs and vertebrae, or do they have a set number? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 12:34 PM PST submitted by /u/AppleJuiceMoose [link] [comments]

When a Li-ion battery is first manufactured, is it already charged? If so, how much and why that amount? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 04:29 AM PST When I get a new phone sometimes it arrives with some charge (around 20%), other times is more, sometimes less. I was wondering if the battery leaves the factory at 100% and it decreases until it gets to the user or if it's already almost empty from the start. Thank you. submitted by /u/eduazy [link] [comments]

What is special about sunlight versus artificial light that plants need it? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 03:41 PM PST If all light is just photons, and plants convert photons into sugar through photosynthesis then why do plants die when placed indoors even if given enough artificial light? submitted by /u/KarkatTheVantas [link] [comments]

Why isn't Boron created through normal stellar nucleosynthesis (i.e. nuclear fusion in stars)? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 05:45 PM PST It just seems weird that Boron isn't synthesised like normal elements, since it's atomic number is not particularly high (5). I know that elements heavier than Iron (26) need the special conditions of supernova to be formed, but Boron is so light that I would really think that fusion would work. submitted by /u/052934 [link] [comments]

Are mitochondria significantly different in different species? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 01:22 AM PST If it were possible to replace the mitochondria in, say, a giraffe cell with mitochondria from a hyena cell, would it work? submitted by /u/BotiaDario [link] [comments]

If the four dimensions of space and time are intertwined, why can we not rotate an object into "time" the same way we can rotate an object in 3D space? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 01:15 AM PST Forgive me for being naive, but this seems like an intuitive question. submitted by /u/InAFakeBritishAccent [link] [comments]

Do other animals have 'accents' like humans do? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 03:08 PM PST submitted by /u/Totes_Police [link] [comments]

Why do things like saliva or melted cheese pull into strings when you try to separate them? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 07:34 AM PST submitted by /u/Khannuuuuur [link] [comments]

How much complexity can nuclear pasta phases in neutron stars support? Could one potentially have strong-force-based life in a neutron star? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 08:56 PM PST Normally nuclear interactions don't come close to the complexity of chemistry, forming simple balls instead of complex molecules. But I've read that during the transition from the atom-dominated crust of a neutron star to the neutron-dominated interior much more complex structures called "nuclear pasta" exist, where nucleons group together into strands, planes, bubbly structures, etc. How much do we know about these phases? Does its complexity approach that of chemistry? Could one potentially have life on nuclear length- and time-scales there? submitted by /u/amaurea [link] [comments]

At an atomic level, what makes a material better at compression or tension? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 02:48 AM PST submitted by /u/Neotrik [link] [comments]

Has there ever been a trench deeper than the Marianas Trench in Earth's geologic history? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 11:05 AM PST submitted by /u/Sector-Codec [link] [comments]

Do male species having lower life expectancy than female also occur in other animal species than human? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 01:26 AM PST I know male humans have lower life expectancy because they risk more, but isn't that the case for other animals too? Might be a dumb question, but I'm a big ear. submitted by /u/Crypterion [link] [comments]

What makes an organism a plant-like protist over an animal like protist? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 12:41 AM PST Confused at something my biology teacher told the class while he was explaining the different kingdoms. What key feature puts an organism in one protist group over the other? For example, if an animal cell had a cell wall (not even sure if this is possible) would it be considered an animal-like protist or a plant-like protist? submitted by /u/devilmonk [link] [comments]

Do Lagrange points exist for planets in elliptical orbits? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 05:51 PM PST If so, how are they different than the mostly-circular orbit of Earth? Is there some cutoff point where the orbit is too elliptical to have langrange points? submitted by /u/mienaikoe [link] [comments]

Why does halorhodopsin only activate when exposed to yellow light and channelrhodopsin with blue light? Posted: 19 Feb 2018 03:38 AM PST submitted by /u/qaziee [link] [comments]

How do liquid fueled rockets manage to stay on track during launch with fuel constantly moving around in the fuel tanks? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 05:47 PM PST submitted by /u/CrouchingNarwal [link] [comments]

Have we ever seen a stellar ignition? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 01:10 PM PST The moment when a contracting cloud of gas first begins thermonuclear fusion. We call them stellar nurseries, we know new stars are being born there. My question is if we have ever been looking at the right bit of the right cloud at the right time to see the event as it happens!?! submitted by /u/diogenes_shadow [link] [comments]

Do "aeroelastic" phenomena occur for structures submerged in liquids? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 08:17 PM PST I couldn't find anything on this subject after a cursory google search. Basically I'm wondering if watercraft designers have to account for some liquid-specific version of flutter the same way aircraft designers do. It would make sense to me that some dynamic instability would arise from high speed motion of an elastic structure submerged in liquid the same way aeroelastic phenomena occur in air. Any fluids experts care to weigh in? submitted by /u/SlugsPerSecond [link] [comments]

Why are green aurora borealis more common than the red/ purple ones? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 10:32 AM PST To my understanding green ones are from oxygen and purple/blue ones are from nitrogen. Why are the ones from nitrogen more rare since nitrogen is more common in the atmosphere than oxygen? submitted by /u/Waden10 [link] [comments]

Quantum tunneling real or proven or just our best estimation? Posted: 18 Feb 2018 11:57 PM PST When I teach electronic orbitals in college chemistry, I like to pose a question to my students, "How does an electron travel to different lobes in the orbital if we know it goes throw a point that has a 0% chance of it being located there? We know it never passes through this small point, but it's the door to the other side. How does it get there?" The answer is quantum tunneling but that just seems like an answer scientists had to has because there has to be one. It seems like a cop out. Some how a cat is involved in all this as well :) submitted by /u/Team-CCP [link] [comments]

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