Science Game Thread

[NikolaiI]

I thought of a wonderful game, that I think most people might like

It goes very simply: you ask the person below you a question about science, and they have to answer without looking it up on the web, or in a book somewhere.

I think it'd also be a good rule that if no one gets a question within a week, anyone can say we give up, and then post a new question of their own.

Of course if people want to change the rules, that's cool. .


So I'll go ahead and start. . .


Name one modern animal that can reproduce both sexually and a-sexually, and tell a (short) bit about them. (otherwise we just have name!)

[Dreamwoven]

Answer: Humans are one obvious example, using artificial insemination.

Question: Is there a society for the study of social science?

[NikolaiI]

Actually Dream, as I understand it, artificial insemination still counts as sex on a biological level because it's still combining the DNA of a male and female. A-sexual would have to be just one organism's DNA used to produce offspring.

[Dreamwoven]

What I meant was that artificial insemination implies a form of consent to becoming pregnant. But feel free to ignore my post as I absolutely was not trying to sabotage the entire thread, apologies if thats how it looked.

[Calidore]

FWIW, Dreamwoven, your answer was the first thing I thought of also.

[NikolaiI]

Of course not Dream I'm just here to learn and have fun, I hope it is like that for anyone else..

In fact I got the question wrong, I'm really not sure if there are any animals that do, but aphids and aspens both can.

[Dreamwoven]

I think your question/model is very interesting, NikolaiI. It would be pity to abandon the idea altogether. Can I suggest you start again with a new question?

[papayahed]

How about an easy one: What are rainbows?

[NikolaiI]

I think your question/model is very interesting, NikolaiI. It would be pity to abandon the idea altogether. Can I suggest you start again with a new question?

Thanks
Today I planned to mention, the thread's open to any new question.


Nice question Papaya

I can't pinpoint it so don't count this, but I believe they usually are a full circle... as I understand it, regular light contains all the colours, but we don't usually see them.
And I don't exactly know why they are all separately visible when a rainbow occurs, so, anyone?

[Dreamwoven]

I also understand rainbows to be a full circle. You can sometimes see this if conditions are right. Here are some images.

Are the colours all separately visible? I have never thought about this question before, just assume they are there even if we can't see them separately visible

[The Atheist]

Rainbows are white light broken down into its constituent parts - exactly as in a prism. The uneven angles forces the light into the different colours, two of which are invisible - ultra-violet and infra-red, on opposite sides of the rainbow.

The rain acts as a prism & the refracted light stands out against cloud.

One rainbow.

You often get them so bright they double (or even triple) up, with the second (& 3rd) being a reflection of the main one.

[Calidore]

Here's a related one I've always been curious about: A single droplet will separate light as a prism. A rainbow is many droplets, each refracting its own rainbow. At what point does the collective go from refracting x rainbows to one big one, and why?

[NikolaiI]

Okay, a week has gone by so I say Calidore has stumped us. Care to ask another?

Name an animal whose hearing is so good, it can detect movement under the snow.


By the way thank you for your answer TA. May I ask you if you've ever read Newton's stuff about light? Personally.. though it's interesting.. I'm just more likely to read something less dated and more current understanding, such as Feynman or someone.

[Dreamwoven]

a mole?

[108 fountains]

No idea about the snow-sound sensitive animal, but just thought I would mention a book about the previous topic – light. I read the book several years ago and hope to re-read it soon. It’s Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind by Arthur Zajonc published in 1995. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. He explores the history of human perception of light (in fact, we cannot “see” light directly; we can only see objects that light is hitting. If we looked directly at light, we would see nothing) and fills the book with interesting historical anecdotes and observations. He has an entire chapter on rainbows, which as I remember, includes the answer to Calidore’s question. What I liked best about the book us that it explains the science in layman’s terms.