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Is it possible to receive an electric shock when you *stop* touching something?

I seem to remember as a young child being told that it is safe to touch a Van de Graff generator (for the hair demonstration), but that if you let go before it is safe you will get a nasty shock. I know a bit more about electricity now, and I'm a little skeptical now. Is it possible to get a shock from letting go of something?

Could death by starvation be delayed by drinking your own blood?

Let's say you are dying of starvation. You pull one of your teeth out, causing blood to slowly seep into your mouth, which you swallow. The calories from the blood getting digested will delay the time you die of starvation, right? Or will losing blood while starving kill you faster?

What mechanism is the source for Earth's Nitrogen?

I recall an explanation of the formation of Jovian moons on the Harvard Smithsonian "CfA Colloquium" YT channel that casually mentioned how various elements freeze out of the solar wind forming ices, and this is the mechanism that allows formation of moons with large amounts of water and elements that are not found in larger...

25 years of massive fusion energy experiment data open on the 'cloud' and available to everyone ( phys.org )

High-temperature fusion plasma experiments conducted in the Large Helical Device (LHD) of the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), have renewed the world record for an acquired data amount, 0.92 terabytes (TB) per experiment, in February 2022, by using a full range of state-of-the-art plasma diagnostic devices....

Atapuerca – human cannibalism 1 million years ago: what is known about the evolution of human morality over time into the near current era?

I just watched the recent video from Stephen Milo on human life 1 million years ago. He mentions cannibalism evidence across multiple events. That has me thinking about morality in isolated groups and how it might have evolved or could evolve differently....

What's the equivalent of physics constants for social studies?

In physics, it's common to develop a formula and then stick a constant to explain the unknown. For example, Newton's theory of gravity uses the gravitational constant G on the formula F = G * m_1 * m_2 / r^2, later on Einstein gave a more accurate explanation with the theory of relativity which does not rely on a constant E = m...

What is the best medium for transmitting sound?

I know that sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum, you can hear it muddled in water, and different temperatures of air transmit better. But which is the “best”. Let’s say you had a speaker and a microphone in an enclosed case filled with whatever you wanted, which would be the best medium to ensure the best sound...

Why are the graphs for the distribution of light from the Sun as a function of (a) frequency and (b) wavelength not exactly reversed? ( www.wtamu.edu )

I thought that the frequency of light was directly inverse to the wavelength by a constant. In other words, I assumed that graphing the frequency of light as a function of wavelength would be a straight inverse line. Because of that, the graphs for the distribution of light from the sun as functions of frequency and wavelength...

What part of sunlight causes algae to grow?

I’ve been trying different searches but everything I find just says “sunlight”. Since sunlight consists of multiple parts such as UV, Infrared and the normal visible spectrum, I’m curious which part is actually responsible for photosynthesis to occur? On that note, depending on what part of the light, would it still grow...

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