Ask Science

Like many, when I heard about Folding@HOME and how I could contribute to the fight against COVID, I put my hardware to work. Now that’s it has been a while, what effect did those projects ultimately have on the outcome? Did it actually help with the creation of vaccines, or was it effectively just a massive waste of energy?

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/1133081...

Why is it that I am not able to read a book without moving my eyes if the entirety of the page is within my field of view? Why do I have to center my eyes on an object to observe it fully? And why is it that I am still able to view changes in surroundings in the edges of my field of vision despite there being supposedly no way...

I’m thinking of things like heliocentrism where there was some modern discovery or revelation by science that invalidated a common assumption prior....

I remember reading somewhere that mathematical symbols make up an “incomplete” written language (or something like that). I commonly formulate problems, or complete sentences using only mathematical symbols. From a linguistic perspective, what separates mathematical symbols from “complete” writing systems?

I mean, I’ve heard that you can typically only survive about three days without water, but what exactly causes your body to fail when you dehydrate too much?...

Greetings, everyone!...

Some people suggest the idea of a multiverse with each universe having a unique set of laws of physics governing it, but not many delve deeper into this. I was wondering if it was even possible to imagine a universe that is different to ours in this regard....

I have heard this mentioned several times with this exact wording, that faster than light travel would break/violate causality and I do not exactly understand why and how it would do that. Could someone more well-versed in physics explain to me why that would be the case? Or is it not the case? (Yes, I am fully aware, that...

Me and the fiance we always fight about the A/C or dehumidifier. For me coming from central Europe, as soon as the humidity goes over 65% I’m sweaty and hot and can’t get dry, I hate it. She as a Korean seems never to sweat at all and even when the humidity is at 80% she seems to have no problems and thinks running the A/C...

Landfills have been around for a long time now, and some of them get quite large. I know seagulls are changing their habits and living off landfills, but are there any other interesting ecosystems forming around them? Maybe some new microorganisms we haven’t seen before?

Starting from a molecule on up, to cells and beyond, at what system level is a being actually making a decision rather than reacting to their chemical environment based on purely chemical laws? For example, the molecules in a cells are solely reacting to their environment based on chemical fundamentals. However, a person thinks...

We know what causes magnetic fields and we know what their effects are, but what actually are they? What does it mean for them to be composed of “lines of force”? What is the mechanism of that force? What is actually going on in a magnetic field that the space outside of a magnetic field lacks?

The moon rotates once per revolution around the Earth, but that’s not a coincidence. Somehow the rotation and revolution are connected to each other. Some force is keeping them the same. How exactly does that work?

I want this place to succeed and grow, so let’s get active!

What is your favourite fact?