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Whirling_Cloudburst , in Does Higgs exist in nature or is it merely artificially synthesized particle?

Its better to not think of it as something we created in a lab. Higgs plays a part in making nature do what it does.

If you want to learn more about the Higgs Mechanism, check out this video from PBS Space Time. You might also find some good info in the comments as well.

Here is a space article.

Brokkr , (edited ) in Does Higgs exist in nature or is it merely artificially synthesized particle?

Sorry, can’t answer your question. Quick correction though, uranium is the highest atomic number that occurs nationally.

Edit: so I’m wrong about this. In school we learned that it was uranium and that’s also what it said when I checked sources, but not enough. Apologies.

morphballganon ,

Naturally*

ubermeisters ,
@ubermeisters@lemmy.world avatar

, my dear Watson

ArmokGoB ,
rockSlayer ,

The Oklo natural nuclear reactor has naturally occurring plutonium and neptunium

Aux , in Is there an insect that can devour plastic, breaking it down to less harmful components?

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  • Chobbes ,

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  • Potatos_are_not_friends ,

    It’s not a binary choice

    eran_morad ,

    Gluten is neither synthetic nor semisynthetic.

    Aux ,

    It’s semisynthetic. Gluten doesn’t appear in nature on its own. Just like viscose is a semisynthetic variant of cellulose.

    eran_morad ,

    No, it occurs naturally in grains. Fucking look it up. I’m a biochemist, i know this shit. Here, fuck it: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28244676/.

    count_of_monte_carlo ,

    This comment is on the edge for rule 6 “Use appropriate language and tone.” I’d appreciate it if you’d edit the language to be more professional.

    Thank you for providing a source in your comment!

    Aux ,

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  • eran_morad ,

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  • count_of_monte_carlo ,

    Im dealing with all rule breaking behavior. The unsourced comments have now been removed as the user is unable to provide a source to backup their claim. The comments that break civility rules, including this one, are also being removed.

    Please report rule 9 violations so that we can act on them.

    count_of_monte_carlo ,

    Per rule 9, please provide a credible source for the statement “Gluten doesn’t appear in nature on its own”

    Aux ,

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  • count_of_monte_carlo ,

    The source provided by another user gives a definitive counter argument.

    From the article: “ The wheat kernel contains 8%–15% of protein, from which 10%–15% is albumin/globulin and 85%–90% is gluten (Fig. 1).1 Gluten is a complex mixture of hundreds of related but distinct proteins, mainly gliadin and glutenin. Different wheat varieties vary in protein content and in the composition and distribution of gluten proteins.”

    TonyTonyChopper ,

    loads of organisms that can digest gluten already exist. Not so much for polyethylene etc. Also gluten is made of proteins with definite length not polymers

    Aux ,

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  • eran_morad ,

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  • eran_morad , (edited )

    Let me school you on this one, too. There are polymethylsilanes, polyphosphazines, etc. You aren’t even aware of common polymers like PVC that fall outside of your categories. There’s more exotic stuff like polyferrocenes. You ought to quit spouting off about things you know nothing about.

    Aux ,

    What? Lol ook.

    Aux ,

    Also PLA can be suggested by microorganisms.

    TonyTonyChopper ,

    irrelevant

    Aux ,

    How’s that irrelevant? PLA is a plastic. And can be digested. As well as cellophane. Also plastic and can also be digested.

    Aux ,
    N4CHEM ,

    Gluten is a protein, nobody would call it a plastic

    Aux ,

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  • count_of_monte_carlo ,

    Per rule 9, please provide a source for the statement that gluten is a “synthetic or semi-synthetic organic polymer”.

    CanadaPlus , in Humans are notoriously bad at absorbing iron from plant sources, while herbivores seem to do fine. What's up with that?

    Are we actually that bad at absorbing iron? Honest question, I always assumed it was a matter of the amount of iron in there in the first place.

    TheBananaKing OP ,

    We suck at it. Read ferinstance this

    CanadaPlus ,

    I’m having trouble finding a comparable number for other animals, though. Apparently for a lot of trace elements (like copper or selenium) ruminants are actually much worse at absorption, because the microbes essentially put them into a less available form.

    Etterra , in Is there an insect that can devour plastic, breaking it down to less harmful components?

    What would be ideal IMO is a bug with a gut bacteria exclusive to that species alone that could eat plastics and digest them fully so microplastics aren’t an issue. Likely, a species for each type of problem plastic. A natural analogue would be termites, which can only digest wood because of such a relationship.

    It would have to be an artificially engineered relationship, and an insect that’s not particularly proliferate. Preferably with a narrow set of habitat tolerances. That way they could be farmed, but be unlikely to get into the environment and become a nuisance by eating plastics we don’t want them to.

    qyron , (edited )

    Like black soldier flies?

    -#-

    Black soldier flies are prolific and when proper conditions to reproduce are met, the females do not wander far from the place they are born and because of this are already used in organic waste disposal.

    Using a complex organism to treate waste, even if only plastic, requires specialized infrastructure, designed to contain any event possible to pose a threat to the environment; this is not something we want or can do at home. Specialized infrastructure would make possible ideal conditions for the flies.

    Black soldier flies also have the advantage that adults do not live for very long, do not feed, do not pose threat to human beings and the larvas die quickly if no food is available.

    These flies also are vulnerable to cold and extreme heat conditions.

    Treczoks , in Is there an insect that can devour plastic, breaking it down to less harmful components?

    I would not want anything like that even close ot my LEGO collection...

    Damaskox OP ,
    @Damaskox@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s a shame you cannot see bacteria with naked eye!

    You’d need some kind of a bacteria alarm system!

    NounsAndWords , in Is there an insect that can devour plastic, breaking it down to less harmful components?

    Bugs? I don’t know of any. Bacteria? It seems to come up again every few years.

    Damaskox OP ,
    @Damaskox@lemmy.world avatar

    Cool!

    Ideonella sakaiensis would be the name of the bacteria.

    DessertStorms ,
    @DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

    Bugs? I don’t know of any

    Not sure if worms count as bugs, but, in the same way as the bacteria, there is an article about these every few years:
    https://www.acs.org/pressroom/newsreleases/2022/april/earthworms-like-to-eat-some-plastics-but-side-effects-of-digestion-are-unclear.html

    Slowy , in Humans are notoriously bad at absorbing iron from plant sources, while herbivores seem to do fine. What's up with that?
    @Slowy@lemmy.world avatar

    Many herbivores have a part of the digestive tract devoted to fermentation (or other microbe based processes) to break down cellulose. This involves a community of microorganisms that live in that part of the gut, and it is those microorganisms that break down the plant matter, producing nutrition for the animal via the products of their digestion, or by the animal breaking down the microorganisms themselves. Ruminants in particular like cows with their specialized multi-compartment stomach devote a lot of space to culturing this microbe colony, but rabbits and horses are hind gut fermenters so they have cecum for that. Rabbits also are coprophagic (eat poop), they digest some of their plant matter once, then eat the poop pellet and send it through again so it can be broken down even more.

    But basically, with the microbes doing the work of digestion, it is more about what they can extract, and the herbivores just host them. We have a different community of microorganisms than them, and our digestive tract wouldn’t be able to support large numbers of those species.

    jaybone ,

    Does this mean herbivores are drunk all the time?

    Kidding of course, but is there actually some level of alcohol produced as part of this fermentation?

    wahming ,

    Yes

    Slowy ,
    @Slowy@lemmy.world avatar

    Sadly no, they don’t produce much ethanol lol

    spittingimage ,
    @spittingimage@lemmy.world avatar
    CanadaPlus ,

    That’s the answer for cellulose, a tough polymer, but I’d be cautious generalising to iron.

    Slowy ,
    @Slowy@lemmy.world avatar

    Fair criticism, and in regards to minerals especially, I totally failed to mention the need for herbivores to have access to literal rocks and dirt rich in different minerals that aren’t readily available in plant. In captivity, this takes the form of mineral blocks of course.

    CanadaPlus ,

    Particularly salt, which we usually mix into our food one way or another.

    CanadaPlus , (edited ) in Is there an easy way to generate a list of CMYK color values that will appear identical to the human eye under 589nm light?

    Here’s the Wikipedia section one general colour space, with a pretty diagram of chromaticity, and the one on CMYK colour conversion. What you want is the preimage of a CMYK colour projected into the entire perceptual space.

    CMYK actually sounds kind of complicated to do this with, so yeah look for a pre-made function to convert CMYK to CIE 1931 in whatever “normal” light you have. I can help you find the preimage from that once you do.

    Edit: Oh wait, this was a Halloween thing. Maybe for next year?

    CanadaPlus , in Hypothetically speaking, what alterations to our biology/genome would need to occur in order for us to be able to safely drink saltwater?

    Sea birds have an organ that pulls super-concentrated brine out of their bloodstream, like a kidney on steroids. IIRC it’s in their face. So, that.

    However, we can’t even grow normal human organs yet, let alone whole new ones.

    CanadaPlus , in If a sun burns hotter with greater mass, does adding a tonne of water make it hotter?

    There’s a lot of oxygen in water by star standards, so keep that in mind. It’s possible the change in metallicity will offset any change to equilibrium temperature, although I don’t really know the details.

    Sylver , in Could, in theory, we merge black holes to prolong the life of the universe?

    I believe there have been multiple sci-fi stories written about such concepts. It would go to assume that any civilization still around in 10^43 years from now will have no choice but to live around black holes while harnessing their rotational energy. My current favorite series, Xeelee Sequence by Stephen Baxter, explores some possible endings of life in the long-term life cycle of the universe. There is also the final book of the Three Body Problem, which if I remember correctly, shows civilizations in pocket universes around black holes.

    There is a YouTube video you may want to watch by Isaac Arthur. It mentions the possibility of combining black holes to elongate their life, and I won’t spoil the final answer for you. But like always, entropy prevails.

    youtu.be/pxa0IrZCNzg?si=VeHMJE8nx5hAR-1c

    21Cabbage , (edited ) in If a sun burns hotter with greater mass, does adding a tonne of water make it hotter?

    A literal ton wouldn’t do anything measurable but yeah, adding more material of lower atomic numbers would in theory work considering it’s a fusion engine and wouldn’t exactly scoff at having to break the water molecule before using it.

    Edit: like maybe if there was a star with a bunch of particularly wet planets around it and you somehow deorbited them, since as far as I’m aware the elements heavier than iron are just dead weight, they wouldn’t put out the star or anything.

    YaBoyMax ,

    I mean, if you add enough iron I believe it would eventually disrupt fusion, but you’d need an incredible amount, far more than you’d ever get from orbiting planets.

    Red_October ,

    As I understand it, the problem isn’t the presence of iron, but rather when it starts fusing silicon into iron, as that particular process consumes more energy than it releases, thus eating away at the radiation pressure that keeps the star “held up.”

    YaBoyMax ,

    I was thinking that the added inert mass would decrease the likelihood of individual fusion reactions as well as eventually overpower the radiation pressure due to its effect on total gravitational force, but honestly I don’t really know what I’m talking about so I could be completely wrong.

    EnderofGames ,

    Fusing silicon into iron should still release more energy than it takes, fusing iron-56 or heavier should be the point of not gaining energy.

    foofiepie , in If a sun burns hotter with greater mass, does adding a tonne of water make it hotter?

    I suspect the answer here is yes, and there’ll be a lot more hydrogen and oxygen in the star afterwards… but really I’m posting to see what a proper scientist will say.

    Am keen to know if this would pretty much include anything. For example, if I gathered a great enough density of chocolate eclairs in one place, would that become a star?

    Damaskox ,
    @Damaskox@lemmy.world avatar

    I believe anything lower from iron will make a star, when enough material added. Of course, one material from iron will give a much smaller lifespan for a star rather than hydrogen only.

    I think that an iron ball wouldn’t start a fusion. Might just jump right to a black hole if you added even more iron 🤔

    foofiepie ,

    Damn now my curiosity is piqued.

    So let’s theoretically gather together an almighty ball of iron.

    As you add more, would it’s own gravity cause the density to increase to a point where it would collapse into a black hole?

    Would chocolate eclairs achieve fission? I need to submit these to Randall Munroe.

    Damaskox ,
    @Damaskox@lemmy.world avatar

    As you add more, would it’s own gravity cause the density to increase to a point where it would collapse into a black hole?

    I believe so!

    I assume chocolate is made of lighter elements than iron so yeah, a big chocolate ball enough would become a star!

    BackOnMyBS ,
    @BackOnMyBS@lemmy.world avatar

    Yum 🤤

    Damaskox ,
    @Damaskox@lemmy.world avatar

    I don’t know how long it stays edible 😅

    And eventually you’d be crushed by the growing gravitational pull of this chocolate ball!

    RIP_Cheems OP ,
    @RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world avatar

    There is a way to find that out. We can use Schwarzschild radius to find the point at which an objects radius crosses the event horizon and thus becomes a black hole; Rs=2GM/c^2^, Rs being the Schwarzschild radius, G being the gravitational constant (6.67xe^-11^), M being the things mass, and c being the speed of light.

    e_t_ , in If a sun burns hotter with greater mass, does adding a tonne of water make it hotter?

    Stars have a lot of mass. The Sun loses almost 5 billion tons of mass every second and has enough fuel to last another 4-5 billion years. Adding a single ton of anything would make no appreciable difference. If you were to drop Jupiter into the Sun, it would have an effect, but Jupiter is only 0.09% the Sun's mass, so the effect would be small.

    foofiepie ,

    Is it true that Jupiter itself is close to being a star if you were to add more mass? Would smooshing two Jupiters together make a star?

    e_t_ ,

    You'd need to smoosh seventy five Jupiters together to make a star.

    foofiepie ,

    Thanks. Wow. That’s insane. Stars have a lot of mass then.

    HeckGazer ,

    If you ever feel like feeling extremely insignificant: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zlcWdTs2-s

    Shardikprime ,

    Seventy six if you relax

    4z01235 ,

    astronomy.com/…/ask-astro-could-jupiter-ever-beco…

    Depending on how you define a star, you could smush ~13 Jupiters together and make something that is maybe a star. To make a definite star you need ~80 Jupiters. To make it the same size as our Sun you’d need almost 250 Jupiters.

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