sciguy52
sciguy52 t1_jdvx0q1 wrote
Reply to comment by MannyVanHorne in Everyone talks about how huge Andromeda will look in the sky billions of years from now. I present you what the Milky Way *currently* looks like in the skies of our neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud. We appear absolutely huge in their skies! [Simulated view] by lampiaio
Yeah I see your point. It was late and I was falling asleep and didn't read it right. Also said need instead of neat for what it is worth.
sciguy52 t1_jdu7dt9 wrote
Reply to comment by p-d-ball in Everyone talks about how huge Andromeda will look in the sky billions of years from now. I present you what the Milky Way *currently* looks like in the skies of our neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud. We appear absolutely huge in their skies! [Simulated view] by lampiaio
Well you can, just need more help than just your eyes. Hence the telescopes. But it would be really need to see in the sky if you could see it with eyes alone.
sciguy52 t1_jdkixla wrote
Reply to How does the rabies virus actually compel the host to bite? How does it know how to tell the brain to bite another living thing? by Lettuce-b-lovely
Rabies does not compel an animal to bite. I causes an animal to lose some natural fear of humans which makes them more likely to be near or approach a person. The animal itself is likely disoriented, confused or perhaps delirious (we can't tell what an animal thinks but know what happens in humans). So the animals brain is not working right, it is not experiencing its usual fear of things, and probably is quite confused and just reacts to whatever is near by biting.
sciguy52 t1_jdk5p46 wrote
Reply to comment by drunkenknight9 in What happened to the old COVID variants, like Delta? Could they come back? by number1dork
> The natural life cycle of any virus is for it to become more infectious and less dangerous to the hosts since that's the best way for the virus to survive.
This is a myth that gets repeated too often. Viruses sometimes become less deadly, sometimes more deadly. And many remained as lethal as always.
sciguy52 t1_jdk080d wrote
I am a professor and get students uploading the wrong file constantly. No porn though, but an assignment for another class you name it. I get how this happens and it is easy to do. I just notify them they uploaded the wrong file and give them a day to get the right one up. I know it is not intentional (if it was, they would not have the assignment at hand to upload, but they always did). If porn got uploaded I would probably just do the same thing, just tell them they have the wrong file etc. If they were constantly uploading porn "by mistake" that would be different.
sciguy52 t1_jdfdakq wrote
Reply to comment by CrustalTrudger in Does the metal in the solid core of a rocky planet have any special properties? by VillagerNo4
I don't know a lot about this so maybe a dumb question. Did iron make up so much of the solar nebula that we ended up with so much iron in the core? I know H and He were in most abundance but sort of assumed the next levels of abundance would be the next elements in the periodic table.
sciguy52 t1_jd5q9qf wrote
Reply to comment by Cats_and-Crochet in Has the HIV virus become less deadly? by shaun3000
So viruses need to be able to spread. If they are too deadly too quick, the infection burns out and the virus may die out with the people who died to quickly to spread it much. So take a hypothetical new virus that is 100% deadly on day three of infection and very contagious. People would die too fast to spread this around the world. So from the virus point of view, it can be deadly, but so deadly so fast to do what it wants to do which is spread itself around. Now viruses don't think of course, and if one existed like the one I made up above it would die out too quickly. So this is sort of where people started getting the incorrect belief that viruses mutate towards less lethality with time. No what happens is there is a selective pressure against a virus that is both very contagious and lethal in a short period of time. They certainly can exist, and perhaps they have in human history but they just died out before spreading too much. Now that is for a very contagious and quickly lethal virus. The virus did not mutate and become less lethal, it just didn't have the right "growth strategy" if you will that worked as far as spreading is concerned. So it may go extinct.
What if you were 100% lethal, but not for many years, say on average 8 years? Well now the lethality is not so much an issue as it allows many years for spread before it kills the person. In that scenario that selective pressure of "burning out" isn't there and it can continue to be lethal and spread around since it has time to spread. HIV is an example of that more or less. Also worth noting Over time it is certainly possible HIV could mutate to a less deadly virus but overall it has not really happened. And there really isn't a selective pressure for it to do so, but things like this can happen anyway over time, but not guaranteed.
Just as an aside, what would have happened with HIV if it happened in say 1900 before we understood viruses like this and really lacked the ability to do anything about it? It would potentially pass through a lot of the population ultimately killing those without some genetic protection that prevented lethality. But we humans have genetic diversity though, and there are some people out there with key mutations out there in one of the HIV receptors who seem resistant to HIV lethality. Over time those that had that key mutation would increasingly become more and more of the population as the others died, and the virus would become less lethal to the population due to the viruses selective pressure put on us humans. Then the virus might be able to infect some but not kill them, or not be able to infect them at all, and as a viral threat would become less and less a threat to human lives. It is thought this may have happened with other viruses throughout our long term evolutionary history. It is possible some viruses we get today that are not deadly to us may have been deadly in the long past but this selective pressure took place and the humans with some genetic resistance are the ones that survived, reproduced and make up more recent human populations. So in this scenario the virus didn't get less deadly, people essentially were selected for who did not succumb.
sciguy52 t1_jd5m30r wrote
Reply to comment by JimmiRustle in Has the HIV virus become less deadly? by shaun3000
I was an AIDS research scientist in the 80's. We had the lab we worked in without any infectious material in it (did the live virus work in another room). Anyway, one day we had a plumbing issue and the plumber did not want to come into the lab where all of us were working in. I was thinking "dude you think I would be in here if there was a risk of me getting infected?".
sciguy52 t1_ja7mypf wrote
Reply to comment by E-GREY28 in New research establishes a link between irritable bowel syndrome and mental health challenges, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation by thebelsnickle1991
These are regular anti-gas enzymes you find in walmart or whatever. Beano is one brand (expensive) but much cheaper is Equate anti-gas enzymes. NOTE: this is not simethicone. One the Equate it is Gas and Bloating Prevention and below that you will see it say Food Enzyme Dietary Supplement in smaller letters. On the back you will see this is alpha galactosidase enzyme. They have a bottle that looks very similar to the enzyme but below will say simethicone, you do not want that.
sciguy52 t1_ja71ghi wrote
Reply to comment by Amphy64 in New research establishes a link between irritable bowel syndrome and mental health challenges, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation by thebelsnickle1991
Yeah for me I worked really hard to deal with the IBS-D to get it under control and I have. Really helps avoid ultra -low mood days. Wish it cured it entirely, but sadly no. But helps me avoid the very worst of it. But on IBS-D days my mood was exceptionally baaaaaad. One of the most significant things I was able to do to make the depression better although not perfect. Don't mean to hit you with TMI but I have also noted that if I had really bad gas that caused some cramping (but no D) could also hit the mood bad. So I take anti-gas enzymes each time I eat something which works to both prevent gas and help with the IBS-D as well. It is interesting to note the inflammation aspect. When I get an IBS-D episode, not only does the mood crater even before the D starts, but I would notice sore joints and muscles too so it was sending out some inflammation signal that caused joint aches (I do not have arthritis BTW) and muscle aches. I wish i cold do special blood tests to see what sort of inflammatory mediator is being produced that causes the aches. Can't afford that level of testing to find out though.
sciguy52 t1_ja5hany wrote
Reply to comment by SlackerNinja717 in New research establishes a link between irritable bowel syndrome and mental health challenges, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation by thebelsnickle1991
So I suffer depression and have IBS-D. Whenever I would have the IBS-D flair up my mood hits a very, very low point. When I got control of the IBS-D it stopped me from hitting those really low lows. Didn't stop the depression though. It got to the point where I could tell an IBS-D flair was going to happen later in the day just based on my low mood waking up.
sciguy52 t1_ja5gwlm wrote
Reply to comment by orlin002 in New research establishes a link between irritable bowel syndrome and mental health challenges, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation by thebelsnickle1991
Look up FODMAPs and see if those foods correlate with your issues. They did for mine. Also highly recommend anti-gas enzymes which help with digestion.
sciguy52 t1_ja5gqbb wrote
Reply to comment by Mufflestv in New research establishes a link between irritable bowel syndrome and mental health challenges, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation by thebelsnickle1991
For me it was FODMAP's which also are found in wheat. So not gluten. Also found in fruits and other foods. I have found anti-gas enzymes to be helpful with these foods and digestion.
sciguy52 t1_ja5gh70 wrote
Reply to comment by Choogz in New research establishes a link between irritable bowel syndrome and mental health challenges, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation by thebelsnickle1991
Not OP but FODMAP's for me too. A lot of people think it is gluten but wheat is high in FODMAP's too. And wheat wasn't my only issue. Fruit like apples, plums, oranges would do it, all FODMAPs. One thing that is helpful is taking anti-gas enzyme. Can help a lot with the digestive issues.
sciguy52 t1_j9x5j9q wrote
Maybe a little but it will be really small. Current human yearly flu includes H1N1 which is in the vaccine. So H5N1 has an N1 in it which might allow a small amount of cross reactivity. BUT the N1 in our vaccine is not designed to target the N1 in h5N1 which will be different, probably a lot different. Think of it this way, when we have H1N1 viruses dominate a few years in a row you need a new vaccine each year AND the H1N1 variants are not hugely different from one another as the evolutionary change is small from year to year. The N1 in H5N1 is going to be a lot different comparatively. So a tiny bit of immune response is better than none, but if H5N1 turns into a very infectious virus for people with high mortality, I don't think that tiny bit of immunity is going to make much difference. There are a bunch of other bird flu's out there we also keep an eye on like H7N9, H7N7, H5N9 and more and for those we have no immunity, although H5N1 is probably the biggest near term worry due to it widespread infection in birds worldwide right now and some passage into mammals.
sciguy52 t1_j8zfauk wrote
Reply to If two people are infected with the same virus (or bacteria), do they produce the same antibody to defend themselves? If not, do some people produce more effective antibodies and why? by SupercriticalBalloon
Not identical but likely attacking similar parts of the microbe. Also keep in mind when you get infected you have a polyclonal antibody response which basically means a bunch of different antibodies attacking different antigens or spots. Collectively they will work pretty similarly but the individual antibodies are not likely to be exactly the same even when they are targeting the same spot.
sciguy52 t1_j7s5i0o wrote
Reply to comment by [deleted] in Does having autoimmune disorder (atopic disease in my mind, but also otherwise) lead to an increased risk of immune cell cancer? by MoBuckeye
Not more than anyone else for the most part. 80% of the adult population has the EBV virus inside them whether they know it (by having had mono) or not (young people can be asymptomatic. EBV related cancers are more typical for people with immune suppression of some sort like drugs associated with an organ transplant, AIDS, or drugs used to treat autoimmune disease. That is when you see a higher incidence of these EBV associated cancers.
sciguy52 t1_j6aq3wd wrote
Reply to ELI5: why can't we use electricity to kill microorganisms in small amount of water ? by FreshT3ch
The levels of electricity required to kill microbes would probably heat the water and/or cause some reactive chemicals to be produced that would kill them, not the electricity itself. Electricity will not clear muddy water. A lot of muddy materials are organic and would not be attracted to the electrodes.
sciguy52 t1_j5dhlil wrote
Reply to comment by its_ean in Fluke Discovery of Ancient Farming Technique Could Stabilize Crop Yields by Cross_examination
Yeah I had read this article thought it was interesting and read some scientific publications regarding agriculture, especially large scale. First and foremost, polyculture is not new, in fact it has been studied quite a bit. For large scale ag it results in overall lower yields. They have tried this stuff in a variety of ways and so far, it does not work best. Where it might work better is small scale subsistence farmers from which this is based. And that was not due to better yields, it was better for getting SOME crop rather than NO crop when weather was not good. A very different thing. They may well figure out a system that works for large agriculture, but so far this just results in less production. Also learned some other interesting things that conflicts with posts below as well.
sciguy52 t1_j4tihi5 wrote
CEO's: when failing at your job and getting fired only makes you richer. He should get two weeks severance not millions for failure.
sciguy52 t1_j4eyihe wrote
Reply to comment by ElkSkin in How are animals given specific types of cancer for the purpose of medical experimentation? by InZerSchtinker
It has to do with our immune systems. For example if you get a kidney transplant (and don't have an identical twin donor), the kidney will have cell markers on them that are used to recognize the tissue as "self". So the donor had a kidney with a certain set of proteins on the cells of all their tissues that their immune system can identify its own tissues as "self" and the immune cells will not attack them while in the donor's body (in a healthy person). The kidney recipient will have their own set of these proteins that do the same thing, however the donor and recipient have differences in these markers between them. Those differences cause the recipients immune system to recognize the donors kidney as not self but "foreign" so the immune system attacks. This is why we give immune suppressing drugs to transplant patients for life to stop the immune system from killing the organ. If you were lucky and had an identical twin, then these "self" markers would be identical too, and you could get a kidney from them and the immune system would not reject it and no immune suppressing drugs needed.
Instead of kidneys, lets say you injected tumor cells from the donor into a non identical twin recipient what happens? The vast majority of the times the immune system will recognize these as "not self but foreign" and immediately attack and kill them. This is why most of the time you can't exchange cancer cells with another person and give them cancer. Again, identical twins? Different situation. Their "self" markers are the same so cancer cells from one twin would not be attacked by the other twins immune system and could grow and give the recipient cancer. This simplified a bit gets the concept across.
sciguy52 t1_j4ewv87 wrote
Reply to How are animals given specific types of cancer for the purpose of medical experimentation? by InZerSchtinker
Depends on what you are trying to do. I gave a mouse line cancer by introducing a (previously unknown human oncogene) into the mouse, then waited to see if they developed cancer. A mouse line is a line of mice that are genetically identical to each other, not like mice you catch in the field which have genetic variation between them, particularly with regards to the immune system and what it recognizes as "foreign". This was a transgenic mouse, meaning we could introduce the gene into the fertilized egg, then implant it into a mom mouse, the mouse grows up, and we watch and wait. The nice thing about this is we could put a human gene in the mouse in this way and not cause immunological rejection. Had we taken human cancer cells from which this gene was derived, injected them into the same mouse type, the mouse immune system would kill those human cells. In my case, 100% of the mice that had the gene got cancer, and quite rapidly at that. That is one way. This is not a fast thing to do, may take a years to set this all up, then when you get some with the gene you need to breed them a bunch to have enough, and also keep an eye on them to check for signs of cancer. For example my experiment took 2 years from start to finish and it was that fast because the cancer gene caused cancer fast.
OK you maybe want to use mice but you need to inject human tumor cells. Like I said in normal mice they have immune systems and they will reject human cells as foreign, with the immune cells killing the human tumor cells (or human non tumor cells). You might say, but they are human tumor cells, how can that be? The cross species immune reaction is pretty strong and it will quickly kill any cells from a different species very quickly, even cancer cells. In fact injection human tumor cells into another human it is highly likely that other persons immune system would kill them too. If that other person was an identical twin? Different situation, those cancer cells may well grow (I say "may" since ethically can not do this experiment, but can do it in animals), might be a darn good chance they will grow in an identical twin. Back to the mice since we don't experiment on people, what can we do? Well we also have mice that were bred to not have immune systems. So when we inject the human cancer cells in them there is no immune cells to kill the human ones. A lot of the times (depending on what you are doing) those human tumor cells will grow, not always (reasons complex, too long to explain), but works pretty good. Now you have a mouse with human tumor cells growing in a mouse and you can do experiments.
There are other ways this can be done but these two are pretty straight forward and easier to do.
This is with a lot of simplification to keep things simple but describes some of the simpler things we can do.
sciguy52 t1_j2l0fao wrote
Reply to When pharmaceutical companies develop new prescription drugs, do they test every method of delivery to the human body? For example, injected, orally, topically, rectally, etc? by scottyboy218
No. If at all possible the oral route is preferable. Patients prefer this, easier to sell more etc. But the drug itself will determine the delivery route other wise. If the drug cannot be absorbed through the gut it may require injection. If this is not a life saving drug, say it is an antihistamine for example people are not going to be willing to take the time and expense for an injectable drug like that unless for some specific reason someone really needed it.
sciguy52 t1_j1l7nxh wrote
Reply to comment by EmbarrassedFriend693 in If big bounce happens, are we living same lives again and again? by EmbarrassedFriend693
Since this is so far into the future we can't really say with certainty what will be the end. Not a physicist but from what I can tell, heat death sounds is the one they lean to a bit more with the caveat we really don't know. Some recent big bounce theoretical papers came out and I get the feeling that physicists leaned against this for some reasons. One of the issues is we can only go by the observations we can take right now. If the contraction started a million years ago we would not be able to observe it yet as no signals would reach us for a long long time as it takes so long for light to travel the universe. So it is a theoretical paper that this might happen in the future where the data we have right now is the universe is expanding, hence heat death has more support. There is also the big rip which has some supporters. When I say supporters I don't mean they believe one or the other has the data to prove it, just extrapolating from from what we know now seems more likely provided something does not change, which could well occur. But if could be millions or billions of years before we could actually observe these changes to provide support of the big bounce. The straight technical answer is we do not know what the end is, but have some hypothesis of what it could be. Some theories have a bit of data that fits but not enough to say "this is what will happen".
The Big Bounce theory you mentioned is a cyclic universe where things have been bouncing, crunching, bouncing for an infinite about of times. Infinity is big big thing. What I said above is that if you have infinite bounces you will actually get infinite universes like our own, and infinite "you's" exactly like you are now probabilistically speaking. You would also get infinite universes that are not like ours, you would also get infinite universes like ours, but in some of them you don't suffer any anxiety at all and have lived a different life. Might sound contradictory having infinite this and infinite that but the math with infinities are weird, and you can have that. Infinite is really hard to get your head around, when things happen infinitely, things that are of such a ridiculously low probability, such as another bounced universe with the exact copy of you living a copy of your life in this universe become likely, as well and infinite number of universes that can't host life at all etc. etc.
Yes that identical copy of you in a future bounced universe would at a similar universe age (mean this age right now of 13.8 billion years and change) would be posting to reddit and is asking another guy on reddit if "Even if it happens , i won't be the guy , someone new with consciousness will think it's me?" As were the identical copies of you in the past bounces at a same aged universe asked the same question before you came into existence in this universe. In principle you have been doing this exact thing over and over in various bounces where you were identically reproduced bounced universes infinitely many times, while also in other bounced universes have lived other non anxious lives and infinite amount of times (and of course all sorts of other infinite universes with different properties that harbored no life etc.). In those universes identical to this one you are not that guy, it is another guy identical to you, lived the exact same life, thinking the exact some thoughts, but have no connection in any way with the infinite other copies. No connection mentally, or otherwise as each bounce wipes the slate clean, entirely. No evidence of those past "you's" will exist after a bounce. This of course all assumes that the bouncing universe is correct, happening infinitely and does not change like bouncing for a while then doing something else.
sciguy52 t1_jdymrrk wrote
Reply to comment by Milyardo in First Citizens Bank to purchase assets of Silicon Valley Bank by Substantial-Pass-992
And yet further up the reddit news thread it said it was going to cost $20 billion for the serfs....er I mean "the other banks" to pay for the bail out because SVB did NOT have enough assets.