Recent comments in /f/askscience

stalphonzo t1_j2cwfeh wrote

Reply to Was there a decrease in other infectious diseases other than Covid due to wearing masks during the past 2 years? by [deleted]

As others mentioned, there was a marked drop in influenza infections. The most annoying part is the conspiracy adherents (diplomatic phrasing) believed that to be proof of fudging numbers in favor of covid. Whereas, of course, it was proof that basic preventive measures were very effective. Heads they win, tails you lose.

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CatHavSatNav t1_j2cwbwh wrote

Reply to Do radiation burns get temperature sensitive like regular burns? by cryptorusticator

https://www.eviq.org.au/clinical-resources/radiation-oncology/side-effect-and-toxicity-management/1477-management-of-radiation-induced-skin-reaction#management

Cold is good. At work we tell people to put their sorbolene cream in the fridge to make it nice and cold when they apply it. We use what we call "wet dressings" where sorbolene and lignocaine are applied to the affected region of skin and then dressings soaked in cold saline are applied over this and left in place for 20-30 minutes.

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Crazy-Delay-5149 t1_j2cv9j1 wrote

Reply to comment by l3lindsite in Did the same strand of virus cause spanish flu and swine flu? if no then how are they different by manwithsillymustache

The idea behind using those strains is that 1. We can't really do better, 2. Even though these strains are going to mutate before those 6 months, it is unlikely that all of the virus' proteins will mutate so drastically that all the antibodies we've made against the vaccine will be useless. After all, it only takes one good antibody for your body to be able to fight.

That being said, I agree that you don't need the vaccine if you have a fully functioning immune system. Idk elsewhere but in my country the vaccine is only recommended for people with weak immune system (elderly, auto immune disease etc).

The only reason you'd want to vaccinate even though you're not part of these groups of people is to protect the ones you know. That's why health workers have to get the vaccine, and you may want to get it if you're in contact with immuno-weak people (grandparents, newborn...). Not to protect yourself but to protect them.

Edit to add: some years, people who pick which strains to put in the vaccine simply get it wrong, we get a completely different strain in the winter and the vaccine is basically useless 😬 I remember that happened a few years ago

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No_Stretch_3899 t1_j2ctlp5 wrote

Reply to Do cats and dogs see things under blacklight the same as we do? by Rowsdower32

Black light glows are caused by (might get the term wrong) fluorescence, where the high energy photons of the black light excite certain molecules into releasing a burst of photons at a different wavelength (the glow you see is when that new wavelength is in the visible spectrum). So as long as what’s glowing is within the animal’s color spectrum, they should have no problem seeing it. However, an animal (like a pistol shrimp) may not quite see the same glow from black lights because it may be washed out by the brightness of the black light, as their vision extends much further into the ultraviolet (and also the infrared, but UV is what’s relevant here) than humans’ do

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sgarn t1_j2cqvwm wrote

Reply to How did Rutherford arrive at gold foil as the best choice for his particle experiments? by Poltibolsa

>is it because gold is so malleable but so is lead and lead is much more dense

Gold is much more dense than lead, at 19.3 vs 11.3 g/cm³, but the density of the metal isn't really a direct factor in Rutherford scattering in contrast to the atomic mass (more directly the atomic number, but this was prior to the discovery of the neutron) and atomic density. With gold being very close in atomic number to lead, and gold being more malleable and non-reactive than lead, and with gold foil more ubiquitous than lead foil, and with gold being more atomically dense than lead, there wouldn't have been an advantage to using lead over gold.

From Geiger's 1910 paper on the early experiments:

"Gold appeared to be the most suitable substance for such comparative measurements, since it can be obtained in very thin and uniform foils, and in addition its scattering power is higher than that of any other material available."

"Since thin and uniform sheets could only be obtained for gold, tin, silver, copper, and aluminium, the experiments were confined to these metals."

These and later experiments by Geiger and Marsden under the supervision of Rutherford ultimately showed that scattering per atom was proportional to the square of the atomic weight. That is, other materials were observed, but since gold was far more suitable and lead was very close in atomic weight to gold, it would not have yielded much more insight compared to lighter and more malleable materials. It's important to note that thin sheets and uniform thickness were important because the scattering was also observed as a function of the number of sheets used.

In fact, it appears that [lead was used in the early experiments] (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.1909.0054) but it was less effective than gold - this was speculated to be due to impurities in the lead but I believe atomic density would have played a role here, possibly also the relative difficulties in producing thin sheets of lead.

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