- AskScience AMA Series: I’m Dyann Wirth, Chair of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Harvard Malaria Initiative, and I’m here to talk about malaria eradication; Ask Me Anything!
- What's the deepest ocean we've ever discovered in space?
- Do any modern humans carry mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosomes from Neanderthals or Denisovans?
- Why does the half life of a substance decrease as concentration decreases in zeroth order reactions and second order reactions but not first order reactions?
- If I were the size of an atom, how long would it take to walk across the tip of a sewing needle?
- Is there any reason why the experiment that detected gravitational waves is so remarkably similar to the Michelson-Morley experiment?
- If FSH begins sperm production, and sperm constantly replenishes itself, when would be an acceptable reason for the sertoli cells to secrete inhibin to inhibit FSH secretion?
- Can the human body feel a change in acceleration while in a highly elliptical orbit in space?
- What is the chromosomal nomenclature? Example, what does this mean '6p23'?
- Is the air coming out of the towers in coal power plants just water vapor? If so, where are the CO2 and other pollutants released?
- What would the atmospheric composition have to be to scatter red light instead of blue? Green Light? Purple?
- Is micro clustered water bogus?
- Is it possible for something to have negative mass?
- Since LIGO has detected gravitational waves, does that mean gravitons cannot exist?
- Can you drown in a very thick fog?
- How big would a star have to be to create a 30-40 trillion solar mass black hole?
- "The black-hole candidate binary X-ray source GRS 1915+105[47] appears to have an angular momentum near the maximum allowed value" What!? Why?
- Dissolving egg white in a buffer?
- How would I distribute points on a sine wave so the length between them are equal?
- Can neural activity affect other brain regions without travelling through grey/white matter?
- How long would I need to eat a vegetarian diet before it would be safe to say that I was no longer "made of" meat?
- Does free space have a Poisson ratio?
- We describe space as "the fabric of space-time". To me this seems like it implies space as a 2-D thing. How can this fabric exist in our 3-D universe? Or maybe, I am just understanding it wrong.
- Is the methylation of inorganic Hg into methylmercury what makes it so lipophilic and cause it to bioaccumulate?
| Posted: 26 Feb 2016 04:35 AM PST Hello, reddit! I'm Dyann Wirth, Chair of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Harvard Malaria Initiative. I also serve on the board of the University-wide Defeating Malaria: From the Genes to the Globe initiative. Malaria's impact across the globe is vast: Nearly half of the world's population—about 3.2 billion people—is at risk of malaria. And an estimated 283 million people are infected every year—most of them young children in impoverished Sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, President Obama pledged to wipe out malaria. I told the New York Times that we currently don't have the "arsenal" to eradicate malaria today, but it's a goal that we're working towards. My lab's research has provided new insight into how the malaria parasite has evolved, allowing us to better understand the fundamental biology of the parasite and the mechanisms of drug resistance. Our team at the Harvard Malaria Initiative employs sophisticated laboratory approaches to understand the underlying causes of drug resistance identify and screen potential new drugs and drug targets, rapidly translate new findings into practical treatments, and train researchers and global public health professionals from the U.S. and malaria endemic regions. I'll be here from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET to answer your questions about malaria; Ask Me Anything! [link] [comments]  |
| What's the deepest ocean we've ever discovered in space? Posted: 26 Feb 2016 05:53 AM PST I've been doing some research, but the little I've found is related to a huge quasar in space. What I'm interested in is more specifically the deepest 'ocean' we've ever seen in space? What would it be like, and how would it act? How would water at the bottom of this ocean act like? [link] [comments]  |
| Do any modern humans carry mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosomes from Neanderthals or Denisovans? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 06:00 AM PST If not, is there any significance to that? I can see how it is possible to lose both- the female offspring of a sapiens mother and neanderthal father would have 50% neanderthal DNA but no neanderthal mithochondria or Y chromosome. I'm just having a bit of trouble understanding how probable it would be that both of those would be lost entirely, based on the fact that 1-4% of modern Eurasian or Melanesian DNA comes from those hominids. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Feb 2016 03:57 AM PST I know that radioactive dating uses reactions which are first order as they maintain a constant half-life independent of concentration. I know that the half-life of second and zeroth order reactions varies the time decreases, but why is this? [link] [comments]  |
| If I were the size of an atom, how long would it take to walk across the tip of a sewing needle? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 12:13 PM PST |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2016 06:16 PM PST I was just watching the Colbert clip on gravitational waves, and noticed that the setup of the experiment is pretty much exactly the same to the Michelson-Morley experiment that was designed to detect the "aether wind". My thoughts are that the idea of a gravitational field and the aether are very similar models, so the experiment to detect one might be similar to the other - but i'm sure that there's a better reason to explain these similarities [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2016 06:24 AM PST I just don't understand why the body would want to stop the production of sperm. Or are there other functions of FSH? [link] [comments]  |
| Can the human body feel a change in acceleration while in a highly elliptical orbit in space? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 09:09 PM PST If you are in a highly elliptical orbit, will a human body sense a change in acceleration while in a craft that is accelerating rapidly then slowing as it rounds the planetary body? [link] [comments]  |
| What is the chromosomal nomenclature? Example, what does this mean '6p23'? Posted: 26 Feb 2016 04:22 AM PST |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2016 03:58 PM PST I'm originally from a small town whose economy is built on coal mining. Some people in the town say that the towers in a power plant are just releasing water vapor, not any pollution. Is this true? Or is it just a false statement used to support the continuation of the burning of coal? I tried searching on the internet, but I could not find an answer addressing this specifically. I understand that coal fired power plants do release a large amount of CO2 that greatly contributes to global warming, I'm just not sure exactly how and where it is released. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2016 05:51 AM PST |
| Is micro clustered water bogus? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 08:45 AM PST Saw something new in my fridge called clusterx2 - label says something about water clusters that hydrate you better. Quick online research said that the "science" behind this is that micro clusters of water get absorbed better than tap water (that comes in bigger molecule clusters apparently?). Can't seem to find a reliable source either way though - so does anyone know more about this stuff? [link] [comments]  |
| Is it possible for something to have negative mass? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 09:54 AM PST Is there anything in the universe that has properties opposite of gravity resulting from having the opposite of mass? [link] [comments]  |
| Since LIGO has detected gravitational waves, does that mean gravitons cannot exist? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 11:22 AM PST If Einstein's theory of relativity has been confirmed by LIGO, (or at least part of it) that gravity is the result of mass pulling down on space itself forming a gravity well and mass can produce waves in the "fabric" of space. Then does that mean the theory that gravity is caused by the exchange of gravitons between mass is dead? Or can gravitons still exist, but make up a different part of gravity? [link] [comments]  |
| Can you drown in a very thick fog? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 05:08 AM PST |
| How big would a star have to be to create a 30-40 trillion solar mass black hole? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 07:05 AM PST I just saw a video that shows the scaled size of certain black holes and how they are created. One relatively small black hole was made by condensing the sun to the size of Manhattan. Another was made by condensing the earth down to the size of a circus peanut. Here's my question....if the largest black holes are anywhere from 30 to 40 trillion solar masses....how big was the original star that created it? Would it have to be something unfathomably huge... like a trillion light years across? (Clearly that's possibly a terrible exaggeration but you get my point...HUGE) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2016 08:59 AM PST The Wikipedia on black holes article just casually mentions this, with the citation (not for the claim but for the black hole that it describes) is too dense for me to parse with any efficiency. It's such a remarkable thing to just 'say'. Angular momentum has an upper limit? What the hell is it? Why can't things have greater angular momentum? What would happen if they did?? You can't just SAY stuff like that without more explanation, Wikipedia! [link] [comments]  |
| Dissolving egg white in a buffer? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 07:13 AM PST I am trying to dissolve egg white for fouling studies in microfiltration. I have tried to dissolve ew in Glycine-NaOH buffer but I cant get the protein concentration which is around 11%. Please suggest a method for dissoving ew and determining protein [link] [comments]  |
| How would I distribute points on a sine wave so the length between them are equal? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 01:36 PM PST Illustrated: http://i.imgur.com/SYYXI81.png I'm writing a program where I have points evenly distributed on a line. I want the line to curve, but I still want the points to be evenly distributed. If the line is curved like a sine wave, is there an efficient way to calculate a new position x_new, y_new from x_old, so that all such points have an equal distance to both of its neighbors (excluding the end points)? See the illustration for more details. Also, is there a general way to do this efficiently with curves apart from sine waves? [link] [comments]  |
| Can neural activity affect other brain regions without travelling through grey/white matter? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 01:23 PM PST For example, we can pick up ERPs/oscillations etc using MEG and EEG. Would electrical activity be able to travel through the cerebral spinal fluid and affect other regions? i.e. two adjacent gryi. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2016 07:10 PM PST I suppose this question could be generalized into something like: How long does it take for all the cells in my body to be replaced? Not sure if the "meat" part of it would affect it at all. I have just started my new diet, and it got my brain turning. [link] [comments]  |
| Does free space have a Poisson ratio? Posted: 25 Feb 2016 10:56 AM PST I've been wondering since reading about the discovery of gravitational waves and how they 'compress and stretch' the earth. Does the compression of space-time along some axis correspond to an expansion about others? And like the title says, is there a Poisson ratio for space-time or free space? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2016 10:04 PM PST Also, regarding gravitational waves, if we were close to the source of one, would we be be able to actually feel it? Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Feb 2016 11:16 AM PST I keep reading in my ecotoxicology textbook that the point of Phase II reactions are to conjugate contaminants to molecular structures that increase their hydrophilicity, making them "very polar" and more easily eliminated. One of these conjugations is methylation. However I can't figure out how this applies to inorganic mercury. If methylating inorganic mercury results in methylmercury, which is very lipid soluble, how does that jive with it being a phase II metabolism product? [link] [comments]  |
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