Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/December 2016

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a monthly archive index. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 1

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 1

1. if you are are more biologically matured for your age does that mean you will have a shortened life span?
2. Reliable evaluation of a popular science magazine
3. If a skyscraper's designed for weak Cat 4 hurricanes but not earthquakes?

December 2

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 2

1. Rabbit habit
2. Identify a weapon used by the South African Army
3. What is the reason that not any mammal can be reproductive from another different mammal?
4. Why do animals have hearts ?
5. Atomic particle identification
6. supermassive black holes
7. alcohol hand gel

December 3

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 3

1. Is Glicine not chiral?
2. What does the word "cis" (of cis isomer) stand for?
3. What do the letters Pk stands for in chemistry (acids & basis)?
4. What the heck is a "wedge connector", and should there be a Wikipedia article about it?
5. 24v from PSU
6. Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change
7. Fishing spider in the house

December 4

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 4

1. Erroneous Recycling
2. Running crack
3. Reflection of light when momentum is transferred
4. no information on the bond energies of a pi bond (ALONE), separate from the C=C sigma bond?
5. What large cheap vessel to use for a chloroform vapour bath?

December 5

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 5

1. What is the difference between these two glycines?
2. Reducing the waiting period to donate blood after male-male sex - practical impact?
3. Why are mitochondria called "mitochondria"?
4. Is that claim proved scientifically?
5. Arachidyl Alcohol
6. Fire safety
7. Ginkgo fruit yield

December 6

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 6

1. School systems in America, England and Holland
2. Which school system is better: the Dutch, American or British one?
3. When photons hit solar sails

December 7

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 7

1. Mountain gaps
2. Air pollution and what kind is the worst for your health
3. Sex with a Hepatitis C positive woman during her period
4. All other things equal is building fire a bigger or smaller risk at high altitude?
5. External temperature sensors on cars

December 8

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 8

1. Falling from a balloon
2. Beech 18
3. Why defibrillator is not placed directly above the heart?
4. Sleeping positions
5. Star formation and Dark matter
6. Are humans ever harmed by highways?
7. Turing test considerations
8. Apollo machete

December 9

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 9

1. How many levels of carbons are there in isoleucine?
2. Predicting solar eclipses
3. What do speculation of raw materials?
4. What was Brenda wearing?

December 10

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 10

1. Men taking a pregnancy test
2. In what way teachers in academy used to draw the signs of skeletal structures?
3. Can norovirus be used as a non-lethal bioweapon for urban warfare?
4. galaxies
5. Is there any medical value when a care provider talk to his trauma patient?
6. Birds seen at SeaWorld San Diego
7. plane of simultaneity link
8. Pleven
9. Is it possible to project the human voice faster than the speed of sound?

December 11

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 11

1. Is the occlumotor passes in the neck?
2. climate warming and record low temperature
3. Can I say that the definition of "matter" is anything that has an electron?
4. Is hydrophilic molecule a synonym of polar molecule?
5. Polar air mass meeting tropical air mass

December 12

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 12

1. what is this circuit and how does it work?

December 13

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 13

1. What's the chance that a random transit of Mercury?
2. How much does 1 kg of air weigh?
3. Power Splitter
4. Storing data in ice Ih
5. How do F-35s avoid colliding with each other?

December 14

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 14

1. Nitrogen gas VSEPR sketch
2. Interpretation of size: "152 x 200 x 20 + 39 cm" of bed sheet
3. Feynman Lectures. Lecture 41. Ch. 41–3 Equipartition and the quantum oscillator [http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_41.html#Ch41-S3]
4. Main Battle Tanks
5. Does the cold itself cause to illness or the viruses are those which cause it?

December 15

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 15

1. What street legal road vehicle has the biggest weight to ground contact area ratio?
2. What species is this?
3. Crosses with more than 2 traits
4. narrow width of solar system
5. is it so that comets have half life?
6. how can explode a bomb in vacuum space?
7. Identify an office machine (checkwriter)?

December 16

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 16

1. Getting microwaves deeper into food (i.e. not cold in middle)
2. What weapons could damage a plane made of flawless nanotubes/nanotube composite?

December 17

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 17

1. Would a man's testicles stop working if his testicles were cut open and all of his seminiferous tubules were surgically removed?
2. Waterfalls get narrower at the bottom?
3. Chemical ratio
4. Biological organism development stages
5. Feynman Lectures. Lecture 41 [http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_41.html]

December 18

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 18

1. Asthma as a consequence of fighting off lung cancer?
2. Tell me about ceramic non-stick coatings
3. What species of fungi is this?
4. Tow hitch and rear end crash

December 19

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 19

1. glass turning cloudy
2. Static pile load
3. Research for my book (nsfw)
4. "Healthy food" vs. "Junk food"
5. Does early sexual maturation predict a shorter life expectancy?
6. Humans and nature
7. cold and salt killing harmful bacteria
8. Has any land animal evolved to become a sea animal?
9. Any explanation for the Richat Structure?

December 20

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 20

1. Clementine
2. Circumcision as HIV prevention in gay men (particularly insertive anal sex)
3. Strange solid brown stuff inside banana

December 21

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 21

1. Interesting effect I've noticed.
2. Tallest mountains prior to those in the Himalayan Plateau? (and after)
3. Gamma rays causing interference on professional video recording?

December 22

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 22

1. Housekeeping in Microgravity
2. Firing in context of measuring electrical activity in nervous sytem
3. why do the neurons in medulla oblongata fire prior to the inhalation?

December 23

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 23

1. Sweet Heavy water
2. Juicy Fruit (not the snack)

December 24

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 24

1. The definition of matter - space and mass
2. are electrons made of by fermions?
3. Question about the redox potential
4. Sizes
5. Are there places which don't have lightning & thunder despite they have rain and snow?
6. Feynman Lectures. Lecture 41 [http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_41.html]

December 25

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 25

1. Condoms failing during perfect use
2. Vocal type
3. Snow References
4. In chemistry are there 3 states of matter or 4 or 5?
5. The differences and the definitions of proton and neutron

December 26

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 26

1. stupid NMR question
2. boat that can "fly" underwater like a penguin
3. Deposit of fog droplets vs. fog drip
4. information on a french reflecting circle by lorieux, lepetit
5. Are the waves of the ECG created before the real contraction of the heart?
6. Determine whether caulk is silicone or acrylic?

December 27

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 27

1. Distance to stars
2. Lithium-ion batteries in smartphones emit more than 100 toxic gases
3. Traditional and Western medicines

December 28

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 28

1. Confusing pubmed article: "skin defect of hell"
2. (short-term) Death Toll from catastrophic Dam failure?
3. Why isn't alcohol used to treat bacterial skin infections?
4. Artificial intelligence

December 29

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 29

1. Commercially-canned mushrooms
2. Long-term effects of high electric current on copper wire
3. Global warming: have I got this right?
4. Why is the non dominant side of the body is stronger?
5. The chemistry of baking bread

December 30

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 30

1. What if we discovered a new (caloric) macronutrient?
2. Under which classification is "troponin"?
3. Species of Loligo used in the landmark studies of membrane biophysics
4. What is the effect of tissue hypoxia on the cellular metabolic rate?
5. Climate Change

December 31

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 31

1. Metal versus cloth
2. Feynman Lectures. Lecture 42. 42–2Thermionic emission [http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_42.html#Ch42-S2]
3. What is the reason that it's not recommended to bend while the knee is not bed too?