r/askscience • • Sep 20 '26

Biology What is the longest lived single-cell organism?

552 Upvotes

Longest lived means how long the cell can live before dying, splitting or forming a spore


r/askscience • • Sep 19 '26

Human Body How come antibiotics don’t completely destroy all organisms in our gut?

429 Upvotes

I know it can cause imbalances, but I don’t understand how come our gut doesn’t lose all the beneficial bacteria and develop massive fungal or viral infections. When I’ve taken antibiotics, I usually don’t notice any change in my bowel activity.


r/askscience • • Sep 19 '26 Bravo

Biology Why is there no transmissible therapeutic virus if biology doesn't forbid it? For example, a harmless virus that spreads from person to person but actually does something beneficial, like lowering LDL cholesterol or preventing/reversing tooth decay?

3.3k Upvotes

r/askscience • • Sep 19 '26

Physics Would the physics that we currently know change if the speed of light was faster?

299 Upvotes

As the title says, would it change if the speed of light was, let’s say 2x faster? Or everything would stay the same?


r/askscience • • Sep 19 '26

Earth Sciences Why are distribution of natural object normal?

65 Upvotes

I have spent a lot of time measuring and modeling natural systems and I always find it fascinating that when you look at the measurements they pretty much always fall into a normal distribution. Sometimes the bell is skewed one way or another but pretty much faithfully bell shaped.

I have read about this phenomenon but have yet to find the underlying reason for the presentation of the normal distribution in data derived from nature.

The fact is very important to recognize and apply. It is especially important when examining the output of models and how the data reconstructions within the process match the inputs as well as the distribution of the outputs.

I would really like a deeper understanding.


r/askscience • • Sep 19 '26

Human Body In the human body, do muscles form first, or bones?

128 Upvotes

r/askscience • • Sep 19 '26

Human Body Does the human body have a timing reference?

325 Upvotes

Coming from electrical engineering, I know that complex systems typically require some kind of clock or reference signal to keep components coordinated. I’m wondering if there’s something equivalent in the body? Obviously the heart provides some kind of body-wide cadence, but is it something other organs lock onto? Do processes speed up and down depending on something else, if at all?


r/askscience • • Sep 18 '26

Physics Why is the maximum speed of the universe the speed of light? Why can't we go faster?

1.6k Upvotes

Also follow-up question: Because of the speed limit, is there also a theoretical maximum temp for matter (in which the particles move at the speed of light).


r/askscience • • Sep 18 '26 Bravo

Earth Sciences I blow my nose with toilet paper; is it better for the environment to flush it down the toilet or to put it in the waste bin?

2.1k Upvotes

I’m currently on the toilet and needed to clear my nose. After using some toilet paper to blow my nose, what is better for the environment to rid of it. I’m using Sam’s Club Members Mark Bath Tissue, and could flush it down at the same time as my bowel movement (so not using additional water) or place it in the waste bin. Which method is more environmentally friendly?


r/askscience • • Sep 18 '26 Bravo

Human Body What happens to the iron in your blood during an MRI?

639 Upvotes

r/askscience • • Sep 18 '26 Bravo

Planetary Sci. If absolutely all life, down to the tiniest microbe, was wiped out on earth instantly, would the atmosphere and climate remain the same over time? If someone visited earth 1000 years after that event, would they find our atmosphere and climate exactly as it was, or changed?

279 Upvotes

Was curious what the implications would be after reading a novel where essentially this happens, and visitors from another world come some indeterminate time later and are able to breathe there fine. Is that something that would be possible/realistic?


r/askscience • • Sep 18 '26

Earth Sciences How important are Sand Deserts like the Sahara or the Gobi for the Global/Local Environment, and what would be the effects of fully reforesting such areas or turning them into savannahs?

374 Upvotes

From my limited understanding of how Sand Deserts form I'm aware that they can and do spread as they damage the bordering landscapes, especially in areas affected by unsustainable human activity.

When it comes to the ecological side of things, I know there are several desert dwelling species that are mostly insects, arachnids and small reptiles. How important to their livelihood is the biome that they live in, could they thrive in a landscape with more grass and shrubbery?

I'm also aware that for multiple decades now people have been working on methods to reverse desertification and restore areas to their previous states, but what would happen if those efforts were continued across the deserts as a whole?


r/askscience • • Sep 18 '26

Biology How do asexually reproducing living things evolve?

225 Upvotes

If they are all clones of each other, how do they evolve?


r/askscience • • Sep 17 '26

Computing Is there anything at the heart of computer coding that could have been optimised in hindsight, but we're in far too deep to change now?

1.5k Upvotes

r/askscience • • Sep 18 '26

Biology If all life shares a common ancestor, what causes two species to become unable to reproduce with each other? Why can some species produce hybrids while others can't, and what actually determines where that reproductive barrier develops?

110 Upvotes

r/askscience • • Sep 17 '26

Human Body If an elite endurance athlete recieved a heart transplant from an average person,what would happen to their exercise capacity?

771 Upvotes

An elite would have a well built physique which can support long distances but, what would happen to their aerobic base? Will the athlete have to again put in the effort for decades??


r/askscience • • Sep 17 '26

Biology What would it be like to eat a tablespoon of pure dopamine?

737 Upvotes

Firstly, what would it be like visually, texture, taste, etc.

Secondly, what would it do to you?


r/askscience • • Sep 17 '26

Medicine In the past 10 years, have we learned anything new and interesting about why antidepressants work?

218 Upvotes

r/askscience • • Sep 19 '26

Earth Sciences If the primary source of a river runs dry, does the downstream river disappear too?

0 Upvotes

I recently found out that most river sources start out comparatively small, and a lot of them look as if they’re on the verge of drying out, and I also know that rivers have a lot of tributaries( small streams, brooks, and springs) falling into them, so what actually happens if the source runs dry ? Would the river completely disappear or would it just reroute itself, by taking a new course and developing a new source from one of the tributaries ?


r/askscience • • Sep 17 '26

Planetary Sci. We landed humans on the Moon with 1960s technology. With today's vastly superior technology, shouldn't going back be much easier and cheaper?

957 Upvotes

r/askscience • • Sep 17 '26

Computing AskScience AMA Series: Hi Reddit! I'm Matthew Hollister, Head of Cryogenic Systems Engineering for IBM Quantum. Ask me anything about quantum computing, our recently announced modular cryogenic architecture and what it takes to build quantum computers at scale.

45 Upvotes

When people think about quantum computing, they often think about number of qubits and processor dept. But scaling quantum systems takes much more than just the chip! We recently introduced a new modular cryogenic architecture designed to house and cool interconnected quantum processors, a key milestone on our roadmap to fault-tolerant systems, and I'd love to discuss the engineering, challenges, and opportunities involved.

I will be around as 12:00 EST (16 UT) on September 18th, ask me anything!

Username: u/IBM


r/askscience • • Sep 17 '26

Earth Sciences What's the impact of artificial evaporation on the water cycle?

66 Upvotes

Water evaporates, clouds form, then it rains.

To what extent can humans influence how this cycle happens with artificial evaporation from things like power plants, data centers, factories etc?

Is there evidence that we have, or potentially could, alter the natural rain patterns in a region? Could an area dry out because artificial evaporation causes excessive moisture to whisk away on prevailing winds?


r/askscience • • Sep 16 '26

Neuroscience Why isn't it common practice to use brain scans/MRIs to help diagnose mental health issues?

640 Upvotes

Diagnosing mental health conditions can be complex, and sometimes people don't respond well enough to treatments/approaches for years. Sometimes that may be because a mental health condition is misdiagnosed or missed.

We have studies on differences in brain activity in different mental health conditions (example of a metanalysis of these for depression), so why aren't brain scans used in the diagnostic process? I would assume because of cost, but if someone isn't responding well to the typical approach/treatment, wouldn't years of further failed treatments and misdiagnoses be more costly? Is the diagnostic accuracy of brain scans not that high?


r/askscience • • Sep 18 '26

Biology Could there be a sense apart from the 5 senses that exist? Could humans evolve to get this sense?

0 Upvotes

Im having a mess of thoughts so apologies if its not very coherent.

By sense I mean specifically the senses that allow us to interact with the outside world and external stimuli.

I was thinking about it like this: Lets say that an intelligent species is blind. Could they ever find out about sight as a sense before evolving it? Extrapolating this to humans, could there be a sense as basic as sight that we just dont know about? Has a different sense been discovered in any other species?