1

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?

2

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?

3

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

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / faster than light neutrinos, a second experiment apparently confirms it?

« on: 18/11/2011 13:27:58 »

But we still have the fact that neutrinos from a recent supernova arrived only a few seconds before the light flash was seen, which seems to contradict the latest findings. If this result was applied to the supernova, we wouldn't have seen the flash until about 4 years later!  []

5

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?

6

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?

7

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Why does hot water sound different to cold water?

« on: 10/06/2011 09:55:40 »

Nice video, but I see two problems with this experiment. a) The water needs to be boiling and I mean boiling. As it has been standing in the cup for some time, the temperature has obviously dropped beyond the point where the effect is manifest. b) The cups are standing on a surface which could dissipate the sound. It's better to hold them in the air and tap the bottom of the inside of the cup with the spoon, not the sides. A mug with straight sides and a flat bottom the same diameter all the way down also works better.

This definitely works and I have just amazed some work colleagues with a demonstration in the kitchen!

The other sound effect I have noticed which you can do quite easily is to pour some boiling water out of a kettle onto a flat surface and then do the same with cold water. There is an obvious different in the sound.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Why does hot water sound different to cold water?

« on: 09/06/2011 14:46:06 »

None of these explanations seem to explain why your get a much lower, hollow sounding note if you tap a spoon in the bottom of a mug filled with boiling water, compared to a cold one. If you do this with a flat-bottomed mug of fresh coffee, the frequency of the sound increases over the course of a few seconds, but this might be due to air bubbles in the liquid?

9

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?

10

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?

11

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

« on: 09/12/2010 10:37:37 »

No, that's why I asked the original question. The confusing thing about these magnets to me is that their poles must lie on their opposite sides rather than at the ends. Not what I would expect from a bar magnet! Thanks for all the replies anyway. Next time, I'll do some more exchaustive checks before posting!

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

« on: 08/12/2010 17:12:35 »

OK, I have had another play with these things and found that this time they were repelling when I picked them up! Further examination revealed that they do indeed have poles, but not in the way I expected. You have to TURN THEM OVER to reverse them. SO I still don't quite understand what's going on.

You can see a short video I made of this at www.fuchsiamagic.com/misc/magnets.avi 

Sorry for the TV sounds in the background!  [:I]

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

« on: 08/12/2010 11:55:53 »

Fozzie could you take a photo and paste it?  Cos frankly this is all a bit weird.  What do they look like, are they a single material, heavy as lead/light as aluminum?

I'll try a do some photos this evening. They weigh about what I expect iron or steel would weigh but I'll give you some more precise data tonight. And here was I thinking this one would be answered in one post!

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

« on: 08/12/2010 08:54:05 »

Also:

The magnetic field is simple for a rectangular shaped magnet - you should be able to get the magents to repel and attract eachother depending on which poles you push together

If you read my original post you will see that I said I cannot get them to repel each other.

They are solid metal, not rubber or toy compounds and only attract. I found them in a geocache so I have no idea of their provenance. When a compass is moved along them, the needle doesn't rotate as it would if the magnets had north and south poles, but simply points in the same direction. They appear to be "pole-less".

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

« on: 07/12/2010 13:43:09 »

They are rectangular. About an inch long. I don't have any iron filings to check the force field. Do you have any suggestions how I can check this?

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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?

17

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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That CAN'T be true! / Could a system of gears tranmit energy faster than light?

« on: 29/10/2010 16:50:56 »

Not only that, the force required to turn the first gear wheel would break the whole machine!

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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?

20

That CAN'T be true! / Can copper bracelets relieve arthritis pain?

« on: 17/09/2010 15:52:01 »

The addition of magnets to the bracelet is supposed to help the body's circulation.

"Supposed to"? I thought this was a science forum. The word supposed is meaningless in this context.

Again these magnets must touch your skin

Why? What evidence do you have for this? What research has been carried out, what papers have been published and checked by a peer review process?

and the bracelets must be changed every 2-3 years to be effective, as the copper in the bracelet is absorbed by your body.

All of it? So after 2-3 years the bracelet disappears!

the verdict is still out as to whether copper arthritis bracelets have any real effect on arthritis symptoms

No it's not. They don't work. Period.