Science desk
< February 16	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 18 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 17

Did anytime NASA or any space agency save Earth from major calamity?

Did anytime NASA or any space agency save Earth from major calamity? Like diverting mountain-sized comet etc. Rizosome (talk) 16:17, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Only in movies. --T*U (talk) 18:09, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, they have not, but they may be very likely in the process of causing one. --Jayron 32 19:43, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That particular Internet meme calamity was not caused by NASA. That meme is caused by the Internet echo chamber of know-it-alls learning their physics from Sandra Bullock in that thing. 85.76.97.34 (talk) 16:08, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Or from Ken MacLeod in The Sky Road, or … —Tamfang (talk) 01:25, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No Janes were ever harmed by NASA. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:11, 18 February 2022 (UTC) [reply]

I'd argue their work on climate change is helping to moderate, if not avert one. Fgf10 (talk) 00:14, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I got the answer from this line: Only in movies. Rizosome (talk) 15:02, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

NASA's Nimbus 7 satellite discovered the ozone hole. That discovery led to action which prevented major calamity. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 21:42, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The USGS and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) predicted the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which helped to convince 60,000 people to evacuate to safer ground. The volcanologists were likely aided by many working professionals in the space science community as there is some overlap in the space and Earth sciences, particularly when it comes to remote sensing. Viriditas (talk) 22:20, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

human detecting when mobile phone is about to ring

Please ignore any hypothetical medical aspects to this question (I know about that policy, and will ask a Dr if it becomes an issue). The question is intended as purely about detecting electromagnetism biologically.

Yesterday evening I was resting in bed, not really asleep, when I had a sudden feeling of panic (something like an electric shock in my chest) that lasted about 1 second, enough to bolt awake. A second or two later, my cell phone rang. I'm aware of LED gizmos that flash when your phone is about to ring, due to some kind of change in the electromagnetic environment when the tower connects to the phone (I guess the phone's transmitter powers up). So I'm wondering whether I did a similar detection biophysically somehow.

Any thoughts about this? A quick web search didn't find anything. I don't remember noticing this effect if my phone rings while I'm awake. Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA (talk) 23:11, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Certain birds and fishes can perceive electric / magnetic fields: see bioelectromagnetics, perception and behavioral effects of electromagnetic fields, and electroperception. While evidence in humans is scarce, especially in air medium and at radio frequencies, it is conceivable that perhaps something rare and undiscovered may be present in some individuals. Another explanation could be happenstance. How often do you feel panic or something similar during evenings? How often do you get phone calls during that time? Perhaps they simply happened together. GeorgiaDC (talk) 04:00, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence in humans is scarce, but not non-existent. For example, it appears that humans are sensitive enough to sense changes in Earth's magnetic field. Sensing when a phone is going to ring is very different of course and very susceptible to confirmation bias. Matt Deres (talk) 13:56, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Beyond GeorgiaDC's explanation that this might be something you are regularly experiencing that you happened to attach to the phone ringing, another far more mundane (and therefore IMO likely) explanation is that your phone was already doing something before you detected it ringing. Many smart phones will turn on the screen maybe a second or two before they have an audible ring, if your phone was within your line of sight, you might have noticed this. Phones can of course also affect other things notably speakers so if your phone was near a speaker that was playing music, you might have heard this. Alternatively it's possible it had an audible ring before you became aware of it. Either way in your sleepy state you misinterpreted the surprise from whatever your phone did or cause as a physical sensation, and probably also misinterpreted the time between the surprise and your phone ringing. Edit: line of sight may be indirect especially in a darkened room since the brightness of the phone may light up the ceiling or whatever even if the phone is completely out of even your peripheral vision.) Nil Einne (talk) 10:26, 18 February 2022 (UTC) 11:55, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A third possibility is that you had been dreaming, and the phone woke you up, and that in the fraction of a second that this happened, your brain concocted a story to explain this, involving an apparent electric shock apparently happening before the phone rang. Note that sense of time in dreams is screwy: I've had "long" dreams, that seamlessly incorporated the event that woke me from that dream, in a way that is unlikely to be possible unless the whole dream actually occurred and was triggered by the thing that woke me. Also note that its possible to start dreaming before you fall asleep, and to continue dreaming after you wake up: see Hypnagogia and Hypnopompic. Iapetus (talk) 10:39, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised nobody linked yet to our article about electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

Short version: some people complain of headaches (and other symptoms) which they attribute to the presence of electromagnetic fields nearby. A considerable number of scientific studies have been done on the subject (along the lines of: turn on and off a transmitter at random, ask the subjects if the transmitter is on or off, see if they do better than random chance). The conclusion of those studies is pretty clear: the symptoms are due to the nocebo effect rather than actual physiological sensitivity.

Presumably, if a patient in those studies could reliably feel an "electric shock through the chest" whenever the transmitter was turned on, they would have scored very high on detection ability, and we would have heard of them by now. Maybe OP is just much better at detecting EM fields than all of the participants in electrosensitivity studies, but the explanations above seem more plausible. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 14:36, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And also Synchronicity. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.130.191 (talk) 11:55, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This phenomenon of predicting an event before it occurs may also be a neurological phenomenon where the brain interprets the sequence of events out of order. I remember reading a paper about it a long time ago. Similarly, we know the brain experiences natural distortion of perception due to trauma, most notably during a car accident, where many people will report time slowing down. This is also related to perceptual distortions such as flow and peak experiences, as well as non-dualism. It may also be the case that the perception of cause and effect may seem reversed due to the brain getting confused, similar to something like synesthesia. Viriditas (talk) 22:39, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An acquaintance of mine is very sensitive to electrical appliances. When she turns on eg the kettle, toaster, bedside lamp, the fuse in the plug or circuit breaker sometimes blows. Subjectively, this happens much more frequently than might be expected. More specifically, she gets an uncomfortable "buzzing feeling" in her head when she walks directly under a failed coil-type energy-saving lightbulb when the switch is turned on. MinorProphet (talk) 20:03, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This reminds me of Better Call Saul. Viriditas (talk) 08:54, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]