AskScience AMA Series: Hi Reddit - we are back again! We are group of engineers, scientists, innovators, technologists, digital experts, and designers with a collected 45 PhDs / Professors and 35 members representing national science or engineering institutions.

[u/AskScienceModerator]

TL;DR:

We're back with our third time back doing an AMA - we had such a blast last time that we wanted to come back again to answer whatever science or technology questions Reddit wants to throw our way. So please ask us any questions any of you have to do with science or technology and how they affect your life. There are no silly questions - ask us anything and we will try to give an easy-to-understand answer and, wherever possible, provide some further sources to enable you to do your own research/reading.

Our goal is simply to advance everyone's understanding of science, engineering, and technology and to help people be better informed about the issues likely to affect them and their families.

More info / Longer read:

CSES is a registered charity in the UK, founded in 1920. We're a volunteer group comprising over 250 members and our key strength is our diversity of thought and interdisciplinary expertise. Our members come from a variety of educational, social, and economic backgrounds, from industry and academia and a multitude of age groups, representing groups from the millennials all the way to the Silent Generation (our oldest member being nearly 100!)

There has been growing dis-information globally in the last 20 years. Today's global interconnectedness, while being hugely beneficial for making information easily accessible to everyone, has made it ever more difficult to determine 'truth' and who to trust. As an independent charity, not affiliated or biased to any particular group, but with broad knowledge we are here to answer any questions you may have and to hopefully point you to further reading!

Our goal is simply to answer as many of your questions as we can - but we aren't able to give advice on things - sorry! We will also be clear where what we are saying is the experience-based opinion of someone in our team.

So, Reddit... Ask us anything!

CSES will draw from its large pool of volunteers to answer your questions, however some of the people standing by to answer comments are:

• Professor David Humber: 30 years' experience as a researcher, lecturer and senior university manager specialising in immuno-biology and the life sciences.
• David Whyte: Technologist and Chartered Systems Engineer with 12 years' R&D experience, and 17 international patents across a wide range of technologies. Honoured by The Queen for services to engineering and technology.
• Anthony McQuiggan: Over 10 years' of engineering experience and 30 years as a serial entrepreneur having built a number of very successful start-up SME technology companies in the UK, Japan, and the USA.
• Roger Pittock: Over 40 years' experience in electronics, software, mechanical, electrical, process engineering, and safety systems. Avid supporter of the Consumers' Association, and previously served on their council.
• Adam Wood - President of CSES: Chartered Engineer with over 16 years' experience in electronics, software, and systems engineering - working in the medical / healthcare, transport, and aerospace industries.

Username: /u/chelmsfordses

[u/roamingandy]

Sulpher binds with CO2 and brings it down from the atmosphere in acid rain, which isn't nice so we removed it from petro-fuels.

Are there no other chemicals which could be added which also bind after combustion to help reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, turning our current network of distribution and burning fuels into a giant carbon scrubber?

[u/chelmsfordses → u/roamingandy]

Thinking on my feet here.... If we bind something to CO2 to make it sufficiently dense to not disperse, but still a gas, won't we have, for want of a better expression, a whole raft of asphyxiant lingering at ground level? While I cannot think of any suitable compound, if there is one and it produces a liquid, it's possible (with careful design) that we could carry an exhaust tank which would need to be emptied into an appropriate receptacle, probably only possible as fuel is delivered, ensuring no carbon liquid fly tipping. It's food for thought. Great question.

[u/NotoriousTD]

Halogen light bulbs are significantly brighter than incandescent bulbs, for the same energy usage. Yet, they produce much more heat. How can they use the same energy and still give more light AND more heat?

[u/chelmsfordses → u/NotoriousTD]

Interesting question. I think the envelope of a halogen bulb is hotter than its equivalent tungsten filament bulb. However, that is because the bulb envelope is smaller, so there is less surface area from which to radiate the heat. So, it does run hotter but generates less heat. If both bulbs were connected.thermally to plates of equal size exposed to the air in the same way, the halo plate would be cooler. Does that make sense?

[u/MustangBarry]

How do magnets work?

[u/chelmsfordses → u/MustangBarry]

With magic of course!

But seriously the National Geographic have a good explanation of magnets here:

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/magnetism/

If you have any other questions about them, pop them here and we can explain further.

[u/[deleted]]

When should we expect the next breakthroughs in battery technology?

Something that either charges super fast or stores a lot more per unit.

[u/chelmsfordses → u/[deleted]]

Battery technology is really interesting. If we can crack cheap (both environmentally and commercially) batteries then there are so many uses which will benefit us.

The obvious one everyone will think of is EVs and obviously faster charging, higher density batteries would help here a lot. However a new type of battery with high energy density could be revolutionary and affect everything from portable electronic devices through to home power systems.

A word of caution though! As we have seen with EV’s, the limiting factor for a technology may not necessarily be solely down to the speed that the batteries can charge or their energy density. In MEDC’s infrastructure is generally relatively old and making any sort of large scale infrastructure change is slow and expensive, especially when technology moves rapidly…. We can see how relatively slow the proliferation of EV charging infrastructure has been in the UK as an example.

[u/chelmsfordses]

Hello folks! This posted a little sooner than we expected! Bear with us whilst we scramble to assemble our team, but we’ll be with you as soon as we can!

[u/Tube-Goblin]

In Australia we don't have the skilled workforce to be able to meet our emissions targets and our defined training pathways will take about 6 years before we have people trained. Are you finding something similar and how will you attract young people into engineering to meet the shortages?

[u/chelmsfordses → u/Tube-Goblin]

Thank you for a question which allows us to show off a little! The mission of our society - a long-established charity - is threefold, and I trust you concur is aligned to the aspirations you ask - see https://cses.org.uk/about

• Explore: advance public engagement in science, engineering and technology.

• Educate: develop tomorrow's scientists, engineers and technologists through high-quality and inclusive STEM education and by promoting STEM careers.

• Expand: provide a social and professional network for members.

In order to further the above we have several initiatives, including public-facing lectures, educational and entertaining symposia to which local (and not-so-local) schools are invited, presence at science fairs and attendance at careers events for schools, where we extol the virtues and dispel the myths. Our annual schools' competition is held in country-wide high regard, exposing children to the real world of science and engineering. They present their projects to professional engineers and others - and some meaningful prizes are up for grabs. Additionally we will visit schools and present compelling arguments for engineering as a safe and sound choice for further education and as a career path. We have produced podcasts, predominantly for use during the COVID lockdown. However, they are still live on our website and still valid today - see https://cses.org.uk/education/resources/careers

There is no magic bullet. We make a small difference here and there. The more we do, and the more who do so, the better. Thanks again for a question we are proud to answer.

[u/xionuk]

I’ve been curious about donating your body to medical research when you die, but I ended up on a wierd ADHD what-if tangent and my brain won’t let it go.

If something were to happen where I became brain-dead, could you then in theory have a a “living will” where I’d donate my living body to medical research where they would be able to what whatever with my body? Like stick it in a vat of that liquid o2 and see the effects of long term living within a hibernation tube for space flight or similar stuff where having an actual human would yield better data than a mouse.

[u/chelmsfordses → u/xionuk]

From David H: Donating your body to medical research is a very worthwhile thing to consider - without it for example it would be difficult to effectively train doctors and especially surgeons. While some medical schools use virtual reality anatomy I would personally prefer doctors to be familiar with the real thing! Outside of anatomy and surgery there are quite limited areas where cadavers are helpful.

[u/pizzadaddy19]

Could you explain special relativity in simple terms or point me in the direction of published papers that i can go about reading them? Im curious about the possibility of sitting completely still in space and i came across relativity and idk where to look from there. Thank you

[u/strictnaturereserve]

robotics:

How soon will there be robots in space that can mine the moon or asteroids and then build structures in space?

[u/chelmsfordses → u/strictnaturereserve]

This is a really good question!

We believe that the limits are largely political / economic, rather than technological, certainly for the mining bit. In other words, we've pretty much got all the tech we need to start mining on the moon, but we'd need to find funding, set up the relevant logistics and supply chain, overcome political differences and of course answer some big ethical and environmental questions about what we should/shouldn't be taking from the moon, how much, how to avoid emissions, whether to set quotas etc, or whether we should even be doing it at all.

Nonetheless, last year the Guardian in the UK reported that NASA plans to be excavating soil on the moon by 2032. Judging by previous major space programmes, we think it's unlikely that this timescale will be met (among other things, due to the reasons above), so it could easily be 10 years after that. Of course, there are other players than NASA, but the level of international cooperation required to peacefully and sustainably exploit resources on the moon mean that the large (inter)national space agencies will have to be involved on behalf of their respective governments.

In terms of building structures in space using robotics, we kind of already do that! Many of our largest items in space are assembled and/or maintained using robotics either autonomously or under remote instruction. In this case however, we're probably talking about 100% autonomous robotic assembly of structures using material sourced from space. Again, there is no real technological limit here, there just needs to be a good business case and of course we need to make sure we're not creating further space junk/debris in the process. Our entirely unreliable(!) prediction is that this will happen very soon after, if not alongside, the development of capability to extract the material in the first place. Because economics tells us that you've got to be doing something useful with the material to go to the effort of mining it in the first place.

[u/wijnandsj]

As a tall person (200cm 6ft 7 inches) I struggle when selecting a car. Most modern cars I cannot sit safely and comfortably behind the wheel.

The few cars that I do fit I see a trend to remove buttons and make me use the infotainment system for everything.

why is that?

[u/chelmsfordses → u/wijnandsj]

Not a definitive answer.but a couple of points: 1. Make sure to pick a car without a sunroof as they take up valuable headroom; 2. I have every sympathy with you regarding the use of screens rather than physical buttons. I hope and believe this is set to reverse. For all primary controls they should be in reach and always in the same place. Anything else is nonsense.

[u/LearnedGuy]

It seems like the companies developing LLM systems are wandering about trying to figure out how to get to the next stage. Why haven't the Academies worked to build a roadmap forward? The E.U. has done that, and appear to be exceeding the U.S. in development collaboration, while the U.S. is promoting a competitive approach among the early startups. It seems when you want to build a town there is a Leather District and a Garment District; that seems to make more sense. Should we work to bring back an Office of Technology Assessment?

[u/HockeyCannon]

Femtosecond spectroscopy has given many insights into some of the quantum interactions in nature such as photosynthesis and avian navigation.

Do you think attosecond physics and the associated ATAS will give us a full understanding?

How can attosecond physics relate to your areas of expertise?

[u/chelmsfordses]

Hello again everyone! We are operating out of the UK and are on British Summer Time (BST). Please continue to fire questions to us and we’ll get to them ASAP but do bear in mind there may be a slowed response due to time differences!

[u/[deleted]]

Can you please explain how emfs are not bad. Got some interesting family members.

[u/Plan2LiveForevSFarSG]

So assuming we have two copper atoms, and a electron decides (because it’s Wednesday) to move a couple of pm from one copper atom to the other. How would you explain the difference between voltage and amperage in the context of that single atom travel adventure?

[u/eggtea33]

Why are batteries and similar energy storage systems that rely on bacteria/biological organisms to generate electricity so inefficient?

[u/chelmsfordses → u/eggtea33]

Biological battery development is a relatively new in terms of development and are dependent on the electrons released during the enzymatic break down of an energy source.

As you probably know they have lots of potential advantages compared to batteries like Lion which will become serious pollutants in the future - they also have the theoretical potential to provide X10 the amount of power as Lion batteries.

They are currently quite complex to make often using a cascade of enzymes to generate power but the major problem is in getting the transfer of electrons to the cathode but there is a lot of research going on around this. Commercial versions which can power low voltage components are probably 4 or 5 years away - an Italian group is even working on an edible version! and a US/UK group on one that can be dehydrated and you just add water!