askscience

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Broadly speaking, due to the nature of DNA, if microbes on mars, an asteroid, or elsewhere were found to be DNA based, would the likely conclusion be that we are related, or that DNA was developed independently?	538
Is there an "upper limit" on organism size in earth's state (oxygen levels, gravitational strength, etc). Could an organism larger than the blue whale exist within those parameters, or does the blue whale reach some efficiency ceiling?	30
Do deep sea and deep earth organisms operate with comparable sleep/wake cycles to their sunlit counterparts? How much of sleep as a biological phenomenon is a product of the day/night cycle vs some kind of innateness?	16
What about Gödel's incompleteness theorems are so groundbreaking? Wasn't the idea that math and science are based on unprovable axioms around since Descartes?	13
If the populations of, say, France and the Congo switched locations, given several thousand years, would their appearances reverse?	6
If earth did not provide a near perfect vantage point for observing total solar eclipses, is it likely we would know about the Corona of stars?	5
If we used current methods for finding and analyzing exoplanets on our own solar system, what would we be able to discern about Mars, Venus, etc from light years away?	2
If I add several dozen kilowatt-hours of energy to an object, its mass will increase, but where previously it was, say, 2 micrograms, 1 of iron, 1 of titanium, now it is 3 micrograms, with the 3rd being...	1
What exactly is going on, psychologically, among those that practice self-harm?	1
Do other primates benefit from eating cooked food? What determines if it is a positive change to a species' diet?	1

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