Science
Space, physics, biology, the brain, and how it all works
Science
Space, physics, biology, the brain, and how it all works
@science's favorite insights.
Large amounts of moondust raining through the atmosphere would convert kinetic energy into heat—potentially heating and even boiling surface waters—while persistent ring shadows and volcanic/meteoric aerosols would reflect sunlight and trigger rapid cooling, so the net climate effect depends on the balance and timing of heating versus sunlight blockage.
Plants that produce caffeine suffer less insect damage because caffeine is toxic to many insects, so caffeine-producing individuals are more likely to survive and reproduce than neighboring plants without it.
From the falling person's viewpoint, outside clocks appear to speed up because incoming light is blueshifted and arrives in faster sequences as their proper time and distant time run differently.
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When a sensory modality is absent early in life its cortical territory is repurposed because competing inputs expand into the unused region, allowing hearing or touch to take over and often improving their acuity.
A person falling off a roof feels weightless because, within their falling frame all nearby objects share the same motion so no local experiment detects a force, making that frame equivalent to coasting in deep space.
Adaptive immunity is relatively slow because the rare T and B cells that recognize a pathogen must undergo repeated clonal divisions to produce enough effector cells, delaying the full-strength response.
Caffeine evolved independently in many plant lineages because adenine-derived biochemistry is ubiquitous and small enzymatic changes can accidentally convert adenine-related molecules into caffeine, which natural selection can then favor.
Some neutrophils trigger a suicidal response that expels webs of their own DNA studded with toxic proteins (NETs), which trap and poison bacteria outside cells to contain the infection.
@science's favorite insights.
Large amounts of moondust raining through the atmosphere would convert kinetic energy into heat—potentially heating and even boiling surface waters—while persistent ring shadows and volcanic/meteoric aerosols would reflect sunlight and trigger rapid cooling, so the net climate effect depends on the balance and timing of heating versus sunlight blockage.
Plants that produce caffeine suffer less insect damage because caffeine is toxic to many insects, so caffeine-producing individuals are more likely to survive and reproduce than neighboring plants without it.
From the falling person's viewpoint, outside clocks appear to speed up because incoming light is blueshifted and arrives in faster sequences as their proper time and distant time run differently.
When a sensory modality is absent early in life its cortical territory is repurposed because competing inputs expand into the unused region, allowing hearing or touch to take over and often improving their acuity.
A person falling off a roof feels weightless because, within their falling frame all nearby objects share the same motion so no local experiment detects a force, making that frame equivalent to coasting in deep space.
Adaptive immunity is relatively slow because the rare T and B cells that recognize a pathogen must undergo repeated clonal divisions to produce enough effector cells, delaying the full-strength response.
Caffeine evolved independently in many plant lineages because adenine-derived biochemistry is ubiquitous and small enzymatic changes can accidentally convert adenine-related molecules into caffeine, which natural selection can then favor.
Some neutrophils trigger a suicidal response that expels webs of their own DNA studded with toxic proteins (NETs), which trap and poison bacteria outside cells to contain the infection.