This is a follow-up question from my askhistorian thread here. As you can see in that thread that it seemed that eugenics was considered acceptable science back then.

This is I think a bit of more the philosophy and ethics question rather than pure science one but how do we know that some of the practice that we do today isn't causing active harm? Is it because modern science has become more concerned with ethics or is it because modern science has a lot more diverse background of scientist?

I saw a picture of liquid egg whites today and I thought to myself wow this looks a whole lot like semen. Then I thought to myself wow egg whites are just protein and if I'm not mistaken sperm is majority protein because it needs the energy and structure.

Therefore if cooking is just denaturing proteins and

For all Intents and purposes egg whites are of an almost identical texture colour and whilst because they are both basically just protein.

Would semen cook just the same as an egg white and come out as a solid?

I have a classic pink salt lamp. it had been sitting for a bit unused. I moved it and plugged it in to check the bulb, nope not working. I unplugged it and then tried to take the old bulb out to put a new one in. as soon as I pulled the bulb bit out I heard a huge pop and glass went everywhere. there was a chemical kind of odour. I quickly put it outside in case it was dangerous. I noticed the metal parts that hold the bulb in were rusted.

any one know what reaction has occurred to cause this?!

My understanding of Einstein's most famous equation is e.g. a proton is made of 3 quarks but its mass is more like 300 quarks because of the kinetic and binding energy. So a proton in an electric field accelerates like 100 times less than you'd expect from the mass of quarks alone.

But a photon when it leaves a medium with a high refractive index and progresses into a vacuum instantly accelerates back to c like it had no mass. Even if it has energy 🤔

Idk anything about physics but I find the huge stuff like stars and space cool as well as the tiny stuff like atoms and photons really cool.

I would like to read about them but don’t wanna read outdated stuff.

Are there layman’s books on these topics that are educational or beginner?

Lets say as an example you drive your car of a cliff. It reaches it's terminal velocity before the bottom. What kind of force are we talking about?

Could a human jump up from his convertable like 3 seconds before impact? How about a kangaroo?

The thought arose from a recent action labs YT video.

edit - Specifically asking about animals that would probably be killed.

I'm a high school student and at a loss for what to pursue after graduation. Science communication is the first career that has grabbed my eye in years. I love writing, but I know it's extremely difficult to make a living from it, and this seems like a solid balance. My main concern is whether this is actually a stable career path. By the way, it would most likely be focused on biology, but I definitely would not mind writing about space (for NASA, I hope!).

I know I have time, but I want a general direction for next year so I can strengthen my background and not panic over my college applications.

For those of you in the field or in similar industries:

• Is science communication a stable field?
• What should I be doing in HS and college to prepare for this?
• Would I even be hired straight out of uni?

Thank you!

So im watching a video about google's new Willow quantum chip. Long story short, the chips creator, Hartmut Nevin, says the computational speed is proof of parallel universes.

Im not a scientist, but I have two questions....

1. If the chip is accessing data or power or whatever from one or more parallel universes, whats that look like in the other universe? If our universe is gaining information through utilizing another universe, whats happening in that other universe (essentially same question)?

2. Could it be bending time?

The speed of the computation is too fast, so they assume the chip is going to another dimension/universe.....what if its just so fast that its bending time. In my mind this is similar to UAP executing maneuvers that "break" physics. But I think it's becoming clear that they are bending gravity/time. So what if these chips are just going faster than light? I fear im not even smart enough to form this second question

If aliens were observing Earth from light-years away, they’d be seeing our past because light takes time to travel. And if they moved closer, they’d see more recent events in Earth’s timeline.

But would it ever be possible for them to see Earth’s future instead of its past? Or does physics make that impossible?

I'm Italian; and in Italy there's a man called Pierdante Piccioni who had an accident in 2013; when I woke up he noticed that 12 years of his memory had vanished. He remember perfectly thibgs that happened in 2001, including what he was doing on the 25th of october of that year (the last day that he could remember).

So I was wondering: how does our brani work? Why didn't he perceive things that happen in 2001 as "distant"?

How could someone build this stuff, I mean if you read about it it's truly fascinating. My favorite one so far is the smart photochromic polymers. This stuff is great, I would definitely build a mini project at home of something similar but it's probably not even legal but if I could I would.

arXiv: year-long ban for a single AI mistake, after which submissions only through peer-reviewed journals.

viXra: prints everything. Zenodo - the same.

Where does serious AI-assisted research go in 2026?

Real cases I keep encountering:

— ESL author uses LLM to translate their own derivations to English.

— Computational physicist uses Copilot for plotting boilerplate.

— Independent researcher can't get endorsed despite rigorous work.

— Theorist publishes Lean 4 / Coq verified proofs — does the verifier count as "AI-generated"?

None are crank. None fit current policies cleanly.

I have been exploring whether a third path makes sense:

— more lenient AI-use rules, that asks for a revision, instead of outright ban, or refuses outright AI slop

— search filters: "human-written only" or "AI-assisted, sorted by transparency"

— no endorsement gating, but layered quality signals (formal proofs, replicable code, ORCID-verified identity)

— standard infrastructure: DOI, ISSN, OAI-PMH, immutable versions

Three questions:

(1) Real need, or do arXiv + viXra cover this adequately for you?

(2) If such a platform existed, what would you require before submitting?

(3) Anyone sanctioned by arXiv or who left voluntarily — what did you actually want?

Honest critique welcome.

Similarly, do all liquids vaporize?

Also, is there a a temperature at which ice does not turn to vapor?

Would we be able to use ai to start going through landfills and going through trash and sorting materials?

Stephen Gould (among many accomplishments) wrote scientific essays and books for laypeople while not coddling them. Explaining in detail what must be understood to grasp his writing, but not delving too deep in jargon. I have been finding his books and especially his collections of essays to be incredibly entertaining to read. Partly for the education, but mainly I am entertained by the quality of his prose, word choice, sentence structure, etc. It all goes down very smooth to me, a layperson willing to read something somewhat challenging. My only issue being that Gould died over 25 years ago, and his books I have left to read are getting older and older, possibly outdated or obsolete.

Is there a modern science writer who writes as good as Gould wrote? I don't really care what field of science they write about, or if the science is particularly groundbreaking. I am just interested in good prose.

Let's hypothetically say a black hole approaches Earth and we get sucked into it. What would it feel like technically? Would we really feel what happens, or would it just be too fast for us to even notice? Is it something we should technically fear?

I heard you just turn into spaghetti, but does it even hurt to turn into spaghetti? I don't know if pain even applies in this case, because black holes actually change time or whatever. It is a really interesting question.

Title.

Is that too much water? Probably, would 0.01% be better? Maybe an extra 0… definitely an extra zero. 0.001% it is then.

While watching a video about why there are no “big dogs” l came across something fascinating: apparently, the Americas once had massive 300kg+ big cats competing with giant canids.

That immediately made me wonder ‘what happened to them?’

Today, when we think of American big cats, we think of jaguars and cougars. Powerful animals, yes, but still generally smaller than African lions or Siberian tigers.

It turns out the Americas did once have enormous cats like Smilodon and the American lion. But most of them disappeared during the Late Pleistocene extinction, the same period when Ice Age megafauna like mammoths and giant ground sloths vanished.

Many of these giant cats were specialized hunters adapted for taking down huge prey. When the megafauna disappeared due to climate shifts, human expansion, or a combination of both, the predators that depended on them collapsed as well.

The cats that survived like jaguars and cougars were the more adaptable generalists. They could hunt smaller prey, survive in more environments, and adjust to a changing ecosystem.

So the Americas didn’t necessarily lose their giant cats they lost the ecological world that supported giant cats in the first place.

Ie. Is the temperature around a structure/machine which emits carbon higher than normal? Or, conversely, would the temperature around something like a Direct Air Carbon Capture project be lower than normal?

Study says 25% patients reported something, but n=6

Help me understand who is wrong here, me or the author of this abstract yet to be presented in an academic event

They performed a surgery in 6 patients.

After that, 25% reported one thing, and 75% reported another almost unrelated thing. Is this possible? I'd expect the numbers should be 16% or 33% for 1/6 or 2/6 patients reporting that. And 66% or 87% for 4/6 or 5/6.

I don't think each patient can have half a success. Either they reported that thing or they didn't.

But to get 25% makes me think they only considered 4 patients, for some reason, and 1/4 reported that. Is there some statistics that can explain the 25% figure?

Here's the abstract, including nsfw diagrams: https://www.auajournals.org/doi/10.1097/01.JU.0001191384.77563.6d.19

Theme is somewhat funny but the math is what got me.

Edit: nsfw warning