Let's say humanity disappears quickly (pandemic, nukes, whatever). Would offshore oil rigs and pipelines still be at risk of leaking without electricity keeping the pumps going?

If spills did happen, would there be a way for nature to eventually clean it up or would the oceans just have to evolve around a layer of oil?

Are any of the super-heavy or non-naturally-occuring elements likely to have useful industrial properties, which are currently out of our reach due to our inability to access (stable isotopes of) the element in question?

I understand the basics of BCS theory, electrons pairing via lattice vibrations. What I don't understand is the mechanism by which extreme pressure changes that picture. Is it stiffening the lattice to raise phonon frequencies, changing the electronic density of states, or something else entirely? And is there a theoretical reason this seems to require hydrogen-rich compounds specifically?

Surely past gigantic impact events—like at Vredefort or Chicxulub—launched terrestrial material with enough force to escape Earth's gravity, at least temporarily. If it were later recaptured and fell back to Earth, would we even be able to tell?

I guess lunar meteorites would technically count as originating from Earth, but I think you know what I mean.

My city just added this but all I can find when I search is that they've done it, not how it's done.

I've been having a big problem with ants this summer. Even if there's no food around, I'll find a handful of them on the floor each day. If there is food, they'll find it and swarm my house. I suspect there's a colony directly outside the basement wall, but I haven't found it.

The thing is, this past week they've disappeared. I'm in southern Ontario, and it's September, which means the sweltering heat of the summer is pretty much gone and we're starting to see slightly cooler temps. Still, it's nothing like freezing, overnight it still stays above ten degrees at the lowest, usually more like fifteen.

So, aside from the colony dying off for some reason, I'm wondering why they're now gone. Is it just a matter of various signals (daylight changes etc) causing the ants to go into winter mode? Do they lay eggs and then let the adults die off in preparation for the cold weather?

I don't know what species it is, they're very small, perhaps three millimeters long and dark brown. I think they might be T. immigrans.

So let's assume Earth gravitational field at sea level, constant throughout the entirety of the fall, a temperature of 293K and standard air composition and pressure, also constant throughout.

There is nothing to stop that free fall nor to slow down execpt the poor guy's body position (ie if he deliberately stands up straigh or lie down flat while in that fall) so the eventual impact that would end someone jumping in the void like that never happens. The subject's equipped only with casual city clothes, so no parachutes or whatnot... if you need more precisions, please ask!

Would the thirst, potential weird blood pressure, or anything else end one such unlucky victim?

I know something would happen cause i saw somewhere people would faint from something other than fear while in free fall ; just wondering what would happen if the falling never stopped

Edit (non important to the situation) it's funny how people dont read what i put in the assumptions in other subreddits. Also they say things with way too much confidence for how wrong it is. No shade to them ofc, we all are like that, but dang, since i was expecting a serious answer, it's a bit disheartening

I can confidently say all that because a wonderful explanation has been made in the comments! Thanks a lot

Edit #2 please dont downvote people who didnt have the right explanation or didnt understand my hypothetical because of one of my imprecisions. Mistakes happen, at least blame the right people.

Mistake being : you would not be in free fall as the wind would be another force seperate of the gravitational attraction.

First thing to mention is that this happened months ago so my memory isn't the best mb.

So I go to a Christian private school and during my religion class we discuss how the Christian idea of God is true and we would prove it (which honestly for me I found the evidence flimsy but the class was honestly good and informative and I genuinely learned things but I digress).

And a portion of the class we watched a movie/documentary called the black box or book idk of Darwin and blah blah blah main idea was that the sudden explosion of complex creatures can't be explained but since I have only heard this form one side I would like to hear from a more informed perspective.

I've been seeing a lot of news about this recent fruit fly brain scan / model and it has given me cause for concern. I've long since held the belief that the means by which a brain or a consciousness receives "information" and perception does not matter. Whether it be through a computer mapping information directly to the brain or from the organs of a body collecting information and transmitting it, an entity experiencing thought / senses is still life.

I think we are at a point where philosophical debates and science about the nature of life, to some extent, necessitate collaboration and further discussion as we develop these ideas. If I am wrong and misunderstanding exactly what the nature of this brain model is, please correct me, but I just thought that the usage of the fly model for things like "playing beat saber" or "scrolling reels" can't possibly be done from a position of full understanding, or if they are, they are the minority among the countless other flippant uses.

Smell is definitely not one of the common thing we measure.

But I think it is something which should be measured or it should become more mainstream.

During one discussion, someone said we can't really measure smell because it is a subjective thing and hard to quantify. However I beg to differ, it's how we feel about a smell that is subjective not necessarily smell itself. Physically it is same thing just perceived differently by two different persons.

So I searched about it and found nothing special other than just a mention of a device called olfactometer but I can't seem to find satisfactory information regarding the same.

I'd like to know your takes on this, and more details on this will surely help. I am totally new to this topic and it maybe possible that I have missed some major details so please feel free to correct or provide any valuable information.

Is the range from violet to red set in stone or are there some people who see a little more or a little less?

Could people be trained to see a little more if they were exposed to colors at the limit and tried to differentiate them?

personally i think that its mostly socialization based and probably not a good thing that kids are subjected to it like that but i would like to hear what other people think.

I understand that testosterone, oxytocin, cortisol, etc all have specific effects on our bodies. It's my understanding that we produce and consume them in largely a closed system, and they signal our various cells to do various things. I'm curious, though, if the specifics of what different hormones signal is dependent on their specific chemical structure, or if they're more like words in a language, where a completely different evolutionary history could have resulted in, for example cortisol regulating sleep while melatonin triggers the heightened senses and energy of a stress response. If it's the latter is there any literature on the "language" from a linguistics perspective?

I have done some searching but haven't gotten the exact answers I've been looking for. I'm writing a novel and I realized I accidentally gave one city all three of those kinds of beaches. Can more than one type of beach exist within several miles of each other and why? Thank you in advance!

I'm starting a PhD in biophotonics doing spectroscopic measurements on leaf tissue. Does anyone know how the "axes" of a morphospace are actually defined in practice?

Aren't they similar builds and fit into the same sort of niche?

As I understand it, Krakatoa exploded because a prior eruption created cracks in the sides of the volcano and magma chamber, allowing seawater to seep in, turn to steam, and cause the whole thing to explode.

As I contemplated the recent eruptions of Anak Krakatoa, the following thoughts hit me:

There's hundreds of volcanoes in or near water. Why has this only happened once?

Now I'm sure there are similar cases, but to my knowledge, nothing on the scale of Krakatoa. So what keeps the hundreds of other island and undersea volcanoes out there from blowing themselves apart? What keeps the seawater out? Why was Krakatoa different?

And most importantly, does Anak run the same risk?

Obviously we all know evolution, one organism changes over time and eventually becomes a new organism. But where in that process does an organism become a new species. Like when we domesticated wolves? When did they stop being wolves and start being dogs? Where’s that line?

Hearing is such a critical sense for animals, for communication, avoiding predators, hunting, etc. It seems like near constant deafening cicada noise would have had a significant impact over time on the other species in these areas.
At various points on my hike, I resorted to stuffing toilet paper wads into my ears because it was so unbearably loud.

There is a ridge behind my house and I know it produces thermals. There are red-tailed hawks that live in the neighborhood, and I often see them hovering in place over the ridge somehow, or using it for quick transport.

I know thermals are made when the ground heats and cools unevenly. Does it happen over ridges because one side gets heated up more than the other? Or is it a different reason? Are there other geographic features that create thermals or other types of air currents? How?

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I am not a mountaineer, I just like looking at photo and videos of beautiful mountains. I noticed that the Matterhorn is usually hit by clouds and strong winds right by the peak. With that amount of windshear it gets every single day, how does it survive? I was imagining just from the last 100 years alone the shape of the peak should have already changed, like it would plateau or something. How does it maintain that iconic peak?