| AskScience AMA Series: Hi! We are researchers from the National Institutes of Health and University College London studying how advances in genetics are affecting our lives and the world around us. In honor of National DNA Day, ask us anything! Posted: 24 Apr 2019 04:00 AM PDT Each year on April 25, we celebrate National DNA Day, which commemorates the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 and the discovery of DNA's double helix in 1953. On this day students, teachers, and the public learn more about genetics and genomics. In honor of DNA Day this year, the Intramural Research Program (IRP) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is partnering with the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) to bring you an "Ask Me Anything" with three experts on the many ways that advances in the genomic sciences are changing our lives. Alexander Katz, M.D., and Laura Koehly, Ph.D., of NHGRI, along with Saskia Sanderson, Ph.D., of University College London, will answer questions on the latest discoveries and research endeavors in the field of genetics, including The Genomic Ascertainment Cohort (TGAC), a partnership between the NIH and Inova Health System that aims to gather genomic data from many different sources into a single, searchable system to enable researchers to study the link between genetic variants and individual traits. In addition, they will discuss how knowledge of the human genome and rapidly declining cost of DNA sequencing are affecting our physical, mental, and emotional health, as well as altering our behavior and the ways we interact with one another. Your hosts today are: - Laura Koehly, Ph.D., Chief of the Social and Behavioral Research Branch and Head of the Social Network Methods Section at the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute.
- Alexander Katz, M.D., Clinical Geneticist and Principal Investigator, TGAC, NIH National Human Genome Research Institute.
- Dr. Saskia Sanderson, Ph.D., a Research Psychologist and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Health Informatics at University College London (UCL).
Links to some of our papers: We'll be joining you at 1pm (ET, 17 UT), ask us anything! submitted by /u/AskScienceModerator [link] [comments] |
| The last ice age was relatively recent in history, and a huge part of the melt was from North America. How confident are scientists that the grand canyon is as old as accepted, and isn't actually the product of the massive glacial runoff at the end of the last ice age? Posted: 24 Apr 2019 07:05 AM PDT |
| [Spectroscopy] When analyzing EM radiation from a star, how many electron transition (and what type) can the spectral information provide? Posted: 24 Apr 2019 03:38 AM PDT For example, if there is Ca in the star, can you actually find the spectrum of *all* possible combinations and permutations of say the 1s electron jumping to the d orbital and then jumping back to say the p^y orbital? And can spectroscopy actually span the entire EM spectrum? It seems the amount of information that can be garnered from a spectroscopic analysis is mind boggling. submitted by /u/DailyCloserToDeath [link] [comments] |
| How do ionic radii influence crystal structure? Posted: 24 Apr 2019 02:01 AM PDT |
| Ask Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology Posted: 24 Apr 2019 08:12 AM PDT Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology 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] |
| How are Gas Planets’ Moons Formed? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 10:05 PM PDT So in my physics class we were discussing Tangential Velocity and orbits and it got me thinking about our moon and how the leading theory involves a large planetary collision with a chunk somehow ending up in orbit. This is odd because Jupiter, for example, has 79 Moons and it's made of gas and therefore has no possibility of forming a moon via collision like earth did. Ive done a bit of research and I am a little confused at what I've found. So I understand that Jupiter's outer moons orbit the opposite way of Jupiter's rotation thus pointing to the idea that the outer moons are asteroids that got caught into an orbit. This seems plausible. However, the inner moons are supposedly formed during the gaseous phase of our Solar System!? This doesn't make sense to me because why would the primordial stew of gasses be attracted to random smaller collections around Juipiter instead of into the single massive collection of gas's forming near it (Jupiter). This also brings up another question! How did all these planets and moons initially get their tangential velocity to maintain orbits when they were first formed from gasses? I'm very confused :/ submitted by /u/Cono9 [link] [comments] |
| What are the pharyngeal slits used for in the human embryo? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 10:58 PM PDT |
| If you are at the base of a large mountain range, is there any noticeable or measurable gravitation effects in the horizontal direction toward the mountain center of mass? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 05:32 PM PDT |
| The filmmakers behind the DS9 documentary film "What We Left Behind" are sharing an early release screener for backers on Thursday. They've said that the film is "digitally encoded" and "traceable back to you" if stills or video are shared. How is this possible? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 07:52 PM PDT |
| I am a student and when i was done learning for my chemistry test i was wondering how people measured atom masses, for example magnesium (Mg) has a mass of 24,3U (according to my textbook) How did scientists scale the weigh of an atom? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 01:18 PM PDT |
| When pollen reaches the stigma, how does it get to the ovules? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 03:03 PM PDT |
| Why do longer amines have less solubility than shorter amines? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 10:54 PM PDT Hi there, I have read in my textbook that "As the length of the hydrocarbon chain of an amine increases, the solubility decreases". Why is this correct? I understand that there are hydrogen bonds and all that, but why would the solubility decrease when the length of the chain increases? Thanks submitted by /u/chrisunz [link] [comments] |
| How does the squish squash illusion work? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 11:35 AM PDT |
| Is it possible for there to be more than 2 electrons paired together? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 05:25 PM PDT Electrons pair according to Hund's rule where it is stated that only 2 electrons pair together. Is it possible to force electrons to break this rule and if not what prevents it from happening. submitted by /u/ChimmiChonga00 [link] [comments] |
| What makes your skin red after a sunburn? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 10:55 AM PDT |
| How do we know how old a fossil is without carbon dating? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 07:10 PM PDT Past 50,000 years carbon dating becomes inaccurate, so how do we determine the age of a let's say 50 million year old fossil? submitted by /u/Nerd10001 [link] [comments] |
| How *far* does the average tornado travel? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 10:26 PM PDT |
| How do gas planets not diffuse into space? Do they have a non-gaseous core? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 09:46 AM PDT I've always been confused about how gas planets are a thing e.g. Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter etc. If they are mainly made of gas, then what's stopping the gas that composes them from diffusing into space? What are their cores composed of? How do giant gas balls stay together and rotate on their axis and around the sun? submitted by /u/Nutmegbread [link] [comments] |
| Where do we get our gut bacteria from? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 08:06 AM PDT As infants, where does our initial set of gut bacteria (and other symbiotic bacteria) come from? Initially we are human cells undergoing mitosis to form human organs and eventually a full human. We get nutrients from our mothers, but to my understanding that is purely nutrients, there is nothing else passed through. So where do these bacteria that are so critical for our existence come from at the start of our lives? submitted by /u/tacticalBOVINE [link] [comments] |
| Did the creation of the Panama Canal mess with the eco system of the oceans? IE the combining of two previously separated bodies of water Posted: 23 Apr 2019 08:03 AM PDT |
| Is there any evidence that the standard work week affects weather, and if so, how? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 07:22 AM PDT Our weather has been very consistent recently (clear and sunny during the week, rained last four Fridays), and I started to wonder whether traffic and factory schedules and patterns had an impact on weather and weather cycles. Or whether this is just an odd coincidence. submitted by /u/jophus00 [link] [comments] |
| How is the CNOT gate in quantum teleportation allowed to break entanglement? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 10:11 AM PDT Perhaps the title is confusingly worded, but I can't think of a better way. In today's quantum computing class, we discussed quantum teleportation. Specifically, we discussed the following scenario: Alice possesses a particle in the state |Psi> = a|0> + B|1> Both Alice and Bob receive one of a pair of entangle particles, both of which exist in the Bell state |B_00> = 1/sqrt2 * (|0_A>|0_B> + |1_A>|1_B> Alice passes her particles through a CNOT gate, |Psi_a> = W_CNOT(|Psi>|B_A>) (where |B_A> is Alice's part of the entangled pair) Alice then passes her |Psi> particle through a Hadamard gate. The final state of the composite system is then a superposition with equal probability of Alice measuring her pair of particles in any combination, and Bob's particle is a superposition matching Alice's |Psi> particle. (Side note, this would be much clearer if the subreddit supported LaTeX.) What I don't understand is how passing Alice's part of the entangled Bell pair can change Alice's particle but not Bob's particle. Isn't the CNOT gate interacting with (i.e. measuring) Alice's particle, and therefore collapsing Bob's particle? Specifically (ignoring constants), |Psi_sys> = |Psi>|B_00> |Psi_sys> = (|0> + |1>)(|0_A>|0_B> + |1_A>|1_B>) |Psi_sys> = |0>(|0_A>|0_B>) + |1>(|0_A>|0_B>) + |0>(|1_A>|1_B>) + |1>(|1_A>|1_B>) |Psi_sys> = (|0>|0_A>)|0_B> + (|1>|0_A>)|0_B> + (|0>|1_A>)|1_B> + (|1>|1_A>)|1_B> This last step feels like abuse of notation, considering the entangled nature of the Bell state. Can someone clarify what is happening here? submitted by /u/picardythird [link] [comments] |
| How reactive is francium? Posted: 23 Apr 2019 10:50 AM PDT I've seen classroom demos of the professor placing alkali metals into water and seeing reactivity increase as you go down the periodic table. I was just wondering what happens if you do this to a significant amount of francium? I know there is a tiny amount on earth at any given time but I've been wondering about this for a long time. submitted by /u/purpleflower94 [link] [comments] |
