AskScience AMA Series: We are experts on NASA's efforts to grow crops in space including a harvest just in time for Thanksgiving! Ask us Anything! |
- AskScience AMA Series: We are experts on NASA's efforts to grow crops in space including a harvest just in time for Thanksgiving! Ask us Anything!
- Can an organ be replaced twice?
- How is it possible to reach points higher than 255 in an 8-bit game?
- Can an elevated water tank be used like a battery?
- How is a bacteria immune to a virus without its corresponding spacer?
- Why did all living organisms on earth descend from a single common ancestor? Could there be more evolutionary trees evolving in parallel?
- Could a single human spermatozoon break through the zona pellucida?
- If Commensal Bacteria in our microbiomes help us, why are they called commensals?
- What happens to the human mind and body when a projectile passes through the brain?
- Why does rabies affect such a broad range of species with similar symptoms while other diseases, such as HIV, only affect one species?
- How does stomachs of people living on IV cope?
- Why is lithium the best element to use for batteries?
- Our irises retract to block more light and open to let more light in. Does this affect our field of vision?
- How the very first code was created, since there were no ways to make a computer register a letter on the keyboard and no prior code?
- How do eyeballs rotate?
- Location of Atolls, Atlantic Vs Pacific? And several other Atoll related questions
- Can a sedimentary rock transform directly to an igneous rock without transitioning first to a metamorphic rock?
- Do herbivore animals have plants with special prefered taste like sweets for humans?
- Biology taught me that cells proactive aerobic respiration by default. This means every individual cell needs oxygen. I know that blood is carried by red blood cells, but how does the oxygen from the blood get into a single cell?
- Do computers get slower over time?Why?
| Posted: 26 Nov 2019 04:00 AM PST Since 2015, using NASA hardware, scientists and researchers have worked with astronauts on the International Space Station to conduct a series of experiments to grow, harvest and eat a variety of crops in space with seeds sent from Earth. The most recent experiment has the ISS crew growing Mizuna mustard using two different light recipes and multiple harvests, with the experiment's final harvest scheduled for later this week. This work builds upon decades of NASA and international research into growing plants in space. These experiments are advancing the knowledge required to successfully grow a large variety of crops on long-duration missions, such as a crewed mission to Mars. Being able to crops grown in space provides many benefits including supplementing the astronauts' packaged diet with essential nutrients and combating diet fatigue. Here answering your questions are:
We will see you at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (19:30 UT), ask us anything! [link] [comments]  |
| Can an organ be replaced twice? Posted: 25 Nov 2019 05:41 PM PST Like, the organ recipient dies unexpectedly after getting a new heart. Any reason the heart can't pass on again? [link] [comments]  |
| How is it possible to reach points higher than 255 in an 8-bit game? Posted: 26 Nov 2019 04:49 AM PST Considering 8 bits can only count to the number 255, how is it possible to be awarded more than 255 points in a 8-bit game? For example in Pac-man, the highest reachable level is 255, but you still get 400 points for eating a ghost. The game should not be able to count that high [link] [comments]  |
| Can an elevated water tank be used like a battery? Posted: 25 Nov 2019 04:53 PM PST Could electricity from say solar panels be used to power a pump that would put a bunch of water in an elevated tank, and then when the sun goes down, can that water be released to drive a turbine for power again? [link] [comments]  |
| How is a bacteria immune to a virus without its corresponding spacer? Posted: 26 Nov 2019 02:45 AM PST I just watched a documentary about CRISPR and Cas9 called Human Nature. They explained that they looked at bacteria which were exposed to viral infections. While most of the bacteria died, a few survived. The surviving bacteria now had an altered genome. It had added a spacer corresponding to the virus' RNA acting as part of an immune system for the bacteria. You'd now have Cas9 in the bacteria, armed with a copy of that spacer protecting against that same type of virus. However, they never explained how those surviving bacteria survived in the first place without the spacer already in place. Was it just chance? And if so, what was the random element? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Nov 2019 02:32 AM PST In the distant past, when the first living cell on earth spontaneously emerged, why couldn't a different living cell emerge at the same time somewhere else on the planet? These two cells could then become roots to two unrelated evolutionary trees. Could a new evolutionary tree emerge today? [link] [comments]  |
| Could a single human spermatozoon break through the zona pellucida? Posted: 26 Nov 2019 03:16 AM PST Could a single human spermatozoon digest 15μm of zona pellucida with its 1μm acrossome? It doesn't seem possible yet one of my biology teachers told me that it was. ( and another one told me that a multiple assault is required ) Are multiple acrossomes needed to get through? If so, could we say that they are, in some way, cooperating by digging their way in for another one to fertilize the egg? [link] [comments]  |
| If Commensal Bacteria in our microbiomes help us, why are they called commensals? Posted: 26 Nov 2019 02:36 AM PST From my understanding a commensal organism is one that lives alongside a host benefiting from it without helping/harming it. However commensal bacteria in our microbiomes have many helpful functions:
So why are they classed as commensals? [link] [comments]  |
| What happens to the human mind and body when a projectile passes through the brain? Posted: 25 Nov 2019 06:55 PM PST As an example, if you were shot in the head, what is the sequence of biological/neurological events that lead to body functions and consciousness to fail? Does everything shut down immediately? What causes the mind to cease so quickly? Do some body functions continue for a time after being shot? What scenario would lead to someone being conscious after seeing brain trauma like that? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Nov 2019 09:51 AM PST |
| How does stomachs of people living on IV cope? Posted: 26 Nov 2019 01:49 AM PST I mean do they produce bile and stuff? Do people not develop ulcers due to stomach being empty for a long time? [link] [comments]  |
| Why is lithium the best element to use for batteries? Posted: 25 Nov 2019 06:05 PM PST Like what molecular properties make it the best? Or are there other elements or compounds that are just not being used? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Nov 2019 07:20 PM PST |
| Posted: 25 Nov 2019 10:32 AM PST |
| Posted: 25 Nov 2019 10:24 PM PST Like how to your eyes turn on their own or look side to side? Is there some kind of muscle to move them, or is it something else? [link] [comments]  |
| Location of Atolls, Atlantic Vs Pacific? And several other Atoll related questions Posted: 25 Nov 2019 11:42 AM PST Hello I've recently been creating a fantasy map and was looking up Atolls and I've several questions about them. The first, is why are there so few Atolls in the Atlantic (only off the coast of Belize) while the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean are chalk full of them. I presume this is due to lack of Volcanic activity in the Atlantic ocean in area where reefs can form but then that leads to another question about the lack of Volcanic hot-spots in the Atlantic. The second question I have is the removal of the former Island that the coral reef rings around. How does this precisely happen? I recall watching a video where it was stated that the weight of the reef somehow has something to do with it, or is it more to do with Erosion (wouldn't a barrier reef prevent erosion to a degree)? And the last question I have is concerning the make up of islands. Since New Caldonia (>40MYA) is older geologically speaking than Midway Island (27MYA) and the two are completely different (one is an Atoll the other is a proper island). Which is a roundabout way of asking, is the geological makeup of an Atoll more prone to erosion than a "regular" island? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 25 Nov 2019 02:52 PM PST I'm seeing resources that either show all three rock types freely transform into one another OR that sedimentary rock has to become a metamorphic rock before transforming into an igneous rock. Which interpretation is correct? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Do herbivore animals have plants with special prefered taste like sweets for humans? Posted: 25 Nov 2019 10:03 AM PST |
| Posted: 25 Nov 2019 02:39 PM PST Are there little tiny blood vessels that branch into every single cell? This doesn't seem likely because otherwise the tiniest cut would bleed which isn't what I've observed when getting small surface cuts. Edit: title should say "practice" [link] [comments]  |
| Do computers get slower over time?Why? Posted: 25 Nov 2019 08:46 AM PST |
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