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Physiology & Medicine / Can telomere length predict length of life?

« on: 11/05/2012 12:52:02 »

I understand that telomeres on the ends of our chromosomes get shorter as a person ages and the cells finaly die when they reach the Hayflick Limit. Would it not then be possible to predict how much longer a person has potentailly got left to live my examining the length of their telomeres?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Could WIMPs trigger cancer?

« on: 26/04/2012 10:32:22 »

Having read this article today http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/04/120424-dark-matter-collisions-humans-wimps-physics-space-science/ it got me thinking.

The medical profession don't seem to have come up with a definitive answer as to exactly what causes cells to suddenly become cancerous, so would it just be possible that some cancers could be started by this interaction, or by some other high energy particles coming from space?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Is the universe older than we think?

« on: 21/11/2011 00:30:03 »

Chris Martin  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
If the expansion of the universe is accelerating, then working back in time to the big bang, things would have been expanding more slowly, so it would have taken longer to get where we are now, so the universe must be older than the current estimations?

Love the show!

Thanks
Chris Martin

What do you think?

4

Physiology & Medicine / Would swimming from a submarine cause the bends?

« on: 08/07/2011 19:30:02 »

Chris Martin  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
If I escaped from a submarine at 50m or more and held my breath all the way up, would I still get the bends?

Thanks,
Chris Martin
Mark, Somerset

What do you think?

5

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Does the suns rotational speed depend on its size?

« on: 15/06/2011 14:44:14 »

If the sun expands to the orbit of the earth in its later years as predicted, will its rotation slow down to be the same as one current earth year, or are there some other forces at work which would influence this?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Why no new moons?

« on: 03/02/2011 10:58:15 »

With so many near-earth asteroids passing us over the millions of years since the Earth formed, and several recent ones closer than one lunar distance, it seems strange that none of them seem to have been captured by the Earth and gone into orbit around it. Why is this?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Energy into matter?

« on: 08/01/2011 13:44:38 »

If matter and energy are fundamentally the same thing and matter cannot be destroyed - only turned into energy, what sort of material would be created if we could turn pure energy into matter?

8

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Why won't my magnets repel each other?

« on: 07/12/2010 11:54:39 »

I have two bar magnets. They attract each other in whatever position I put them in. Also, when I rotate them in the presence of a compass, the needle does not turn to face the opposite direction as I would expect. I cannot get them to repel each other however hard I try. What's going on?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / The Pioneer Anomaly

« on: 12/11/2010 13:32:45 »

If both the Pioneer Spacecraft are now dead and not communicating with us any more, and they are too far away to see with telescopes, how do we know that they are veering off course?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Water on Mars

« on: 06/10/2010 10:48:11 »

There is a famous picture of a lake of ice on Mars which can be seen at http://weirdsciences.net/2010/08/07/analysis-of-evidence-of-life-on-mars/mars-ice

Rather than simply sublimating, it looks like a large body of water has flowed out from somewhere, formed a lake and then frozen, however, water in it's liquid state cannot exist on mars due to the low air pressure. So my qustion is - how has this formed?

11

General Science / Why is the background misty in Victorian photos?

« on: 15/09/2010 10:49:59 »

Why is it, that in the majority of old photos the background is pale and misty as though it was foggy at the time? I have noticed this even on studio portraits, so it can't be the weather. It has been suggested that it was something to do with the long exposures used at the time, but how could the chemicals in the film know what was close and what was far away? I can't think of any process in use today which would cause this effect.

12

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / When to the particles disappear?

« on: 19/07/2010 15:56:35 »

Light exhibits properties of both waves and particles, so if we shift the wavelength, down through infra-red to radio and beyond, at what point does the particle properties of the radiation cease to exist?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How can we see the stars?

« on: 12/05/2010 16:30:38 »

Their angular diameter is much smaller than the resolution of the human eye, so how come we can see them?  []

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Are there really "Magnetic Lines" in space?

« on: 21/01/2010 10:28:13 »

On the BBC's Science page "Herschel space telescope captures birth of stars" which can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8416263.stm Palab Gosh (BBC Radio Science) who has a science degree from Imperial College narrates a short video where he states that stardust is seen "forming into clumps along magnetic lines". He goes on to talk about "magnetic eddys" when describing how the dust forms a new star.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was gravity that did the "clumping"!  []

15

Physiology & Medicine / Do I gain more weight by bingeing, or eating the same amount more slowly?

« on: 24/12/2009 11:58:08 »

If I eat a whole block of cheese in one go, will I put on more or less weight that if I eat a small peice of it each day?

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Physiology & Medicine / Why does staring at the Sun damage the retina?

« on: 17/12/2009 12:54:29 »

We all know not to look directly at the sun for any length of time as it will cause eye damage. The lens of the eye forms a point image of the sun on the retina, so why is it that when you look say, ten degrees away from the sun at the blue sky, you don't get damage to the retina? The suns image is still falling on the back of the eye, just not at the central point...

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How can black holes evaporate?

« on: 01/12/2009 12:23:36 »

The often quoted evaporation of a black hole seems to be be contradictory to the way it works, so how can this happen?

18

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What is the source of hadrons in the LHC?

« on: 24/11/2009 20:37:11 »

We hear about them being sent around the ring before colliding but I just wondered how they produce them in the first place. What is the source of hadrons?

19

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How do all the photons that leave the Sun combine to make white ?

« on: 09/11/2009 16:09:57 »

The photons which leave the surface of the sun have a range of energy levels which can be split up by a prism forming the familiar rainbow of colors, blue for high energy photons and red for low energy etc. How is it then that the combination of all these colors is just right so that it produces white? It seems rather a coincidence! (OK, I know the sun is officially classed as yellow, but it looks white to me!). Surely if the energy levels of just one group of those photons varied, the sun would change color?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / If galaxies are moving Earthwards, how close to us are they really?

« on: 06/11/2009 09:50:39 »

The Andromeda Galaxy is approx 2.5 million light-years away and is moving towards us at 300km/sec. If this is the case, and we are seeing it as it was 2.5 million years ago, surely it will have moved considerably nearer to us since then, so although we cannot see it, the actual distance will be a lot less, or does the given distance take this into account? (I haven't done the maths)

This theory can also be applied to those galaxies at the edge of the universe which are moving away from us making them actually further away than the distance we observe today.  []