Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2021 June 12

= June 12 =

Chemistry questions.
1. Combination reactions can be exothermic or endothermic, but are more often exothermic. Decompositions reacts are therefore mostly endothermic. What is the pattern for combination reactions that are exothermic, and endothermic?

2. When magnesium sulfate is placed in water, temperature of water rises, and when ammonium nitrate is put in water, temperature of water gets cold. Is there a pattern for this? And these I believe are not considered to be decomposition reactions, they are simply "placing in water" reactions because the opposite would be "taking them out of water" reactions which is not combination reactions. But I believe the answers have something to do with hydrogen bonds and hydration. I heard it is more easily to predict by looking at the cation-end. And if you criss-cross these 2, meaning magnesium nitrate and ammonium sulfate, then putting them in water is more of a neutral change in temperature yes. Thanks. 67.165.185.178 (talk) 07:51, 12 June 2021 (UTC).
 * Your second paragraph shows some confusion, so I will take a few steps back to the basics.
 * Atoms "want" to have around them a number of electrons that fits properly the outer atomic orbital (in many cases, this means the same number of electrons as the closest noble gas). This can be achieved by taking or giving away electrons from other atoms, but the resulting ion has an electric charge, and will therefore "stay close" to other ions so that the resulting ionic compound is net neutral. The introduction of our article ionic bonding is well-written and worth a read. Another way is to share two electrons more or less equally between two atoms (a covalent bond).
 * Breaking a bond (covalent or ionic) costs energy, while making one yields some. (The article is bond energy but it is rather poor.) Hence, in a chemical reaction, the "combining" is exothermic and the "breaking" is endothermic. (This is why many reactions require an initial "push" to start, to overcome the activation energy.) However, breaking a covalent bond usually creates highly unstable stuff which will immediately recombine, so (most?) macroscopic reactions involve some breaking and some combining. There is no real way to tell whether they are exo- or endothermic, apart from taking the bond energies from a handbook and computing the balance. (Also, I make it sound like dissociation energies can be computed as the sum of bond energies, but in reality there are non-local effects - for instance, the dissocation energies of E-Z isomers is not always the same.)
 * "Placing in water" ionic compounds (such as magnesium sulfate or ammonium nitrate) causes a dissolution reaction. Depending on the size of the chunk of solid you toss in, you might think nothing is dissolved, but some of it is (up to the solubility limit and subject to how quick the reaction occurs). The equation of such a reaction (for instance →+) makes it look like there is only breaking going on, no bond forming, and hence it should be endothermic. However, the trick is that the starting compound is in solid phase, while the resulting ions are in aqueous phase, which means solvation should be taken into account. In the case of water, this usually means hydrogen bonds, indeed.
 * How many hydrogen bonds form for a given ion and the energy of those is not a trivial thing to assess. This Quora answer claims that dissolving an anhydrous salt is usuall more exothermic than dissolving a hydrate, and I find the reasoning fairly persuasive, but I have no reference to back it up. Tigraan Click here for my talk page ("private" contact) 10:01, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, solvation. I'm looking at the solubility rules, and both nitrate and sulfate are both soluble. Nitrates are generally soluble, and, for sulfates, most sulfate salts are soluble, important exceptions to this rule include CaSO4, BaSO4, PbSO4, Ag2SO4 and SrSO4. Given that both were soluble, I find it odd 1 is still exo and 1 endo. 67.165.185.178 (talk) 14:25, 14 June 2021 (UTC).
 * The above user admits to evading a ref desk ban. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:43, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * No, they don't. 1 year from May 2020 is May 2021, and it is currently June 2021. They are not evading an active ban. You've already been told this, so please drop the false ban-evasion accusation. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 16:46, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You're right. He posted on June 10th and spoke about it in the present tense. Fooled me. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:45, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

stem cell from living humen
How do biologists extract stem cells from human hair? For example, to grow fresh skin?--178.10.6.170 (talk) 10:51, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure they are not collected from hair. I also don't think we've gotten to regrowing skin yet, that would be major news. Typically adult stem cells needed for a particular use to be gathered from the same or similar organ or tissue type. Bone marrow, or other tissue samples are taken with a Jamshidi needle or other biopsy tool, and then, it seems, plated on a dish and encouraged to divide with hormones. Those cells that show lots of divisions and look undifferentiated are then gently collected and put in a cell culture flask which is kept moving on an agitator. Abductive  (reasoning) 11:40, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
 * You are both right and wrong. Stem cells per se aren't collected from hair. However cells from hair follicles are routinely collected to make iPSCs, which are arguably a form of stem cells (this terminology is a pet peeve of mine, I won't bore anyone with details), and these can indeed form skin or indeed pretty much anything else. They have in fact been grown from my own hair follicles. This seems to be what the OP is talking about. Fgf10 (talk) 08:05, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
 * We have an article at Stem-cell therapy that explains the sources and procedures in its section on sources_for_stem_cells. Matt Deres (talk) 12:41, 12 June 2021 (UTC)