/u/amarcord's posts in /r/askscience

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Have there been cases in which drug tests on animals yielded promising results, but human trials were catastrophic (e.g. extreme toxicity, death of patients etc.) and, if yes, have we been able to pinpoint the biological difference between that species and humans that made it possible?

1170 upvotes

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What would change in the next ten years in your field of science if tomorrow computing power increased ten thousand fold?

21 upvotes

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Please disabuse me of evidently incorrect assumptions about how Chemistry works.

5 upvotes

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What does it mean exactly (but understandably) that the immune system "learns" how to fight a new type of virus? How does it do it?

4 upvotes

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How long would it take for a heavily overweight person on a hunger strike to starve to death?

1 upvotes

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If today's state of the art of all of technological/scientific knowledge was sent back in time to 1914 in book form, how quickly could mankind "catch up" with all the new knowledge? What barriers to rapid adoption would there be?

1 upvotes

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If we as mankind had never discovered oil, could we have bootstrapped ourselves from the coal age to the modern world as we know it today skipping oil altogether? If not, what bottlenecks would have prevented this?

1 upvotes

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A few days ago an allegedly qualified physicist entertained me with strange theories about atmospheric generation of electricity, per the experiments of Hermann Plauson (and the patents he filed) in the 1920's. Why is this impossible – or is it?

1 upvotes

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Title	Upvotes	Mark as read	Favorited	Rating	Add to a list
Have there been cases in which drug tests on animals yielded promising results, but human trials were catastrophic (e.g. extreme toxicity, death of patients etc.) and, if yes, have we been able to pinpoint the biological difference between that species and humans that made it possible?	1170
What would change in the next ten years in your field of science if tomorrow computing power increased ten thousand fold?	21
Please disabuse me of evidently incorrect assumptions about how Chemistry works.	5
What does it mean exactly (but understandably) that the immune system "learns" how to fight a new type of virus? How does it do it?	4
How long would it take for a heavily overweight person on a hunger strike to starve to death?	1
If today's state of the art of all of technological/scientific knowledge was sent back in time to 1914 in book form, how quickly could mankind "catch up" with all the new knowledge? What barriers to rapid adoption would there be?	1
If we as mankind had never discovered oil, could we have bootstrapped ourselves from the coal age to the modern world as we know it today skipping oil altogether? If not, what bottlenecks would have prevented this?	1
A few days ago an allegedly qualified physicist entertained me with strange theories about atmospheric generation of electricity, per the experiments of Hermann Plauson (and the patents he filed) in the 1920's. Why is this impossible – or is it?	1