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April 20

Getting rid of double chin's fat

If you go on a diet + exercise program and start to loose weight, will the fat of a double chin go away? Or is it some more resilient fat deposit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.169.181.129 (talk) 00:02, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Each person's body characteristics are unique. No general statements can be made except if you go on a properly supervised diet and exercise program, and lose weight, you will have more positive health outcomes in many aspects of your life. However, as to what such a diet will do to specific body parts and their shapes and sizes; there is no way to make a general statement, everyone is different. In other words, you shouldn't stop exercising and start eating junk food all day merely because your double chin doesn't go away... --Jayron32 00:10, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Probably, yes. Excess fat under the chin is normally associated with obesity. However, flabby skin may remain, which can be just as bad. StuRat (talk) 00:24, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

A science question concerning light years

I have wondered about the following question for a while, and I haven't been able to figure i out. Can you please help?

Television signals are radio waves which travel at the speed of light. The first commercial TV broadcasts began about 1950. How far have these radio waves travelled in light years?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.222.179.213 (talk) 01:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's been 61 years, so those signals would have traveled 61 light years.. Mind you, they weren't designed to be beamed into space, neither in direction or power. So even if theoretically there is any signal left 61 light years away, it would almost certainly be completely undetectable above the "noise". Especially considering the power of the signal follows the inverse square law. Vespine (talk) 01:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You may enjoy this informative XKCD image that illustrates the answer to your question (~61 light years) with its placement of 'expanding shell of radio transmissions' [1](note the logarithmic scale). SemanticMantis (talk) 02:00, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

"if there is any signal left..." I would expect that the signal did not cease to exist as it travelled 61 light years. "..it would almost certainly be undetectable above the noise.." That depends on the antenna array used by hypothetical extraterrestrials. How many dishes of what size located how far apart would be required? Edison (talk) 14:03, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe 20 years ago I read a science fiction novel where a strange electromagnetic signal being received on earth was translated to be images of Hitler opening the 1936 Olympic Games. Those Games were transmitted by television to 20 or so locations around Germany. So it's not a new idea, and the distance would now be 75 light years. HiLo48 (talk) 02:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You're thinking of Contact, a 1985 novel by Carl Sagan. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:00, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Thank you. HiLo48 (talk) 03:09, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Spy camera-type hardware to use as ocular implants for the blind - Why do I never hear of them?

See, this spy camera is nearly the size of our eyes. (There are some smaller models like this one, which appears small enough to fit in a child's eye socket.) If components are small enough to all fit into something that can fit into one's eye sockets, why do I not hear of the blind receiving these implants to help them see again? --98.190.13.3 (talk) 03:49, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Because we can't yet interface the camera with the visual cortex. Shoving a camera into someone's skull does nothing if the brain can't interpret the signals as "vision." A lot of research is focusing on this issue, and there are lots of very clever schemes being investigated, but we aren't quite there yet. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:58, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

But this and this would seem to be steps in the direction you're asking about. HiLo48 (talk) 04:01, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Definitely. Very clever schemes. Unclear which will be the one(s) that will end up being most successful in the long run. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we had some very good bionic eyes in the next two decades. But my understanding is that most of them are still too expensive, and too crude, for much practical use at this point. Making a camera is of course trivial; making that camera interface with the brain is not. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Would a rail gun give recoil?

I understand relatively how a rail gun works; it uses a magnetic field to accelerate a projectile, if I'm not mistaken.

I'm writing a short story, and I would like to ask those more educated than myself: Would a shoulder mounted rail gun give recoil?

I'm not entirely sure how Newtons law's would affect the situation involving magnets. I await your answers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.91.44.187 (talk) 05:28, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

If an object is leaving the gun, the gun must recoil with the same momentum that the object leaving the gun has, but in the opposite direction. The source of the force accelerating the leaving object, whether it is exploding gunpowder or a magnetic field, is irrelevent. --Jayron32 05:31, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much, this definitely answers my question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.91.44.187 (talk) 05:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Jayron32 has answered your question using the principle of conservation of linear momentum. You might find an answer expressed using Newton's third law of motion to be simpler. Newton's third law can be explained as Forces always occur in pairs. If object A exerts a force F on object B, then object B exerts the same force F on object A but it is in the opposite direction. In the case of the rail gun, if the gun exerts a force F on the projectile then, simultaneously, the projectile exerts the same force F on the gun but in the opposite direction. So the same force F is applied simultaneously to both bodies but that doesn't mean they have the same acceleration. The small projectile is given a high acceleration and quickly achieves very high speed. The gun with its greater mass is given a smaller acceleration and achieves only a small speed before being stopped by the surrounding structure. Dolphin (t) 05:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

If a cannon fired a 1 kg projectile at 500 meters/second, the recoil should be somewhat greater than if a rail gun fired a projectile of the same mass and velocity, since the conventional cannon would also expel the gases and unburned particles of the gunpowder charge. Edison (talk) 13:58, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I suppose you could design a recoilless railgun that propelled a counterweight in the opposite direction to the projectile. Make the counterweight more massive than the projectile so that it has a lower acceleration and lower top speed. Let the counterweight eject itself from the back of the railgun. Either retrieve the counterweight after each firing and reuse, or maybe load with two-part shells so each projectile has its own counterweight. Dibs on the patent. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

The impulse would be lower. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.92.32.38 (talk) 19:31, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

As it says in the article on Newton's Laws, the Third Law does not apply when electromagnetic fields are considered (the field can carry off momentum). So it is possible to build a recoil-less rail gun, there being no mechanical recoil, the reaction being carried off by an EM field Robinh (talk) 23:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

If you want to carry momentum away from the gun, you need a radiant EM field, i.e. an electromagnetic wave. If you're talking about accelerating a bullet, the EM wave coming out the back of the gun would be very intense. I daresay that the EM wave might be more destructive than the bullet. --Srleffler (talk) 17:47, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's crunch some numbers. A photon's momentum is its energy divided by the speed of light (see photon). So, the energy released as EM would need to be equal to the momentum of the projectile times the speed of light. Our article, railgun, mentions a US Navy device that accelerates a 3.4kg projectile to 2.4 km/s. That means the energy release by EM would need to be 3.4*2,400*300,000,000 J = 2.4 terajoules. Orders of magnitude (energy) says that's just under the orbital energy of the Mir space station. The Mir space station got that energy from a rocket engine burning for a period of about a minute (ish - I don't really know the length of the rocket burn, and you need to remove a bit due to atmospheric and gravity drag, but that's not important). The rail gun would need to emit that energy almost instantly. So, in conclusion, I agree with Srleffler that the EM would do more damage than the projectile (unless it was able to dissipate prior to hitting anything and was at a frequency that isn't absorbed by air, I suppose). --Tango (talk) 18:07, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

If there was not salt in oceans

what was happened if there was not salt in ocean water?--78.38.28.3 (talk) 09:55, 20 April 2011 (UTC)a.mohammadzade

All living things would be radically different. Life evolved in the context of water containing a certain combination of electrolytes, which are now are an integral part of biology as we know it. See cells, cell membrane, cell potential, electrochemical gradient, membrane transport and action potential just as a start. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 10:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Your skin would become all wrinkly when you swam in it. --Aspro (talk) 10:17, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Absurd "if." Salt is in oceans because salt (NaCl) exists, and water dissolves it. To have no salt in oceans would require the amazing position of saying that water can not come in contact with salt. Fresh water exists because water in clouds has essentialy no salt in it - fresh water in aquifers is "old rain". And, yes, some aquifers are brine (having salt in them). Collect (talk) 11:15, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

It's a hypothetical situation. Dauto (talk) 13:58, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course it is, but you can't give a sensible answer to this kind of hypothetical question without considering why the thing you've changed is different. You can't just change the salinity of the oceans in isolation. You need to make sure your new world is still consistent with the laws of physics. If you throw physics out the window, you have nothing to work with and can't get any answers at all. --Tango (talk) 18:32, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, I thought there wasn't much salt in the oceans when they formed on Earth. Count Iblis (talk) 17:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

A different way of approaching the question is could life have evolved on Earth without the elements Sodium and Chlorine being present? Exxolon (talk) 17:34, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Many organisms (not explicitly adapted to be salt tolerant) actually prefer to keep their intracellular environment lower in sodium and higher in potassium than we observe in the modern oceans. Those preferences have been used to suggest that the last universal common ancestor may have developed under conditions with appreciably less sodium and perhaps more potassium than we observe in the modern oceans. (Though on the other hand, the common ancestor may simply have realized that exporting sodium and importing potassium was a good way to live.) Dragons flight (talk) 21:02, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I think all life died and all of oceans became waste water in less than one month.--78.38.28.3 (talk) 03:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

THE best way of transferring water up to top of the hill

what is THE best way for transferring water up to top of the hill?--78.38.28.3 (talk) 09:55, 20 April 2011 (UTC)a.mohammadzade

I don't understand your use of the word "mentions". Maybe if you posted here in your native language, we can get someone to translate it to English for us and give you a meaningful answer? --TammyMoet (talk) 10:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

"بهترین روش برای انتقال آب به بالای کوه کدام است " —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.38.28.3 (talk) 03:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC) چند وقت پیش یک سیستم در نظر داشتم ایجاد کنم که اب را در ارتفاع پایین به بخار تبدیل می کند و در بالادست (بالای کوه یا ارتفاعات )دوباره به اب تبدیل می کند این سیستم همان شیوه ای است که خداوند در طبیعت قرار داده سیتمی که اب اقیانوسها را به بالای قله 8800متری اورست می فرستد نه پمپی در کار است ونه لوله کشی .به نظر بنده بهترین روش و ارزان ترین روش انتقال آب این است"--78.38.28.3 (talk) 03:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

the best way may be which the nature does , vaporation in down , and devaporation on top ,without pomping and pipes .--78.38.28.3 (talk) 03:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Google Translate, which isn't perfect, say's that's Persian for "The best way to transport water to the top of a mountain which is" (sic), so in proper English the question is presumably "What is the best way to transport water to the top of a mountain?". Red Act (talk) 03:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

THANK YOU VERY WELL >THOSE ARE MY MEANING. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.38.28.3 (talk) 03:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC) It was for my spelling "mountain" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.38.28.3 (talk) 03:25, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

We have these articles, that may help: fa:چرخه آب (Water cycle), and pump (fa:پمپ). Generally, we try to engineer a water distribution system that doesn't require sending water up hill. In the middle-east, elaborate systems called fa:کاریز or قناة in Arabic - (Qanat, for the English-speakers) is sort of like a man-made artesian well (fa:چاه آرتزین). When it is unavoidable, and we must send water up-hill, we usually use large electric pumps. We have diagrams of many types of water pumps at our article. The largest types of pump I am aware of are radial piston pump, though I am not a water utility specialist.

Near to where I live, we have a reservoir called Hetch Hetchy, which is unfortunately on the opposite side of a mountain from where most people live. You can see photos of the gigantic pipes that were built to carry water over the Sierras and eventually all the way to the greater San Francisco region. I've driven past this particular vista-point many times, and often wondered how they make the water flow up-hill; I still don't know if it's ultimately a gravity pump (i.e., the reservoir is higher than the final destination, so the water is simply siphoned over this hill), or if energy needs to be added via electric pump to make this particular climb. (It's on CA 120 near Old Priest Grade Road and Moccasin Reservoir, if anyone knows what I'm talking about). You can't miss it, if you're driving to Yosemite. I'd wager that it's one of the steepest up-hill aqueducts in the United States. Nimur (talk) 04:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Since you're from Persia, you might also be interested in an ingenious way the Persians employed to cool their buildings, thereby moving water from a qanat: Windcatcher, in Farsi: بادگیر. — Sebastian 07:32, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

For an older (and in my humble opinion, more elegant) approach, see Archimedes' screw. --Rixxin (talk) 09:13, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Using an aquaduct is an old solution to crossing a valley. 92.24.189.51 (talk) 10:17, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

you have good ideas and very informations about my nation , and our last irrigation systems , cooling buildings and our way of refrigerating food in underground .THANK YOU--78.38.28.3 (talk) 11:05, 21 April 2011 (UTC) last iranians was prefer to find upper code for water flow to their farm or garden , and had not pomp,to upgrade level of water code--78.38.28.3 (talk) 11:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand the word "kode" here. If the problem is a lack of electricity at the site, then solar and/or windmill energy might be the best way to power the pumps. Placing those at the top of the hill would probably provide for the best results, especially in the case of a windmill. Note, however, that these will provide a rather intermittent flow of water. If this is just for irrigation, that may be acceptable. However, if you also need a supply of water available at the top at all times, then a tank or pond of some type is needed at the top. Also, if the hill is high, it might make sense to use a series of pumps which each pump to a tank a bit higher up, rather than one huge pump at the bottom. Sump pumps have floats and only turn on when there is water to pump, so those might be the best choice here. StuRat (talk) 17:26, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Rat population dynamics

There was a public health expert on the radio yesterday discussing the public health consequences of an ongoing strike by sanitation workers. He said that if the trash piles up uncollected for more than about 3 weeks the city will have a dramatic increase in rat numbers. He went on to explain that three weeks of plentiful food is all it takes for the rat population growth rate to reach a "tipping point" where a previously stable population in equilibrium with its limited food supply suddenly adjusts to its new increased food supply. I'd like to understand the population dynamics at work. Is it a case of increased fertility or is a decreased mortality the main factor. What makes "about three weeks" be a critical period? The city under discussion is Johannesburg in South Africa - a large metropolitan city with a population of several million people (and who knows how many rats). Roger (talk) 08:50, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Brown_rat#Reproduction_and_life_cycle--Aspro (talk) 10:22, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't explain the mechanism of a population explosion. Do litter sizes directly increase in response to improved nutrition? If so, how long does it take to occur? Rats that are already pregnant on day 1 of the sanitation strike can't contribute to such an increase. Surely a sustained period of plentiful food would be required to increase fertility - I can't see how for example a single good meal could cause "superovulation".

Does decreased mortality play a role? My "gut" says that lower mortality would take considerably longer than three weeks to greatly influence total population size. I supose what I'm really after is a statistical demographic analysis of a rat popultation explosion in response to increased food supply.

I remember seeing a documentary - I think on Nat Geo TV - about the rat population explosions in parts of India that occur in response to bamboo forest coming into seed at the same time, iirc, every 40 or so years. That process took substantially longer than simply the gestation period of the rats - in fact it took several "generations" for the population to "explode". Roger (talk) 10:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that too. I recall that not only did a higher percentage of baby rats survive, there were also more born per litter and less time between litters at the peak. Then, when the food supply disappeared, the rats started starving and would eat anything they could find. One interesting effect is that it doesn't actually seem to be in the interest of the species to do this population explosion followed by starvation, but it is in the individual interest of each rat to have as high of a percentage of their genes in the surviving rats as possible. Seems like their are some lessons about human overpopulation in there. As far as a "tipping point" goes, there may be a certain amount of time and excess calories needed for the rats to switch to higher fertility mode. StuRat (talk) 23:47, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Rates live in a rate race. Young rats have very high mortality ratios that favour older rats. With a plentiful food supply most young rats can survive and so the population starts to exploded. As the increase is counted on a generation bases – it takes a minimum of three weeks to make this assertion. That section seems to make this clear to me. Maybe your trying to read too much into it.--Aspro (talk) 13:15, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Mice and rats are actually well known for eating their young. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the "tipping point" is that once the rats are old enough, reducing their food supply means that they come into your house looking for any scrap, rather than being peacefully eaten by their mothers. Wnt (talk) 17:26, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Notoungulata

Hi!

In the Notoungulata article it is mentioned that these animals lived also in Asia (there is a map as well). What is the explanation of this, as South America was not connected with other continents in the time of Notoungulata (57 mya)?92.84.196.241 (talk) 10:24, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Go back to the "Notoungulata" article and under "taxonomy" click on "convergent lines" It's all very well explained.Phalcor (talk) 14:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Those from Asia, are not real notoungulates, but notoungulat like creatures? 92.86.240.138 (talk) 14:13, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

No, Phalcor, you misread the article. Notoungulates in South America evolved (via convergent evolution) to fill many of the niches other mammals filed on other continents. But it's not the case that Notoungulates evolved twice (or thrice, given the two disjoint areas in South America). One explanation for the disjointness of areas is that fossilization is a rare event. We may not have any fossils from some areas where Notoungulates lived. I have, however, no idea if there ever was a land connection from Asia to South America during the last 57My. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Our article on notoungulata is actually out of date, I believe -- or rather, the map is out of date. The putative Asian members consist of Arctostylopida, which were once thought to be notoungulates but are now classified differently. It would clearly be impossible to have a monophyletic group of land mammals from Asia and South America starting 57 million years ago (as our article says), because South America had already been separated for around 40 million years by that time. Looie496 (talk) 16:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) Googling on the subject, some authorities have evidently suggested that the Notoungulates originally evolved in East Asia (as mentioned here) but there seems to be some debate (as here) about whether the sub-orders or families in Asia (and those in North America) that have previously been classified within the Order Notoungulata are truly members or not. The ancestry of Notoungulata also seems less than certain. it would be interesting to know how those who endorsed the Order's monophyly explained their distribution. As in all science, everything is open to revision in the light of new evidence or improved analyses. In short, the OP may well be right. {The poster formerly known as 87.81,230.195) 90.197.66.111 (talk) 17:18, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, as my response above indicates, the OP is absolutely right. I have just taken a shot at fixing the Notoungulata article to give a more up-to-date picture. I can't fix the map, unfortunately. Looie496 (talk) 17:37, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the answers! 109.96.200.104 (talk) 06:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I removed an absurd bit of math in the lede to that article, which said that, since they existed from 57 million years ago to 11,000 years ago, they were around for 56,989,000 years. This reminds me of this funny dialog:

KID: "Hey mister, how old is that dinosaur ?"

GUARD: "200,000,007 years old."

KID: "How do you know so exactly ?"

GUARD: "Simple, it was 200,000,000 old when I started working here, seven years ago." StuRat (talk) 18:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Hollow plant stems

What are hollow plant stems like those from dandelion good for? 95.112.153.119 (talk) 12:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Hollow structures can provide stability without additional mass; for example many birds have hollow bones, which provide strength, but are also light enough for the bird to fly (see Bird_anatomy#Skeletal_system. In the case of dandelions, the hollow stem may allow faster production (i.e. less resources needed to produce) while still providing the strength and function that a stem is supposed to provide. It should also noted that some cousins of dandelion (like Catsear) do not have hollow stems, so its likely one of those multitude of traits which is "optional". --Jayron32 14:36, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

The hollow stems are also good for amusing young children et. al.. If you take a 6 - 8 length of dandelion stem, the thicker the better, squeeze the bottom half inch and separate the two halves so that the two sides separate into two outward curving 'reeds' then place the 'reed' end inside the mouth and blow gently. Once you have acheived a 'note' then with hands cupped around the open end and some tongue trilling, you're away. The summer evenings will fly by! Richard Avery (talk) 15:41, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Isn't the white sap poisonous? --TammyMoet (talk) 19:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Not that I know of. Dandelions are quite edible, and parts of them, or their close relatives, find their way into all sorts of recipes. I've had dandelion greens in a salad often enough, and being a cousin of chicory, dandelion root makes a decent ersatz coffee substitute. The flowers (pre-puffball stage) are perfectly edible and are often used to make wine. I've never heard that the sap was particularly toxic; if it were it would make all of the other parts toxic as well, which they clearly are not. --Jayron32 20:06, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

As child I was told the sap was toxic (which it really isn't). I think this is a common myth at some places. Likewise, any unknown berries were called "birds berries" and declared poisonous. 95.112.153.119 (talk) 20:17, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I remember being told that dandelion sap was poisonous. I wonder where the idea came from, and if there are any unpleasant chemicals in the sap. Dbfirs 22:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I was told it was poisonous but I do remember that it is quite bitter and not very pleasant tasting. Vespine (talk) 23:03, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I was never told (or didn't bother to listen to those trying to tell me) it was poisonous, and discovered the same thing. It tastes crap. HiLo48 (talk) 23:48, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I also prefer beefsteaks, French fries and chocolates. I put the dandelions in vinegar (in a jar that previously contained gherkins. Yes, yes, I reuse nearly everything) and eat it in quantities like mustard. (Oh, I see, I have different customs with mustard, too. So that is 3-5 tablespoons per dish.) I hope the vinegar also releases the minerals from phytic acid. 93.132.132.156 (talk) 00:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The sap is interesting because it's latex. I sometimes wonder about its potential for craft activities (but it's probably easier to go out and buy a big bottle of latex than harvest several hundred dandelions).  Card Zero  (talk) 10:44, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

As a child, I was told it would make me wet the bed if I ate it, hence the alternative (and French-equivalent) name piss-a-bed. I now fail to see a mechanism by which this could be true, and I've never known anyone to experience it. I did discover, as a child, that the sap stains your skin, and so can be used to give yourself temporary tattoos. This is also how I know eating the sap doesn't make you piss. 82.24.248.137 (talk) 22:07, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

It is said to be (without mentioning any mechanism) to be a diuretic, which is simply another word for "it will make you piss". 93.132.132.156 (talk) 22:36, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes (I deliberately stuck to the terms used in the folk-name), but being a diuretic isn't as specific as making you urinate while asleep, or even making you urinate at all: it just fills your bladder quicker. And, given children pretty commonly get the stuff on their hands and end up eating it, we can clearly see that any effect it has is much less dramatic than the folk tradition has it. And it certainly doesn't involve any sleep-triggered weeing (which was the ridiculous claim). 82.24.248.137 (talk) 22:11, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Smell of salt

When I pour salt into boiling water, there is a characteristic smell of salt. I thought that this may be due to small droplets which are created as the ascending vapor bubbles reach the surface transporting the salt, or just by the flow of air and vapor which may transport very small salt grains, but the smell is also there when I heat water that has been salted when it was cold, long before it boils. This leads me to the question: What is the vapor pressure of sodium chloride at e.g. 80 degrees Celsius? The sodium chloride vapor pressure (or the vapor pressure of the Na⁺ or Cl^- ions for that matter) shouldn't be higher above the solution than above solid sodium chloride, it wouldn't be soluble (up to 356 g/l or more, depending on temperature, a concentration that I certainly didn't reach) otherwise. Icek (talk) 12:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

It's a common misconception that something has to strictly be a gas for you to smell it. It merely needs a mode to get into your nose. It's quite possible that very small salt crystals could become airborne, as you say transporting "very small salt grains", or in the case of a solution very tiny droplets of salty water could become airborne which can transport the salt to your nose. These sorts of macromolecular mixtures of particles are called Colloids, and a description of various types can be found at Colloid#Classification_of_colloids. There are lots of ways for salt to get to your nose, either in solid or solution form, which do not require detectable amounts of "NaCl" gas, which do not exist at all under normal household conditions. According to this MSDS, sodium chloride has a vapor pressure of 1 torr at 865C, which likely means it is immeasurably small at merely 80C. --Jayron32 16:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, if this is iodized salt, is it possible you are smelling the iodine (which has a very strong odor) ? StuRat (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Iodized salt contains no iodine anymore than regular salt contains chlorine. Iodized salt contains iodide or iodate which has many more differences from iodine than the mere change in spelling. Yes, elemental iodine contains a very distinct odor, but you don't find elemental iodine in iodized salt. --Jayron32 23:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Iodized salt contains no iodine ? Since both iodide and iodate contain iodine, that means the iodized salt does too. And salt contains chlorine by the same logic. Now, if you mean it doesn't contain elemental iodine and chlorine, then OK, but you need to say it that way. StuRat (talk) 09:55, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, iodized salt certainly tastes different, and I believe I can smell the difference, too. StuRat (talk) 00:13, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Iodized salt contains either the I^1- ion or the IO₃^1- ion. Both of those ions will have a different taste than the chloride ion in normal salt; as well the counterion for introducing the iodide and iodate ions is often potassium, which will introduce its own taste. Additionally, the mechanism by which you "smell" pure sodium chloride is the same for smelling "iodized" salt. When you think of volatile iodine, that is elemental iodine, that is I₂, which is not I^1- or IO₃^1-. Iodide and iodate have no vapor, and so do not have a strong smell (unless they get into your nose as already described above). Iodine (I₂) is highly volatile and has a distinct smell. There is no I₂ in iodized table salt. What you are doing is confusing the properties of very different substances with similar names. --Jayron32 00:53, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Edible plant parts

I can't find an article about that. Worse, there are many articles that try to cover it. When I look at the plant in my garden, I get hungry and start to wonder what can be eaten. I somewhere heard that all parts of rosaceae are edible. Is that true? What about hazel leaves and catkins? Sorry if this looks near to trolling. 95.112.153.119 (talk) 13:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it doesn't look like trolling, it does look like an honest question, which I will endeavor to honestly answer. The term for an "edible plant part" is a Vegetable. However, there are no general rules for which plants, or which parts of which plants, are automatically edible. Take cashews for example: The seed itself is edible, but surounded by a shell and a fruit which is pretty toxic. Contrawise, the apple has a very edible fruit whose seeds contain cyanide, which is toxic (see Apple seed oil). Then you have stuff like pokeweed, which is toxic in raw form, and edible when cooked properly. Your best solution to deciding what to eat is to first research the specific plant in question. --Jayron32 14:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

It is certainly not true that all parts of rosaceae are edible. The family includes many fruit trees, whose wood is obviously not edible. Looie496 (talk) 16:31, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

This depends on what exactly is meant by "edible". Pearwood is surely not chewable, but neither is raw sweet corn. Salad, in contrast, is chewable, but contains nearly nothing to nourish you. So aside from the normal use of the word, I would not exclude that some woods are "edible", in some sense. 95.112.153.119 (talk) 17:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

"Salad....contains nearly nothing to nourish you". No, its packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants etc. There is much more to food than mere calories. Datrk leaf vegetables such as cabbage are better for you than lettuce, but lettuce is still good. 92.15.24.113 (talk) 21:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that's a myth. It's mostly indigestible cellulose and water. (See Green Salad: "Due to their low caloric density, green salads are a common diet food.") The tiny amount of minerals is largely indigestible, too, as it is bound to phytic acid and for vitamins there are richer sources elsewhere. 95.112.153.119 (talk) 22:01, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Compare the nutrition tables from dandelion with lettuce, OK dandelion leaves if prepared are also called "salad", but so is potato salad. 95.112.153.119 (talk) 22:37, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Both lettuce and dandelions are packed with nutrition, and luckily have few calories. The dandelion table simply includes more nutrients than the lettuce table does. Neither of the tables include antioxidants etc. I agree that eating a lettuce is not quite as good as darker-leaved vegetables, but its still good. Something very important is that eating veg and fruit fills you up and thus avoids you eating high-calorie junk food. If you were starving then yes, a Big Mac would be more nutritious for you than a plate of salad, but few people reading this are going to be starving - most will be overweight and consuming too many calories than is good for them, particularly in North America. OP, I'm willing to bet that you are not underweight. 92.28.253.8 (talk) 10:05, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually I was slightly underweight during childhood and adolescence. Now I am in my late forties and gaining some additional weight. I bet you are not underweight, despite your mainstream healthfood? If your stomach is trained to do work, it will start to work even if you don't need food. This is what most people in the western world think of as hunger. If you don't need food, the simplest thing to do then is to ignore the feeling and your colleagues' strange looks for the sound of a rumbling belly. 95.112.196.91 (talk) 12:24, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's why you should eat lots of fruit and veg: http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages/Why5ADAY.aspx Persionally, I also think that since we evolved eating plenty of fruit and veg, it is wise to continue to do so for optimum health. 92.15.5.152 (talk) 20:34, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Some salads are nutritious, others aren't. A garden salad is high in fiber, vitamin A and vitamin C, and has a bit of iron and calcium, too: [2]. Adding some meat (or nuts or beans) to the salad provides for protein, too: [3]. Croutons add starch. Egg adds cholesterol. Then salad dressings add fat and sugar. So, a salad can be a full meal: [4]. StuRat (talk) 18:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Vegetable is the key word and I really don't know why it didn't come to my mind. Thus I fond List_of_vegetables and List_of_plants_with_edible_leaves. Nevertehless, it looks kind of futile trying to list *all* edible parts in one or two articles. Wouldn't it be better to have some box in each plant article stating the edible parts? (The way it is done with main properties of chemical elements). 95.112.153.119 (talk) 17:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, you'd have to define "edible". Just about anything that doesn't kill you (at least, kill you mostly instantly) and which can end up in your digestive system somehow is considered "edible" by some culture. And even much of the stuff that kills you, people have found ways to render it less toxic (see the aforementioned pokeweed). --Jayron32 20:01, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

In the context of this question I think of "edible" as "non-toxic when eaten raw in quantities reasonable for other kind of food" 95.112.153.119 (talk) 20:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Note that means you're counting things like cassava and probably cashew nuts as inedible Nil Einne (talk) 23:09, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

(Second try, somehow the first answer didn't get through) Yes, in the context of this question, cassava and a lot more things would not be considered edible (if not further processed). But I make this restriction only to not further complicate the original question. Any answers the like of " beans are poisonous if raw but edible if properly cooked" are highly welcome. 93.132.132.156 (talk) 00:58, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

For safety sake it's also important to bear in mind that many toxic plants are easily mistaken for non toxic plants. There can be a problem with accurate identification. So if you feel a desire to eat plants from your garden (the gatherer instinct) it might be a good idea to plant seeds or plants that are known to be safe to eat.190.56.14.28 (talk) 21:28, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

My garden behaves in a quite autonomous way. Everything I deliberately plant will almost surely not grow. Full grown trees, weeds and the roof tiles from the little house are among the few things the slugs don't eat. That is why I'm putting it the other way round and start from what I find there. 95.112.153.119 (talk) 22:17, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

All gardens behave in an autonomous way unless they are controlled. plants that are commonly eaten by humans have been selected and developed over countless generations for good reasons. If a plant is not eaten by local organisms, there is virtually always a good reason for that too. Those reasons would include considerations like unpalatability, indigestability, toxicity, thorns, tough husks etc. Sufficient botanical knowledge for safe eating would have to be a lot more extensive than "how to grow a vegetable garden" and there's a wealth of information about that.190.56.14.125 (talk) 23:13, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

And then you face the challenge of countries like mine, Australia. An Aboriginal culture thrived here for 40,000 years, on a plant collection almost entirely different from that known to the rest of the world. Unfortunately much of that culture and knowledge base about what was good to eat and how to prepare it was destroyed before we bothered to learn it. So there's still plenty of good food there. We just need to (re)discover it. HiLo48 (talk) 23:43, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

So you perfectly understand my purpose, only that the reason why the knowledge was lost (or never existed) is different. 93.132.132.156 (talk) 23:56, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) What I already harvested are dandelion leaves, blackberry leaves (intended for making tea) and ground elder (not really my taste but abundant). I could not find out if hazel leaves and catkins are edible. The shrubs have to be cut anyway and I am too big a niggard to grant anything to the slugs that could otherwise be used. Petals from wild roses are to show up soon, and I think the can be eaten or dried for tea, too. Young raspberry sprouts are really, really full of little thorns, especially near the ground and thus ward off the slugs. Ivy is clearly not for food. Common grasses are probably not toxic, but as I am not a ruminant I can't take profit from eating. There is some kind of juniper shrub but I am not certain if I can use the berries safely as spice. There are lots of unidentified "herbs" but ion total not enough to bother if they are edible or not. 93.132.132.156 (talk) 23:56, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Elder berries are great for making a delicious rich red wine.190.56.18.243 (talk) 02:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Richard Mabey wrote Food for Free, which gives details of edible wild plants in Britain. Since that book was written, it is now known that nettles have tiny calcium structures in them that damage kidneys and bladders, so only the young green tops should be eaten. 92.28.253.8 (talk) 10:10, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Human kindness

So, in this article there's a reference to an OECD study which among other things tried to report "kindness" by country which includes things like volunteering, helping strangers, etc. However, this is self-reported, so people may be lying. I seem to recall reading about an actual study where people pretended to be injured on the street in different countries and tracked the response time and rate from general populace. Can someone help me find this or any other study that's not based on self-reporting? --216.239.45.4 (talk) 16:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Desmond Morris did such studies as part of (I think) his TV series The Human Animal though he may simply have been replicating earlier studies. Our article links to videos of the episodes. I'm sure I've read that book, but I don't recall offhand whether this was in it. Matt Deres (talk) 19:56, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I would be interested to see how efforts to get objective measures of this would be designed. It's obvious that in every society you get some very caring, sharing people, and some selfish bastards. (That's a simple Australian expression whose meaning should be pretty clear.) But the societies would also differ in so many other ways too. How to isolate the sought after variable is the challenge here. HiLo48 (talk) 23:38, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

The stuff that Morris presented was very basic stuff. Essentially they had someone lay down on the ground, apparently unconscious and they timed how long it was until someone stopped to help. IIRC, the two instances they showed on the video were one from a small Mediterranean village and one from a large city (New York or London or something). In the small village, help was offered almost instantly - the first person to see the "casualty" knelt down to check on him; in the big city, the casualty was simply stepped over. Morris wasn't attempting to examine whether different nationalities or ethnicities were more or less helpful, however, he was pointing out that people in large cities are forced to shield themselves from the crowd to the point where normal human compassion is over-ridden.In smaller communities, people can interact with virtually everyone in some kind of meaningful way (know their name, etc.) while in large cities being that open would be completely overwhelming, if not impossible. In response, people "fence off" the masses around them to the point where they almost don't identify them as being human (or at least worthy of human interaction). Matt Deres (talk) 01:23, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

What an interesting question for the science desk! It's not easy to come up with truly objective and culturally independent ways to measure this. Some ideas off the top of my head:

1. Act as a beggar, and divide the money collected by the average income. (To remain true to the spirit of the givers, the researchers should pass the collected money to a charitable cause.) Problems with that: (a) In countries with a good social net, people will feel less need to give to a beggar. (b) You would need several beggars per measured region to neutralize variations in gender or age preferences.
2. Inquire in lost-and-found offices how many items are collected per year.
3. One value for which good data exist is income equality; I'm wondering if that can be used for this purpose; I can imagine a correlation to kindness, at least in a free country. — Sebastian 07:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Given that many people in a wide variety of cultures, perhaps all cultures to some extent, place what is essentially a karmic value of one form or another on actions that an observer may identify as kindness, I think distinguishing between unconditional kindness (altruism) and kindness as a cultural virtue, a form of reciprocal altruism (even if the benefit is expected to come much later such as in an afterlife etc), might be difficult even if you asked each person why they did what they did. I guess many people may not know exactly why they did what they did. "Kindness" seems like a difficult thing to measure. Sean.hoyland - talk 11:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(OP here) I think I don't care if it's cultural or pure altruism. It certainly wouldn't matter much to a person who needs this sort of help. I also don't care if one can't measure "kindness" in general, but only a specific element of it, such as willingness to help strangers which is not nearly as vague. 216.239.45.4 (talk) 16:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

This American Scientist article from 2003 may interest you then. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's exactly the sort of thing I wanted. --216.239.45.4 (talk) 19:31, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

pvc

does pvc yellow from light or only abs — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kci357 (talk • contribs) 21:37, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that needs a bit of elaboration/clarification before it's likely to get an answer. You need to expand the seeming abbreviations of "pvc" and "abs", and clarify whether you mean "yellow" as a verb (meaning gain a yellowish colouring). It's not really clear at this stage. HiLo48 (talk) 02:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The question is about polyvinyl chloride and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.

My girlfriend has lots of PVC dog agility equipment that's been kept outdoors in the sunlight for in some cases over a decade, and so far at least it hasn't yellowed at all that I can tell. Red Act (talk) 02:55, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

There are different grades of PVC some will yellow, some won't. If you want to be sure get CPVC or check that they PVC you are buying is rated for UV exposure. I don't know about ABS, but I imagine it's similar. Ariel. (talk) 04:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

April 21

Venus

If people don't start protecting the environment from greenhouse gases, will Earth become like Venus (9 MPa CO2 atmosphere, 850 F surface temperature, sulfuric acid rainstorms, etc.)? --75.40.204.106 (talk) 02:07, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Unlikely. For one thing, Earth's living systems are surprisingly resiliant, and are quite able to alter the atmospheric composition in dramatic ways. Don't get me wrong, humans impact on the environment, to change it from the world we know, into something far less friendly for us to live in, is a serious deal. We stand in real danger of making the world a less hospitible place for humans, and doing real harm on a timescale which is quite long on human measurements, but short on the Geologic timescale. Lets say we screw up the environment for the next 10,000 years. That's like 500 generations on a human timescale, and longer than there has been evidence of human civilization. It seems like a serious issue, and it is for us. However, 10,000 years is a minor blip on a geologic timescale. Consider that life on earth has existed for something like 2,000,000,000 years, and that 10,000 years seems insignificant to the Earth. And it is. The "earth" will recover, ultimately, from whatever we do to it. The question becomes, for me, if we will be around to enjoy it at that time... --Jayron32 02:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Was Venus like Earth a long time ago until its life destroyed the environment? --75.40.204.106 (talk) 02:17, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

No, quite the contrary, there has never been life on Venus. Indeed, pre-life Earth used to look a lot more like Venus; the introduction of life drastically changed Earth's atmosphere in some very big ways. See Great Oxygenation Event where the atmosphere of the Earth changed drasticly. --Jayron32 02:56, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

According to Oxford Professor Fred Taylor, "In the light of the new data [from Venus Express] it is possible to construct a scenario in which the climates on Venus and Earth were very similar when they started out, and then evolved to the state we see now, like twins separated at birth. Billions of years ago there is even the possibility that Venus would have been habitable." Clarityfiend (talk) 03:01, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Venus is significantly closer to the sun than is the Earth. (The average distance from the Earth to the sun is about 40% greater than the average distance from Venus to the sun.) The greater intensity of solar radiation on Venus has always represented a significant difference between the two planets and shows they could never have provided similar environments for living things, nor will they ever be similar. Dolphin (t) 03:02, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I can accept a similarity between Earth and Venus a long time in the past, but "habitable" does not equal "had life". I'm not saying you or your source said that. But it must be made clear that there's nothing there to indicate that there ever has been life on Venus. I could have married Jennifer Lopez. Doesn't mean it happened... --Jayron32 03:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Hummmn. Got thing for J Lo huh?190.56.105.52 (talk) 04:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

People seem to disregard the fact that evolutionary processes are influenced by feedback-loops. So is climate evolution - an increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide will, through a chain of cause and effect, alter our rate of CO2 output.

For instance, assume that the only source of CO2 is industry. A drastic change in atmospheric CO2%, will eventually alter and reallocate sociological and economical priorities, including industrial sectors. As global industry shuts down a number of sectors, atmospheric CO2% decreases. Given a chance, the climate will heal itself and reajust to a new equilibrium. In short, alteration of the climate will automatically affect our ability to alter it.

I'm not argueing against global wariming, infact, I believe that at present the collective effort to change climate altering habits is insuffient to prevent the progress of global warming. Assuming that the effort remains unchanged into the future, then civilaisation will collapse, we will be forced to change our habits as it would no longer be energetically favourable to continue carbon dioxide producing technologies. Over time, global warming will naturally reverse, albeit slowly, as it is reabsorbed by ecogenesis and other minor processes.

Venus atained its current climate without the benefit of a negative feed-back loop, it actually suffered from a positive feedback loop. Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:47, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Jayron, I don't think we can really make a statement like "there has never been life on Venus". In fact, I don't think that we can state with authority that it isn't there now. APL (talk) 14:00, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I can't state with authority that I even exist. There's no definitive proof that Wikipedia itself is not a halucination that you are having as a result of being administered powerful mind altering chemicals placed in your tapwater supply by the CIA, and that this entire conversation isn't happening inside of your own deluded mind as you are actually, right now, lying on the floor in your living room drooling on yourself. Can you prove THAT to not be true?

Back to the life on Venus issue: Its the positive assertion that requires evidence to prove it, not the negative one. We don't assume every utterance a human could make to be true by default, and then require others to disprove it. I could make any number of rediculous assertations (Clouds used to be made of cotton candy, but they arent anymore!, Elvis Presley didn't die, he had plastic surgery and became George H. W. Bush! Grilled Cheese sandwiches cause pregnancy!), and there's no requirement that we give them any possibility of being true. You seem to be taking the stance that "any nondisproven idea must be at least considered to be possibly true". That's not necessarily the case, since I can present any number of statements that have not been disproven (to any arbitrary standard of proof I wish to demand) and then demand that you accept them as possibly true, no matter how rediculous they may be. A scientist has presented data that there may have been conditions on Venus, in the past, which may have been similar to conditions under which life on Earth is known to have existed. We can entertain that idea (we are not required to accept it as absolutely true, but we can entertain it) because the assertion is at least backed up with data. However, there is no need to entertain wild speculations that have zero data to back them up, for example, that there was actually life on Venus. Yes, you can say "you don't KNOW there was no life on Venus." But there's no need to prove the negative; the lack of any evidence is enough so far. Since you are making the positive assertion (there may have been life on Venus), you need to supply the evidence to make it. See Argument from ignorance, which is exactly the fallacy you are committing here. --Jayron32 15:34, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

You made a very definite assertion. I'm saying that it was almost completely unevidenced. It's not like you're saying "Many people have observed the Loch Ness, but no one has every produced evidence of a monster. It's safe to say that there is no monster." You're saying "No one has ever even been to Scotland, but we've got a dozen very low-res photographs, so There is no monster.". The first is a scientific statement, the second is not. You can't bluntly say that something doesn't exist because no one has produced evidence, if we haven't looked for that evidence! At that point you have to say that it's unknown.

Confusing the line between "Science is never 100% certain of anything." and "This particular thing is completely unknown" just gives fuel to the creationists and other anti-science types. APL (talk) 16:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. As for the possibility of life on Venus now, if life can exist near hydrothermal vents at the bottom of our oceans, at extreme temperatures and pressures, then maybe it can on Venus too. Yes, the acidic environment of Venus is also harmful to life, but then so is free oxygen, yet life on Earth evolved to not only survive that, be to take advantage of it. And Venus does have a very reactive environment, with lots of energy available, which would promote both the creation of life and it's evolution. I have no problem imagining something similar to bacteria living on Venus. It may or may not exist, and I will make no definitive statement either way until I see some proof. StuRat (talk) 17:46, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Here is what I remember having heard about venus. It is nearer to the sun and thus receives more solar energy than earth does. At times of the faint young sun this would have helped venus not to turn into a snowball. Venus is less massive than earth and I read somewhere (not on wikipedia, can't find it again now) that any planets less massive than earth cannot hold hydrogen by gravity. If so, venus, like mars, was bound to dry completely sooner or later. Venus does not have plate tectonics the way earth does. This way the exchange between the atmosphere and ground is limited. CO₂ would not be as dynamically released or bound geochemically like on earth. I think it was somewhere on wikipedia where I have read that the whole of the venus' surface was submerged in one single event. If so, there is no hope of ever finding any traces of life that may or may not have existed. 93.132.132.156 (talk) 22:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I found part of the information here Geology of Venus#Global resurfacing event 93.132.132.156 (talk) 22:26, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Bosch reaction

Is it endothermic or exothermic? --75.40.204.106 (talk) 02:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia article Bosch reaction it is exothermic. You could check yourself with the data at Standard enthalpy change of formation (data table). --Jayron32 02:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

What would Earth be like if it was 82% more wonderful?

It's great that you're being creative and imaginative, but this isn't the correct place for it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I have collapsed this discussion. This is the science reference desk. On this page, we seek to improve the quality of our encyclopedia by helping people find scientific references. If you want help finding internet discussion forums or other outlets for your creative energies, you might find better answers on the Humanities or Miscellaneous desks. Nimur (talk) 04:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC) When people think of environments much better than those found on Earth, they invariably talk of Heaven and its variants, which are INCOMPARABLY better. Earth is amazing, wonderful, astonishing, charming, exciting and deep, but the world to which I refer is 82% more enhanced in all of these properties. What would such an Earth, one that is better but not incomparably better to the one we know be like? The immediate objection to this question will be that it is not “scientific” because the properties of “amazing, astonishing…etc” are subjective descriptions. This is so, but subjective evaluations can be quantified and measured by psychometric means. We don’t need to do that here; for the time being a respondent can estimate what features such a planet might have that would render it 82% more wonderful in every way to the one we live in. Not 100%, or 200%, but 82% - it is important that the last figure be the one under consideration, although respondents to this query might wish to compare their 82% ideal with what would be the case if the figure were much higher. For myself, I believe the following would be a reality in such an Earth: 1. There would be four sexes, male, female, devotrain and andila. Everyone would be male or female but also be either devotrain or andilian. A devotrainian male could make love to an andilian male without being homosexual. There would be an another entirely different kind of eroticism which would run parallel with the one we know. Human navels would become powerfully erotic organs which, when joined with another’s, would emanate fibres that would extend through the other’s body. When the moment of devotrainian or andilian orgams occurred, it would be felt from head to toe. 2. Humans would have eyes which, when properly trained upon the night sky for half an hour or so, can see the cosmos as clearly as the Hubble Telescope does now. Indeed, humans will be able to see in the infra red and unlta violet, and the brain will be hard wired to see two extra colours. 3. People will be able to glide for considerable distances, and death by falling will no longer occur. To fly like a bird, however, would require an Earth 128% better than the one we have. 4. There will be creatures like vast air ships, 10 times larger than the biggest whale, which will be tame and carry thousands of passengers across the seas in great comfort, requiring only some food and love. 5. The Earth will be 34% larger, but correspondingly less dense so that gravity is largely unaffected. There will be two extra continents. 6. We will share the planet with another species equal to our own in intelligence, and with whom we can communicate. 7. During the night when we sleep, we will be able to join in a universal dream in which all sleeping people of good will can partake, involving vast on-going dramas ranging from passionate love to intense adventure. Can you provide some more background for this world? Myles325a (talk) 02:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC) Wait, you've invented a fantasy world and now you want us to provide you with more information about it? The world is in your head. You can give it all the background information you want. The reference desks aren't really an appropriate place to try to write a crowdsourced science fiction novel. Do you have a specific factual question we can help you find answers to in Wikipedia articles? --Jayron32 02:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC) Op myles325a back live. Sigh...sigh...I DID say, above "The immediate objection to this question will be that it is not “scientific” because the properties of “amazing, astonishing…etc” are subjective descriptions. This is so, but subjective evaluations can be quantified and measured by psychometric means. We don’t need to do that here...". And so you go ahead and make exactly the same objection I had already tried to pre-empt. You very well might not agree with this pre-emption, but you could have at least acknowledged that I made it. A couple of other points. One: These questions are not just for people who can't use the Search function in WP. And two: It's not just IN my head. You are assuming that. The reality is more complicated. Myles325a (talk) 03:13, 21 April 2011 (UTC) You may be interested in Leibniz's 'Theodicy', which argues that we live in the best possible world (and hence it cannot be made 82% more wonderful). Or you may be interested in Voltaire's Candide, which was influenced by Leibniz's work, and largely ridicules this notion. SemanticMantis (talk) 03:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC) And no doubt this world has 82 percent more giant purple mushrooms.190.56.105.52 (talk) 04:01, 21 April 2011 (UTC) You realize you've basically described the movie Avatar right? Ariel. (talk) 04:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC) No ariel .I don't think Pandora had any giant air ship creatures that carried people across the seas in great comfort.190.56.105.52 (talk) 04:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC) OP myles325a back live. Thanks. You have ensured that everyone will want to see what has been censored by you, Nimur, just as surely as they will touch the wood where a sign says "wet paint". But I ask of these potential respondents. Please don't. Don't look at this question. It's just..not something you should see. I have conformed to the wishes of my betters. The question is now posed in the Humanities Board. Myles325a (talk) 05:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Kindle 1 reflective scrolling — how does it work?

The first-generation Amazon Kindle has a visually fascinating way to select on-screen options. Above a scroll wheel is a long vertical grayish-white line which looks plastic or rubber. But as you turn the wheel, portions of this line suddenly become reflective, like a mirror — you can actually see (part of) yourself in it. The location of the reflective part tells you which line on the screen you'll select if you push the wheel down.

It looks like magic; even having owned this thing for a couple hours, I still can't wrap my mind around it. What exactly is it made of? How can something instantly go from "mirror" to solid gray/white? (To clarify, the line seems to respond to the computer input of the Kindle — it doesn't do anything if the Kindle is off, and larger or smaller portions of it become reflective based on the size of what is being selected.) ± Lenoxus (" *** ") 03:10, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

How is that any more "magical" than the rest of the screen where white turns into black (and shades of gray)?

I think the question is how the "mirror" works. (Normal pixels can't "mirror" -- presumably the e-ink allows for the use of reflective coloration, but I don't really know.) --Mr.98 (talk) 16:20, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not e-ink. The "Cursor Bar" is not part of the main screen. It's a separate display next to the main screen that updates quickly like a normal LCD.

Except instead black/clear like a normal cheap LCD, the cells turn mirrored when they're on and clear when they're not on.

I have also wondered what kind of technology this is, and why they don't make digital watches with it. APL (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

[5] suggests it's as simple as an LCD with a mirror backing instead of a backlight. Nil Einne (talk) 17:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

That sounds plausible to me. It would make sense for a device that has no backlight — you'll need to have it in light of some sort anyway, so a mirror backing is a clever way to deal with the LCD lighting issue (like an old microscope). --Mr.98 (talk) 18:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses! I guess I'd never put much thought to exactly how a normal Liquid crystal display works either; it's pretty fascinating too. In reply to APL above, I would guess that a watch (or similar device, such as a calculator) which used "mirror" instead of black would be rather difficult to read. On the Kindle, you can simply tell that "stuff's there" on the LCD line; more detailed information would likely become difficult to parse, if it were mirror on gray. Although perhaps not mirror on black, come to think of it. I wonder why Amazon didn't go with that instead… ± Lenoxus (" *** ") 23:53, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

unknown herb

Hi, does anyone know the name of this herb: http://img816.imageshack.us/i/photo1jd.jpg/ 84.228.108.151 (talk) 11:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps some variety of thyme? Note the the variety of thyme foliage, e.g. [6]. Aside from visual ID, you can taste / smell a few crushed leaves, and compare to any known herbs you may have in your kitchen. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:02, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks more like a variety of mint to me. --ColinFine (talk) 16:13, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Hard to tell from the picture, but mint (or something in the same family like basil or catnip) will have stems with square cross sections. That said, it looks very much like the pot of marjoram I have. (Marjoram smells something like a cross between thyme and oregano.) - Actually, following links tell me that thyme, marjoram, and oregano are also included in Lamiaceae, the mint family. Checking the pot, marjoram does indeed have a square stem cross section (only noticeable on the larger stems). -- 174.31.219.218 (talk) 16:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Glow discharge creation

Whats the best way of creating a glow discharge betweem 2 parallel wires, and would it be better if one or both of the wires had a circular cross section?--92.29.203.164 (talk) 11:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Besides the article you cited, see also Geissler tube and Neon sign. A glass vessel filled with low pressure gas of the appropriate sort and sufficient voltage (AC or DC) to produce ionization, with a resistor to prevent excess current when the gas starts to conduct, with airtight seal for the leads. The voltage to produce a discharge between electrodes decreases as the gas pressure is reduced down to some low pressure, below which the required voltage increases. A neon lamp presents a very high resistance until the voltage is high enough to ionize the gas. One demo was to have a high voltage battery in an RC circuit, which would gradually charge the cap until the conduction voltage was reached, at which point the neon light would flash. Do you have a vacuum pump and glassblowing equipment? I have pondered using a kitchen vacuum food preservation pump, with the plastic jars they supply, and sealing the electrodes through the lid with aquarium seal. This would not work for a long term use such as a a commercial neon sign, but might be ok for a demo or experiment. I would avoid using glass jars due to the danger of implosion and shards flying, and any high voltage has the potential to produce a dangerous shock. Old books on the subject suggest using mercury to pull a vacuum in the tube, which would be considered too dangerous for amateur experimentation now. A discharge tube under some circumstances might put out dangerous xrays, so home experimentation is not a good idea. An old reference on the subject is Townsend, "Electricity in Gases," (1915). The classic Geissler tubes used electrodes at either end of a cylinder or other shape of evacuated tube with a residue of gas. Your question was about parallel wires. We see that configuration in the common NE-2 neon lamp It ionized at about 90 volts. They can be used for lots of interesting projects. See [7] in particular.Edison (talk) 19:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, you're so punny... --Jayron32 19:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I typed "potential" in all innocence and only on rereading noted the pun, so went ahead and bolded it. Edison (talk) 20:08, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

As for circular cross section: at least for high voltage conductors in air, a conductor with a large cross section and no sharp edges is less prone to cause ionization of the gas molecules in the air, and less corona discharge. For a gas discharge tube, the same is likely to be true. I would expect parallel small diameter wires to cause ionization of the trace gas at a lower voltage than larger radius conductors the same distance apart. A sharp edge might concentrate the current and cause more local heating if the current is larger. This is just my expectation, and I have not found a reference on it. Edison (talk) 00:20, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Where have the "edit" buttons per section gone?

Normally there should be an "[edit]" button with each section. I don't see any any more. I have reloaded about 10 times now. What's wrong? 93.132.132.156 (talk) 21:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

They're right where they've always been for me. But I don't see how this is a science question... Dismas|^(talk) 21:39, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Because I missed them here on this desk, I posed the question here. Why should this not be a science question? is computer science less a science? 93.132.132.156 (talk) 21:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Normally computing questions go on the computing desk. But then again, normally questions about how Wikipedia works should go at the Help Desk. Anyway, it's possible that your CSS or something got messed up, or what Wikipedia just had a hiccup for you. If it's better now, I wouldn't worry about it. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:32, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) And now I have edit buttons. Do I have to ask a question first in order to see them? Doesn't make much sense. And I haven't altered anything with my browser or computer lately. 93.132.132.156 (talk) 21:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Usually when that happens to me, I'm actually looking at a version from the page history. Those have a notice at the top that you're editing an old version, but on a long page like this you never notice. Wnt (talk) 22:34, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

At the top of the page, did you see the 'edit' tab or a 'view source' tab? If it's the later, it's been discussed before on the talk page and I've encountered it myself that for some strange reason the page appears as protected for anonymous users even though it was never (semi-)protected. Note that when reloading a page you should always try WP:BYC and probably even WP:PURGE since reloading 10 times is no use if your browser or the wikipedia servers just keep sending you the same cached content Nil Einne (talk) 23:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

It looks like a case for WP:PURGE. I saw 'view source' instead of 'edit' at the top. After I asked this question (instead of a null edit) it went away. Perhaps you know a workaround for yet another plague: lately some of the formulas display with an incomplete (west north) border that gives the impression of a square root. 95.112.196.91 (talk) 14:31, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Cookie Monster ate them. Count Iblis (talk) 22:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Same thing happened to me man. All the edit links are gone! When I logged in, they appeared, so this must be part of the movement to disenfranchise anonymous editors. Mac Davis (talk) 01:32, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

"Semi-protection" might do that for other pages, but the Science Refdesk isn't semi-protected, and according to the logs it hasn't been semi-protected, at least not any time this year. Wnt (talk) 06:47, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

See my comment above or check out the latest RD archive. Nil Einne (talk) 14:15, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Digital signals in space

Analogue signals are broadcast out into space, and any aliens out there within 60 light years will be receiving them and can see/hear what we are like!:

1. would an alien civilisation be able to see/hear them in the same way as they could with the analogue signals, or would they not be able to decipher them?

I looked around for an answer but couldn't find any, so I hope someone can answer this for me!

Regards, -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternative account of Phantomsteve]} 23:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The answer to #1 is unambiguously yes. We can't stop electomagnetic signals generated on Earth from leaving the Earth. However, this signal tends to degrade over time, due to two things: attenuation and the inverse square law which basically states that as a signal travels over space, it "spreads out" and becomes gradually weaker to the point where it becomes so weak it disappears. The answer to #2 is that we're not even sure that an alien civilisation would be able to decode our analogue signals. In the novel and film Contact, an alien civilization beams some our own TV signals back at us. There is, however, no need for them to have decoded them; they could just have reflected the signals back at us. However, given point #1 I made above, its not readily clear that any signals that have been generated at earth would even make it to the nearest star, let alone be able to be decoded... --Jayron32 23:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

While it's impossible to know how aliens will think, I'd bet they can make sense out of an analog TV signal. The signal, after all, consists of raster lines which are similar from one to the next, yet differ... before long, they're putting them side by side and realizing it makes an image. They might not know which color is which - yet I'd give them even credit for that, because the observant alien will see occasional rainbow icons and substances such as magma that can only come in certain colors on any planet. I would likewise give them good odds of making sense out of a digital signal because it can be worked over to produce recognizable patterns. I don't know if they'll work out the AACS key, but I wouldn't put it past them. ;) Wnt (talk) 23:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Is that for when they land and take away some Blurays? AACS isn't used in broadcast television or anything but Blurays and the now defunct HD-DVDs AFAIK. Of course smarters aliens would just find it online. Nil Einne (talk) 00:01, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

They probably have a radio telescope made from a network of single-atom filaments, the size of the solar system. It zeroes in and logs every time Earthlings make a cell phone call, play a video, type anything that appears on a computer screen that isn't secured against Van Eck phreaking, or talk somewhere in the open within a hundred yards of a power line. They're supposed to be advanced - they're aliens. And how do you think they made this simulation you're enjoying now if they couldn't properly spy on EM signals? Wnt (talk) 06:53, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

That aliens would be able to figure out that analog TV signals, when arranged a certain way make images than can be "seen" assumes that aliens have vision and are able to see images like we do. Vision is not uncommon for Earthly species, but even here there are alternate ways of "seeing"--like echolocation. For all we know the first aliens to intercept Earthly TV signals live gas giants and "see" via magnetic fields or something similarly unlike human vision. Or perhaps they "see" some aspect of reality we don't even know exists and can't perceive light at all. The idea of aliens with eyes similar to ours strikes me as very unlikely. Seems they'd be as likely to know about Jesus Christ and hot dogs. Perhaps intelligent aliens capable of abstract thought might recognize TV signals as a curious pattern, and perhaps could figure out how to decode the signal into what we would call images. But it seems to me a huge assumption to think they would "see" the images in a way that made any sense, if they could "see" at all. The common stereotypical "alien" we picture is ridiculous anthropomorphic. I wouldn't be surprised if there are sentient aliens out there, but I would be very surprised if they were remotely similar to us--that we would even be able to recognize them as sentient beings at all (and vice versa). Even on our planet we have trouble recognizing sentience or lack thereof among birds, cetaceans, etc etc etc. Pfly (talk) 09:52, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The eye has evolved almost from scratch many times on Earth. The mammalian eye, the cephalopod eye, the insect compound eye and numerous others each evolved separately (our common ancestor may have had some kind of light sensitive cells, but not a specific eye). That suggests an extremely strong and near-universal selection pressure toward vision. If so many different animals have evolved eyes on Earth, it is highly likely that any life-as-we-know-it on other planets will have eyes too. (Life-as-we-don't-know-it is a very different kettle of fish, and not one we can have any useful discussions about. We just don't have a starting point to understand how such life would work.) --Tango (talk) 13:48, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

As others have mentioned, typical early TV signals will be quite weak by now, but we have occasionally sent radio messages into space at much higher power, with the explicit intent of catching someone's attention. See e.g. the Arecibo_message. Note that in this message, as in the Voyager_Golden_Record, scientists have taken great care to encode the message in terms that are thought to be fairly universal. SemanticMantis (talk) 01:23, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I would be very surprised if a human seeing the Arecibo message in isolation would be able to interpret it. It's just looks cool. That was the whole purpose of it. If it was actually intended to catch someone's attention, they would have made it much simpler and send it towards a nearby yellow dwarf star. Instead, they made it very complicated and sent it towards a very distant cluster. As our article says, it was just a demonstration of their cool new toy, not a real attempt at making contact with aliens. --Tango (talk) 13:48, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

But by sending it to M13, the signal arrives at all the few hundred thousand stars it is composed of. Count Iblis (talk) 14:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

That would be true if they had sent it to M13. They actually sent to where M13 was 25,000 years ago. They should have sent it to where M13 will be in 25,000 years time. Our articles explains this (with references to official press releases - they were perfectly open about the whole thing). --Tango (talk) 15:30, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I see! This looks rather stupid :) . In Ref 1. where that fact is mentioned it is also clamied that the signal could still be received with similar equipment in M31. If that were to happen, ET would also get the message of just how stupid we are :) . Count Iblis (talk) 16:10, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree it would be difficult for any single human to decode, and that it was a somewhat symbolic gesture (voyager record even more so). However, if the Arecibo message were given to a room of scientists that were well-educated (but ignorant of this message), I think they could decode it, given a little time and motivation. I believe decoding the Arecibo message or Voyager record would be easier than decoding a TV signal (assuming you could find the properly educated group of scientists with no prior knowledge), but this is potentially debatable. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:17, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The issue is whether there is a single interpretation that makes more sense that any other. Figuring out the binary should be easy enough, but then why would you interpret the numbers as atomic numbers of elements rather than any number of other things? With a TV signal, there's really only one interpretation that makes sense. It may take a while to stumble across it, but once you have you'll know you've got it right. --Tango (talk) 15:30, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Advanced civilizations will likely be machine civilizations. Now, intelligent machines can travel at the speed of light, simply by uploading themselves via electromagnetic signals to another machine. That's easy to do within one civilization, but then they can only travel to locations where they have build their machines. However, by contacting distant civilizations, they can travel to those civilizations, if these civilizations are able to download and run the code of the machines.

So, you can imagine that a civilization sends a simple message to catch the attention of other civilizations and then that message is followed by a message containing a schematic outline of a machine so that it is clear how a machine code is to be interpreted. Then the entire code of a machine is sent. This whole sequence of sending the simple message, the message containing information on how to interpret the code and then the code itself is then repeated over and over again.

Civilizations that receive this message do not send a reply, as no reply is expected. All they have to do is build a suitable machine, download the code and run it on the machine. Count Iblis (talk) 16:59, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "machine"? Any lifeform is a machine, in a sense, but I don't see any reason why organic life forms can't form an advanced civilisation. The idea of mind uploading for interstellar travel isn't a new one, but trying to give instructions on how to build the receiving device to a completely alien civilisation by remote (especially without two-way communication) seems ridiculously difficult to me. --Tango (talk) 19:22, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Consider our own future. The free market economy has a natural end point. When all human involvement in all production processes from raw materials to finished end product is fully automized, everything will be free of charge (while labor cost only form part of the costs of a product, the costs of raw materials, energy etc. are ultimately also due to labor costs.). In that end state you'll have humans living in a planned economy. Free enterprise will be outlawed, because you don't want out of control growth of machines, like in the grey goo-scenario. Humans are then more or less barred from doing anything productive. Only an elite will be in control of things. But that elite will find it more and more difficult to control things as the civilization becomes more complex.

As the machines get more complicated, the elite need ever more intelligent machines to control things, but then these intelligent machines will, at some point, be so much more intelligent than humans, that the elite won't really control anything at all. Humans will then be prisoners of the machines, much like most animals on Earth are now. Freedom is only tolerated up to a point: as soon as a wild animal interferes with our civilization (e.g. when a lion shows up in a city, claiming the teritory there, we remove the lion). Count Iblis (talk) 20:41, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Man, CI, sad much? Maybe you need to take a day off and go walk in the sunshine? The doomsters have been around forever, but the world remains a good place. --Trovatore (talk) 06:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have forgotten about the service economy. In the developed world, agriculture and industry are becoming smaller and smaller portions of the economy and more and more people work in providing services to others, not producing physical things. As some services become automated or obsolete, others become common. That's the trend that's been going on for the last 100 years and I see now reason why it won't continue. --Tango (talk) 21:09, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

You're all making great points, but isn't this straying into forum/soapbox/opinion? Are you editors any longer contributing to a cogent answer to the OP, or just musing now? Franamax (talk) 22:06, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

April 22

What's the species?

Hi. Could someone help me in finding the species of this lizard? I took this photograph last week at the Horton Plains National Park, somewhere near the summit of the Kirigalpoththa mountain, in Sri Lanka. Rehman 01:39, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Claiming no expertise in this at all, I looked at "Reptiles of Sri Lanka" and decided it looked like one of the Agamidae and not the other groups they list (I was assuming since this is a tourist snap that it's not a very rare species). Among the Agamidae are horned lizards Ceratophora. Searching for these, I found a "Ceratophora stoddartii" (last photo at [8]) which looks a lot like yours to my eye. Caveat: most of the images on a Google image search for this species don't look much like it and are all different colors. I've made no attempt to determine if that is chameleonlike change of color, genetic variation, iridescence, etc. Wnt (talk) 06:43, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! After referring to srilankanreptiles.com you mentioned above, I am pretty sure it is the Rhino-horned lizard. Thanks again. Regards. Rehman 07:45, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

potentiometer question

Can a potentiometer that is designed for a tone control (i.e. bass or treble) work properly when used for a regular volume control? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:25, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps. The replacement potentiometer must of course have the same max resistance as the original pot. The wattage rating also has to be high enough, but that’s probably not going to be a problem.

Looking around at a few tone control circuits, I see that the first couple I looked at at least called for linear taper pots. In contrast, pots used for volume control, at least in more expensive devices, are sometimes logarithmic taper. But the difference isn't all that big of a deal; using a linear taper pot where a log taper pot is called for just means that there'll be a bigger perceived change in volume for the same angle change at one end of the dial than the other. But cheap devices generally go ahead and use the cheaper linear taper pots for volume control anyway, so the difference between a linear taper pot and a log taper pot really isn't anywhere near as important as just making sure the replacement pot has the same max resistance as the original pot.

There are a couple contributors here who can run circles around me at EE, so if anybody pipes in to disagree with what I've said above, listen to them instead of me. Red Act (talk) 07:29, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

ELECTRONICS

How an FM transmitter & receiver is designed27.97.64.66 (talk) 08:32, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

They are rather complicated. Have you read transmitter and receiver? Those articles will get you started.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:24, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I feel the OP is more interested in some kind of circuit diagram, something like that. As wikipedia is not a HOWTO, such things are only found externally. 95.112.196.91 (talk) 13:17, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

marsh plant that needs pressure from flowing water to hold structure?

Has anyone heard about such a plant? A friend told me about it years ago - maybe from the northern parts of Australia? - she described it as having a porous or open lower end - the water flows up into it and gives it structure through hydrostatic pressure... Can someone name the plant for me? Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 10:00, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Indian Thundershowers

Does anyone know why Southern India gets thunderstorms during April, but normal showers during Monsoon (July-October)? Yes Michael? •^Talk 11:41, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

What does the word "Pinkie" mean?

The word "Pinkie" is used in terms like "Pinkie finger" and "Pinkie blue"? What is the meaning of the word "Pinkie"? aniketnik 12:06, 22 April 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aniketnik (talk • contribs)

The "pinky" or "pinkie" is the little finger. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:11, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

If you follow the little finger link, you'll find that the "pinky" in "pinky finger" is listed as being from the Dutch word pink, ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European word for "five", "finger". Note that this seems to be unrelated to "pink", the word for the color, as that is listed as being derived from "pinks", a name for Dianthus (carnations), a name referring to the frilled edge of the flower and probably deriving from the German "pinken", to peck. This latter meaning is also seen in the name "pinking shears". -- 174.31.219.218 (talk) 15:41, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

From Wiktionary it's apparent this root also leads to finger, cinco, quintet etc. Wnt (talk) 21:02, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

What connections should scientists explore?

How do scientists decide which variable could correlate? If some crackpot theorist claims that certain stones cure cancer, should scientists go on and test it empirically? Should scientists dismiss intuitively some claims? Quest09 (talk) 13:29, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

In an ideal world, scientists would test everything (with a few exceptions due to ethical concerns, perhaps). In the real world, there are limited resources so scientists test those things that they think are most likely to give an interesting result (of course, what's interesting to a scientist isn't necessary what would be interesting to everybody else!). For medicine in particular, the normal route is to test things in Petri dishes first, which is fairly easy so they can test all kinds of things, and then only test on real people those things that showed promise in the Petri dish. So, they may well test stones on cancer cells in a Petri dish, but unless they actually seemed to work, they wouldn't test them on people. --Tango (talk) 13:57, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I could play devil's advocate for a moment and note that some therapies – particularly non-drug interventions – are not always amenable to in vitro testing. While I would be unsurprised to discover that therapeutic touch and magic rocks have no ability to slow the growth of malignant cells in culture, I have to admit that it's also difficult to maintain a regimen of healthy diet and aerobic exercise in a petri dish.

Testing a novel protocol in humans depends primarily on three things. First, you need to find a researcher who wants to do the trial; often that means that they believe the trial will work, but someone who's genuinely curious or who is interested in debunking a bad idea will do. Second, you need to be able to get ethics approval to carry out the trial. An ethical clinician can't and won't participate in a trial if they have a reasonable expectation that the experimental therapy will have a worse outcome than the current therapy (see also clinical equipoise). Third, you need to have the resources – trained medical personnel, equipment, magic rocks, and most importantly, willing and informed patient participants – to carry out the trial. In general, this means it is impossible to do a trial of magic rocks versus chemotherapy, because the experimental therapy isn't supported by any evidence and is likely to kill patients. On the other hand, one might be able to do a trial of magic rocks plus chemo versus chemo alone (or, better, chemo plus blinded 'placebo' rocks); the worst-case scenario is anticipated to be that the rocks are ineffective, so the patients do no worse than with chemo alone. The hard part is finding resources to do the trial, since there are many more plausible treatments ahead of the magic rocks in the queue for funding. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:29, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

A problem with doing not well motivated tests is that this tends to lead to a bias where only positive results are reported. Suppose you have good theoretical reasons to believe that X may cause Y (but it is not clear that this must be the case). Then you investigate this and you find that in fact X doies not cause Y. This result is then still interesting enough for peer reviewed journals to publish.

But without any good reason to believe that X may cause Y, a negative result wont merit publication in a peer reviewed journal. Now, suppose that in such a case, you find a positive result at 95% significance level and that in reality this is due to chance alone (so no relation exists and you just happen to be in the 1/20 of cases where you find a significant result). Then that is likely to yield a publication in a peer reviewed journal. Certainly, it is now interesting for other researchers to see if X really does cause Y. But this may take time, and all that the public hears is that: "researchers have found that X causes Y". Also, onses the results come in that debunk the relation, these don't make headline news.

This effect is partially to blame for the paranoia about mobile phones causing cancer, mobile phone relay transmitters near building being involved in all sorts of illnesses, GM foods possibly not being safe etc. etc. etc. Count Iblis (talk) 14:47, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

As usual, there is an all-too-close-to-reality xkcd on this topic. Don't forget to read the mouseover text. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

And for a more serious treatment, see also publication bias, including the bit about the 'file drawer effect'. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:56, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

There is no one prescription that describes how scientists do or should approach the question of what areas would be fruitful or interesting. In practice it is almost certainly about who is willing to fund what — all of these things cost money, and finding creative ways to justify a project to a sponsor is a full-time occupation of many PIs. Even the philosophers of science who believe in strict demarcation, like Karl Popper, do not believe that you can apply that kind of criteria to the sources of inspiration or interest, which are often haphazard (e.g., at the extreme end, dreams, hallucinations, falling fruit). The question is perhaps more systematically stated as to what studies should be funded — which is a trickier question that balances likelihood of success, benefits from success, reputation of researcher, things like that. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:40, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "success"? A study that shows a null result conclusively is just as successful as one that shows a positive result conclusively, in my opinion. --Tango (talk) 16:31, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Scientifically, yes, but economically, no. That is, most studies are funded in the hope of eventually making money off them. Finding that a (patentable) drug works well may lead to economic success, while finding that one doesn't work isn't as likely to do so. The economics behind science can lead to both a poor choice of studies and, even worse, biased results. Finding a neutral source of funding is difficult, though. Government funding (from taxpayer dollars) of university research may be less profit-motivated, and thus allow studies of things like herbal remedies and traditional Chinese medicine, where profit potential is limited. Political considerations may come into play there, though, such as prohibiting any research on the benefits of stem cells. Use of charitable donations is another option, but major contributors may also have agendas they wish to purse. StuRat (talk) 19:22, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Proving, based on currently accepted principles, that something (say, a perpetuum mobile) is impossible saves a real lot of money and effort. The major back-draw is that the poor guy who publishes such a result gets nothing in return but the hatred of those who hoped for funds for investigation and building one. 95.112.196.91 (talk) 20:45, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

"Success" would be defined differently in different contexts. I'm not trying to claim one standard for it. Proving a null result conclusively is only "successful" in some contexts, not all. Proving that unicorns don't exist on the moon conclusively would do little to benefit scientific knowledge. Proving that there is no luminiferous aether in the early 20th century did. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:48, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Reaction Gone Wrong

Hello. When I mix KI, HCl, and starch, my solution turns blue without adding any KIO₃. Why? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 15:33, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure your original KI was pure enough not to contain any I₂ impurities? 95.112.196.91 (talk) 15:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The KI is pure enough not to contain any I₂. --Mayfare (talk) 20:40, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Potassium iodide in the first paragraph states that "Aged and impure samples are yellow because of aerial oxidation of the iodide to iodine". Did you try your KI to the starch without HCl? I have no idea how sensitive the starch test is but I remember my wild days when I did some testing for iron and always got false positive until I found out that the test is so sensitive that it gives positive results on the little iron that is contained in the tap water used. 95.112.196.91 (talk) 20:53, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

can a relativistic proton change into a neutron? or break up into various particles?

Are these processes possible? They seem possible to me, if the proton has enough energy ... but can kinetic energy transfer into the weak or the strong interactions?

1. highly energised proton ---> neutron + positron + e-antineutrino
2. neutrino + highly energised proton ---> neutron + positron
3. proton ----> pion+ + positron + electron

John Riemann Soong (talk) 17:41, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The principle of relativity implies that the internal structure of the proton does not change when the proton is moving. Just imagine the situation from the point of view of the proton: the proton thinks that it is at rest and that you are moving. Since there is no absolute motion there is no absolute "energisation" through kinetic energy and the proton doesn't care whether its moving in your frame of reference or not; if it doesn't decay in its own reference frame, it will not decay in yours either. --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:56, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Why is this different for electron states then? The kinetic energy of a reactant is important in whether it overcomes a barrioer or not, e.g. there's a transition temperature in which singlet oxygen will be the dominant species over triplet oxygen. -- John Riemann Soong (talk) 21:25, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of formatting your question so it renders properly. (Line-breaks are ignored in wiki-syntax). #1 is Positron emission; #2 is beta decay, with the anti-neutrino written "backwards," and I don't recognize #3. Nimur (talk) 18:26, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Positron emission and beta (plus) decay are the same thing. 1 and 2 are the same formula, except that 2 assumes the existence of a neutrino that annihilates the antineutrino. 3 looks like nonsense to me. The positron and electron can just annihilate each other, so you have a proton changing into a pion+, which is equivalent to an up quark and a down quark changing into a single anti-down quark. I can't see any reason to believe that could ever happen. --Tango (talk) 18:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Your first two reactions don't conserve lepton number. You can fix that by swapping the antineutrino with the neutrino.

The first reaction (decay) can't happen because the principle of relativity says it's physically the same as the decay of a proton at rest. In the second case the frame-independent properties of the input include a single relative velocity, and the reaction can happen if that is large enough.

Your third reaction (decay) isn't prevented by conservation of energy, because the total rest mass of a pion and two electrons is smaller than the proton rest mass. But it doesn't conserve baryon number, and more strongly, it doesn't conserve B − L. Decays that change the baryon number but not B−L, such as
p⁺
→
π⁺
+
ν
_e, are allowed by grand unified theories but have never been observed. In any case, the proton's speed makes no difference, because these theories still obey the principle of relativity. -- BenRG (talk) 21:28, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

What about the case of electronic transitions? Can't a highly kinetically energised hydrogen atom excite its shell electron? (Isn't that what happens in a plasma?) How is this different from an energetic proton exciting one of its quarks? Also, isn't it possible under a strong electric or gravitational field, to breakup a moving nucleus or a moving nucleon by tidal forces? John Riemann Soong (talk) 22:15, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

You're right, a proton excited state can decay to neutron + positron + neutrino. We all assumed you were talking about overall kinetic energy of the proton. This decay is probably also possible in a background electromagnetic field, although additional particles are involved then, so it's not exactly a decay. I see no reason why gravitational tidal forces couldn't break a proton apart, but that's not an experiment we can do, and nobody really understands quantum gravity. -- BenRG (talk) 23:12, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

But in electronic transitions, mere temperature alone provides the kinetic energy that supplies the activation energy to excite an excited electronic state. John Riemann Soong (talk) 06:35, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but that happens because the oxygen molecules are colliding with each other allowing the kinetic energy to be released in the transition you describe. If a oxygen molecule is flying at high speed by itself and doesn't collide with anything else, the transition won't happen. Dauto (talk) 18:07, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

What kind of flowering tree?

I took this photo on 10 April at 39°48′44″N 86°12′9″W. Can anyone identify the species of the trees in this picture? All I can guess is that they're way too big for apples or cherries, and definitely the wrong shape and size and color for redbuds; I don't know what any other kind of tree flower looks like. Nyttend (talk) 19:57, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing dogwood. Looie496 (talk) 20:11, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Dogwoods tend to be more rounded or slightly flattened. I think it might be a fastigiate pear like this. Obviously the trees are much older than the example, as one can see from the bark which has the cracked and flaky appearance of an old pear tree. Richard Avery (talk) 21:51, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The species that you linked as "this" is Callery Pear, which sounds right: it's one of the most common ornamental trees in North America. Thanks for the help. Nyttend (talk) 23:03, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Ornamental pears are excedingly common in the U.S. because they are super cheap and super fast growing, so builders often put them in all over the place. My neighborhood has one in front of just about every house. It would not be uncommon at all. Callery pears, cited above, are often called "Bradford Pears" or "Cleveland Pears" in the U.S., and have a distinctive odor when in bloom, reminiscient of ammonia or old fish; if you've got hundreds in one area it can be overwhelming. --Jayron32 02:44, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Fission2

I asked a question about binding energy above and now am more confused than before, and feel like an idiot. Please explain the defect in my understanding:

In the nuclear fission of uranium, about 1/10th of 1% of the mass of the nucleus is converted to energy. (I added this information myself in this edit, quoting a 1950 article from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.) That's super. However, our binding energy article, our nuclear fission article, our E=mc2 article, and the responses of knowledgeable editors to my previous question all agree that the masses of the fission products add up to a higher mass than the mass of the original uranium atom.

Some crucial part of this is clearly sailing about a foot above my head. If a uranium atom is in an imaginary box and the atom fissions, and the resulting gamma rays are allowed to escape the box but the fission products (say, krypton and barium) stay in the box, the contents of that box must be lighter, by the mass of the gamma rays. But, contradicting this understanding, all the information above informs me that the krypton and barium have a greater mass combined than the original uranium atom. The box is now heavier. Huh?

Your idiot,

Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:15, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

To give an example ²³⁵U + n -> ⁹²Kr + ¹⁴¹Ba + 3 n.

I get that the rest masses in amu are 235.044 + 1.009 -> 91.926 + 140.914 + 3*1.009

Which gives 236.053 -> 235.867, a mass loss of 0.186 amu (0.08% of the initial uranium mass).

Does that clarify things? Dragons flight (talk) 21:37, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes; this is great; but see below. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:08, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

If energy is released by a reaction then the total rest mass of the products is smaller than the total rest mass of the inputs; you're quite right about that. I don't think anybody said otherwise in the previous thread. It's confusing because of inconsistent use of the word "smaller" with negative numbers, as I said there. (But rest masses are never negative, so there's no ambiguity in what I said here.) -- BenRG (talk) 21:44, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

TenOfAllTrades wrote: "the atomic nucleus will always have a slightly lower mass than the sum of the masses of its constituent particles." (I'm not challenging him or her here because the same thing is echoed in the articles I cited above in this thread.) Wouldn't that mean atomic fission is endothermic, contradicting my imaginary box mass statements and reality? Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:08, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Those "constituent particles" are the nucleons. Splitting a nucleus into individual nucleons does always consume energy (unless it's ¹H); therefore, creating a nucleus from nucleons releases energy. If you build two smaller nuclei using nucleons obtained from a big nucleus, you may release more energy than you spent breaking the larger nucleus apart. -- BenRG (talk) 22:24, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Ahhhhhh! — so in Binding energy, in the line stating "Classically a bound system is at a lower energy level than its unbound constituents, its mass must be less than the total mass of its unbound constituents", by "constituents" it means to say "individual nucleons"? I had taken "constituents" to mean "any combination of smaller nuclei", so a barium nucleus and a krypton nucleus would count as "constituents" of the uranium nucleus and when added up, their masses had to add up to be greater than the uranium nucleus's mass. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Yep, that's the ticket. The binding energy is calculated relative to the completely disassembled nucleus: individual, separated protons and neutrons. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:25, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

"Individual nucleons" would be too narrow a definition of "constituents" to use in the binding energy article. In fact, I disagree with the sentence you quoted. It may be true when you take "constituents" to mean "nucleons", but there's no deep reason why it has to be true even in that case. In quantum mechanics, any system that can decay into components with a lower total rest mass will eventually do so, but the decay half life can be extremely large, like 10²⁰ years or more. Even a free neutron's 15-minute half lifeone second is incredibly long compared to the usual time scale of nuclear physics, which is attoseconds or less. It's reasonable to call these bound systems, and physicists do call them that. -- BenRG (talk) 05:22, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't see that it's unreasonable to consider the individual nucleons as the specific "constituents" of a nucleus. If one were to ask what a uranium nucleus' constituents were, one would not expect 'krypton and barium nuclei, of course' as a response. The heavy nucleus doesn't exist with smaller nuclei as independent bound components within it. (Similarly, one wouldn't say that the "constituents" of trees are framing lumber, tongue depressors, and sawdust, even though those could be one valid set of 'fission products'.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:24, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I phrased it badly. What I meant to say is (1) the binding energy article can't reasonably define "constituents" as "nucleons" (that wouldn't make sense for gravitational binding energy, etc.), (2) I disagree with the idea that it's essential to the nature of a bound system that there's a net energy cost to separating the parts. There has to be an up-front energy cost (i.e., a potential barrier), but it's okay if you subsequently get back more energy than you put in. In a hypothetical world where the nuclear binding energy was positive, all nuclei except ¹H would be technically unstable, but their half-lives could still be long enough to make them stable for practical purposes. I used the free neutron half life only as an example of a long time and forgot that it's a bad example of "splitting into constituents", so I struck that out. -- BenRG (talk) 19:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Nuclear binding energy is positive when you look at when nuclei are built up, say, when energy is released by p-p fusion in the sun. But it is negative in the sense that when you look at the resulting nucleus you get, this energy has gone away, and the net mass of the complete nucleus is lower than the net mass of the protons and neutrons that went into it. You can't split the nucleus back up again - at least, not all the way back to protons and neutrons - without getting energy from somewhere. This is true for any element (except ¹H...) because if the binding energy were positive, the nucleus could emit energy as it blew itself apart, and there would be no barrier to doing so. (Well, the extended periodic table talks about elements over maybe 173 that can't exist, but we haven't seen those. ;) )

April 23

Ibuprofen structure

What does the squiggly bond mean?

--75.40.204.106 (talk) 01:42, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

This is depicted in our article but that specific symbol depicts a bond that extends away from the observer. In this case, it is a bond linking a carbon adjacent to a carbonyl group (at right) and a methyl group represented by the end of that "squiggly" line (by convention, hydrogen atoms bound to carbon atoms are not shown). So, that methyl group is farther from the observer than the carbon to which it is attached. -- Scray (talk) 02:30, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the squigly bond means that the structure is racemic. If the methyl group were going away from the viewer, it would be a "dashed" bond. A "wedge" bond is going towards the viewer. Racemic means that the actual medicine is a 50/50 mixture of both forms of the molecules. If the line is supposed to mean that it is going away, whoever created the picture used the wrong line. --Jayron32 02:36, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting me, Jayron32 - I was careless, thinking of the dashed bond! -- Scray (talk) 03:21, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The main article about interpretting all the details of this sort of diagam is "Skeletal formula". DMacks (talk) 14:25, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Perspiration

Why do some men of the same build and age, sweat more than others? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.100.193.38 (talk) 01:43, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

For the exact same reason that some men of the same build and age have different sounding voices or different colored eyes. The Wikipedia article titled Perspiration covers the process in more detail, as well as covering various conditions that can lead to increased or decreased perspiration. --Jayron32 02:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

how to pass entrance

SIR I AM A STUDENT OF 12 CLASS,HAVING SCIENCE ,OUGHT TO JOIN MEDICAL FIELD, MANY PEOPLE SAYS THAT IT IS DIFFICULT TO CLEAR THE ENTRENCE EXAM THEN WHAT SHOULD I HAVE TO DO. I M BELOGING TO NORMAL FAMILY HENCE CANT BE ABLE TO PAY LOTS OF COLLEGE FEE, i ought to join goverment college then what 2 do? PLEASE GUIDE ME I WILL PAY MY 100% TOWARDS UR ADVICE.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.189.23.145 (talk) 02:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

• You need to tell us in what country you are interested in becoming a certified medical professional, and you would also need to say which medical job you want. After all, an American nurse is going to have a very different set of ceretifications and training than a Russian dentist is, and both will be very different from a South African doctor. Its literally impossible to answer your question without knowing where you are from and what your career aspirations are. --Jayron32 02:59, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The IP geolocates to India.[9] Red Act (talk) 03:50, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb, an OP that addresses us as "Sir" is probably Indian. It's nice to be shown a little respect, rather than the insults and demands we get from some of our OPs! --Tango (talk) 13:09, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

To the original querant: It might help you to arrange a meeting with a local medical professional, to discuss options with them. If they take an interest they may be able to help you. You might also see whether they would allow you to work in their clinic. The experience with them may be very educational - in a practical way. -- Scray (talk) 03:25, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Medical usually means Medicine.Curb Chain (talk) 11:33, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course it does, but that doesn't necessary mean a doctor. The term can be used more generally to include nursing, dentistry, physiotherapy, nutrition, etc., etc., etc.. I expect the OP does want to become a doctor, though. --Tango (talk) 13:09, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

UHT milk in Greece

In Ultra-high-temperature processing, UHT milk's market share in Greece is only 0.9%.

The article says many northern European countries dislike UHT milk. I thought that Greece is in the south and it has very hot long summers. -- Toytoy (talk) 03:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a question? That (poorly written and referenced) section also says "these figures conceal wide variations as in most European countries" whatever that means. If you can improve it please do so.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:07, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

According to the article "Pasteurization", there are two main types of modern pasteurization: flash pasteurization and ESL (extended shelf life) treatment. UHT is an alternative method of preparing the milk. Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:28, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Shantavira's quote misses a key part of the sentence: "these figures conceal wide variations as in most European countries High Temperature/Short Time (HTST) pasteurized milk is more popular." Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:32, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

ELECTRONICS

How can we find out any faults in super hectrodyne radio receiver?please explain with the circuit diagramMathematics2011 (talk) 04:03, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Radio frequency electronics can be very complicated; so it's impossible for us to diagnose every possible fault or error. Check for the usual sorts of things: are the DC bias voltages where you expect them at each stage? Have you accounted for RF parasitics? Depending on the frequency of your RF and IF, it may be impossible to diagnose you circuit unless you have a vector network analyzer (or at the very least an oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer). If you are in a poorly equipped lab, you can also use time domain reflectometry, which may be built in to your oscilloscope, or can be easily constructed from a waveform generator and a regular scope. We have a block-level diagram at Superheterodyne receiver, and each sub-element has its own article; but the circuit diagrams will vary widely based on the technologies available, the desired performance, specifications, and operating parameters. Nimur (talk) 18:05, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You should not try to repair an AC powered device unless you are fully qualified by training and experience to follow all appropriate safety procedures. You will have to find your own circuit diagram, and a public library can provide you with books on radio circuit theory and troubleshooting. One popular troubleshooting method is signal injection, whereby a signal appropriate for a given stage is introduced from a signal generator. You could start with an audio signal in the final audio stage and work backward to the preamp stage, then inject a modulated radio frequency signal in the RF stages, working back to the antenna terminals. A complementary approach is signal tracing, where you use an oscilloscope or other probe to measure the amplitude and quality of signal at different stages. One good test is to make sure that each part of the circuit has the appropriate voltage. Your eyes can sometimes diagnose a burned out component, a poor solder joint or a short circuit. Your nose can sometimes aid in finding an overheated or burned out component. Sometimes tapping with an insulated probe can diagnose poor connections or microphonic tubes. In tube equipment, a tube tester or simple substitution of a good tube is useful. With the comparison method, you can compare the failed receiver at various points with a well functioning similar unit. In old radios, the filter capacitors often fail, resulting in hum and distortion. A blast of dry air from a can is useful in getting crud out of the tuning capacitor. Edison (talk) 20:00, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

top-antibottom mesons existance?

Do top-antibottom mesons exist, or does the short half-life of top/bottom quarks, and π⁺/D_s^{*+ mesons prevent them from forming? They are not listed on the list of mesons article. CS Miller (talk) 10:56, 23 April 2011 (UTC)}

Our article, top quark, says: "The Standard Model predicts its lifetime to be roughly 5×10⁻²⁵s. This is about 20 times shorter than the timescale for strong interactions, and therefore it does not form hadrons, giving physicists a unique opportunity to study a "bare" quark." So there aren't any hadrons, including mesons, that include top quarks. --Tango (talk) 13:42, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Gold Vs. Silver

Gold, according to the article, is the most ductile and malleable metal.

Silver is not far behind though. I have a 99.9% gold necklace. Why is it so hard to find comparable purity in silver in jewelry? Most silver, when searched, is sterling silver (92.5% purity). It is said that silver is too soft so it must be alloyed with other metals, but this contradicts gold because gold is even softer; on top of this, but 24 karat gold is common.Curb Chain (talk) 11:31, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

24 Carat gold jewelry isn't that common either, especially in the West [10]. With both silver and gold, pure metal is typically only used when extreme malleability or softness is needed in crafting the part [11]. Where did you get your 24 carat gold necklace? Is it hand made, such that pure gold is necessary? Buddy431 (talk) 14:45, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Supplemental question, if I may: is this extreme malleability somehow connected to the rareness of gold and silver on Earth, or to their aesthetic lustre? SamuelRiv (talk) 18:19, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Most certainly, if you look at where they are located on the periodic table of the elements, gold and silver share a column with copper, the three together are sometimes called the coinage metals; and they all share a lot of chemical and physical properties, which are undoubtedly due to having similar electronic structure. --Jayron32 23:13, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The malleability especially makes silver and gold desirable for jewelry: it would be hard make something like this out of iron or tin. Additionally, these metals (copper, silver, and gold) occur in large quantities in their native form, while others like iron do only occasionally, and some, like Aluminum, not at all. Historically, this means that these metals were some of the first known to man, being used both aesthetically, and also functionally (i.e. Bronze weaponry). Gold is especially valued, in that it won't rust or tarnish at all under normal conditions. Copper and silver will tarnish, but this oxidized layer then protects the rest of the metal from reaction (compare to iron, where rust will flake off, exposing more metal to the atmosphere). This muted reactivity is part of the reason why these metals are found in their native form, rather than in ores. Buddy431 (talk) 03:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and for the "rareness" of gold and silver, look at the graph on the right. The abundance of metals is more related to their nuclear structure (how often they're formed in stars), and less to their chemical and physical structure. Silver, and even gold, aren't the rarest metals on Earth: Iridium, Ruthenium, and Rhodium are all much rarer, and, in some cases, more expensive (Rhodium briefly shot up to $10,000 per ounce, before the economic downturn brought it to more reasonable levels, currently about $2300 per ounce, still much higher than gold). Buddy431 (talk) 04:13, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought Silver would tarnish under Sulfur. I got my necklace when my grandma died and her gold bangles where traded into divide into 5 parts for her grandchildren. The necklaces where traded in at Hong Kong. Maybe extreme purity silver is not found because of tarnish?Curb Chain (talk) 05:42, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Young's double split experiment

Approximately how much time does it take for a "one photon at a time" YDSE to generate a distinguishable (by a computer) pattern, assuming that all photons pass through the slits and do not hit the barrier. Also, are there screen detectors that can detect a single photon and its approximate (x,y) coordinates? Or do we still use photographic plates or click detectors on tracks for YDSE's?

I've added a section header for you. --Tango (talk) 13:31, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

There is no number N such that you can distinguish the pattern using data from N subsequent photons but not from N-1 subsequent photons. The position where any given photon strikes is drawn statistically from a distribution. You may as well ask how often you have to toss a coin before you know P(heads)=1/2. The more data you have, the more certain you are that quantum mechanics predicts the correct position distribution for the photons (and the more coins you toss, the more certain you are that P(heads)=1/2), but in neither case is there a well-defined boundary between knowledge and ignorance of the pattern. 213.49.91.141 (talk) 17:35, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure, but what if we say we want 95% confidence in rejecting the null hypothesis that there is no interference between photons? We should be able to find a good estimate for the N required for that. (Of course, we'll need to know things like the size of the slits and the distance between them, but I'm sure the OP won't mind if whoever is clever enough to work this out (which isn't me) just makes up some numbers for them.) --Tango (talk) 20:01, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

(I'm the OP here--forgot to sign--silly me--that's what comes of being in a hurry) I'd just like a rough estimate for an experiment (with given distances etc.) as a formula. It would also be fine if you could give the approx time for a YDSE conducted today (as in, using the technology today to require minimum time.) ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 07:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The effects of dreams on long term memory

Recently, I was recalling something that happened years ago- a conversation with a friend- but, after further thought, I realize that it was actually a dream. I wonder how much of my memories are actually falsified by these "dream memories"? Obviously we remember nightmares or other implausible events that occur in dreams as dreams. But there is a lot of random normal stuff that happens in dreams that, over time, get mixed in with the memories of actual events. Anyway, is there an article about this? I also wonder if there are extreme conditions where a person's dreams and reality are totally indistinguishable...like a psychological condition? I looked at Dream#Other associated phenomena and Memory#Disorderes (as well as scanning the rest of the articles), and am not finding much along these lines. Quinn ^{✩ STARRY NIGHT} 13:37, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Well our memories are notoriously poor anyway and our brain outright makes things up to fill in gaps (there a number of books on the issues that the fallibility of human memory creates - e.g. reliabilty in court) so I suspect it wouldn't be difficult for dreams to integrate into memories and become things you think happened. The article Interference theory may be of interest though doesn't specifically related to dreams. ny156uk (talk) 16:18, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Other people have speculated along the same lines, but the question seems nearly impossible to investigate scientifically. Regarding a state where dreams and reality are indistinguishable, it has been suggested that something like that happens in schizophrenia. Looie496 (talk) 01:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Speaker wire

I've read the wiki article on speaker wire and found the information I was interested in but wonder if something should be included about interference on speaker wire such as the 60Hz line voltage? If the power cord and speaker wire are close together is it possible the 60Hz humm may be audible through the speaker?50.46.189.84 (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome to edit the article and include the relevant information yourself if you believe it belongs somewhere in there, but try to include a reliable source for it. Note that you can do this even without creating an account, just as you edited this page. Try to make sure it's an encyclopaedic piece of information though, not a 'how to' guide, i.e., a 'how to construct a speaker wire' section would not be appropriate as it's not the aim of an encyclopaedia article. --jjron (talk) 16:57, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not only possible, it's a very common source of interference. 60 Hz line noise is audible; it can couple via electromagnetic wave propagation (even though the wires are poor antennas at this frequency). More commonly, 60 Hz noise can couple through the speaker amplifier (hence, the noise gets amplified, even if it was very weakly coupled, and therefore at a low signal level). A good amplifier has a high power supply rejection ratio, meaning that the audio signal should be well isolated from the AC signal input; but in practice, poor- to moderate-quality electronics often propagate the "hum." High-end electronics eliminate this "hum" or line-noise in a variety of ways. Professional musicians may be familiar with "Humbuckers", as they are known in electric guitars; professional audio techs may know them as common-mode rejectors or differential signal transducers / amplifiers. Nimur (talk) 17:54, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

If the geometries of the power cord and the speaker wires are specified, it is pretty straightforward to calculate the induced voltage. This is done all the time for power lines, and the equations would be the same, though the distances would be vastly smaller. Qualitatively speaking, the closer the speaker leads are to the power cord, the higher the voltage induced in the speaker wires. The more current the power cord is carrying, the higher the induced voltage. The farther apart the 2 conductors for power are from each other, the greater the induced voltage. Likewise, the farther apart the two speaker wire conductors are from each other, the greater the induced voltage. If the speaker wires and power cord are parallel, the voltage would be greater than if they are perpendicular, if memory serves. If either pair is twisted, the induced voltage would be lower. In general, the power cord for an audio system would be unlikely to induce enough voltage in the speaker wires for you to hear hum from the speaker, since the speaker impedance is quite low and the current in the power cord to an audio system is not all that great. The voltage induced in an audio cable going from a turntable or microphone to the amplifier would be much more likely to produce audible hum in the output circuit, unless well shielded audio cable is used and ground loops are avoided, since the signal in those input cables is vastly amplified before it goes to the speakers. I expect that a high enough electromagnetic field could be found around a power station or transformer, or near a cable carrying hundreds of amps, to produce audible hum from speaker wires audible through the speaker, even without amplification. Edison (talk) 19:44, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You can minimize the 60 Hz hum in speaker cables by making sure that, if they MUST cross a power cable, to do so at 90 degree angles; cables which are orthogonal like this should, in theory, not interfere with one another. --Jayron32 23:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

What is a Tripletino?

In the wikipedia article on Proton Decay it talks about a 5 dimension mode of proton decay with two fermions and two Sfermions. It also mentioned that this involves a tripletino of mass M. I am a little familiar with supersymmetry and this name fits the naming conventions of supersymmetry particles. However, I have never heard of such a supersymmetric particle. It maybe a generic name like neutralino that refers to any neutral supersymmetric boson. It is the "triple" that throws me. A triple of what? What are the properties of this hypothesized particle? I have only one reference in the whole world wide web. It comes from your article in wikipedia, but is cut and pasted all over the web with no further information.75.201.50.204 (talk) 16:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe its another word for a Neutralino? Just a guess... --Jayron32 17:08, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

A full text search for "tripletino" on the arXiv yields zero hits, which is sufficient reason to remove the term from Wikipedia. A full text search for "tripletinos" yields exactly one hit. In that paper they appear to define it as a superpartner with color charge (i.e., a strongly interacting superpartner). But I'm wary of editing the article on that basis alone. I barely understand the physics.

The word was introduced in 2005 by User:Phys (edit), who unfortunately hasn't edited since 2005. -- BenRG (talk) 19:01, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I started a thread at Talk:Proton decay#"Tripletino", but the talk page looks pretty inactive. -- BenRG (talk) 07:09, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Ocean surface lumps above sea mounts

A Natnl. Geo. documentary entitled "Drain the ocean" states that all ocean sea mounts are mirrored by lumps at the ocean surface level, and that the ratio is 1-1000. That is that a 3000 Ft. ocean sea mount is marked by a 3 Ft. lump of water above it. I've searched a number of Sea level cites and find a lot if info. about sea level variations caused by water temperature, atmospheric pressures, currents etc. but I can't find any explanation about how a sea mount deep below the ocean can cause a lump on the surface. It seems understandable that a deep current welling up the side of a mount might produce a lump but not all sea mounts are subjected to the same degree of current. How is this possible?190.149.154.38 (talk) 16:56, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

It's actually just gravity. The rock that makes up a sea mount actually attracts the water, 'bunching it up' and very slightly increasing the local sea level. (There's a more detailed explanation here.) Because of this distortion, sea mounts have been detected by precise satellite altimetry: [12]. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:13, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The technical term is gravity anomaly, which refers to the "anomaly" in measured gravity between a perfectly spheroid (or perfect, complex-geometric-model-oid) earth, and the true gravity, which is affected by topography and geological composition and density. A fluid, such as the ocean, follows the contour of the gravity potential field; but because of surface winds, turbulence, tides, and other dynamic effects, true sea-level measurements are confounded by lots of practical details. In the open ocean, wind waves regularly have crest-to-trough amplitudes of 20 or 30 feet - so if there's a 3 foot "bulge", it's tough (but not impossible) to measure it!

Usually, if you want millimeter-accurate measurements of anything related to geodesy, you start with a reference geoid, such as WGS-84; apply your needed corrections using Shuttle RADAR Topography Mission data. That brings you to around a 2 meter accuracy. If you need more accuracy, you can correct these measurements using a local reference. If you were out in the open ocean, and you wanted to measure the sea depth with accuracy to ~ 1 or 2 feet, you could use a RADAR or SONAR measurement from a fixed object, such as a buoy or a semi-permanent man-made or natural structure on the seafloor, or an acoustic beacon.

Here's a chapter out of a textbook on geophysical estimation; this runs down the entire process of estimating sea-level bulges, with actual data from a satellite overflight of Madagascar. Altitude of Sea Surface near Madagascar; and further related work, Madagascar numerical estimation. Nimur (talk) 17:31, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks guys. Even I can understand it. Why didn't I think of that. (Rhetorical). 190.56.18.215 (talk) 17:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Amazing. But that's why I'm glad I don't do real work. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:14, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Recombining all the oxygen with H then how much more water?

General belief being that the proto earth was virtually devoid of free oxygen. It being a by-product of photosynthesis involving seperation of oxygen from water molecules, it seems that notwithstanding reactions with other elements that the number of water molecules (ie. the amount of water) must be substantially reduced from the original amount on the earth. Is it possible to calculate how much deeper the oceans would be if all the now free oxygen was recombined with Hydrogen.190.56.112.125 (talk) 19:11, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure how accurate your premise is (there has been a lot of reaction with other elements, so we can't really neglect it, for example), but we can do the calculation ignoring everything that could complicate it. Let's work in terms of mass, since that's nice and easy:

The mass of the atmosphere is 5x10¹⁸ kg (see Atmosphere of Earth). 21% of that is oxygen. Water is H₂O. Hydrogen has an atomic mass of 1, oxygen has an atomic mass of 16. That means a water molecule has a mass of 18/16 times the mass of the oxygen it contains. So, the mass of water that would be produced is 5x10¹⁸x0.21x18/16=1.2x10¹⁸ kg.

The density of water is 1kg per litre, so that's 1.2x10¹⁸ litres or 1.2x10¹⁵ m³.

The surface area of the Earth's water is 361,132,000 km² (see Earth). We divide the volume of water produced by the surface area and we get an increase in depth of 3.3 metres. (If someone could check my arithmetic, I would appreciate it!)

--Tango (talk) 20:14, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

This is a complex question, which brings interesting attention to the homeostasis of the deep earth and the unknown organisms that dwell within it. There are igneous rocks with differing levels of acidic or basic composition - though I typically think of basic as reducing, I'm not quite sure how well this matches up to their ability to react with oxygen. For example, pyrite decomposes in air, and both the sulfur and the iron take up oxygen. Ultramafic rock also contains a large amount of iron... anyway, there are rocks that have the potential to take up oxygen, and in our air they do; but if all the oxygen were bound into water, they would no longer do so - so there would be more oxygen left over. I have no idea how much oxygen you could draw out of the Earth in this way, given enough free hydrogen. The ability of deep microbes to catalyze specific chemical reactions would doubtless have much control over the rate. So while normally I think of photosynthesis as controlling the amount of oxygen, the process must really be more complicated than that. But we need some real geologists to chime in here.

If you look at our photosynthesis article, you will see that only half of the Earth's oxygen comes from water -- the other half comes from CO2, which is present in vast quantities dissolved in the Earth's mantle. Moreover, when the products of photosynthesis are metabolized, most of the water is returned. The numbers will be substantially reduced if those factors are taken into account. Looie496 (talk) 01:35, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Gah, I'm an idiot. Actually all of the oxygen comes from CO2. Water plays a role in the reaction, but the amount of oxygen that the water contributes is equal to the amount that gets incorporated in sugar. Some of this oxygen may however eventually be released if the sugar is converted into hydrocarbons or fats. Looie496 (talk) 06:12, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

THE SUPERNOVA 1987A

THE SUPERNOVA 1987A had charged neighbor cloud after exploding , the best idea for formation of planets in o'ort nebula (''such as now upgrades''I will discuss next time about in other field )shows that this nebula was charged by neighborhood supernova for containing oxygen carbon and heavy elements ,and it might create the pressure and temperature condition for production of water , methane and water contain carbon and oxygen and ammonia contain nitrogen which produce in carbon cycle , and all metals in earth crust have been oxidized , 23 %of earth crust and 21%of air contain oxygen--Akbarmohammadzade (talk) 06:26, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I assume you mean the Oort cloud. I'm sorry, but it is difficult for us to understand your English. Wnt (talk) 06:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Akbarmohammadzade

the first cloud which produced solar system could not produce water for its complex of hydrogen and helium ,this cloud might be charged with supernova remnant matter to contain elements which be produced at the core of stars and migrate here with supernova exploding event , so although the sun has carbon cycle but existing of heavy elements in terrestrial planets and ice and methane and ammonia in outer planets and comets shows that the inner system of o'ort cloud might be charged secondary , specially for the reason of this :if first prestellar nebula had such elements ,the percent of existing of them in sun and planetary system was equal , then the sun had absorbed 99percent of those elements and that could not be 4percent of total planetary system , but the fact is wise . notice that the condition which cause the production of water is special ,finally can earth's own global condition produce water?--78.38.28.3 (talk) 10:07, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

--78.38.28.3 (talk) 08:04, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Active electronic metamaterials.

Does anybody have references to Metamaterials that change function by adding or removing electrons?

Just as an LCD display has an individually addressable transistor per pixel, each molecule in the active electronic metamaterial will act as a transistor that can selected and charged or discharged. The patterns formed would then interact with and direct electromagnetic waves and these patterns can be changed at the speed of electricity. Hcobb (talk) 19:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you looking for the Sketched oxide single-electron transistor (SketchSET)?Smallman12q (talk) 21:22, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

No, that's an isolated electronic device that doesn't greatly change the properties of the bulk matter around it. Hcobb (talk) 22:48, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Echos in the Treasury of Atreus

On a recent trip to Mycenae, my peers and I noticed that a person standing on one side of the interior of the Treasury of Atreus speaking softly into the wall could be heard very clearly from a person on the other side -- the speaker's voice is heard as coming out from the diametrically opposite point on the wall. What is the reason for this phenomenon? What is it about the shape of the tomb that causes the sound to be focused at that point, and are there any other points at which this happens? jftsang 23:26, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Check out Whispering gallery. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

But the inside of the tomb is circular, so the two foci coincide at the centre. Why does this work if one stands at the edge? jftsang 23:51, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Besides the center, there will be other nodes where the sound waves collect to have the same effect; its quite possible to create a room where one of those nodes is at the speaker's own head. --Jayron32 23:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Also note that whereas the floor may be more or less circular, the "inside of the tomb" as a whole is rather complicated in shape (similar to a paraboloid or half of a prolate ellipsoid). Sound doesn't travel in only two dimensions. Deor (talk) 10:24, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

April 24

How should antibacterial news be added to Wikipedia?

Is Antibacterial the right article to add these news items?

• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=our-big-pig-problem
  • "Since 1995 Denmark has enforced progressively tighter rules on the use of antibiotics in the raising of pigs, poultry and other livestock. In the process, it has shown that it is possible to protect human health without hurting farmers."
• http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-antibiotics-agriculture-20110425,0,7598829.story
• http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/651982.html

If so, what should the article say and in which section? Are there other article(s) where this would be (more) appropriate? Is this sort of thing appropriate for the article introduction?

Sorry for asking a help desk question on the reference desk, but I'm much more confused about the science component here than the how-to-edit component. If you figure out a good way to put this, please do go ahead and add it to the appropriate article(s). 99.39.5.103 (talk) 00:23, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a place for it at Antibiotic_resistance#Role_of_other_animals. More so at Factory farming. I'd encourage you to consider adding your own references though - I'm just answering your question, not promising to do your editing for you. ;) Wnt (talk) 00:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, please note that WP is not a news outlet - for that, Wikinews may be more appropriate. -- Scray (talk) 04:55, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Not true. The policy cited above says "Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories." ... which should not discourage you from adding these or other recent sources. Wnt (talk) 06:42, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

human as a mammal

how did "Adam" created first time ?why he created as a mammal ?and for DNA , was it first program for DNA, to produce such mammal? I have not religion proposes of this question , there is scientific ideas in my mind for this filed , such as coming to be alive again based on DNA program for human and remaining that in nature for next time for our coming to be alive after death

.akbar mohammadzade--78.38.28.3 (talk) 05:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Um, I'm not sure I can parse that. Humans are mammals because we all share a common ancestor. Broadly speaking, all mammals bear hair and give milk to their young, which humans do as well. Adam was the first man created by God, according to the Bible. I seriously cannot make heads or tails of anything else you say here. --Jayron32 06:01, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

By "Adam" I'll assume you mean "the first human man". The truth is that species rarely if ever start with one single individual. ("Hopeful monsters" were a popular idea in the early 1900s after X-ray mutations caused radical changes in flies, but eventually people realized those were caused by major damage to chromosomes and aren't representative of real evolution ... though nothing is impossible in biology) The way species actually start is that populations slowly change over time. You can point at one individual and say that he was the last common ancestor of all humans, but he lived in a group with many other individuals who were common ancestors of most humans. Wnt (talk) 06:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Adam is just part of a religious story; he's not somebody who actually existed. There was a man who is known scientifically as Y-chromosomal Adam, but he wasn't the first human male. And although I don't really understand your question pertaining to life after death, life after death in any of its various proposed forms is purely a religious notion, that has nothing to do with science. Red Act (talk) 07:17, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

both of the wayes in thinking about "Adam" from accepting to dont accepting come to same result of which we said about the rule of DNA , I said that "DNA" as it contain our celles formula can product us again , and it is genetic discussion ,for that , I said that Ihave not religen propose . My discuss for coming to be alive after death is so relagion based "life after death " but only give your reply according to our chemical complex . The water and carbon nitrates and other elements in our body is equal for me and you ,and other natural complexes and for air and soil , the combination and way of lying them together changes for the formula of DNA .if we replay to this question : was it possible for breeds and fishes or crocodils to have our ability and mined ? then we will be able to imagin the creation of "ADAM"

--78.38.28.3 (talk) 10:33, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand your question clearly, but DNA is only a minor factor of personality. Look at monozygotic twins. They have exactly the same DNA and so are some kind of natural clones, but they are different persons with different personality. 93.132.153.177 (talk) 11:22, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be easier for the questioner to write in their original language, so that the question can then be translated. As it is, it cannot be understood. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

A good way to check if a word is correct is to look it up in wikipedia, in different languages. For example, I am quite sure that the above word "breeds" should really be "birds". What makes the OPs questions unintelligible is mostly the syntax, especially the order of the words. Then, Farsi and English have a different set of vowels. That the English vowels are not always represented by the same letters makes it even more difficult. 93.132.153.177 (talk) 11:48, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the questioner is asking whether an individual's DNA could be used to restore that person to life after their death, in a process like cloning. This is a common misperception about what DNA actually does -- it is a framework for a living being, nothing more. The "environment" (in this case the sum total of all life experiences) is what shapes the "person" you become, and aside from epigenetic marks that accumulate in different cells of the body, this life experience is not written into the DNA. Thus, while it would be theoretically possible to use an individual's DNA to generate a living being with a nearly identical genetic make-up, this individual would have none of the unique experiences that contributed to the original and would for all practical purposes be his or her own unique person (like the example of identical twins given above). --- Medical geneticist (talk) 12:55, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

What kind of engineering will be required to make sphere wheels possible?

It has already been imagined. Now, what barriers will need to be torn down in order to make them usable on new cars? --70.179.169.115 (talk) 06:16, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

What advantage would spherical wheels give us to make it worth it to put them into production? --Jayron32 06:19, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

If you get to watch I, Robot, then you'll see how the RSQ maneuvers in ways impossible for today's vehicles. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 08:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

That thing looks like it has zero clearance. I'm skeptical it would clear paved roads in Pennsylvania... Wnt (talk) 06:33, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I am confident that by '35, cars will have variable clearance mechanisms that will raise or lower the body based on what the road sensors detect up ahead. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 08:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Dyson vacuum cleaners already have something similar. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:14, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

To take advantage of a spherical wheel shape you'd have to get rid of the axle/hub design (axle/hub arrangements only allow rotation in one plane, making a sphere meaningless). This would mean that you'd need to develop entirely new types of suspension systems to allow the wheel to rotate freely while supporting the weight of the car, and entirely new power transmission systems since there would be no axle to apply torque to. Simplest, I imagine, would be to have some sort of friction system (e.g. a small, conventional axle/hub system that pressed down on the top of the spherical tire, supporting the weight of the car and applying torque to the wheel in a wide range of directions). for something more science fictionish, I imagine you could invent a mag-lev system (maybe a spherical hub inside the spherical tire that contained a superconducting magnet?). propulsion in this case would be trickier - I can visualize a system for rotating the wheels based on things like maglev trains or rail guns, but it would basically involve turning the entire wheel-well into a complex electromagnetic control system, and I can't imagine it would be practical or efficient.

Of course, in either of these scenarios you risk your wheels falling off if you hit a bad bump. --Ludwigs2 08:35, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Spherical wheels shouldn't be too hard. Anyone who has ever looked inside a mechanical computer mouse ought to be able to toss off a quick design for drive system and mounting. DuncanHill (talk) 11:55, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that's a sensible design for a vehicle wheel. A ball mouse has two planetary sensor wheels (and usually one more sprung planetary wheel, to keep the ball in place). Let's just talk about the two sensor ones. They're mounted at 90 degrees to one another: call them "top" and "left". When the mouse is moved left-right, the left wheel rolls smoothly. In the same motion, the top wheel is still forced against the ball (against what is the pole of rotation of the ball). It doesn't roll, it just scrapes over the surface. Because of the forces involved in a mouse (which are pretty trivial) this isn't an issue. But for an automotive wheel you'd incur significant friction, and wear, all the time (as at least one one wheel would be dragging like this). You could probably design a more complex system where the planets are themselves balls, and their motion is restricted by some interlink that adapts to the vehicle's directions, but by this point it's a very complex design. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Of relevance: Mecanum wheel, omni wheel. 94.172.116.125 (talk) 13:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

window

vinyl window top sash falling? I have a sash that won't quite stay up the whole way when you open it. how do i fix it — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kci357 (talk • contribs) 07:57, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

We can't fix a sash window over the internet. You'll have to find somebody to come and look at it. Perhaps a friend, relative or neighbour that is good with that kind of thing? --Tango (talk) 13:18, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Chemicals in the body to counteract other chemicals in mood change- e.g., caffeine

I've noticed that frequently, if there is a drug for one thing, there is not a drug to cancel it out. Sometimes this is obvious, like in the case of alcohol: alcohol simply contains too many poisons, which have to be removed from the body.

But in other cases, the drug in question is not a poison, and common sense tells me another drug should be able to nullify its effects. Specifically, I can't think of any drug that will necessarily cancel out the effect of caffeine. Caffeine's side-effects:

• Caffeine will make the individual hyper.
• Caffeine may put an individual in a good mood at first, and kind of a lousy one later. At least it does that with me (I've been a chronic drinker at times in my life... no more)
• Caffeine can make it impossible for some individuals to sleep for long periods of time. Again, it does this for me, at least.

Now I can think of several depressants, but they all have problems:

• Alcohol will make the individual mellow, and while the individual might fall asleep immediately, he will experience a rebound a few hours later. For example, after a night of heavy drinking, he may have trouble getting a normal amount of sleep that night. This rebound effect doesn't exist with caffeine.
• Marijuana - I know nothing about how this drug works, only that it makes people goofy and stupider than normal. So maybe it could effectively counter caffeine, although I doubt it from what I've seen.
• Sleeping pills - in general, I think these might be a good candidate for reversing a caffeine effect, or vice versa. However, I've had at least one occasion where I took a sleeping pill together with caffeine, and instead it just left me in a zombified state - unable to sleep deeply, but tired to the point that I still didn't want to move.
• Xanax - an anti-anxielitic, I have used this drug before. At first, it helped me sleep, but after a while, this effect disappeared for me. I never combined it with caffeine like above (I'm not stupid).

So my question is - is there a drug, illegal or legal, over the counter or prescription, which exists that could exactly reverse the effect of caffeine, and for which caffeine could exactly reverse its effect? If not, is it theoretically possible for such a drug to exist? And could such an anti-drug exist for most non-poisonous drugs (e.g., Xanax, anti-depressants, sleeping pills).

You'll note my question is theoretical only and general. I don't want this discussion to involve specifics like last time I asked about medication, where my thread ended up getting shut down. So if we have to, we can avoid the subject of caffeine and talk about other drugs.

</textwall> Magog the Ogre (talk) 08:28, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Adenosine is probably the closest candidate. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:27, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

control valves in aircrafts.

hi. what are the different types of Flow control valves used in Aircrafts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Venkata chaitanya (talk • contribs) 10:01, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Fuel or Air? Dismas|^(talk) 10:40, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

also hydraulic 173.58.233.95 (talk) 11:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

can cerebral palsy lead to...

1) speech impairment? 2) adverse reactions to excessive noise? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.217.21 (talk) 10:43, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about #2, but #1 is truth. Sometimes, palsy can leave the victim's nerves so impaired that they'll need diapers due to not being able to control it. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 10:51, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

You may wish to read the article "Cerebral palsy". The article states "Speech and language disorders are common in people with Cerebral Palsy." Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:52, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

It's quite common for people with cerebral palsy to have an exaggerated startle reflex, meaning that sudden loud noises can be a significant problem. I'm not aware that steady loud noise is usually any more of an issue than it is for others. HiLo48 (talk) 12:00, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

If there are call queues, why aren't there fax queues?

When I tried to fax an item, the fax lines were busy so I could not get it through. Why hasn't anybody ever prototyped a fax queuing system? If anyone else has even thought of putting faxes in a queue for a busy line, why hasn't it been done? What's the difficulty? What kind of invisible barrier would we need to blast down in order to make this happen? --70.179.169.115 (talk) 10:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Check out the page on fax servers 173.58.233.95 (talk) 11:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there a service to send a text at a preset time?

If I send a text at 5:45, but only want the recipient to receive it at 7:45, is there an app or anything like it that will opt me to only get it to the recipient at a preset time? I'd hate to wake a recipient up to a text chime, but something spur of the moment wants me to send it before I forget it. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 10:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

ohdontforget.com 173.58.233.95 (talk) 10:56, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Origin of Potential Energy

Given two massive particales seperated by a distance in a vacuum, they will accellerate towards eachother due to gravity (ignoring other forces: magnetic, Casmir, etc.).

The fist law of thermodynamics explains that energy can be transformed but not created or destroyed. Where does the kinetic energy to move the particles come from?

Do the partiles loose a small amount of mass? Or is it truly the loss of some innate "potential energy" that the particles inherited from nucleosynthesis?

~TrickSpoon0 173.58.233.95 (talk) 10:52, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The kinetic energy does come from the potential energy and, yes, that potential energy contributes to the mass of the particles. The particles get lighter as they move together, although by a pretty insignificant amount. Two particles each of mass m a distance r apart have potential energy (relative to being zero distance apart) of ${\frac {Gm^{2}}{r}}$. If you plug that into E=mc² you find that the extra mass is ${\frac {Gm^{2}}{rc^{2}}}$. Since c is such a large number and G is such a small number, that extra mass is tiny. --Tango (talk) 13:24, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Typical discharge current

Bearing in mind that it is a glow discharge (which normally has an upper limit of about 1A before transitioning to arc), what is the typical current in the discharge between the electrodes of a TEA nitrogen laser? --92.28.77.227 (talk) 11:21, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Time travel

Time travel into the past would violate causality, but time travel into the future well possible, we do it at a rate of 60 minutes per hour. In science fiction, you step inside a time machine, pull a lever and after some minutes of your time, centuries have passed on the outside. During that process interaction between the outside and the inside is limited. What real world things come closest to that? Moving near the speed of light would do the trick. Cryostasis works very well, only that nobody has been successfully revived yet. Taking a nap, hoping that at least biologically you don't age quite as fast is quite limited in effect. What other ways are there? 93.132.153.177 (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

chemistry

law of constant proportion 117.206.3.136 (talk) 14:22, 24 April 2011 (UTC)