Recent comments in /f/askscience

hphdup92 t1_jc1ffxq wrote

Reply to comment by PlaidBastard in Is the percentage of mass in the parent star, comparable between different systems? by bizzehdee

It also depends on what you call a star and a planet. Consider a young Brown dwarf of 13.2 Jupiter masses that fuses deuterium with Super Jupiter of 12.9 Jupiter masses. Is that a star system with almost 50% of its weight outside the star or is it a binary rogue planet system or is it neither?

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Montrama t1_jc1elu5 wrote

Reply to Why were the control rods in the reactor featured in the HBO series 'Chernobyl' (2019) tipped with graphite? by Figorama

I think tipped with graphite is kinda misleading. When we say it like this it feels like a small portion of the control rod is made from graphite at the tip. In reality there is a slightly smaller graphite rod which is connected to the boron rod. So when you raise the boron rod it gets replaced by graphite rod which is also called "Displacer".

Why they have graphite rod than? Two main reasons. One is to increase the efficiency of control rods. When you raise the control rod it gets replaced by displacer graphite rod which accelerates the reaction. When you push the boron rod back, displacer got removed from the reactor and boron rod takes it place and slows down the reaction. So your delta power is much higher between two states and this gives you better control ability over the reaction. Second reason is to increase capacity of the reactor. Graphite accelerates the reaction so increases the maximum power that the reactor can create with same footprint.

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Idyotec t1_jc14qyi wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in There are certain species of mushrooms that can't be cultivated artificially and only found naturally in the wild, are there also any plants that are unable to be grown artificially? by PianoTrumpetMax

Cordyceps Militaris can be grown in labs. It parasitizes ants. You can make an ant powder based substrate. Cordyceps Sinensis is harder due to the silkworms and altitude it's used to iirc. There are a bunch of Cordyceps for all kinds of insects, grasshoppers and crickets would probably be easy too but I don't know the strain name for those.

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ghedipunk t1_jc11cgc wrote

Reply to comment by ApeMummy in As they still have a neutral charge, can antineutrons replace neutrons in a regular atom? by Oheligud

The models presented so far don't describe individual quarks.

Rather, nuclear particles (the protons, antiprotons, neutrons, and antineutrons) are a soup of quarks and gluons that, on average, add up to a specific number of quarks.

So, yeah... for a basic understanding, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZfmG_h5Oyg

To answer your question: We're firmly outside of the ideas we're familiar with when we think of particles. There is no concept of simultaneity at this scale; you need to rely on probabilities only.

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