Recent comments in /f/askscience
[deleted] t1_j9z43u4 wrote
sticklebat t1_j9z3v8i wrote
Reply to comment by numatter in What does it mean for light to be an excitation in the electromagnetic field? by Ethan-Wakefield
Wait long enough and every system will tend toward its highest entropy and typically lowest energy state. But then we’re not really talking about the effect of the magnet’s magnetic field anymore so that’s a whole different conversation that depends on things like the stability of atoms and protons.
[deleted] t1_j9z3ujd wrote
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[deleted] t1_j9z3k30 wrote
Reply to How old is the ISS REALLY? by gwplayer1
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[deleted] t1_j9z3ivs wrote
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[deleted] t1_j9z395w wrote
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[deleted] t1_j9z2v3g wrote
Reply to Water on Earth is not Constant. Why ? by ItsDivyamGupta
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[deleted] t1_j9z2g8g wrote
Reply to How old is the ISS REALLY? by gwplayer1
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CattleDependent3989 t1_j9z29zy wrote
Reply to comment by aphasic in Have there been any breakthroughs in Nanotechnology recently? How far away are we from seeing Nanomachines in an actual hospital? by by_comparison
I find this kind of stuff extremely fascinating! As a child, I loved anything related to science. I remember having this mail order binder set, where every month they mailed a new insert on a topic and it was anything from the Hubble Space Telescope to DNA.
I remember reading about the Human Genome Project and how it was anticipated to be completed somewhere in the early 2000s and what they hoped to achieve with it. When they finally announced it’s completion, I was ecstatic! I couldn’t believe something I read about as a child was finally coming to life.
Nowadays, you can literally go to a Walmart and grab a kit, spit in a vial and know your genetic lineage and genetic predispositions to certain conditions as well as genetic traits. You can get a Pap Smear with HPV genotyping and find out if it’s of a certain genotype that increases your chance of developing cervical cancer by ~70%. You can test for the BRCA gene impairment and find out if you’ll likely develop breast cancer in your lifetime.
We don’t have flying cars and robots just yet, but holy hell we have come so far and it’s delicious
greenappletree t1_j9z23l9 wrote
Reply to comment by AdEnvironmental8339 in How does adenosine accumulate in brain and cause sleep? by Lojcs
so in the brain we have two main type of neurons ( excitatory and inhibitory ) or glumate vs gaba. When glumate is release it causes a neuron to fire and thus exitatory. Adenosine is release when neurons fire sometimes (what we call presynaptic) and feed back onto itself, when it binds to the receptor it inhibit glutamate release and thus decreases activity. There are other mechnism, like I mentioned above such as increasing release of gaba, but I think this is the main one.
numatter t1_j9z1zz3 wrote
Reply to comment by sticklebat in What does it mean for light to be an excitation in the electromagnetic field? by Ethan-Wakefield
Thank you for that. I was thinking in terms of Newtons 1st law of motion in a perfect vacuum (and over eons of time) and didn't consider that light itself has inertia and would affect its angular momentum as its being radiated. But, isn't it still conceivable that even down to the last atom of the magnet, there's a mathematical improbability that the spin would be zero, considering entropy? Or maybe the opposite is true, that entropy was working toward bringing the very last atom down to the lowest energy state possible, essentially converting any remaining angular momentum into light so that it can achieve the lowest energy state possible. I could see it going both ways, maybe even being in an entangled state of both outcomes until an observation is made.
[deleted] t1_j9z1tay wrote
Reply to How old is the ISS REALLY? by gwplayer1
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[deleted] t1_j9z1nit wrote
KenethSargatanas t1_j9z1ivk wrote
Reply to Water on Earth is not Constant. Why ? by ItsDivyamGupta
Water is created (and destroyed) in a huge number of chemical reactions. Acid+Base reactions are a notable example. For instance, Hydrochloric Acid and Sodium Hydroxide react to make Water and Salt. (HCl + NaOH -> NaCl + H2O)
So, plants using water as part of their biological processes are countered by other natural processes that create it.
[deleted] t1_j9z19xf wrote
vasopressin334 t1_j9z0vri wrote
Reply to Water on Earth is not Constant. Why ? by ItsDivyamGupta
To be precise, plants convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates through the process of photosynthesis. Those carbohydrates are not just used for energy - they are made into structural molecules that make up the plants themselves. For instance, cell walls in plants are essentially sugar polymers.
The lost water is therefore "captured" by the structure of the plant in an equal ratio to the carbon dioxide captured. This process is commonly referred to as "carbon capture" because people care more about atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Edit: This got some attention so let me add two more specific examples of water capture. The cellulose that makes up virtually every tree is a sugar polymer, so trees themselves are literally made of sugar. All of that involves captured water molecules that will only ever be released when the tree decays, burns down, or is eaten by termites.
A very different example is the fat in a camel's hump. When fatty acids are made, a great deal of water molecules are stripped of their hydrogens and the oxygen is released. Those water molecules are gone in a real sense, as the oxygen in them is gone. However, digesting that fatty acid requires adding the oxygen atoms back, and water and carbon dioxide is released. This is how camels "store" water in a form that is highly compact and actually devoid of the oxygen atom needed to make the water.
[deleted] t1_j9z0gau wrote
Reply to comment by Minnakht in Water on Earth is not Constant. Why ? by ItsDivyamGupta
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FlameSkimmerLT t1_j9yzxxd wrote
Reply to comment by CrustalTrudger in When a volcano erupts, does this affect the pressure building up in other volcanoes? by Rhamni
Oh interesting. About your example, then, why do the connected system Kilauea and Mauna Loa erupt at such different volumes? I believe Mauna Loa tends to erupt much more lava.
[deleted] t1_j9yz6jl wrote
Reply to comment by CrustalTrudger in When a volcano erupts, does this affect the pressure building up in other volcanoes? by Rhamni
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[deleted] t1_j9yyx9t wrote
Reply to comment by Minnakht in Water on Earth is not Constant. Why ? by ItsDivyamGupta
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[deleted] t1_j9yyt2h wrote
Reply to Water on Earth is not Constant. Why ? by ItsDivyamGupta
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MonkeyMoney101 t1_j9yxs4l wrote
Reply to comment by ItsDivyamGupta in Water on Earth is not Constant. Why ? by ItsDivyamGupta
When plants grow, they don't destroy the atoms that make up water (and carbon dioxide), they build new cells using them. Those cells break down when they die because the process that was supplying them with energy for homeostasis has ended. When the cells break down, those atoms are still there. If something eats them and there's water inside, they pee it out. It's always still there, somewhere.
By_AspenRH t1_j9yxnur wrote
Reply to comment by ItsDivyamGupta in Water on Earth is not Constant. Why ? by ItsDivyamGupta
>if we eat plants , then it has to be lost forever.
It is not lost "forever" the molecules just breakdown and get combined into different things which eventually breakdown themselves or converted into something else, eventually the moluces (hydrogen and oxygen) get back to being water and so the cycle continues.
Nothing is "lost forever" because it has to go somewhere but it'll come back eventually in some shape or form.
[deleted] t1_j9yxbe3 wrote
Reply to Water on Earth is not Constant. Why ? by ItsDivyamGupta
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[deleted] t1_j9z45es wrote
Reply to comment by [deleted] in How old is the ISS REALLY? by gwplayer1
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