| What's the margin of error for atomic clocks? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 02:33 PM PDT |
| We are scientists from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology coming to you from our annual meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We study fossils. Ask Us Anything! Posted: 18 Oct 2018 04:27 AM PDT Hello AskScience! We are members of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. We study fossil fish, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles — anything with a backbone! Our research includes how these organisms lived, how they were affected by environmental change like a changing climate, how they're related, and much more. You can learn more about SVP in this video or follow us on Twitter @SVP_vertpaleo. We're bringing you our fifth annual AMA from our 78th Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ask us your vertebrate paleontology questions! We'll be here to answer your questions at 10am Mountain Time (noon eastern)!
Joining us today are: PastTime Podcast hosts Matt Borths, Ph.D. and Adam Pritchard, Ph.D.: Dr. Pritchard studies the early history of the reptiles that gave rise to lizards, dinosaurs, crocodiles and birds. Dr. Borths works on the evolution of carnivorous mammals and African ecosystems. Find them on Twitter @PastTimePaleo. Stephanie Drumheller, Ph.D. is a paleontologist at the University of Tennessee whose research focuses on the processes of fossilization, evolution, and biology, of crocodiles and their relatives, including identifying bite marks on fossils. Find her on Twitter @UglyFossils. Eugenia Gold, Ph.D. studies brain evolution in relation to the acquisition of flight in dinosaurs. She is also an author of the book She Found Fossils. Dr. Randall Irmis, Ph.D. is chief curator and a curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah (@nhmu), and an associate professor in the Department of Geology & Geophysics at the University of Utah. He specializes in understanding in how ecosystems change through time in response to climate and other events, particularly during the Triassic Period, the beginning of the age of dinosaurs. You can listen to his recent appearance on Science Friday here: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/utah-is-a-gold-mine-for-fossils/ Jessica Lawrence Wujek, Ph.D. main area of study is in marine reptiles, specifically Ichthyosaurus. She did her Ph.D. work on the genus Ichthyosaurus, looking at the phylogeny and morphometrics of the genus. She currently teaches geology at Howard Community College part time, and is trying to get my 3 year son into dinosaurs! She also has a blog talking about the accuracy and entertainment value of books with any prehistoric theme. Jennifer Nestler studies crocodylian ecology and evolution. She has studied both modern and fossil crocodylians, and is a project manager for the Croc Docs, a research lab at the University of Florida that focuses on reptiles and amphibians in the Everglades. Ashley Reynolds is a PhD student at the University of Toronto and Royal Ontario museum. She studies the growth, ecology, and behaviour of living and extinct cats, with an emphasis on the famed sabre-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @ashinonyx Ashley Poust is a Ph.D candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. He is interested in links between animal life history and major events in evolution. His focus is on the evolution of paleogene mammals, primarily using osteohistology. He also works with other taxa, especially dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine mammals, to address similar questions of diversity, ontogeny, and life history across vertebrates. You can find him on twitter @AshPoust. submitted by /u/VertPaleoAMA [link] [comments] |
| Are there any cases where the sudden absence of a species had an effect of the function and economy of that area? Posted: 18 Oct 2018 05:20 AM PDT |
| Do all links in a chain experience the same force when carrying a load? Posted: 18 Oct 2018 02:52 AM PDT Hey lovelies! Imagine a steel chain, suspended with a weight attached on the end. Would the links further up have greater force acting on them as they would be holding up more links or would the 'equal and opposite' thing balance everything out. And now imagine a chain drawn horizontally with a force applied to both ends - would gravity have a greater effect in the middle of the chain as there would be more leverage there if you see the chain as pivoting from the ends? And what if you had the same situation without gravity? If there are different forces on different links could you strengthen those links and efficiently increase the overall strength of the chain? I look forward to hearing your thoughts. submitted by /u/slane14 [link] [comments] |
| Does a sudden population boom cause unemployment to rise significantly, or does the number of jobs increase with the rising demand for services? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 07:25 PM PDT |
| How fast do electrons move in a circuit? Posted: 18 Oct 2018 03:12 AM PDT I was going over some slides for my class, which was going over velocity saturation in a transistor, and stated that the carrier's reach velocity saturation at approx 105 m/s, which confused me as I had heard that in a circuit the electrons go very slowly, so looking it up I found a figure of 2.5 *10-4 m/s. This is 9 orders of magnitude difference, so what is the actual answer? I'm aware that in the transistor its at its velocity saturation, but would that explain literally a billion times faster? submitted by /u/feeksmcgee [link] [comments] |
| During Pair production, how does a massless photon gets converted into Electron and Positron which does have a mass? Posted: 18 Oct 2018 05:51 AM PDT |
| Why don't we throw trash in volcanoes instead of using landfills? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 04:58 PM PDT What would this do to the environment? I guess the trash would break down in the lava but still be there in a different form? Or better yet, use some sort of strong chemical to rid of the trash? This could be done inside of protective covering that filters the smoke/whatever it may be from polluting the air. submitted by /u/greatfiginthesky [link] [comments] |
| How can you measure the doubling of a temperature? Posted: 18 Oct 2018 12:10 AM PDT If you use Celsius, the double of 10 degrees, is 20 degrees. But if you use Kelvin, the doubling of 283 degrees Kelvin(10 degrees Celsius) is 293 degrees Celsius? submitted by /u/fr8oper8er [link] [comments] |
| What role does the liver play in the development of Type-2 Diabetes? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 03:41 PM PDT Hi. I posted this to r/nutrition and was recommended I post here instead. I'm currently reading he book "The Diabetes Code" by Jason Fung. Great book; about half way through now. The book is generally very easy to understand, but one area I'm struggling to get is the contribution of the liver in development ld the disease. As I understand the development of Type 2 Diabetes: Repeated spiking of insulin due to the ingestion of excess, refined carbohydrates creates a vicious cycle. In a normal person, Insulin is secreted to bring the high blood sugar down by carrying the glucose into the body's cells. Excess glucose is stored in the liver to be used for energy later. Excessive spiking of this insulin/glucose mechanism due to the persons eating habits causes insulin resistance at the cell, whereby it is full with glucose and not wanting any more. This creates a problem with excess blood glucose. The overstuffed cells are not responding to insulins mechanism, and so the body attempts to compensate by pumping out more insulin. The result, at first, is that some glucose can be forcibly placed in the cell. Eventually though, no more glucose can be physically pushed into the overcrowded cell no matter how much insulin is secreted; the result eventually being chronically high blood glucose and high insulin levels. A vicious cycle ensues where by the more insulin creates more resistance . The next part (providing I'm correct with the above) is where I get confused. Some interaction between insulin and the liver enables the large amounts of glucose to be converted into fat via denovo lipogenisis. Eventually even this mechanism cannot save the body, and the excess fat produced by the liver accumulates there (as fatty-liver) and all over the body as subcutaneous, visceral and internal organ fat; which is what we see eventually with the pancreas when all the excess fat surrounding it starts to destroy beta cells and inhibit insulin production. The combination of fat destroying the beta cells and insulin production plus insulin resistance causes the person to become diabetic (type-2). Could someone who knows explain the liver/insulin relationship to me? I've read over it several times but I just don't understand it. The above paragraph is all I can gleam from it and I know I'm missing large chunks. Thanks very much! submitted by /u/NT202 [link] [comments] |
| Is it possible we're seeing duplicate stars? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 11:18 AM PDT With gravitational lensing, is it possible that when we observe the sky, depending on the celestial bodies that our perspective passes, that there's certain stars that may be appearing more than once in the sky? If we're looking past a nebula or a black hole then the light trajectory projected from the star could be coming from an area nowhere close to where it appears in the sky. In the same vein, when we look in a different area of the sky, we could be seeing the same star and not even be aware of it because the arrangement of the stars seems unique because we're observing them at a completely different angle and a farther distance. We could have even have named the same star several times and not realize it. It's even possible there's a certain direction we could look and be observing our own solar system. submitted by /u/ernestwork [link] [comments] |
| Why do electrons form orbitals and shells? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 10:48 PM PDT |
| How does the 10 trillion FPS camera work? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 08:22 AM PDT |
| Why is oxygen sometimes added in small amount to shielding gas when welding? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 10:39 AM PDT I know that the oxygen will react with the filler or parent metal causing all sorts of defects, that's why we are trying to prevent oxygen from the atmosphere reaching the weld. So why do some people add oxygen to there shielding gas mix where it will be in direct contact? submitted by /u/JackChigger [link] [comments] |
| What if the Earth spun more than just on its polar axis? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 09:25 AM PDT Right now Earth spins about its N-to-S pole, say, the "Z-axis." What kinds of things would happen if that Z-axis also spun about the center of the Earth (i.e. the north pole oscillates between being close and far away from the sun) at roughly the same speed it spins already in a day, give or take? Is this even possible? My crude understanding of planet formation and psychics tells me no. submitted by /u/_YoungLink_ [link] [comments] |
| Why does decreasing the pressure in an equilibrium reaction favour the side with the most moles? Posted: 17 Oct 2018 09:08 AM PDT In terms of Le Chatelier's principle, increasing the pressure of a system causes the reaction to favour the "side" with the least moles. My understanding is this is because gas particles like to have as much space as possible, and there is more space if there is a smaller number of moles(despite the mass being the same) . So when pressure is decreased, the reaction favours the "side" with a larger amount of moles of gas - but if the gas wants as much space as possible, it is still more spaciously efficient to be a small number of moles. Why is this? (Obviously in an actual reaction there would be other factors contributing to the equilibrium of the reaction however this scenario is theoretical and imagines the only variable would be pressure ) submitted by /u/chargrilledjetski [link] [comments] |
