Recent comments in /f/askscience

hogey74 t1_j9cz7tn wrote

Reply to Is COVID unique in the way it affects different individuals in such different ways? by stupidrobots

This trait isn't unique and your understanding of how that list of diseases "seem" isn't realistic. Rabies is the only one with a pretty universal outcome: it's basically 100 percent deadly once it's got a decent foothold in you. The others on your list have a wide spread of outcomes and experiences. The flu kills about 150 people per 100,000 infections. By comparison covid has been killing between 100 and 5,000 per 100,000 infections. Some people with the flu shrug it off, others are permanently injured by it's effects or are killed.

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caribbeachbum t1_j9cw4jc wrote

Reply to Are some people immune to HIV? by Lass_OM

CCR5∆32 -- if you have this mutation on both sides of your family, you are fully immune; if only one side, you are mostly immune. It's not common, but there is a case of a German man who was cured of AIDS after receiving a bone marrow transplant from someone who was heterozygotic for the mutation.

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tra_da_truf t1_j9cuh4v wrote

Reply to Is COVID unique in the way it affects different individuals in such different ways? by stupidrobots

Covid gave me a fever and some snot.

I had strep about two months ago. Severely inflamed throat, loss of voice, severe headaches for days, glands and ears/throat swollen to the point that it cracked a tooth (which was a whole other nightmare) and I still have strep rash 2 months later. Antibiotics did nothing.

I really don’t know what the difference is in how things effect different people. Interesting for sure.

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AChristianAnarchist t1_j9crnai wrote

Reply to Why are we not acidic? by stronkreddituser

Well, you are focusing on the "acid" part of amino acid, rather than the "amino" part. The term amino acid comes from the fact that the backbone is made up of an amino group (normally basic) and a carboxyl group (normally acidic). However, none of that really matters at the end of the day since the vast majority of an amino acids properties derive from their side chains, not their backbone.

Side chains are what make the 20 amino acids different from eachother. Some are basic, some are acidic, some are polar, others nonpolar. While we don't fully understand the process, these properties are what allow a shape to be derived from an amino acid sequence. The particular properties of the side chains control what they are attracted and repelled by, which, in turn, determines how they fold in vivo. So a given protein is made up of basic and acidic bits, all folded up onto one another to produce a new molecule with its own emergent properties, which may, itself, be acidic or basic.

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wynntari t1_j9crmu0 wrote

Reply to comment by Hapankaali in How many colors can bioluminescence make? by Aximi1l

I think it would be reasonable to group colours by the categories a language uses to group them.

English, for example, has categories like "red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, grey, black"

Colours would fall into one of these categories and two different colours that fall into the same category would be considered "the same colour" for the purpose of this discussion.

There will always be colours in-between categories that are hard to categorize.

What wavelengths can bioluminescence produce?
And which combinations of wavelengths can be produced together by biological processes?

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