1

The Environment / Re: Ideas for population control?

« on: 21/05/2012 15:47:21 »

The child tax scenario is the one used in China to encourage smaller families. If you and your partner are both single children then you can have 2 kids with no loss of tax benefit. If you or your partner are not from single child families then your benefits are reduced if you have more than 1 child yourself. Over a few generations it should stabilise.

2

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Alcohol and "morning-after" stubble

« on: 21/05/2012 15:41:44 »

I'll go for the extra lie-in and general unkept appearance that accompanies a night on the booze

3

Chemistry / Latest negative perceptions - nano

« on: 21/05/2012 15:37:47 »

In our industry, anything nano is now suddently considered suspect, like the bubble has burst, our enthusiasm for new emerging nanotech industry to cure world problems has waned, everyone realises its just tiny stuff and now theres poor science journalism running smear campaigns on nanoparticles for cosmetics use, sunscreens, etc. Is there a risk or is it just scaremongering?

4

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Can using cocaine age your brain?

« on: 21/05/2012 14:54:30 »

is this why rock stars die young and look good?

5

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: What are the purpose of flies and ants and mosquitoes?

« on: 02/05/2012 16:17:50 »

and of course pollination.

6

Technology / Re: Would this make a good material for spectacles?

« on: 30/04/2012 12:16:09 »

this company makes photovoltaic cells and LED's which i presume are embedded into acrylic resin, hardly new material. Do you want to make your spectacles glow with LED light or collect energy from the sun (if so, why?) ior do you want to use the acrylic resin to make the lenses, if so you need to consider clarity, refractive index, ease of moulding and grinding, impact resistance, cost.

7

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / a fish out of water...

« on: 26/04/2012 16:06:12 »

How do salmon, that migrate from saline to fresh water environments, survive the osmotic pressures during transition from one system to the other?

8

General Science / Re: Can Robots help with deep sea research?

« on: 20/04/2012 12:21:23 »

this is a bit of a non-question really since robotics is already extensively used for these areas.

9

General Science / Re: Will iron slow the rot?

« on: 13/04/2012 15:48:59 »

This is your fridge's way of encouraging you to either:
1) increase your food intake of healthy veggies so its all eaten before it starts to go bad,
or
2) shop more frugally avoiding unnecessary wasteage by only purchasing what you think you can eat before the greens start decomposing.

10

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Could galaxies be bubbles in some liquid universe?

« on: 10/04/2012 11:03:05 »

Sounds like chocolate to me!

I think its no coincidence that so many choc bars have astronomical names - Mars, Galaxy, Milky Way, Uranus, well maybe not Uranus. There's obviously an undercurrent of subversion going on between confectioners and astrophysicists.

11

Chemistry / Re: What makes chillies hot?

« on: 02/04/2012 12:10:53 »

does too much chilli damage our tonges taste cells?

12

That CAN'T be true! / Re: How can a mosquito survive a microwave?

« on: 30/03/2012 13:22:09 »

...and dodge them when they see them coming? Maybe like a small child in a playground jumping over a skipping rope. Yes, that's plausible

13

The Environment / Re: Can we get "twice as cold" as 0 degrees?

« on: 28/03/2012 14:40:15 »

Stands to reason it will be 16F.
Probably.

14

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: N & S pole time to swap?

« on: 27/03/2012 12:26:50 »

Does the magnetic field strength of the sun actually reach as far as inflencing the earth, 93 million miles away? I thought that was a relatively weak force but if you have info on it affecting the earths field it would be interesting to read up further.

15

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: N & S pole time to swap?

« on: 26/03/2012 15:16:48 »

Good ol' Wikipedia:
"Earth's magnetic field (also known as the geomagnetic field) is the magnetic field that extends from the Earth's inner core to where it meets the solar wind, a stream of energetic particles emanating from the Sun. It is approximately the field of a magnetic dipole tilted at an angle of 11 degrees with respect to the rotational axis—as if there were a bar magnet placed at that angle at the center of the Earth. However, unlike the field of a bar magnet, Earth's field changes over time because it is really generated by the motion of molten iron alloys in the Earth's outer core (the geodynamo). The Magnetic North Pole wanders, fortunately slowly enough that the compass is useful for navigation. At random intervals (averaging several hundred thousand years) the Earth's field reverses (the north and south geomagnetic poles change places with each other). These reversals leave a record in rocks that allow paleomagnetists to calculate past motions of continents and ocean floors as a result of plate tectonics. The region above the ionosphere, and extending several tens of thousands of kilometers into space, is called the magnetosphere. This region protects the Earth from cosmic rays that would strip away the upper atmosphere, including the ozone layer that protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.

At present, the overall geomagnetic field is becoming weaker; the present strong deterioration corresponds to a 10–15% decline over the last 150 years and has accelerated in the past several years; geomagnetic intensity has declined almost continuously from a maximum 35% above the modern value achieved approximately 2,000 years ago. The rate of decrease and the current strength are within the normal range of variation, as shown by the record of past magnetic fields recorded in rocks.
 
The nature of Earth's magnetic field is one of heteroscedastic fluctuation. An instantaneous measurement of it, or several measurements of it across the span of decades or centuries, are not sufficient to extrapolate an overall trend in the field strength. It has gone up and down in the past for no apparent reason. Also, noting the local intensity of the dipole field (or its fluctuation) is insufficient to characterize Earth's magnetic field as a whole, as it is not strictly a dipole field. The dipole component of Earth's field can diminish even while the total magnetic field remains the same or increases.
 
The Earth's magnetic north pole is drifting from northern Canada towards Siberia with a presently accelerating rate—10 km per year at the beginning of the 20th century, up to 40 km per year in 2003, and since then has only accelerated."

16

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: N & S pole time to swap?

« on: 26/03/2012 12:26:51 »

it would be interesting to know the timescale needed for the reversal. Presumably at one point there will be a period where N & S are not apparent, in which case chaos may ensue within the scouting, orienteering community and racing pigeon events? What about the earths protection from suns ionised particle stream when the magnetic field lines collapse then invert? Are we all in for a barbequeing?

17

Question of the Week / Re: QotW - 09.04.26 - Do magnets remove lime scale from water pipes?

« on: 26/03/2012 11:11:14 »

I was also big skeptic on this but the explanation that the magnetic field reduces the propensity to precipitate out, maybe somehow altering the way the crystals start to stack together, sounds quite plausible to me. This is lime scale I'm talking about, not Fe oxide

18

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What causes the Earth's magnetic poles to reverse?

« on: 26/03/2012 09:59:39 »

In geological history it is well documented via constructive margins in the sea bed rock, that the magnetic poles swap over every few tens of thousands of years, but what drives this process and when is the next one due?

19

Marine Science / Re: Was perfume previously made from whale faeces?

« on: 26/03/2012 09:56:47 »

no it's snotty exudations from the blow hole.

20

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Darwin? +polar shift+ faster planet rotation= big babies?

« on: 26/03/2012 09:55:54 »

I'd put it down to better nutrition and health care. I can't imagine how fluctuations in the position of the magnetic poles could affect the birth weight of a human baby.