Recent comments in /f/askscience

im_thatoneguy t1_jdjx0hg wrote

Reply to comment by brown_felt_hat in What happened to the old COVID variants, like Delta? Could they come back? by number1dork

So if you didn't take any medication, you had pretty much the experience you would have in 1918--except you would probably take Paracetamol for fever and if your condition worsened you could receive tamiflu and other stronger medications?

Or like the difference between Alpha and Delta Omicron, they're the "same" but probably exhibited substantially different mortality?

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OlympusMons94 t1_jdjwm8c wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Does the metal in the solid core of a rocky planet have any special properties? by VillagerNo4

The gradual freezing out of the outer core to grow the inner core indirectly sustains the magnetic field generated within the outer core. (And even then "only" for the past ~0.5-1.5 billion out of 4.55 billion years of Earth's history, because the inner core didn't exist before then.)

However, the inner core itself doesn't really do anything practical or of non-academic interest. Aside from very slowly getting bigger, it just spins along (very, very slightly more or less rapidly) with the rest of Earth. The motions that power the dynamo are strictly within the molten portion of the core. Essentially, the combined motion due to Earth's rotation and core convection organize into rotating columns within the outer core, which sustain Earrh's intrinsic magnetic field. (See dynamo theory.)

The geodynamo is NOT because of the inner core rotating relative to the outer core, which it barely does. Because the inner core is a solid within a relativley low viscosity liquid, it can rotate at a slightly different rate. If anything, the electromagnetic forces associated with the dynamo act on the inner core in a way roughly analogous to an induction motor, exerting torque on the inner core and spinning it relative to the outer core. (The inner core never spins at a rate very different from the rest of Earth--inertia, conservation of angular momentum and energy, etc.) Even in this sense, which is not nearly as dramatic or impactful as clickbait would have one believe, the inner core is a passive component.

u/swirlyglasses1

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Alwayssunnyinarizona t1_jdjvznu wrote

Reply to comment by aggasalk in What happened to the old COVID variants, like Delta? Could they come back? by number1dork

They are competing for resources in terms of susceptible individuals. If virus A is more transmissible, replicates in cells more quickly, or bypasses immunity that would otherwise prevent infection with virus B, then virus A has outcompeted virus B.

With evolution, everything is competition.

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NutDraw t1_jdjtgv0 wrote

Reply to comment by Psyc3 in What happened to the old COVID variants, like Delta? Could they come back? by number1dork

>Imagine everyone broken their arm at the same time, A+E would collapse, orthopaedics would collapse, any requirement for surgery would be overwhelmed (it is needed in 2 weeks), there would be no ability to get people effective rehabilitation, and people would start dying from complications of broken arms.

Excellent example. The biggest risk with something like COVID are the huge waves of cases that overwhelm response systems. Sure, the vast majority of hospitalized people will survive with some supplemental oxygen, but if you only have enough tanks and masks for half of them the death rate skyrockets.

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