Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication
Qs on science and my replies to them - Part 262
Q: What are gravitational waves in layman's terms?
Krishna: Gravitational waves are 'ripples' in space-time caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the Universe. Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 in his general theory of relativity. Einstein's mathematics showed that massive accelerating objects (such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other) would disrupt space-time in such a way that 'waves' of undulating space-time would propagate in all directions away from the source. These cosmic ripples would travel at the speed of light, carrying with them information about their origins, as well as clues to the nature of gravity itself.
Krishna: Recently I did a special online certificate course in science communication. It was conducted by Nature group of journals. Did you know we had to do some sort of ‘test’ every fifteen minutes during the course? If you are attentive at the start of the day, you have to be as attentive at the end of the session too! Our ‘professors’ ( just joking, they were scientists and science communicators like me ) were so good at presenting things they made it very easy and interesting. I loved each moment of it, despite the difficulty.
If you want to learn something in science, it doesn’t come easy. It is hard work , hard work, hard work and more hard work.
Commerce and art students say there won’t be any balance of learning and fun in science. Only learning. It doesn’t suit their mentality, they say.
I think these people you mentioned don’t know how to have fun with science. Or they had very bad professors that made their learning very boring. Or they hate science so much that they have only bad words to say about it. Or they are so ignorant about the subject, they think science is …. Or they believe in media hype or public perception that science is only for geeks who don’t know how to enjoy life.
But contrary to these false perceptions and strange imaginations, I enjoyed science thoroughly during my PG, PhD, and all through my career/life.
I had/have very good class-mates and colleagues who enjoy/ed life to the fullest. Every moment is filled with fun in our lab. Every field trip is exciting. Every conference is interesting. It ‘s like any amusing art or exciting commerce class. I never felt/feel science was boring because of this.
The fact of the matter is you have to know how to enjoy life, wherever you are and whatever the situation is. It is all in your mind. If you don’t know this technique of enjoying life, you will get bored easily. ‘Science’ is just an excuse for these people to express their inability to have fun in all circumstances.
“Science is fun, makes life very thrilling, future exciting and worth living”.
Only morons doubt this statement of mine.
Q: I didn't meet one of my classmates for 25 years. But recently I dreamt of him one night. I was thinking of him the next morning when he suddenly came to my office. How does science explain this?
Krishna: You are searching for some sort of patterns.
How many times have you thought or dreamt about your classmates and they did not contact you at all? You probably don’t remember, because that is utterly not interesting. But the one time where one coincided with the other, that is interesting. So confirmation bias strikes (our brains are awesome at it!), and makes that single event extraordinary.
Science says this is mere coincidence. This is one of the instances where probability became reality. That's all!
Our brain is always searching for connections. As a result, we can sometimes make links that simply aren't there.
A major function of the human brain is to deal with the uncertainty in the real world in order to find regularities. Our neurons detect these patterns naturally and pay special attention to their timing.
Reflective thinkers are more likely to see the event as a statistical fluke, while intuitive thinkers feel it is magic!
Q: Both my friend and me chew gutka. While I got mouth cancer, my friend didn't. why is this?
Krishna: When several factors decide outcomes, they follow the interplay of scientific rules and routes and exactly fit into the reaction realities. How a person survives a health condition or a catastrophe or a bad situation depends on the sum total outcomes of scientific factors occurring simultaneously.
One person might eat very healthy food which in turn might boost his immunity to fight cancer effectively. Another person might have genetic predisposition for certain health conditions which enhances of getting cancer if he is not careful.
You cannot compare one person with another while dealing with diseases and health conditions. That is why medical science now wants to deal each case separately and personalized treatment is the new mantra.
Q: Is cancer just bad luck?
Krishna: You smoke two packets of cigarettes per day and when you get lung cancer, do you call it bad luck?
You chew tobacco ( or gutka) and when you get mouth cancer, do you call it ill luck?
You live in a highly polluted area or use wood for cooking and when you get cancer again, do you call it bad luck?
You stand in the sun without protection to get a tan for years together and when you get skin cancer, do you call that bad luck?
You consume food like mad, get fat and when your obesity causes cancer, do you call it bad luck?
You don’t take vaccines, get viral infection, and when this leads to cancer, do you call it bad luck?
Most of the cancers are caused by your recklessness. Don’t blame your ‘luck’ for it.
Q: How does the water inside the coconut remain so cold even in the scorching sun?
Krishna: Does it stay 'very cool' (because you used the words 'so cold' in your Q) in hot weather too? I don't think so. Several times, the coconut water I drank directly from green coconuts kept in the sun was warm, not cool!
If the coconuts are kept in the shade, maybe the water will not be that warm.
Having said that, I want to add this too ....
I think the fibre outside, the hard coconut shell and the copra act as insulators to keep the water relatively cool from the hot temperature outside. Natural thermos flask, maybe.
Coconut water is more than just water, and therefore it doesn’t freeze quite as easily as water out of your tap if you keep it in the freezer.
Mainly due to the small sugar content, the freezing point of coconut water is closer to 27.5F than the expected 32F of regular water.
Q: How do fires know how to use the fire exit?
Krishna: Fires don’t know how to use fire exits. People do, well, when trained well.
Fire exits are for people to get out, not fires.
The exit portion of a route is separated from other areas of the building. It provides a protected pathway out of the building.
A fire escape is a special kind of emergency exit, usually mounted to the outside of a building (or a bus or any vehicle) or occasionally inside but separate from the main areas of the building. It provides a method of escape in the event of a fire or other emergency that makes the staircases inside a building inaccessible.
Q: Vanilla is not my favourite scent. How could scientists say it is the world's most favourite scent?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/vanilla-is-earths-most-pr...
Krishna: Vanilla is not my favourite scent too! :)
But majority of the people in the study said it was their favourite one.
But 225 individuals from ten distinct cultural groups is too small a sample size. It is not 'the world'.
So agreeing with the results is difficult for me too. Saying that it 's the world's favourite fragrance based on just 225 people sample size is exaggerating the results.
I didn't read the original paper. So I don't know whether it 's researchers' fault or the media's, I can't tell.
Q: What is reproducibility crisis in scientific research?
Krishna: Good science relies on results being reproducible.
A successful experiment is one where another scientist, in a different laboratory under similar conditions, can achieve the same result. But more than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce some of their own experiments: This is the reproducibility crisis.
There are lots of reasons why a particular result may not be reproducible in another lab. If you take the example of cancer research, cell lines can sometimes change their behaviour in different labs under different conditions, for instance. The most important difference researchers found was that it matters who does the experiment, because every person is different.
It's quite shocking how big of an issue reproducibility is in science, and it's going to need a complete overhaul in the way that a lot of science is done. Now scientists think that machines (AI) have a key role to play in helping to fix this problem and are trying to use AI.
Q: Will the cars explode if we fill the tanks fully during summer months?
Krishna: This is fake news. Go through this clarification given by IO ....
Q: What is a chemo port?
Krishna: A chemo port is a small, implantable reservoir with a thin silicone tube that attaches to a vein. The main advantage of this vein-access device is that chemotherapy medications can be delivered directly into the port rather than a vein, eliminating the need for needle sticks.
Ports can remain in place for weeks, months, or years. Your team can use a port to: Reduce the number of needle sticks. Give treatments that last longer than 1 day.
Chemo ports are surgically placed under the skin near a large vein in the upper chest. They are typically implanted as a same-day procedure with a local anesthetic that numbs the skin rather than puts you to sleep. They are sometimes placed at the same time as the surgical resection (removal) of a tumour.
Q: What is a Black Moon?
There are several different definitions of a Black Moon, however, it typically refers to when there are two new Moons in a single calendar month. This phenomenon is down to the way the calendar falls.
The Moon takes approximately 29.53 days to orbit the Earth and complete one lunar cycle. If the first new Moon falls on the 1st of the month, in our Gregorian calendar, we see a second new Moon at the end of the month - and this is informally known as a Black Moon.
A Black Moon is the opposite of a Blue Moon, which is when there are two full Moons in a single calendar month.
Other definitions of a Black Moon
- When there is no new Moon in a calendar month.
- When there is no full Moon in a calendar month.
- When there are four new Moons in a season.
Q; What should be an adequate quantity of amino acid we should have daily?
Krishna: The nutrient requirements of comparable individuals often vary. It depends on the person’s physical condition, age, gender, pregnancy and lactation statuses, climate and several other factors. Ideas on the assessment of protein requirements have progressed in a rather different way from considerations of energy .
There are several difficulties associated with identification of population average protein requirements and reference intakes which result from the analysis of the available information, all of which raise questions of the usefulness of the traditional approach to estimating protein requirements.
Consequently, application of recommendations to any one individual for clinical purposes may lead to errors of diagnosis and management. The methodological basis, analytical aspects and statistical aspects have to be refined frequently as and when new data arrives.
This WHO report gives a detailed analysis of the same and related relevant recommendations: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/43411/WHO_TRS_935_e...
It says: The requirement indicated by the meta-analysis (a median requirement of 105 mg nitrogen/kg per day or 0.66 g/kg per day of protein) can be accepted as the best estimate of a population average requirement for healthy adults. Although there is considerable uncertainty about the true between-individual 125 variability, the safe level was identified as the 97.5th percentile of the population distribution of requirement, i.e. 133 mg nitrogen/kg per day, or 0.83 g/kg per day protein. Thus 0.83 g/kg per day protein would be expected to meet the requirements of most (97.5%) of the healthy adult population.
The report also gave recommendations for individual amino acids.
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