r/askscience 9h ago

Biology What are the Neurological Processes that Allow Us to Visualize Colors in Our Heads?

5 Upvotes

This is mind blowing to me. I always thought that we see colors with our eyes and thats how our brain works.

But if you visualize something in your head, like a fully detailed apple, you can see and change the color of the object in your imagination.

How does the brain store color information?


r/askscience 20h ago

Medicine How long does an elevation of white blood cells persist after an infection?

61 Upvotes

Do they return to normal levels relatively quickly or can they persist for a time?


r/askscience 1d ago

Astronomy Are galaxies spherical or flat?

50 Upvotes

Are galaxies spherical or flat?

For example, (I understand that up and down don't really matter, so bear with me) if we look at a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy on a plane... If you want to move from one arm of the galaxy to the next, could you just move UP and out of the current arm and then over and DOWN to a different arm?

Secondary question for if the first one is correct, if you are able to move "up" and out of the arm, where are you? Is that interstellar space too?


r/askscience 1d ago

Biology Are elephant cells the same size as humans? Also, are elephants more likely to develop cancer?

825 Upvotes

I thought about the tumor issue because, for example, elephants are bigger than humans and therefore have more proliferating cells and therefore more likely to undergo a mutation, I don't know if my reasoning works


r/askscience 1d ago

Paleontology Did non-avian dinosaurs have syrinxes?

25 Upvotes

r/askscience 1d ago

Physics For every inch taller you are or for each extra pound you weigh how many atoms do have more?

1 Upvotes

r/askscience 2d ago

Planetary Sci. What does a global resurfacing event look like?

24 Upvotes

I am aware of hypotheses that suggest that Venus underwent some kind of global resurfacing event that would have wiped away evidence of older craters. However, I cannot seem to find a description of what this would have actually looked like? Was it just a whole bunch of volcanoes all going off at once? Did parts of the crust literally break off and sink into the mantle? Or is it something else I'm not thinking of?


r/askscience 2d ago

Physics If two astronauts were suspended in the middle of a room in zero G, would they be able to propel each other in outward directions or would they remain stationary?

125 Upvotes

My 14 year old niece and I were discussing this topic and we both came to different conclusions, but we’re really curious as to what would happen here. I hope my question makes sense. In summary, would the astronauts go flying apart or would they stay in the same spot? Excited to know the answer from some experts!


r/askscience 3d ago

Physics Why is it the Doppler shift frequency that counts when calculating the Nyquist limit?

1 Upvotes

I seem to have a basic grasp of pulsed wave Doppler imaging: small packets of ultrasound energy are transmitted than there is time for the returning echo - the length determines the PRF, usually in the kHz frequency.

I don't seem to understand though how exactly sampling of the returning echo happens. Let's say I transmit a 1 Mhz frequency US burst and the Doppler shifted returning echo is 1,1 MHz so I have a shift frequency of 100 Khz. Isn't the transducer just able to detect the returning 1,1 MHz echo and calculate a velocity from the shift frequency? Why do I have to sample the returning 1,1 MHz signal with a PRF of at least 200 kHz?

I get the idea that you need to sample a sinusoid wave at least two times per cycle to accurately depict it but I don't get why the shift frequency is determinant here and not the frequency of the returning echo itself. Aren't we sampling the returning echo frequency and then calculating the shift frequency from that value?

Is it a very basic principle that I'm overlooking?


r/askscience 3d ago

Biology How does too much of a vitamin cause toxicity in the body?

245 Upvotes

r/askscience 3d ago

Ask Anything Wednesday - Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science

88 Upvotes

Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science

Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".

Asking Questions:

Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions. The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.

Answering Questions:

Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.

If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here.

Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here. Ask away!