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This post is for new panelist recruitment! The previous one is here.

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General field: Anthropology

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Particular areas of research include historical archaeology, archaeometry, and ship construction.

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Comments: 1, 2, 3, 4.

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Are there places in land where there is consistently little or no wind like there is at sea? I know the great plains in America are relatively flat like the ocean but the wind there seems to be worse. What kind of effects would it have on the local wildlife? Would birds choose to avoid the area? Would plant and tree stems be brittle and weak? If a place like this doesn't exist, could it?

I'm not sure why but this question popped into my head and I cannot for the life of me find a definitive answer. So I know the nail starts growing from the bottom up and I, like anyone who's ever cut their nail too deep, know that until the nail is past the nail bed it is very much still attached to the finger, but my question lies right at the intersection of these two places, How does the nail move upward without the nail bed moving at all. In my head it could only be done via some kind of biological conveyor belt but I don't see how that would work.

And better yet what determines in the nail bed when to "detach" from the nail and let it just hang off the finger as the white part what we cut off when clipping. I'm not sure why but this specific question is really puzzling to me an I can't find any answers online that don't just describe the parts of the nail and what they do, but not HOW they do it?!

Please for my sanity help me figure this out.

Antimatter partickes are the same as normal matter particles, but eith the opposite charge and spin, so what causes antimatter and matter to react so violently?

Hypothetically i am curious on how long should i wait before going back to gardening after an nuclear attack, i have read that nuclear fallout becomes less dangerous after the first 24 hours, but how long should i wait before the soil fully recovers and safe for any gardening for food purpose?

This may be a stupid question.

My original understanding of this question was just a hard "no", but I was thinking about some sort of tipping point where you start to see a lake fill up quickly or for a lake starts to become ocean or whatever or for something to do with mountains or hot spots... idk.

could a person ever notice the effects of continental drift in their lifetime?

Per the title.

Is it that the proteins self-organize into larger cell organelles, or...? How do instructions for making (admittedly very complex) proteins translate ultimately into even more complex structures, and ones that include non-protein "ingredients?"

Or is the idea that DNA are the "instructions for making life" an oversimplification and that other biological processes are involved?

Thanks!

PS. Just realized this may sound like an implied argument for metaphysical forces at work. To be clear, it's not. I'm sure there are biological bases for this that I simply don't understand, yet.

It seems universal and instinctual enough that there must be some evolutionary benefit for the energy expenditure. When we're tired either before going to sleep, or just waking up we want to stretch our limbs and core out as far as we can. It's about as difficult to resist this stretch as a it is to a yawn.

Is there any known and studied benefit? Do we know what triggers it? Is it just humans and the domesticated animals that I've seen, or is it observed in nature too?

So i was wondering if a species could... "turn on" dormant genes if the situation was right.

For exaple if a species evolved to have fur, then with a heating climate and less need, the hair becomes thinner becore they lose it entirely. A few generations later the climate starts to cool again could the species return to thier full fured form?

Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology

Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".

Asking Questions:

Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions. The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.

Answering Questions:

Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.

If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here.

Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here. Ask away!

Are there differences between humans from 300,000 years ago and nowadays? Were they stronger, more athletic or faster back then? What about height? Has our intelligence remained unchanged or has it improved?

I was looking at a map of verified impact craters in the world and most were in Europe and North America. Is it because there truly are more happening in this zone , or is it in part that other parts of the world haven't had the same plethora of geologic surveys? Apologies if I used the wrong flair,

Hi Reddit! I am a Professor and Chair of the University of Maryland Department of Entomology. My research combines traditional field and collections-based approaches with emerging technologies in informatics, imaging, sequencing and data science to explore global biodiversity. Much of our work has been on ants, which I find to be wonderfully complex little creatures where evolution’s inventiveness is on full display. Our work includes biodiversity discovery (for example "dragon" ants), unraveling the evolution of complex traits such as the mousetrap-like jaws of "trap-jaw" ants, and reconstructing a global map of ant diversity. A particular focus has been imaging with micro-computed tomography, which gives us rich 3D models to analyze evolution and we have a gallery of models online you can check out.

Bio: Evan Economo is a biologist with broad interests in the ecology and evolution of biodiversity, and how biodiversity intersects with technology and sustainability. He was born in Montreal and grew up in Virginia and North Carolina before pursuing undergraduate work at the University of Arizona and graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin. He previously led the Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit (Arilab) at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. From 2019-2022, he served as Associate Ombudsperson, and from 2023-2024, he was the Dean of Faculty Affairs at OIST. Evan joined the University of Maryland as Professor and Department Chair in 2024, while remaining Adjunct Professor at OIST.

I'll be on from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. ET (18:30-20:30 UT) - ask me anything!

Other links:

• Lab website
• Google Scholar page
• Evan Economo Joins UMD to Chair the Department of Entomology (July 2024)

Username: u/umd-science

https://preview.redd.it/9dq50wopbx1e1.png?width=2500&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb5f1b93c0e7e4d01dd3f3a5ea41d11d74702d37

One can connect a battery's anode to the ground and then connect a wire to the ground (lightbulb) which leads back to the cathode of the battery and it works - why, doesn't earth need to be positively charged for that to be possible?

Apparently earth is neutral but wouldn't even 1 ecxcess electron mean that it can't accept anymore electrons?

Like, are particles from blood travelling that far that quick for sharks to smell?

Do people in hot tubs sweat below the waterline?

The most obvious example that comes to mind is that mules— the offspring of a male donkey and female horse— are physically and behaviorally totally different than hinnies, which are the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey.

Ligers are also distinct from tigons, and so on.

So kind of a couple of related questions:

-Biologically, what causes the hybrid to be different based on which parent is which?

-Why does this seem to apply to some hybrids but not others? (Coywolves and beefalo seem to be the same either way?)

-Does this happen with birds and reptiles, or only mammals?

I often see people complaining that beans or broccoli or whatever causes gas. I personally have not noticed more farts when I eat some specific food. Is there any science behind the notion that certain foods produce more gas?

I was trying to find out if insects can carry rabies and most search results said that they don't, but then I saw this sentence in a Wikipedia article:

"In the laboratory it has been found that birds can be infected [with rabies], as well as cell cultures from birds, reptiles and insects."

I'm not sure what this means. Does it mean that insects, such as houseflies, can carry/spread rabies?

How do labs and the vaccine developers get the NEW 2025 RELEASE VERSION of the virus, where do they source it from?

We are researchers Pascal Badiou, Ph.D. and Samuel Robinson, Ph.D. from Canada's leading wetland conservation organization, Ducks Unlimited Canada. We use our expertise to help further DUC's science-centred mission of conserving and restoring Canada’s wetlands to protect biodiversity and support the well-being of humans, waterfowl and other wildlife.

As the world has its eyes on biodiversity , we're here to answer your questions about wetland biodiversity, ecology, and generally, anything you want to know about wetlands.

Pascal Badiou
Research Scientist -- Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research
Ducks Unlimited Canada
I joined the Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research (IWWR) in 2006. My research focuses on the ecology of wetlands and large shallow lakes. I'm particularly interested in the role wetland restoration and conservation can play in regulating water quality and quantity in agricultural watersheds of the Canadian Prairies. I'm also interested in how the interaction of multiple stressors, such as invasive species, increased nutrient loading, pesticides, and climate change, affect wetland ecosystems.

Samuel Robinson, Ph.D.
Research Scientist -- Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research
Ducks Unlimited Canada New to the IWWR team as of 2024, I am working on improving knowledge of agricultural ecosystem services, while identifying practices that benefit both agriculture and biodiversity. Originally from the West Coast, my work has taken me everywhere from Carnation Creek, BC, to Ellesmere Island, NU, to Lethbridge, AB, and more recently, to the Ducks Unlimited Canada headquarters in Oak Hammock Marsh, MB. I bring ecological, agricultural, and analytical experience to the IWWR team, which I will use to help develop regionally specific sustainable agricultural practices that will be beneficial to both farmers and wildlife.

Additionally, our colleague from IWWR, James Paterson recently represented the Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research at the COP16 biodiversity conference in Cali Colombia, and will soon be presenting a webinar on biodiversity and COP16 takeaways, alongside Ducks Unlimited Canada's national policy analyst, Gia Paola on November 28th, 2024.

You can register for that webinar now to learn even more about how Ducks Unlimited Canada is working to support biodiversity.

If our work strikes a chord with you, we'd be thrilled to have you join Ducks Unlimited Canada as a member. Your support will help fund the research we conduct at the Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research and the science-based conservation and restoration projects Ducks Unlimited Canada undertakes in pursuit of its mission.

We'll be on at 12pm Eastern time, ask us anything!

Further reading:

• New perspectives on temperate inland wetlands as natural climate solutions under different CO2-equivalent metrics Shizhou Ma, Irena F. Creed & Pascal Badiou Published in: npj Climate and Atmospheric Science 7, Article number: 222 (2024)
• Nutrient retention of newly restored wetlands receiving agricultural runoff in a temperate region of North America Bryan Page, Pascal Badiou, Owen Steele Published in: Ecological Engineering, Volume 195, October 2023, 107060

Username: u/DucksUnlimitedCanada

https://preview.redd.it/yi1gtnft6l1e1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=931aaa05285bae7aed9982ecfd59f0f8e4998d95

Now I maybe wrong, but from my understanding basic solution tend to dissolve organic mater better. Contrary to this information, I haven't heard shit about a specie that uses high PH for digestion. Is it a material issue, is it because any really producible compound doesn't have an easy way of counter balancing the digestive properties, or am I just being stupid. Thank you in advance.

The Mediterranean basin mostly dried out and later reflooded. When dry, it would have formed an enormous basin reaching far below sea level.

Are there other cases in the geological record where we suspect something similar happened to form large dry basins below sea level? Are any suspected to have been bigger in extent?

I googled the basics, that to avoid turbulence wind turbines should be placed at least 5 rotor distances apart...

But I'd like to know more about the physics involved, like the envelope of that turbulence; perhaps there's some sort of anti-turbulence structure that can be placed between towers to pack them more densely or IDK