Ask Science

Why do trees stems grow new "parts" inside and not outside i.e. why is the oldest part of the stem the innermost "ring" and not the outermost?

Wouldn’t grow something from the inside require a very strong force to “move” the already present one? Instead growing from the last “layer” towards the outside would require a lot less force, but perhaps a lot more matter....

If it were possible for some event to destroy the fabric of spacetime at the speed of light, could we still observe and be safe bc expansion?

Just a thought, if an event happened well beyond the observable universe that caused entire galaxies to be destroyed radiating from a point source event, what would it look like from our perspective and how close could it get on our observable horizon while still being unable to reach us due to expansion of the universe?...

What happens if an electron collides with an antimatter particle that is not a positron?

I know that if an electron collides with its antiparticle, the positron, they annihilate each other and energy is released. But what happens if an electron collides with other antimatter that is not its antiparticle, like an antiproton or an antineutron? Do they annihilate each other too?

How does a signing a post with a pgp key prove that you are actually the person behind the post?

I saw that people on the dark web would sign their posts with a PGP key to prove that their account has not been compromised. I think I understand the concept of how private and public keys work but I must be missing something because I don’t see how it proves anything....

Why are the graphs for the distribution of light from the Sun as a function of (a) frequency and (b) wavelength not exactly reversed? ( www.wtamu.edu )

I thought that the frequency of light was directly inverse to the wavelength by a constant. In other words, I assumed that graphing the frequency of light as a function of wavelength would be a straight inverse line. Because of that, the graphs for the distribution of light from the sun as functions of frequency and wavelength...

Could, in theory, we merge black holes to prolong the life of the universe?

Seeing as the heat death of the universe occurs once black holes have stopped emitting Hawking radiation, and BH’s life spans are tied to their mass, could a (very, very advanced) civilisation bring two or more together? Assuming nobody’s succumbed to proton decay before then, of course....

What if the quantum uncertainty suddenly became significantly larger on macroscopic scales?

Let’s say the quantum uncertainty which is currently quite small and doesn’t affect our life on macroscopic scale suddenly increased. Magically we are still living in this weird rule of physics. How would we see daily stuff? like how would I see a ball rolling in my sight?

tRNA suppressor mutation to transcribe nonsense mutations

Okay, so I know this might be a bit hyperspecific, but I don't know where else to ask it. I'm working through a microbiology lecture, and the professor says the the B strain of E. coli has a tRNA suppressor that allows it to transcribe phage genes that have any nonsense mutation. That seemed a bit vague, so I decided to look it...

What liquids have the lowest refraction?

Asking this because I’ve been thinking about resin printing and how a small layer of said liquid could, in theory, be used to make the prints faster and negate any problems regarding the FEP film (which can wrinkle, tear and be a hassle to clean when small pieces are stuck to it). The ideal liquid would have to be:...

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