https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/198yiwa/ask_anything_wednesday_biology_chemistry/
created by AutoModerator on 17/01/2024 at 15:01 UTC
57 upvotes, 9 top-level comments (showing 9)
Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on **Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology**
Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".
Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions. The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.
Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here[1]. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.
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If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here[2].
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Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here[3]. Ask away!
Comment by Bacontoad at 17/01/2024 at 15:36 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Why do certain biological samples (plasma, embryos, etc.) have to be stored at temperatures that are far below freezing as opposed to just simply frozen? What's happening at -30 C that's not happening at minus -5 Celsius or vise versa?
Comment by DrRexburg at 17/01/2024 at 17:14 UTC
5 upvotes, 3 direct replies
How do practicing physicians learn new advances in science and medicine? Is there a continuing medical education requirement, or is it common for them to read journal publications? Does the privatization of Healthcare incentivize profit over continuing education?
Comment by HalJordan2424 at 18/01/2024 at 02:10 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
If you have major (and successful) surgery on an organ when you are young, is that organ any more prone to failure when you become a senior?
Comment by eruciform at 17/01/2024 at 15:39 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Is the underlying mechanism for epigenetic changes understood yet? Like how the effect can spread within a person and from person to person?
Comment by OpenPlex at 17/01/2024 at 18:10 UTC
2 upvotes, 3 direct replies
If microbes could somehow see, would they be able to see atoms? Or is the ratio of sizes still too large between microbes and atoms for visual sensors to detect? (a single cell might have trillions of atoms)
Maybe there's too few photons coming off each atom?
A physicist and a biologist might have to team up for this question..
Comment by Kael_Doreibo at 18/01/2024 at 07:06 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Neuroscientists (and science fiction writers I suppose), with advances towards extending the human life and the desire to essentially cheat death, how are we looking towards digitising the human brain?
Is it more viable to consider a Ship of Theseus style transition where a person's brain, consciousness and other factors are copied over slowly and gradually vs those instant scan and copy theories portrayed by science fiction?
Thinking that our current brain and selves are made of entirely new cells and existence from that of what we were originally born with, are we not essentially bio-organically copying a version of our previous selves in the same sort of way a slow and gradual digitisation might achieve?
Maybe this applies more for transference than copying?
Comment by Still-Flamingo-1016 at 17/01/2024 at 19:12 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Why electrodes used in brain implants are always less than 20mm which is much less than diameter of human skull of 7 inches.
Neuralink or other etc.
Or every function of brain is located near periphery of human brain?
Comment by Free_Range_Braincell at 17/01/2024 at 21:56 UTC
1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Suppose we have a strong deutan in his mid-to-late 20s called Tyler. Tyler's M-cones are missing/defective in both eyes, so he has never been able to see colour "normally".
Would replacing/fixing his cones allow him to see new colours, or would he have not been exposed to those colours in time to be able to distinguish them properly? Would the connections that would have allowed him to distinguish, say, blue from purple have died off, or would Tyler now be able to see purple (and all the other colours he did not previously perceive)?
Essentially, is colour in the eye or in the brain? And could Tyler's brain now perceive purple?
Comment by alien101010 at 18/01/2024 at 03:19 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Are we close to a cure for glioblastoma?