Recent comments in /f/askscience

supreme_harmony t1_ja4ot1d wrote

Reply to comment by ECatPlay in If the fuel that goes in car engines is extracted from hydrocarbons, which consist of only Hydrogen and Carbon, and those hydrocarbons react with Oxygen in the air (combustion reaction), to produce CO2 and H2O, why do we get a bad smell from car exhaust fumes if both gases are odorless? by Protoflare

This is a fantastic answer. The only thing I would add to the above is that no burn is ever perfect. Exhaust fumes from a car therefore also contain trace amounts of unburnt fuel and even partially burned hydrocarbons of various complexities. These are tiny amounts, but enough for our noses to pick it up.

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stacybobacy OP t1_ja4lbd4 wrote

Reply to comment by apsmunro in Is there any evidence suggesting that Covid-19 can affect the immune system, increasing chance of illness from other viruses? by stacybobacy

Thank you for the link I'll give it a read. :) It's strange for me that I'm getting sick so frequently, definitely not my norm. I'm 48 and have always been pretty healthy. These illnesses last long too. I'm currently on day 6 of of my cold and I'm still sneezing and drippy. In the past I was usually on the mend after just a few days.

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apsmunro t1_ja4kgb7 wrote

Reply to Is there any evidence suggesting that Covid-19 can affect the immune system, increasing chance of illness from other viruses? by stacybobacy

It’s normal for all viruses to have a temporary impact on the immune system, but there is no evidence that in routine cases there is any lasting impact on the immune system.

There are cases where covid can trigger autoimmune conditions, and there appears to be some immune dysfunction in cases of long covid, but these are the exceptions.

I wrote a bit more about it here as there have been rumours circulating online about this topic.

https://open.substack.com/pub/alasdairmunro/p/covid-is-not-destroying-kids-immune?utm_source=direct&r=1fhhmw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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NotTooDeep t1_ja4il4p wrote

Reply to comment by andrewmmm in Is there any possible relation between the recent earthquakes in Turkey/Syria, Japan and Papua New Guinea? by Corvid-21

> Baader–Meinhof

I've been googling on something that should be related to this for a while and can't find the info. My question is this: what is the opposite of the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon?

I recall watching a show decades ago that described the discovery of nerve cells in the lymph nodes in the 1970s or 80s. The research overthrew the common understanding that the immune system was autonomous from the rest of us, especially our brains, and kind of just did its thing. This gave some credence to depression as having a role in reducing our immunity to disease. You catch more colds when you're down.

The person interviewing the scientist asked why it had taken centuries for anyone to see these nerves. All of the thousands of med students and researchers and physicians did not see these nerves.

Is there a word or phrase that describes this phenomena? Blind spot comes to mind, but not the physical blind spot in the eye; I'm referring to some kind of blind spot that filters out images in the brain because we 'know' they don't exist, so we don't see them.

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