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Wednesday, July 8, 2020

With the US now withdrawn from the WHO, how badly will that affect the seasonal flu vaccine development?

With the US now withdrawn from the WHO, how badly will that affect the seasonal flu vaccine development?

With the US now withdrawn from the WHO, how badly will that affect the seasonal flu vaccine development?

Posted: 08 Jul 2020 03:59 AM PDT

Can blood transfusions grant someone immunity to a virus that they previously had no exposure to?

Posted: 08 Jul 2020 06:21 AM PDT

If the donor already has antibodies to deal with a certain virus and the recipient didn't already have those antibodies developed, would the transfusion give the recipient the ability to make their own antibodies without exposure to the virus?

submitted by /u/BaCawBitch
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How does the immune system already have the DNA to make antibodies for new viruses?

Posted: 08 Jul 2020 02:36 AM PDT

So I get exposed to a newly evolved virus, and my body will eventually "learn" to make a protein to combat it. How? Does that genetic code already exist in my DNA and my body is just turning it on or do my cells edit DNA to make a specially designed antibody?

If it's the former, what happens if a virus evolves that doesn't match any DNA code I have for antibodies? Or is that not going to happen because they are using antigens that have to match my cell's proteins?

If it's the latter, doesn't that go against the "central dogma" of DNA that info only flows in one direction? (DNA --> Protein)

submitted by /u/Pandonia42
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Other than price and jurisdictional legal requirements, what is the actual difference between one and three year rabies vaccines for my pets?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 11:57 PM PDT

The speed of light changes depending on the medium it is going through, does the speed of causality/information also change in different mediums?

Posted: 08 Jul 2020 12:56 AM PDT

I have seen and read that the speed of light isn't really so much the speed of light, it is the speed of any massless particle as well as the maximum speed that information and causality can travel, the maximum speed that a phenomenon can reach and affect another point in space.

Light however has different speeds when going through different mediums. Does that mean that the speed of causality also changes in different mediums or is the speed of causality the same in the vacuum as well as through glass for example?

submitted by /u/Athanatos154
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On average, how many types of antibodies for different pathogens does our body contain?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 10:42 PM PDT

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

Posted: 08 Jul 2020 08:08 AM PDT

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
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Why do neutrinos pass through objects but light can't?

Posted: 08 Jul 2020 07:23 AM PDT

I watched a video that mentioned how neutrinos from a supernova explosion reached earth before the star even exploded. And they mentioned that neutrinos way close to nothing 1,000,000 times lighter than electrons even. Does that have anything to do with the fact that neutrinos hardly interact with matter? If so, shouldn't light also not interact with objects since it is massless?

submitted by /u/ProcPhD
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Some primitive Australian and African tribes use a binary system to count. How does that work?

Posted: 08 Jul 2020 03:29 AM PDT

I was reading "understanding media" by Marshall McLuhan the other day and he mentions the following in his book:

"The most primitive tribes of Australia and Africa, like the Eskimos today, have not yet reached finger-counting, nor do they have numbers in series. Instead they have a binary system of independent numbers for *one* and *two*, with composite numbers up to *six*. After *six*, they perceive only "heap"."

How does a system like this work when you need basic numbers in pretty much every aspect of life?

submitted by /u/zeeow
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What does it really mean when they say that COVID-19 is "airborne"? How is it any different from other viral infections like the flu?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 12:10 PM PDT

Recently, I've seen a few posts and articles pop up saying that the virus is airborne and that it lingers for a while. But isn't it known that in droplet infections, the minute droplets linger around for a bit before settling down? Haven't we already been treating it as such?

submitted by /u/the447thmilkman
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How did multicellular life appear?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 06:23 PM PDT

Are bats recovering from White Nose Syndrome?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 06:10 PM PDT

I live in Pennsylvania where WNS decimated the bat population. Lately I have been seeing more bats around and I am wondering if a recovery is taking place. I have not heard about the disease in a few years and have seen no new information about the topic.

submitted by /u/jbot14
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Would it be possible for a telescope to take HD photographing of Betelgeuse? If so, what would it take?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:19 PM PDT

Asking because I was kind of thinking about it and how it would be impractical to send a probe given it would take at least like 1500 years to receive data

submitted by /u/Bolymoth
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How are some drugs capable of entering the blood stream through the mouth?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 03:29 PM PDT

Drugs like immodium have variations that allow them to enter the blood stream through the mouth, and therefore faster.

Why do some drugs, like painkillers, not have this?

submitted by /u/maverickf11
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Could a combination of two or more Covid-19 vaccines boost efficacy? We could end up having with multiple safe, tested, and manufactured vaccines.

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 04:08 PM PDT

WRT possible safety, one precedent is that many older people have received two different Shingles vaccines (the newer vaccine is said to be more effective).

With Operation Warp Speed, multiple vaccines are planned to go into production before testing is completed.

submitted by /u/vtjohnhurt
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Are we able to identify different types of self-antigens?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 07:39 PM PDT

For example, in type 1 diabetes (autoimmune disease) the CD4 and CD8 T cells identify the beta islet cells as foreign but not any of the other islet cells. Does the beta islet cell have a specific self-antigen than other islet cells?

submitted by /u/Zefyyre
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When a disease is eradicated does the pathogen get wiped off the earth?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 11:03 AM PDT

I have a few questions about disease eradication and what it actually means --

  1. What constitutes eradication of a disease? Is there some criteria that needs to be met? Or is the pathogen completely wiped off the earth?

  2. Smallpox, for example, is eradicated. Does it mean no one can ever get it?

  3. If there is a slight chance of people getting it in the future, will we have medicines and vaccines readily available for that case? I ask because I see the cure/vaccine actually needs the pathogen or a derivative of it.

submitted by /u/yalogin
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If we cannot improve our immune systems, are the genetically predetermined?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 02:42 PM PDT

After seeing lots of articles about foods to eat to boost immune system, I read one article that said you actually can't do anything. Does that mean our own immunity is similar to other aspects about ourselves we can't change, and why is there so much information out there that suggests we can change it by what we eat?

submitted by /u/geog15
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Can mold grow in vinegar?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 09:05 AM PDT

Can vinegar get moldy over time? i.e. If I opened a bottle of commercial distilled vinegar and left it out unrefrigerated at what point would mold accumulate, if ever?

submitted by /u/AmericanDeise
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vào lúc No comments:

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Why is a swab required to be inserted deep into your nasal cavity to determine a positive or negative covid case, yet it can be spread merely by speaking too close to somebody?

Why is a swab required to be inserted deep into your nasal cavity to determine a positive or negative covid case, yet it can be spread merely by speaking too close to somebody?

Why is a swab required to be inserted deep into your nasal cavity to determine a positive or negative covid case, yet it can be spread merely by speaking too close to somebody?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 08:43 AM PDT

If very small transistors, like those in modern processors, were used as analog devices, would they have limited number of discrete steps based on the number of atoms in the gate?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 05:25 AM PDT

I read that a 14nm transistor is only 67 atoms across, would that limit the resolution?

submitted by /u/DeFex
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How does blackbody radiation work?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 05:46 AM PDT

I'm clearly stuck with some misconceptions about how blackbody radiation works, but am having trouble figuring out where my thinking is wrong. (This is not a question about uv catastrophe.) I'll try to trace my line of thinking below and would appreciate anybody pointing out my misunderstandings.

  1. When a blackbody absorbs electromagnetic radiation how that energy gets absorbed depends entirely on the radiation's frequency. Some frequencies cause molecular vibrations, rotations, bending...other specific frequencies cause election excitation.

  2. When the object reaches thermal equilibrium (determined by the absorption of frequencies causing various vibrations), it begins to emit energy to maintain an equilibrium. It emits energy both through heat and light. The light is due to only the relaxation of elections to lower energy states. This means the emitted light is only "returning" the radiation in various frequencies that went into electron excitation - not the radiation that caused vibrations.

  3. If (and that's a big if) the above is an appropriate way of describing it, it seems as though backbodies should not emit continuous spectra, but line spectra instead. I want to justify this by saying there are so many interactions in a solid that weird stuff happens with the orbitals and energy levels so there's nearly an infinite number of possible states for excited electrons. This would imply zooming enough, the continuous spectrum would actually look like a line spectrum (I know, blackbodies are an idealized situation anyway).

  4. An overarching concept: Is ALL light attributed the excitation/relaxation of electrons?

Hopefully that articulated something about what I'm trying to understand...

Thanks y'all.

submitted by /u/AsaKlubs
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If 4 out of the 7 known coronavirus types cause the common cold, then is it likely that when those 4 types first infected humans, they caused pandemics similar to COVID-19 before becoming less lethal over time?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 10:02 PM PDT

Interested in finding out whether we know where those older common cold coronavirus types came from, and whether they could reveal how COVID-19 will end up as the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to mutate in the future.

submitted by /u/TCTriangle
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What would happen to forests if there were no wildfires?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 03:48 AM PDT

Does the sample size of different test groups in an experiment have an impact on the outcome of the experiment, in a medical trial?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 11:04 PM PDT

I was reading through a journal that was testing the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for treating Covid-19, and noticed that the control group (neither hydroxychloroquine or azithromycin) consisted of 409 subjects. In contrast to this, the hydroxychloroquine group had 1202 subjects.

Is there any concern for the fact that the hydroxy group is ~3 times larger than the control group? How does this effect a medical study, if at all?

The journal: https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30534-8/fulltext

submitted by /u/Surpex
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Is abundance of near planet surface metals abundant or rare in the universe?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 09:29 PM PDT

If the theory is true about the moon being created by a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized planet, could this also have stirred up metals to the surface of Earth? Making them available for technological advances?

If so, this could also be part of The Great Filter. Or is lava convection always going to bring up metals to the surface in Earth-like planets?

submitted by /u/nuke-from-orbit
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Do aquatic mammals drink water while swimming?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 01:36 AM PDT

Why do bug bites itch?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 06:36 AM PDT

How does PCR, a process used to amplify DNA, test for COVID-19?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 02:28 AM PDT

How many electrons are used in graphene sigma bonds?

Posted: 07 Jul 2020 05:40 AM PDT

Three sp2 electrons per atom are used in sigma bonding, but each atom has 2 single and 1 double bond requiring four electrons.

Where does the extra electron come from?

submitted by /u/pag32
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Is there an equivalent to rust for plastic?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 05:56 PM PDT

Is there any risk of covid reinfection causing cytokine storms, thus killing people?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 02:44 PM PDT

Early on in China there were numerous examples of people walking or working, dropping dead on the spot. It was believed that maybe an immune response caused a cytokine storm due to SARS antibodies.

What happened to this theory?

Is there risk that corona could do this?

submitted by /u/GodOfTheThunder
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Are the common cold viruses really that mild or did we just never really bothered studying/tracking them?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 05:53 PM PDT

Are the common cold viruses really that mild or did we just never really bothered studying/tracking them?

There are a few viruses causing the cold each year, some have the potential to cause more severe illness. However, there are no death rates, nothing much really mentioned about each,

submitted by /u/nilaul
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When x-rays are attenuated, what does that actually mean?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 08:20 PM PDT

I googled that it means REDUCED IN ENERGY. But, this didn't help me much. I know bone attenuates more than air, but does this mean that the x-rays are ABSORBED by the bone more than they are by air? My textbook says that certain areas on a film will appear darker, because they were exposed to x-rays more.

I am new to this stuff. Please help. Thank you.

submitted by /u/lolomghelp
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Does improving certain mental abilities limit others similar to how physical abilities do?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 10:29 PM PDT

A professional marathon runner is never going to be the weightlifting world champion, but is a professional chess player limited at language learning for example?

I hope the flair fits.

submitted by /u/loloman333
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Can electricity flowing through C4 set it off?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 12:43 PM PDT

How do scientists estimate how long an extinct species lived?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 01:55 PM PDT

For example, H. erectus is said to have lived between 1.89 million and 110,000 years ago (thus the species survived for more than 1 million years)

H. neanderthalensis is said to have lived between 400,000 - 40,000 years ago (thus their species lived for about 350 ky).

How exactly do we know how long their species survived?

submitted by /u/JSBach1995
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How do epidemiologists study viral transmission rates under various conditions?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 03:16 PM PDT

I'm unclear about how viral transmission rates can be accurately studied mostly because it seems difficult for people to report exactly how they contracted a virus. Not saying I'm doubting them, just wondering how they do it.

Is it simply based on self-report? For example, Covid seems to be quite difficult to transmit outdoors with appropriate precautions. There was a study done in Wuhan that showed out of thousands of Covid contractions, only one occurred outdoors - how are they able to estimate that? How is it that we know that those who contracted it did so at whatever indoor event rather than some random outdoor interaction?

submitted by /u/NPDoc
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Since there are always new land masses being formed in the ocean, will the earth after billions of years become predominantly land?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 09:49 AM PDT
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Monday, July 6, 2020

How do mRNA vaccines work?

How do mRNA vaccines work?

How do mRNA vaccines work?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 02:48 AM PDT

AskScience AMA Series: We are Craig, Adam and Kevin. We are the editors of the new book Video Games, Crime and Next-Gen Deviance. The book highlights the inadequacies of social sciences ability to conceptualise deviancy in video games due to the fixation on links to violence. Ask us anything!

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 04:00 AM PDT

We are Criminologists from Birmingham City University and editors on the new book Video Games, Crime and Next-Gen Deviance: Reorienting the Debate. After a drunken debate about the myopic view of video games causing violence after the tragic incident at Sandy Hook we decided to write a book. We argue that such discussion are reductive, inconclusive and frankly boring. We and our fantastic contributors then highlight some key areas in which we can recognise deviancy embedded within video games! The book is open access so free to download electronically and available here: https://www.amazon.com/Video-Games-Crime-Next-Gen-Deviance-ebook/dp/B087BV7H9V

We will be on from 1pm ET (5pm GMT), ask us anything!

Username: nextgendeviance

submitted by /u/AskScienceModerator
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Why is it with viruses you often cease to be contagious well before your symptoms go away?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:45 PM PDT

How do Sperm Whales find Giant squid?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 10:27 AM PDT

They dive to extreme depths to find the squid but how do they actually locate them? Do they use sonar or smell or some other sense to hone in on them? I imagine its pitch black down there and the ocean is huge so it blows my mind they are able to survive off such a strange and hard to get to diet.

submitted by /u/hornwalker
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Why don't people with heart valves, titanium hips, breast implants etc need anti-rejection meds?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 06:31 AM PDT

I already feel like this is going to end up being a stupid question, but if your immune system rejects foreign objects in your body, why doesn't it reject those kinds of things like it does organ transplants and, at times, things like piercings or catheters? Thanks so much!

submitted by /u/EnergeticExpert
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What is the significance of community transmission of a disease during a pandemic?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:48 PM PDT

Why is it such a big thing? What are the implications of community transmission stage in an area during a pandemic? Can lack of human resource required to properly track the source of infection of each infected person lead to this stage?

submitted by /u/sparkzz27
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How are multiple signals passed over wires (phone lines, fiber optics, etc...) without interference?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 03:48 PM PDT

I was thinking about the old days especially when most communication was over the phone lines which I know to be multiple individual strands of wire spanning thousands of miles with various interconnections. But, if my neighbor and I are making a phone call at the same time, how do the lines keep those 2 signals entirely separate when its on the same line for at least a part of the transmission?

submitted by /u/2011StlCards
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Viruses come from animals but where did that animals disease that adapted to us come from?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 10:51 PM PDT

I read some previous threads that all say that viruses come from animals and "hop on over" to humans but where does the first version of that virus come from? If I'm not mistaken, human viruses are usually mutations of animal viruses. Well where did the animal viruses come from? Other animals? Where did those animal viruses come from? Could we get viruses from eating animals with "broken" cells like cancer cells which then use their cell mutations to become a new virus?

I'm not a biologist, I hope I didn't say something weird.

submitted by /u/FactoryBuilder
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What's the difference between a sorocarp, sporocarp and sporangium (in fungi, specifically Myxomycetes)?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 04:24 AM PDT

Does everyone have cancerous cells?

Posted: 06 Jul 2020 12:12 AM PDT

I think I read it or heard it once that people have it dormant in their system and something "triggers" it to become active.

submitted by /u/Sofa_King_Nerrdy
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When light is talked about being a wave, how is a wave of probability vs an electromagnetic wave reconciled?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 11:33 PM PDT

Light is an electromagnetic wave where the magnetic field creates an electric field and so on, to create a wave of light that is self propagating without the need for any medium.

When talking about young's double slit experiment, it is proved light has wave properties due to the interference pattern since light photons are actually waves of probabilities (places the photon has a probability at landing).

So the confusing part is reconciling these two ideas of waves. I can visualize a wave that is created from all the potential locations of a photon (and an interference pattern from this). But then instead of a wave of potentials, we can start talking about the EM wave.

I guess I am just confused. Are these two concepts the same wave? And what is the proper explanation?

submitted by /u/Mets_CS11
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Why do some countries not see a resurgence of covid cases despite re opening everything and acting like there's no more virus?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 08:56 PM PDT

Okay so I'm French Lebanese and currently live in Lebanon while part of my family live in France. Initially France was hard hit, and quarantined for roughly 2 months and half. They re opened and the population acts like there's no virus since mid may, yet there's no crazy increase in cases or deaths.

Same situation in Lebanon, we quarantined very very early, for 3 months. Apart from the airport that just reopened, we've been de quarantined since the beginning of June and everyone is acting like there's no virus (nightclubs, pubs...) yet we have little cases every day and no increase in deaths.

I don't understand how come it's not rising exponentially again. Or is it a respite until fall?

submitted by /u/MisterDucky92
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How big of a concern are mosquitos and the transmission of COVID-19? Are mosquitos expected to be a big part of the transmission as summer really draws into full effect and people are outside more? Or is there no real data to assume they can deliver the virus from host-to-host?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 06:48 PM PDT

How deadly would an infectious disease have to be before scientists would consider making an experimental vaccine available?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 10:23 PM PDT

For purposes of the question, assume the following about the vaccine:

Phase 2 trials have shown safety and efficacy across all age groups among the trial participants

The vaccine is RNA based

​

There's been some discussion about challenge trials for a COVID-19 vaccine, but practically no discussion of widespread early access in western nations, though the Chinese military has already started inoculating its troops with a Chinese RNA-based candidate.

I understand that administering a treatment to a healthy population is riskier than administering a treatment to a sick population. However, I'm sure I don't need to mention in this community that COVID-19 death tolls are almost certainly higher than reported, that people will die due to untreated chronic conditions, and that the economic effects of the pandemic will reverberate for generations. And that's all on top of a baseline of a disease that is exceptionally virulent and deadly, that America clearly lacks the sustained willpower to rein in through distancing measures, and that has yet to take its toll on many parts of the world. Taking even some carriers out of the population would save lives.

With RNA-based vaccines being safer than historical methods of inoculation and phase 1/2 trials showing promising results,it seems that there are greater questions about efficacy than there are about safety. If the concerns are about efficacy, then the risk of making an unproven vaccine widely available might be giving ammunition to anti-vaxxers. But this risk can be mitigated by being transparent with the public that the vaccine has not been shown to be efficacious, and making people sign waivers consenting and understanding to what they are taking.

Is there something that I'm missing in the risk profile of an RNA-based vaccine, or is the unwillingness of the FDA/biotech/medical community to take risks even in the face of mass death a reflection of an obsession with precision based on a history of bad risk taking (and flat out abuse) within the community and fear of further reputational harm?

Obviously there is some hypothetical combination of virulence and deadliness that would justify this ethically -- what do you think it would be in the eyes of the scientific community?

submitted by /u/meta_mikhail
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Do we know(or at this point, have an educated guess) what factors have an impact on the length of the asymptomatic period of COVID-19 in different individuals?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 10:58 AM PDT

Can you help me understand what a stretcher is?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 08:45 AM PDT

Stretchers as part of the Antibody-Drug Conjugates formulas.

Hello! I'm a translator and I'm trying to understand what a "stretcher" is in order to be able to find a suitable translation. All the texts I've found talk about the "stretcher" as something well known, but I don't know them!

If this post is breaking any rule, I'm really sorry.

submitted by /u/Ditania
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On average how old are icebergs estimated to be?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 06:48 AM PDT

Tried to search through r/askscience, but didn't see anything similar. To clarify how old and any information about how this is determined would be very interesting

submitted by /u/ndrwgrffn
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How does a vacuum pump work?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 06:24 AM PDT

Like any primitive vacuum pump. Not necessarily the complex modern ones. I don't get how all air molecules can be removed from a container.

submitted by /u/lord_archimond
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Will we get sufficient oxygen, if we wear the face mask through out the day during pandemic?

Posted: 05 Jul 2020 10:12 PM PDT

Actually, which face mask we should prefer? Clinical or cloth mask? By wearing, whether we will get sufficient oxygen for inhalation?

submitted by /u/samchem486
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