The higgs particle itself isn’t important, it’s the higgs field that makes the world go 'round. The way I understand it, is the field permeates all of space and time (like all other fields) and the particle appears at places of high disruptions in the field, like what the LHC created.
Photons are excitations in the EM field, but they also carry the electromagnetic force between particles - thus giving them charge. But in order to do that photon actually needs to be created and travel from one particle to another. If Higgs works in a similar way also being a boson, one might expect it also to need to exist to do it’s job. . What is the difference here?
Higgs boson has mass and quite large one at that and this puts limitations on how hard is it to generate it and on how field behaves
When you don’t provide enough energy to get whole Higgs boson, interactions happen via virtual particles. It’s easier to grasp this idea with weak interactions and W and Z bosons
But in order to do that photon actually needs to be created and travel from one particle to another.
Not really, no. At some point I’m going to exceed my own expertise here since I’m not a QFT expert, but in quantum mechanics things don’t firmly exist or not exist. The photons in question are “virtual particles”.
But in order to do that photon actually needs to be created and travel from one particle to another.
The electromagnetic force is mediated by virtual photons. These don’t exist as free particles, such as a photon emitted by a light source, but only as an intermediate particle. Because they’re only intermediate states, virtual photons can have non-physical energies (so long as they’re within the uncertainty principle), resulting in some having an effective mass. Suffice it to say virtual photons are quite distinct from real ones! Technically, I believe you could have some of the basic features of the em force (namely attraction/repulsion by 2 point charges) with just virtual photons. Things get tricky once charges begin accelerating though, as this leads to the emission of real photons.
If Higgs works in a similar way also being a boson
The short answer is, it doesn’t. The Higgs Field gives mass to fundamental particles. Existing in that field causes certain particles to have mass due to their coupling to the field. The W and Z weak gauge bosons gain mass through electroweak symmetry breaking, quarks and leptons gain mass through a different coupling. I realize this is a very unsatisfying answer as to “how” the Higgs field creates mass, but the mechanism involves some complex math (group theory and non-abelian gauge theory), so it kind of defies a simpler explanation. Regardless, it’s through interactions with the Higgs field (which can exist without any Higgs bosons around) that fundamental particles gain mass. The search for the Higgs boson was just to confirm the existence of the field, because while the field can exist without Higgs bosons present it must be possible to excite it sufficiently to create them.
Going back to your original question: these particles have almost certainly been created “naturally” in high energy collisions between particles and matter. Nature can achieve much higher energies than our particle accelerators. The highest energy particle ever observed was a cosmic ray. However, Higgs bosons are extremely short lived, with a lifetime of 10^-22 seconds. So whenever they’re created, they don’t stick around for a meaningful amount of time.
So, I’m not a virologist, so I can’t answer about viruses. But I am a bacterial microbiologist, so I can talk a bit about pathogenic bacteria. Short answer: yes. Long answer: yes, kind of.
It really depends on what the vaccine is targeting and what the pathogen is. My favorite pathogen is Streptococcus pneumoniae, the leading cause of pneumonia. So let’s look at it from that perspective. There are vaccines for S. pneumo, but the vaccines only target certain stains of S. pneumo. And every 5 or so years, we make a new version of the vaccine because the types of S. pneumo that are causing disease keeps shifting. If the vaccine accounts for type A, then type B starts to cause more disease. If the vaccine accounts for types A and B, then type C starts to cause more disease. If the vaccine amounts for types A through C, then type D starts to cause more disease. Repeat ad nauseum.
So yes, we can cause shifts in pathogen populations through vaccines. This is evolution, in its strictest definition. That being said, there’s a lot of caveats. First, that doesn’t mean that vaccines are bad. Maybe we want to shift the population (for instance, toward a milder form of the disease). Or maybe it doesn’t strictly matter if the shift occurs (if we can just keep making new vaccine versions, a la S. pneumo).
Second, even though vaccines may be shifting the population, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. The S. pneumo vaccine significantly decreased infection and mortality from pneumonia. And while a lot of people still die from pneumonia today, it’s nothing compared to the mortality before modern medical science.
Third, it really depends on the vaccine. Specifically, how hard is it for the pathogen to mutate that portion that the vaccine is attempting to mimic? There are certain proteins that are more difficult to mutate than others. For instance, there are certain proteins that are involved in binding to and attacking the host. These proteins tend to be somewhat difficult to mutate, since mutating those proteins tend to also make the pathogen less efficient at attacking the host. If the vaccine trains the immune system to recognize these proteins, it can be really difficult for pathogens to evolve away from these proteins. Not to say that it’s impossible for pathogens to evolve anyways (pathogens are surprisingly tricky), but a well-designed vaccine, along with good adoption in the population, can significantly hinder a disease.
Correct, Covid facemask does nothing to help with gasses. Op should use extractor fan and ventilation. Additionally: the acute dangers of gas-stoves are highly exaggerated. With proper ventilation there’s nothing to worry about.
I agree with you about the surgical masks but I’m not sure that the risks of carbon monoxide can be overstated.
There have been a number of families recently in the US that have died of CO poisoning due to the lack of CO alarms. If you have natural gas appliances, definitely keep CO alarms around the house.
A few years ago we were looking at putting in a whole house fan, and one of the risks is, if you don’t have proper ventilation set up, you can pull CO into the house instead of it ventilating like it’s supposed to.
There are definitely risks but you can mitigate them with CO detectors/alarms.
The youngest at any given time is probably a diatom, I’d think. They just exist in such great numbers, that’s all. They’re even harvested up and sold as diatomaceous earth.
Oldest bone is a 400 million year old fishbone, apparently. I had to google it.
Assuming the spring dissolves perfectly (no breakage, just complete disintegration)
I think, eventually, this assumption breaks down. As the metal is dissolved away, the internal stresses in the spring will become greater than the remaining metal can hold, and the spring will break.
If the spring does eventually break, it will be a weaker spring since a lot of material is gone. The potential energy of a spring at the breaking point would be different than the original spring. So I guess I could rephrase the question, what happens until that point? Does it get let go as heat?
Fair enough, thinking about it at a microscopic level, individual molecules/atoms of material will be pushed into positions where they are being repelled from other atoms/molecules via electromagnetic forces. Those forces won’t go away as the chemical reactions happen; so, I would guess that the answer is kinda the same as it is at the macroscopic level. When the bond which holds an individual atom in the lattice of the material is broken, those electromagnetic forces would push the resulting molecule away. So ya, it becomes heat.
Natural rubber (latex) is biodegradable, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t bad for the environment. The production and disposal of natural latex causes all sorts of problems unrelated to microplastics.
Synthetic rubber is chemically distinct from plastic, but still breaks down into microplastics.
Natural rubber tires are vulcanized, which makes the rubber more resilient, but also more damaging to the environment.
What’s crazy is that we could do soooo much better, but it would mean rich people would make less money. Not no money, just less of it.
Nothing needs to be made of plastic. It’s cheap and convenient, which just means “profitable.” If we didn’t use plastics, we’d use something else and it would be less profitable.
Doesn’t Maillard refer to the browning/toasting of foods though? I know there is some overlap like cheese browning on a pizza, but room temp cheese tastes better than cold. Genuinely curious and couldnt find any info myself
I’ll see if I can find any supporting articles, but IIRC, it has to do with the fats being softer or more reactive with your taste buds at warmer temps.
I appreciate you’re help in pointing that out! I know its easy too get lazy and skip proof reading. I went back and changed it so its like it was never they’re! Its the principal of the matter.
Great question. Since we evolved consuming “fresh”, non-salt, water our physiology revolves around certain set points for normal neurological, renal, and basic cellular function. Consuming salt water changes the osmolality of the blood, which then causes shifts of fluid to try and balance the change of osmolality which negatively effects neurological function since we evolved to function within a strict range of osmolality, sodium level, etc. The body manages this from the pituitary/ adrenal / and renal perspective to maintain neurological function. If you could create a situation where the normal isotonic function is reset to a more hypertonic environment then that would be the start. I’m only familiar with human physiology and pathology but perhaps someone who is familiar with fish physiology could comment on how fish stay “hydrated”.
Built a machine that can repair itself. Send it to a nearby planet. Give it the ability to manufacture human embryos from our genetic code using only inorganic material. Make at least 2 ; let’s call them Adam and Eve. Keep this machine somewhere hidden and near them so to guide them and their offsprings for a few milleniums. Someday, if they are mature enough, tell them what happened.
Ha, thanks … not available freely online yet it is : en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._A._Corey
James S. A. Corey (June 27, 2023). How It Unfolds. The Far Reaches. Vol. 1. Amazon. ASIN B0C4R4V6KN
How did I completely miss this, the video linked in another comment does a decent job of explaining. Is there anything like this currently going on for other research elsewhere? Would love to get involved.
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