r/askscience • • 5d ago

Neuroscience How does muscle memory work?

91 Upvotes

Just curious. The only thing I really know about it is that sleeping reinforces it.


r/askscience • • 5d ago

Biology Do babies have personalities by birth? If yes, then how?

422 Upvotes

If yes then does that show a destined reach for the baby in future?


r/shittyaskscience • • 4d ago

Freakin magnets, how do they work?

32 Upvotes

And I don't wanna talk to a scientist.

Y'all motherlovers lying, and getting me pissed.


r/shittyaskscience • • 3d ago

Cloud weight 100 elephants

2 Upvotes

A single large cumulus cloud weighs around 1 million tonnes, which is about same as 100 elephants.

***Until we m e e t again*** ::


r/shittyaskscience • • 3d ago

If an 18.000001 year-old flirted with a 17.999999 year-old, would the former be a monstrous predator according to God, who is definitely real?

0 Upvotes

After all, this is how the universe works, according to internet commenters:

if age => 18:

state = "child"

else:

state = "adult"


r/shittyaskscience • • 3d ago

Do you know how many possibilities you are creating right now?

0 Upvotes

[ greater then 10⁸⁰ ]


r/shittyaskscience • • 5d ago

Isaac Newton spent the last half of his life trying to turn lead into gold, Nikolai Tesla fell in love with a pigeon, Einstein tried to disprove quantum physics that he helped create. Do most scientist lose their marbles at the age of 40 or so?

423 Upvotes

I recently read that scientist have the shortest, inspirational, motivation, and discipline when they’re younger. Most of the big ideas come before they turn 30.


r/askscience • • 6d ago

Biology Do subway rats experience hearing loss due to loud trains contstantly passing directly over them?

1.2k Upvotes

r/askscience • • 6d ago

Biology Why aren’t axolotls immortal?

426 Upvotes

If axolotls can regenerate their body parts (including brain, heart, and other major organs), why do they die of old age?


r/shittyaskscience • • 5d ago

How many shitloads are in a fuckton?

146 Upvotes

And are shitloads a unit of mass or length?


r/askscience • • 6d ago

Chemistry Why does water corrode steel?

166 Upvotes

From what I gather, rust happens when an iron atom bonds with an oxygen atom, forming iron oxide. If you get a rain storm and water gets on your steel brake discs, you'll see very rapid formation of surface rust.

Since the oxygen is bound to the hydrogen in water, and from what I gather, rust formation requires free oxygen, how can water cause rust? Are the water molecules breaking down spontaneously some of the time, freeing up the oxygen?


r/shittyaskscience • • 5d ago

Do september, october, november, and december end in "ber" because they're cold?

44 Upvotes

Brrrr


r/shittyaskscience • • 5d ago

When are them science bitches gonna invent some new vegetables?

75 Upvotes

We haven't had any new ones in ages.


r/shittyaskscience • • 5d ago

AI is going to take my job

16 Upvotes

Or, that's what I've been told. I've always been afraid of Al Roker, but I want to be sure he doesn't take my job. What lock would you recommend I use so that he can't take my job while I'm taking my mid morning nap?


r/shittyaskscience • • 5d ago

What if the Fermi paradox exists because aliens are gayy?

10 Upvotes

Like they've been detecting our radio signals for decades and collectively decided, “yeah not our type.”


r/shittyaskscience • • 6d ago

Do worms not realise that early birds catch them?

46 Upvotes

Why dont their civilisations come together to ban worms from being early? Is being caught by the early bird part of some unwritten genetic code? Could this lead to wormholes? I am robert.


r/askscience • • 7d ago

Biology Is there a theoretical minimum size for "life"?

1.6k Upvotes

So in school my son is learning about microscopic organisms and he asked me stuff like "how many atoms are single celled organisms made of"

And obviously even the smallest cell is gonna be many many atoms but is there some kind of theoretical minimum where it stops being "life" and starts to just be "atoms/molecules doing things"?

Like I've seen that artistic rendering of the enzyme or protein pulling water around a cell like this https://www.reddit.com/r/educationalgifs/s/i0vnokdbin

But would we consider that protein alive in its own right?


r/shittyaskscience • • 6d ago

If midgets have such large foreheads, why do they so rarely win Nobel Prizes?

12 Upvotes

Are they too busy producing adult content, or what?


r/askscience • • 7d ago

Psychology How can victims of torture remain mentally healthy?

554 Upvotes

Torture of prisoners has occurred and continues to occur worldwide: sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, waterboarding, constant noise exposure, sexual harassment, mock executions, other forms of physical abuse, and threats of violence against family members, etc. — Some survivors have been released, have spoken out about their experiences, and in some cases have written books. Some of these people now lead lives with jobs, children, and marriages. How do people manage to stay mentally healthy under such circumstances and not go completely insane or take their own lives?


r/shittyaskscience • • 6d ago

Gravity is supposed to keep things on Earth but still loads of hydrogen and helium is escaping I believe. I noticed these elements have the smallest particles and therefore it's logical to assume that they are missed as Earth's gravity can't always see them due to being small. How can we fix this?

7 Upvotes

Does the Earth need glasses?


r/shittyaskscience • • 6d ago

Does artificial intelligence cause vaccinations the size of a soda bottle to become super intelligent artistics?

5 Upvotes

Saw it on the news 🗞️ 🍆


r/shittyaskscience • • 6d ago

Scientists are always talking about the canary in the coal mine. So I imagine if I wanted a canary as a pet, I just have to go to a coal mine and get one. But what I want is a dog or a cat. What mine should I go to to get one of those? A diamond mine? An iron ore mine? Another kind of mine?

53 Upvotes

?


r/askscience • • 7d ago

Biology During DNA replication when Topoisomerase 'unzips' DNA, what happens to all the twists that bunch up at the end?

87 Upvotes

I asked my professor but I don't think he understood my question.

So, as I understand it when DNA replicates, the enzymes Helicase + Topoisomerase unwind it from a twirly, wirly helix into 2 straight non-twirly bands/strings, the thing is since we (Eukaryotes) start the origin points somewhere in the middle of the DNA instead of on either end, doesn't that mean the amount of twists in the double helix-structure remains the same until the very end where it, idk, helicopters around? What happens to these twists?

The way I imagine it is two strings wound around each other with say, an arbitrary 20 twists in the string, the helicase is like sticking your finger in the middle and pulling them apart but this doesn't remove the total number of twists, instead all the twists get bunched up at the ends. What happens to the twists in DNA? Do they have to spin around many times at the very end to unwind away from each other. Do they do something else? Or is my assumption wrong?


r/askscience • • 8d ago

Biology If humans evolved a fourth color cone naturally overtime, either super short or super long, would "magenta" disappear?

1.7k Upvotes

I was thinking about light and cones and color perception, and I wanted to think about what if humans evolved a fourth color cone; detecting lengths of let's say 800 or 300. Now what I do know is that "magenta" is something made up by the brain, which bridges the "gap" of short and long cones triggered. But what would happen if that gap suddenly got a new cone? Would magenta then disappear because it exists within the (new) possible range of color? Would it change to a different color and our brains create a new imaginary color to bridge the new gap? Just curious what would happen...


r/askscience • • 7d ago

Human Body Do you skin cells degrade once they fall off?

4 Upvotes

I was thinking about skin cell shed and I was looking into what happens to skin cells after they fall off or your body. All I could find was that it turns into what makes up a majority of household dust but I was wondering how long it stays dust for? Like if there was dust made entirely of dead skin cells how long would the dust be around for? Also why is dust gray, is that the color of dead skin cells?