| How does North Korea's handling of COVID-19 affect the development and eradication of the pandemic? Will vaccines be available there? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 04:17 PM PST |
| Why does Covid have neurological effects on the brain/sense of smell? Posted: 03 Feb 2021 07:52 AM PST So about a week after the worst covid symptoms were over but I still didn't have my sense of smell back, I started noticing that when I wake up in the mornings I am overwhelmed by a smell that basically is like if someone puked and then died right next to me. It's super strong for about 5 minutes and then it goes away and my sense of smell remains completely gone for the rest of the day. Any idea what causes this and how covid affects the brain in this way? submitted by /u/TargaryenTV [link] [comments] |
| Does the existence of mental disease common across humans imply that our thought processes are also common? Posted: 03 Feb 2021 07:18 AM PST Suppose we take some viral disease. It affects all humans in the same way, because we have a common biology (i suppose). Can we say the same thing about mental diseases? I understand that we all have the same brain chemistry, so some mental illnesses can be due to altered composition of these chemicals in the brain. But then tablets/medication alone must be sufficient to treat all mental illnesses. But that that is not true, as psychotherapy plays a major role in treating them. So there is a component of these illnesses which is not due to biochemistry, but is 'mental'. So, then does it mean that there is some common 'structure' in our mental thought processes (across humans), similar to there being structure in our biological processes? To extrapolate it a bit, is there a common "code" that we execute in our mind, similar to there being a code (genetics/epi-genetics) that the body executes? submitted by /u/nervous-lost-soul [link] [comments] |
| There's been a lot of speculation about whether people who have received the Covid-19 vaccine may still spread the virus to others. Is this common for other vaccines? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 11:43 PM PST I understand that everyone wants to be careful about over promising what the vaccines may do for us until the data is in, but I was wondering whether this is just erring on the side of caution of if there's a history of vaccines for other diseases protecting the recipient from getting sick but not preventing them from spreading it to others. Edit: since the question may not be crystal clear: Is it common that recipients of vaccines for other diseases than Covid are protected against getting sick while still being able to spread the disease to others? submitted by /u/g2petter [link] [comments] |
| How do adoption & nurture in general affect Own-race Bias for Facial Recognition? Posted: 03 Feb 2021 07:41 AM PST When trying to recognize an unfamiliar face, for example when picking someone out of a line up, people tend to be more accurate when the person is of the same race. I would hypothesize that this bias would change if the person doing the picking grew up with parents of a different race. EG, if an ethnically Chinese man was raised from birth by white parents, then that man would be more accurate when recognizing white faces and less accurate when recognizing Chinese faces than a Chinese man raised by Chinese parents. Is there any evidence for or against that hypothesis? submitted by /u/seefreepio [link] [comments] |
| Ask Anything Wednesday - Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science Posted: 03 Feb 2021 07:00 AM PST Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science 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] |
| When we go hoarse, what makes our voice change? Posted: 03 Feb 2021 07:00 AM PST |
| What determines if a leaf can be eaten as green vegetable, such as in salads? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 07:32 PM PST |
| How new is the science used to make covid vaccines, could they have been made 5, 10 or 20 years ago? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 03:34 PM PST |
| Why does spike protein move to the outside of the cell membrane and how does it fold consistently? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 07:19 PM PST I'm a little bit fuzzy on the following details on the SARS-COV-2 spike protein: Ribosomes read mRNA and create the amino acid chain of the spike protein. How does the amino acid fold into the exact conformation of the spike protein as found on wild SARS-COV-2? Can't the amino acid chain fold in any number of possible ways? I thought that how you get an amino acid chain to fold a certain way (rather than another) was one of the fundamental challenges in understanding protein folding. Now that the finished spike protein is floating around in the cytoplasm of the cell, why and how does it migrate to the outside of the cell membrane? Why doesn't it just stay inside the cytoplasm? Are there cellular mechanisms in place that identify the protein as something the cell can't use, and in doing so, transport molecules bring the protein to the outside of the cell membrane... rather than destroying the protein while it's in the cytoplasm? Why does the spike protein then imbed itself into the outside of the membrane, rather than be ejected outwards into intercellular space? Or do both things happen - some spikes lodge themselves to the outside membrane while some get released into intercellular space? Immune cells then identify and engulf the naked spike proteins floating around and also the healthy cells with spike embedded on their membranes? submitted by /u/rabidsoggymoose [link] [comments] |
| Why is purifying uranium so hard? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 07:53 AM PST Countries need to spend millions or billions of dollars on centrifuges to get weapons-grade uranium. Since uranium is so heavy, shouldn't it separate out from other elements fairly quickly? (not that I'm complaining, of course) submitted by /u/ideastaster [link] [comments] |
| If there is one queen bee or queen ant in a colony that is responsible for laying all of the larvae, is the whole colony genetically identical? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 08:05 PM PST If a queen bee/ant lays all the eggs/larvae in her hive, does that mean the offspring are all genetically identical? Where does she get the sperm? How are the eggs fertilized? Assuming they are all genetically identical, does this lower their probability of surviving a virus or something similar because they aren't genetically varied? submitted by /u/whlavisp [link] [comments] |
| Why do MRI machines use helium specifically and not another gas that's more available? Posted: 03 Feb 2021 03:26 AM PST |
| Does the Earth’s rotation effect mantle dynamics or plate tectonics? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 11:53 AM PST Would the Coriolis effect due to Earth's rotation impart any lateral rotation of mantle plumes or have any effect on plate movement or interaction at the surface? submitted by /u/psclafani [link] [comments] |
| What evidence do we have that asymptomatic spread is significant with COVID? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 04:08 PM PST This is an honest question. Most searching I've done seems to indicate that we don't have much evidence. Articles citing evidence tend to just link to articles making claims, and the few studies I've found cite computer models, which I don't take as evidence. Evidence would consist of measuring the frequency with which COVID spreads from asymptomatic people who are followed up with later to make sure they never developed symptoms. Do these studies exist? How were they conducted? What have they shown? If they don't exist, why do we assume this is a major driver? submitted by /u/Quartersharp [link] [comments] |
| Why does using millimeter waves in 5G result in faster internet? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 02:13 PM PST Reading this: https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/understanding-how-millimeter-waves-power-the-5g-network_593839 It says: Based on communication principles, the maximum signal bandwidth in wireless communication is about 5% of the carrier frequency. Therefore, the higher the carrier frequency, the greater the signal bandwidth. That's why, among the millimeter-wave frequencies, 28 GHz and 60 GHz are the most promising frequencies for 5G. The 28 GHz band can provide an available spectrum bandwidth of up to 1 GHz, while each channel in the 60 GHz band can provide an available signal bandwidth of 2 GHz (a total available spectrum of 9 GHz divided between four channels). I'm assuming this is in the context of frequency modulation. But I'm confused about the link between signal bandwidth and better speed or lower latency. Reading Wikipedia, signal bandwidth is defined as the difference between highest and lowest frequency. Why is having this being higher an advantage? Additional question: why is the signal bandwidth 5% of the carrier frequency? I couldn't find any information about that submitted by /u/vore_your_parents [link] [comments] |
| What happens to acceleration of a rocket the instant the motor is switched off? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 02:58 PM PST So I was watching the SpaceX test flight today and when the rocket hit 10km in altitude it looked like they reduced the throttle so the ship was 'hanging' at v=0 before starting the acceleration downwards. What would happen to acceleration (and velocity) if the rocket motor was instantly switched off while at full throttle? Would velocity continue to increase for a while or would that instant the motor is switched off be the maximum? submitted by /u/PotatoBreds [link] [comments] |
| Does the Sputnik V vaccine encode a stabilized prefusion spike protein, or does it encode an unmodified spike protein? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 08:30 AM PST |
| When we see headlines saying a particular vaccine is x% effective against COVID-19 - what does that actually mean? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 09:04 AM PST I have a fairly good understanding of science and research but I assume the approach my brain thought of (you have two groups of people, one group vaccinated and a control group not vaccinated, and then expose them to the virus and see how many become ill in the vaccinated group compared to the control group) is way too naive for multiple reasons (safety, health, ethics etc etc) - so how have they come to the conclusions that fuel these headline percentages? submitted by /u/WelshBluebird1 [link] [comments] |
| What is an actual realistic timeline of population displacement and disruption of farming zones due to global warming? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 05:39 AM PST I mean pretty much the title. There's some pretty heavy doom and gloomers out there, but like what's the real time frame do you think and what's the real scale of displacement? submitted by /u/-One_Punch_Man- [link] [comments] |
| How do we know the half life of xenon-124 is 18 sextillion years? Posted: 02 Feb 2021 03:37 AM PST I read that dark matter detectors observed the radioactive decay of a xenon-124 atom, said to be one of the rarest events ever recorded. That's because it's half life is 18,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. This changed the current estimated half life, which was 160 trillion years. How was the previous estimate determined, and how do we know that its half life is now 18x1021 when it's only been observed once and is significantly greater than the age of the universe? submitted by /u/platonic-solid [link] [comments] |
