| Why is the brain divided? Posted: 01 Jun 2018 02:39 AM PDT |
| What do ants do when they are separated from the colony? Posted: 01 Jun 2018 05:05 AM PDT I had an interesting experience with ants yesterday. They have been coming in through my kitchen window to feed on food in my kitchen. I closed the gap in the window that they were coming in through, but some ants were still inside the house. I found the behavior of these remaining ants interesting: They huddled into "groups," as if they were talking, and then they started to spread out, as if they were searching for a way back to the colony. I have two questions: What do ants usually do when they are separated from the colony (e.g., as above)? What were the ants who were trapped in my house probably doing? Thanks. submitted by /u/Torin_3 [link] [comments] |
| In apes, does sexual attraction to breasts have an adaptive value? Are human female breasts sexually attractive only because of social conditioning? Posted: 31 May 2018 10:53 PM PDT It seems to me that breasts in female humans could have a number of different possible adaptive values, and because of this it seems logical that the perception of them as sexually attractive is at least partially hardwired, and not entirely socially motivated. I am asking from the perspective of evolutionary biology. For instance, female breasts are mammary glands and have the function of nurturing young. It seems like their size would not be an honest indicator of any functional aspect, but would more likely be a simple indicator of sexual maturity. Additionally, increased fatty tissue in the breasts would be an indicator of good health, since malnourished individuals would not have energy to allocate to fat tissue in the breasts. My hypothesis is that there is some biologically hardwired sexual selective pressure for visible breasts because they are direct indicators of sexual maturity (thus decreasing failed mating attempts among individuals) and/or indirect indicators of individual's fitness. The alternative hypothesis is that apparent sexual selection for visible breasts has no adaptive component and is entirely motivated by social taboos and sexualization of females. Is there evidence for my hypothesis? Note that my hypothesis doesn't say that social pressures are not important, or even predominating (in humans), but that there is some biological component either additional to the social factor, or underlying the social factor. One related question. In human societies where breasts are not taboo, are they considered desirable in some proportion of males in those societies? submitted by /u/roach_brain [link] [comments] |
| How do you forecast wind? I understand being able to forecast things like rain, snow, and sunny days based on cloud formations? But how can someone determine if a day in the future will be windy, and how strong that wind will be? Posted: 31 May 2018 08:16 PM PDT |
| Why are there so many research stations on the Antartica and what are we actually researching? Posted: 31 May 2018 01:53 PM PDT |
| I live in Libya, why is that we have sandstorms only in summer and not winter? And why we get sandstorm even when the wind is blowing from the north (sea) and not south (desert)? Posted: 31 May 2018 03:15 PM PDT I live in Benghazi, which is costal city and today we had a sandstorm despite weather information says that the wind is blowing from the north (the sea is only 20km north from my place) and I was really confused. Does it have to do with humidity? Also we have days on winter where it doesn't rain for weeks so I don't think it has to do with "wetness". submitted by /u/ikkou48 [link] [comments] |
| Why do we define the mass of a proton/neutron as 1/12 of carbon-12, and not 1/56 of iron-56? Posted: 01 Jun 2018 05:42 AM PDT I've been reading a new chemistry book and it made a tangent explaining that the idea of calculating the relative atomic mass of various elements by simply considering it a sum of proton/neutron particles' mass is wrong due to mass deficiency caused by fusion. As far as I know, iron is the cutoff point where fusion releases more energy than it takes, from which I assume that mass deficiency is eliminated above iron, and instead we get more mass than the constituent particles' mass should give. Is this a valid idea? Based on the above idea I thought - "Why not define the mass of proton/neutron as 1/56 of Iron-56? Doing so would eliminate inaccuracies borne from fusion's heat colouration." p.s..: Don't know how "Endothermic/exothermic" is referred to in English literarture. In Hungarian, we call it the "Heat colouration." submitted by /u/Hoihe [link] [comments] |
| When a substance is oxidized, does it gain or lose energy? Posted: 01 Jun 2018 02:44 AM PDT More specifically, could I create a battery that used two substances that started out as oxides and as the reaction happens they are reduced to base elements? Could such a battery be recharged by simply exposing it to open air? submitted by /u/Critwhoris [link] [comments] |
| Can the growth of humans (or other animals) or their final height/size be altered by a specific diet or is it determined by genes? Posted: 01 Jun 2018 02:19 AM PDT |
| You live in an arctic igloo (with electricity). Will a refrigerator still be able to keep things at 40 degrees Fahrenheit? Posted: 01 Jun 2018 01:30 AM PDT I once watched a documentary on an arctic outpost and the narrator said something like "the temperature here is 0 degrees. in this weather, you'd use a fridge to keep things WARM!". It was a bit cheesy, but makes me wonder whether a refrigerator DOES have heat capacity. submitted by /u/prettyflyforabrowngy [link] [comments] |
| How is google maps able to track live traffic changes? Posted: 31 May 2018 11:41 PM PDT |
| Is there an equivalence between information, energy and matter? Posted: 01 Jun 2018 01:55 AM PDT Some Science,....without Quantum mysticism In the context of the holographic principle, .
who states that the entropy of ordinary mass (not just black holes)
is also proportional to surface area and not volume; that volume itself is illusory and the universe is really a hologram which is isomorphic
to the information "inscribed" on the surface of its boundary. actually none can explain how is encoded the information on the surface of the volume' s boundary ? with ""Consider the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals."" This statement must be placed in the context of the holographic principle and the works of Bekenstein ... Indeed, according to Bekenstein the thermodynamic entropy and Shannon entropy are conceptually equivalent. the number of arrangements that are counted by Boltzmann entropy reflects the amount of Shannon information that would be needed to implement any particular arrangement ... ...of matter and energy The only fundamental difference between the thermodynamic entropy of physics and the entropy of Shannon lies in the units of measurement; the first is expressed in units of energy divided by the temperature, the second in "bits" of information essentially dimensionless. so ""Can we talk about an equivalence of information, energy and matter ...?"" submitted by /u/alamata-sod [link] [comments] |
| This sounds stupid but, how does water(puddle, wet clothes) dries out without reaching its Saturated Temp (100 deg C)?? Does evaporation occurs in the drying process? Posted: 31 May 2018 10:01 PM PDT |
| Is the rate in which radiation decreases with distance through an object/air exponential? Posted: 31 May 2018 08:04 PM PDT My idea is that lets say with alpha radiation,roughly 6cm of air would stop alpha radiation,but does the 1cm of air stop the most alpha radiation?My kinda theory is that since there is a higher possibility at the start for radiation to collide with air particles,the first cm of air would have the most collisions hence stopping the most alpha radiation particles. submitted by /u/XDPie [link] [comments] |
| When you put Aloe Vera gel on a sunburn, does the skin soak it in, does it dry quickly, or what happens? Posted: 31 May 2018 08:40 PM PDT |
| Does humidity effect the speed/ease with which bugs can fly trough the air? Posted: 31 May 2018 04:51 PM PDT A follow-up question I would have for this is whether bugs in certain climates that are more/less humid have adapted differently as a result. submitted by /u/schneidrew [link] [comments] |
| Do local galaxies act as large capacitors? Do they store charge between them? Posted: 31 May 2018 05:16 PM PDT |
| How or could a small consistent charge of electricity affect the way cells communicate? Posted: 31 May 2018 10:47 PM PDT |
| What properties determine the density of elements? Posted: 31 May 2018 07:41 PM PDT Why is it that some elements, while having less mass than another, is still more dense? For example Au is more dense than U although U has more mass. At first I thought the difference could be due to atomic radius. However, Cu (radius of 140 pm) is more dense than Zn (139 pm). Does effective nuclear charge play into this somehow? What things actually effect density of elements? submitted by /u/SapphireZephyr [link] [comments] |
| I just found an equation that makes perfect square roots with the Fibonacci sequence. please explain? Posted: 31 May 2018 11:48 PM PDT watched this video: https://youtu.be/SjSHVDfXHQ4?t=162 and remembered an old trick I used to do with numbers. look at this and tell me if I'm too stoned to be doing math. Normal Fibonacci is any number plus it's self, and then again in sequence. Starting with 1 we have; 1, 1, 2 , 3 , 5 , 8 , 13 , 21 , 34 In the video Arthur Benjamin shoes that by squaring the values of the sequence, and then adding them to each other ( see below) square root of Fibonacci : =1 =1=4=9=25=64=169 Now take 1+1= 2 and 1+4= 5 and 4+9= 13 and 9+25= 34 Basically this shows that rooting something and adding it to it's self in sequence actually gives you the next number in the sequence's square root. Now here's were I added something. Imagine taking a 0-10 sequence of numbers; 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 adding 0+1 and 1+2 and 2+3 and so on... =1=3=5=7=9=11=13=15=17=19=21 (increasing 2 at a time linear) Now here's where I get some cool numbers Take all the numbers in the chain from earlier and add them to the number to the right of them, like before but this time also add that number to the previous value. (similar to Fibonacci) 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 So its 0+1 =1 All these values are the square root of the previous number.. 1+2(+1) =4 2+3(+4) =9 3+4(+9) =16 4+5(+16) =25 5+6(+25) =36 6+7(+36) =49 7+8(+49) =64 8+9(+64) =81 9+10(+81) =100 10+ Just a cool math thing? or what's happening here submitted by /u/superiorpanda [link] [comments] |
| What's the difference between the shapes of pupils of human, felines or horses, do they affect image perceived? Posted: 31 May 2018 04:16 PM PDT |
| How close are we to artificial sperm and eggs? Or are we already there yet? Could we essentially create a fertilized embryo without real sperm or egg? Posted: 31 May 2018 08:00 PM PDT |
| Do other animals have such pungent body odour? Posted: 01 Jun 2018 02:47 AM PDT We all know that humans, when unwashed for a substantial period of time, smell really bad. Sometimes to the point of leaving a lingering scent in the air that lasts for minutes. Why do we have such strong BO? Do other animals have stronger BOs and we just cannot detect it? submitted by /u/Critwhoris [link] [comments] |
| Does Cas9 integrate viral DNA into bacterial DNA AND recognize viral DNA and snip it? Or does Cas9 ONLY recognize viral DNA and snip it, and some other enzyme integrates the viral DNA into the bacteria's DNA. Posted: 31 May 2018 10:54 PM PDT I'm a bit confused about how bacteria use the CRISPR system to integrate phage DNA into their own DNA. Do they use Cas9 to do that or some other enzyme? Can Cas9 both integrate viral DNA and destroy it? submitted by /u/thecorndogmaker [link] [comments] |
