Recent comments in /f/askscience

GusPlus t1_j5xaxzd wrote

Reply to comment by Thaser in Ask Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology by AutoModerator

There are many answers to this.

Languages change over time. Even if you started with one language, as people spread out and different communities formed, those dialects would eventually change enough to no longer be mutually intelligible with the original language. And related to your wording, we are indeed using “flapping meat” to communicate, and while it can produce and reproduce sounds with regular characteristics, these sounds are not completely and exactly the same between people or even between utterances. Our perception of what forms a given phoneme can encompass a range of patterns that all “fit” to an archetype for what we expect for that sound. Some sounds have enough characteristics of another sound that we categorize them as being the same one, even if there are actually greater differences in their production than between two other sounds we recognize as distinct.

So languages naturally change over time, and when we produce sounds we are not doing so with perfect fidelity and precision each time. Beyond that, we must remember language is a system of communication that communicates more than just information. A crucial use of language is strengthening social ties between individuals or groups. Groups may actively speak in a certain manner to identify a person as a member of that group, which can be another driver of language change over time. It also means that we don’t necessarily care about how efficient we are when using language, because efficiency frequently isn’t the point. We are complex social creatures, and our ways of engaging in complex social situations are similarly complex, with human language being no exception.

Language evolves, and it does so at a much faster rate than biological evolution since it is driven socioculturally, even though some of the same factors that can drive biological evolution can also be at play (geographic isolation, reproductive isolation, sexual selection even). With this in mind, realize that humans have been speaking, joking, telling stories, and all around using language for hundreds of thousands of years. Populations of humans spread to every corner of the globe and innovated new societies, new ways of living, encountered new environments. Why would they also not use new words, new grammatical structures, as they were confronted with new physical environments and social concepts?

I’m sorry I can’t give you a short answer, because there isn’t one single simple short answer. I also didn’t want to just drop an article about the origins of language, because that is a frequent subject of debate among linguists and anthropologists. But I hope my answer helped. Source: PhD in linguistics.

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IKnowWhoYouAreGuy t1_j5x9e5v wrote

Reply to Why do sample return missions such as OSIRIS-REx use their own reentry vehicles instead of just going to the space station for pickup and return with ISS equipment? by PromptCritical725

With sample return, you're talking about a craft Pringles can trying to carry enough fuel to return to Earth, let alone trying to locate and synchronize with the ISS, which is the size of a house moving at thousands of miles per second (depending on your perspective). Its much easier to hit the earth-sized object than attempt to throw a baseball at a moving car from millions of miles away...

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FriendlyDespot t1_j5x8bme wrote

Reply to comment by sinspawn1024 in Why do sample return missions such as OSIRIS-REx use their own reentry vehicles instead of just going to the space station for pickup and return with ISS equipment? by PromptCritical725

The risk would be substantially lower than any number of other risks that are accepted daily for the ISS mission. With the maneuvers required to match an orbit, any failure would put the intercepting vehicle somewhere other than where the ISS is.

Consider that the scenario you're describing is a risk that's faced every single time a crew or supply mission is launched to the station.

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KyleRichXV t1_j5x8ac3 wrote

Reply to What determines whether we can create a vaccine for an illness or not? by ShelfordPrefect

There are a lot of factors. A lot of great stuff here already, but another thing to consider is how well an antibody can “stick” to a piece of the virus to prevent entry into the cell - no entry, no infection. Some viruses have known antigens in that they will produce an immune response when discovered, but the antibodies sticking to that piece of the virus doesn’t actually stop it from binding, or it can bind another receptor.

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hollyjazzy t1_j5x71au wrote

Reply to comment by FelisCantabrigiensis in What determines whether we can create a vaccine for an illness or not? by ShelfordPrefect

Thank you for this beautiful explanation.I certainly hope your prediction at the end is correct, and that the anti vaxxers do not derail it. I remember when smallpox was declared extinct, it felt miraculous that such a deadly disease for centuries was no more. So many more diseases were on the cusp of being eradicated until distrust of vaccination started increasing immmensely in the early years of this century.

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