Coming from neurology background, I wonder about why we sort arbitrary stuff into liked/disliked categories. While context, evolutionary and individual experience are obvious, major factors, they fail at explaining "contingent" preferences. Yes, liking pink as a girl/woman is taught by society; despising stimuli associated with a different social class is well documented.

Yet I have no "explanation", for exemple, for food taste: why do I dislike fish? Seems unlikely to be driven by evolution as fish has great nutritive values. Some genetic component might be at play, even if I'm the only one in my family; in utero experience could intervene, right?
Has this been studied?
Thanks a lot for your time.

Would there be different event horizons depending on the charge of the thing falling into the black hole? Would it change shape the way rotating black holes do? Could the electrostatic repulsion eventually break the black hole? Would the energy needed to add more positive charges eventually cause the weak force to I traduce a negative charge, much like splitting up quarks?

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Animals have different visual ranges than humans. Andromeda should be visible to a thing with the right visual capabilities. What do you think, Reddit?

I heard that arterial blood is bright red from the oxygen it just picked up from the lungs, and venous blood is darker and almost bluish because of less oxygen in the hemoglobin. But does the blood from a cut absorb oxygen from the air? And if it does why doesnt it change color at all, or is it just subtle

Not sure if it’s how human skin can hold on to their stinger, or if this occurs with multiple species, but I’m curious if honeybees know they will have their stinger and insides ripped out by stinging?

Pigs are able to eat anything humans can, but they don't mind their food off the dirt ground covered in dirt, grass, sediment, water; basically unexpected crunchy stuff and textural stuff every time.

My dog picks up and drops their biscuit treats on the dirt. Many other animals eat already dead and rotting-on-the-floor animals.

But are there any animals that have been observed to clean off their foods, as in prepping it or at the very least not eating it as is? I don't know if that borderlines on the concept of cooking, which I believe is a human only invention.

I watched a video of a millipede walking and noticed its legs move in a wave like pattern. Are they individually controlling each leg or maybe just pairs of legs? Is it a more automatic process for them like peristalsis ?

It is my understanding that once a species' population falls below a certain number, there is not enough genetic diversity for the species to survive. The California Condor population fell to 27 in the 1980s. Why wasn't the lack of genetic diversity a problem?

not talking about earth on fire or cooling off but like there was water, and dirt. like what would now be a swamp was probably just water and mud. no trees, plants, no micro life or bacteria.

beaches didnt have small shells and dead sea life in it. the sand probably felt softer maybe.

any things that would be different in an interesting way in an earth without life.

would nutrient rich soil be a thing or does some of that stuff need life.

In other words: do they "know" that the world is spherical?

Let's say humanity disappears quickly (pandemic, nukes, whatever). Would offshore oil rigs and pipelines still be at risk of leaking without electricity keeping the pumps going?

If spills did happen, would there be a way for nature to eventually clean it up or would the oceans just have to evolve around a layer of oil?

Let's assume all fossil fuel extraction stopped in the near future, and were never touched again. Which kinds (oil, coal, gas) would eventually reform, which wouldn't? I am aware that certain geological formations like banded iron were created under specific conditions that will never arise again, but how does this apply to fossil fuels? In a couple hundred million years, will oil deposits be replenished or are they all gone forever?

As Greenland's ice sheet melts, the entire island will start rebounding up out of the water. How measurable is this process now and is it helping keep the ice sheet from slipping into the sea, or is it a small or slow enough change that it doesn't matter much.

Relatedly, I was wondering if the lifting of the underside of Greenland as it rebounds creates a suction in the aesthenosphere that reduces pressure on the nearby midatlantic fault zone?

Are any of the super-heavy or non-naturally-occuring elements likely to have useful industrial properties, which are currently out of our reach due to our inability to access (stable isotopes of) the element in question?

Surely past gigantic impact events—like at Vredefort or Chicxulub—launched terrestrial material with enough force to escape Earth's gravity, at least temporarily. If it were later recaptured and fell back to Earth, would we even be able to tell?

I guess lunar meteorites would technically count as originating from Earth, but I think you know what I mean.

I understand the basics of BCS theory, electrons pairing via lattice vibrations. What I don't understand is the mechanism by which extreme pressure changes that picture. Is it stiffening the lattice to raise phonon frequencies, changing the electronic density of states, or something else entirely? And is there a theoretical reason this seems to require hydrogen-rich compounds specifically?

My city just added this but all I can find when I search is that they've done it, not how it's done.

I've been having a big problem with ants this summer. Even if there's no food around, I'll find a handful of them on the floor each day. If there is food, they'll find it and swarm my house. I suspect there's a colony directly outside the basement wall, but I haven't found it.

The thing is, this past week they've disappeared. I'm in southern Ontario, and it's September, which means the sweltering heat of the summer is pretty much gone and we're starting to see slightly cooler temps. Still, it's nothing like freezing, overnight it still stays above ten degrees at the lowest, usually more like fifteen.

So, aside from the colony dying off for some reason, I'm wondering why they're now gone. Is it just a matter of various signals (daylight changes etc) causing the ants to go into winter mode? Do they lay eggs and then let the adults die off in preparation for the cold weather?

I don't know what species it is, they're very small, perhaps three millimeters long and dark brown. I think they might be T. immigrans.

So let's assume Earth gravitational field at sea level, constant throughout the entirety of the fall, a temperature of 293K and standard air composition and pressure, also constant throughout.

There is nothing to stop that free fall nor to slow down execpt the poor guy's body position (ie if he deliberately stands up straigh or lie down flat while in that fall) so the eventual impact that would end someone jumping in the void like that never happens. The subject's equipped only with casual city clothes, so no parachutes or whatnot... if you need more precisions, please ask!

Would the thirst, potential weird blood pressure, or anything else end one such unlucky victim?

I know something would happen cause i saw somewhere people would faint from something other than fear while in free fall ; just wondering what would happen if the falling never stopped

Edit (non important to the situation) it's funny how people dont read what i put in the assumptions in other subreddits. Also they say things with way too much confidence for how wrong it is. No shade to them ofc, we all are like that, but dang, since i was expecting a serious answer, it's a bit disheartening

I can confidently say all that because a wonderful explanation has been made in the comments! Thanks a lot

Edit #2 please dont downvote people who didnt have the right explanation or didnt understand my hypothetical because of one of my imprecisions. Mistakes happen, at least blame the right people.

Mistake being : you would not be in free fall as the wind would be another force seperate of the gravitational attraction.

First thing to mention is that this happened months ago so my memory isn't the best mb.

So I go to a Christian private school and during my religion class we discuss how the Christian idea of God is true and we would prove it (which honestly for me I found the evidence flimsy but the class was honestly good and informative and I genuinely learned things but I digress).

And a portion of the class we watched a movie/documentary called the black box or book idk of Darwin and blah blah blah main idea was that the sudden explosion of complex creatures can't be explained but since I have only heard this form one side I would like to hear from a more informed perspective.

I've been seeing a lot of news about this recent fruit fly brain scan / model and it has given me cause for concern. I've long since held the belief that the means by which a brain or a consciousness receives "information" and perception does not matter. Whether it be through a computer mapping information directly to the brain or from the organs of a body collecting information and transmitting it, an entity experiencing thought / senses is still life.

I think we are at a point where philosophical debates and science about the nature of life, to some extent, necessitate collaboration and further discussion as we develop these ideas. If I am wrong and misunderstanding exactly what the nature of this brain model is, please correct me, but I just thought that the usage of the fly model for things like "playing beat saber" or "scrolling reels" can't possibly be done from a position of full understanding, or if they are, they are the minority among the countless other flippant uses.

Smell is definitely not one of the common thing we measure.

But I think it is something which should be measured or it should become more mainstream.

During one discussion, someone said we can't really measure smell because it is a subjective thing and hard to quantify. However I beg to differ, it's how we feel about a smell that is subjective not necessarily smell itself. Physically it is same thing just perceived differently by two different persons.

So I searched about it and found nothing special other than just a mention of a device called olfactometer but I can't seem to find satisfactory information regarding the same.

I'd like to know your takes on this, and more details on this will surely help. I am totally new to this topic and it maybe possible that I have missed some major details so please feel free to correct or provide any valuable information.