Science trivia

Okay, I went ahead and looked that one up, just to bring this thread up again.

Wikipedia said:
Glial cells, commonly called neuroglia or simply glia (greek for "glue"), are non-neuronal cells that provide support and nutrition, maintain homeostasis, form myelin, and participate in signal transmission in the nervous system. In the human brain, glia are estimated to outnumber neurons by about 10 to 1.
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Which (disregarding accidents) will die first; the twin in a rocket ship, going from Earth to Alpha Centauri and back, at...say...72% of the speed of light, or the twin left on earth? (Yes I know it's easy; I'm trying to get this thing going again.)
 
..... its actually in the sextillions now but close enough:D

Hydrogen and Lithium would be my first guess because they are used in batteries.

What is the fastest jet fighter? (hint: it is no longer created)
 
you may be referring to the SR-71 "Blackbird", whose top speed is still classified. The Blackbird's massive engines would burn up so much fuel taking off that it would have to refuel almost immediately following.

Here's a picture:

sr71-1.jpg


Umm - my question - what did some ancient physicians think the brain was used for?
 
The brain was considered to be just cranial stuffing. While the heart was considered to be the seat of intelligence.


The SR-71 Blackbird is a surveilence aircraft carring on wepaons and/ or armorments. The one I was looking for was the Russian Foxbat capible of mach 3 with armorments. however its radar was not the greatest.


What planet comes before Jupiter but is main composed of Ice and rock?
 
Shadow Hawk said:
..... its actually in the sextillions now but close enough:D

Hydrogen and Lithium would be my first guess because they are used in batteries.

What is the fastest jet fighter? (hint: it is no longer created)
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Nope. It's not lithium and Hydrogen.

PrinceOfTheWest said:
you may be referring to the SR-71 "Blackbird", whose top speed is still classified. The Blackbird's massive engines would burn up so much fuel taking off that it would have to refuel almost immediately following.

Here's a picture:


Umm - my question - what did some ancient physicians think the brain was used for?
Click to expand...


They thought the Brain pumped the blood through the body, while the heart was where intelligence and thought originated.

Um...What was the first animal to be successfully cloned?
 
Well, there are several possibilities. There could by electric cars powered by supercapacitors, or hydrogen fuel-cell cars (they already have prototypes)... is that what you were looking for? Although that's not really a science question, it's more of a "popular mechanics" question.


What is the main difference between the way covalent and ionic compounds form?
 
Well, covalent molecules have equal 'pulls' on all sides, so there is no net charge, and ionic molecules have unequal pulls, so there are partial charges. (I think that summarizes it...though rather un-scientific sounding. :p)

What is the Large Hadron Collider, and when will it start working? And what's the main thing they're using it to find?
 
It's a big ol' supercollider that is in... um... Sweden, or something? I don't know when it's going to open, or what they want to find.


And actually, I meant the difference between the way covalent and ionic compounds form... (i.e. how they hold together)
 
Uh....:eek: is there a difference? Must 'ave forgotten something. * sigh *

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is in Switzerland and France, and it's seventeen miles around (!), and it should be able to find the Higgs boson, if it exists! :D *is exited*

Um... question.... question... Aha! What are alpha, beta, and gamma radiation?
 
I'm impressed you know about the LHC and Higgs Boson, Dernhelm! :eek: I thought that only interested physicist nerds like me ;)

But besides just the Higgs Boson (or any other boson which can explain why particles have mass in the standard model), there are other things. For example, a whole host of theories which predicts a phenomena of nature called supersymmetry. Among other things, supersymmetry maintains that for every lepton (electron, muon, tau particle) there is a corresponding supersymmetry lepton (or "slepton" for short) called the "selectron" "smuon" or "stau" with opposite charge and different spin and for every quark there would be a "squark" with opposite charge and different spin.

...And I know it sounds like I'm making this up, but I'm not!...

Olorin: Ionic bonds form when two ions come together (like Na+ and Cl- to make table salt) so the attraction is electromagnetic. Covalent bonds is when 2 atoms attract by sharing each other's electrons, to fill up their electon orbitals, so the effect is purely quantum-mechanical.

Dernhelm: alpha - was actually a helium atom
beta - turned out to be a positron or neutrino, I can't remember?
gamma - this type of radiation is what I'm doing my PhD thesis on! :D gamma rays are the highest energy light that we know of, greater than about 200 MeV or so. In particular, studying the gamma radiation that comes from deep sky objects tell us information about black holes and accretion disks, galaxy formation, and many other things...

Question: What is a neutron star and how did it form?
 
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