Welcome to the science section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

Select a section:

WP:RD/S

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

January 26

What was the last continent with a 360° rain shadow shield?

Mountainous on every perimeter. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:47, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Has there ever been one? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:21, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If South America hits Africa and separates before the Andes erode enough then it could happen in the future at least. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:25, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't they moving away from each other? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, for many millions of years more but after that the Atlantic might close. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:45, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Or it might not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:38, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Then SMW should have started that sentence with if. —Tamfang (talk) 22:22, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If memory serves, the (completely fictional) Maple-White Land was a plateau that was sort of isolated from weather on all sides:

"Surely...the rain must find its way down somehow. There are bound to be water-channels in the rocks. The rain must go somewhere.... The only drawback is that we have conclusively proved by ocular demonstration that there are no water channels down the rocks." From Chapter 9, available online at Project Gutenberg.

Naturally, such geographical and hydrological isolation would "invariably ... lead to some assertion as to extinct or prehistoric life," ergo, iguanodons, and such.

Nimur (talk) 05:19, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Or at least Shangri-La. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:03, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vaalbara. Count Iblis (talk) 23:08, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Vaalbara was a long time ago, but the Messinian salinity crisis was prior to 5.33 million years ago. The Mediterranean Sea was in this situation then. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:45, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's not exactly the same thing, the Messinian Mediterranean was a endorheic basin, which is just a drainage basin with no outlet to the sea. Invariably, these basins become saltier, as there's no way for incoming water to carry dissolved salts into the ocean, where they can be diluted. Endorheic basins can receive plenty of rain, but the salinity goes up regardless because of the lack of outlet. What the OP is asking about is if there has ever been a landmass which was entirely within a rain shadow. A rain shadow requires tall mountains; Endorheic basins can be surrounded by mountains but don't have to be. They can also be depressions that are simply lower than the surrounding land. --Jayron 32 21:15, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This question seems too vague to answer clearly -- how big a break counts, how big a continent is needed, how many mountains inside the feature or extra land outside the feature would be considered to spoil it. I mean, the Great Basin seems like it might qualify, or various parts of Asia that are not genuinely endorheic but certainly have a lot of mountains running every which way. Wnt (talk) 14:40, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the Tarim Basin isn't a continent (although it is very big), but it is surrounded by mountains and has a very low rainfall. Mikenorton (talk) 17:01, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

January 27

gender transition's effect on human refractory period

Our article on Refractory period (sex) notes that, in general, the minimum time between orgasms is much shorter for women than for men. It also mentions research into whether this has a hormonal basis.

If a transgender person begins taking hormones, does their refractory period change accordingly? The Wednesday Island (talk) 18:36, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has separate articles about transgender hormone therapy male-to-female and female-to-male though both articles would benefit from more reliable citations. The article on Sex reassignment surgery includes a sourced report that Almost all female-to-male individuals have revealed an increase in sexual excitement and are capable of achieving orgasms through sexual activity with a partner or via masturbation, whereas only 85% of the male-to-female individuals are able to achieve orgasms after SRS, see Sex reassignment surgery#Sexuality. No general rule about the refractory period after gender transition is forthcoming. DroneB (talk) 21:45, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

January 29

Wikipedia's "List of prolific inventors"

please keep discussions of article content on article talk pages. --Jayron 32 16:50, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Your list of "List of prolific inventors", begins at 200 Patents. The USPTO Website shows I currently hold 309 US patents under my name; "Viola, Frank". How is it my name is NOT listed at 309 Issued US Patents? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.151.12.97 (talk) 00:32, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The only Frank Viola I'm aware of is a pitcher. Can you provide a citation for this fact? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:01, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A very quick search in any of the patent databases shows at least a lot "Viola, Frank" patents. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 01:48, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Like many articles that are large lists, this one is evidently incomplete. Personally, I don't think patent-count is a particularly good indicator of how prolific an inventor is; but other editors have chosen to compile this list. I'm not sure how the various editors determined criteria for inclusion in that article.

Is your work mentioned in other publications? Do many people outside of your community know of your work?

You can add the information to Wikipedia yourself - that's totally allowed, but have a read-through at our conflict of interest policy to make sure you don't run afoul. As long as you add well-sourced information, you may write about yourself; if you want to wait for someone else to write about you, you can simply continue to be prolific, and someone will eventually write Wikipedia content about you.

Nimur (talk) 01:07, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This question belongs over at Talk:List of prolific inventors. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 01:17, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note that many lists on wikipedia, especially list of this sort, require items are WP:notable before they are included. This often means every item must be a blue link and link to an existing article on the item. (It can't be a redirect back to the list!) Sometimes red links are acceptable meaning that if editors feel an article is justified but simply doesn't exist an item may be added. If an item is clearly not notable and so would have to be unlinked, then it doesn't belong. No matter how people may feel about that, or whether there are reliable secondary sources which provide sufficient info to establish that the item could be added to the list. And to be clear, notable means by wikipedia standards i.e. basically there are sufficient reliable secondary sources covering the item. It doesn't directly have to do with how "famous" something is. Nil Einne (talk) 02:21, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

But that doesn't apply to this article. It's purely a matter of numbers there. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 02:59, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it should. See WP:LISTPEOPLE. But as jpgordon says, this belongs on the article talk page. Not here.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:21, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

January 30

Autism and Vaccination - Wakefield’s Lancet Paper Vindicated – [Yet Again]

This paper, Wakefield’s Lancet Paper Vindicated – [Yet Again] claims that Andrew Wakefield paper linking autism to vaccination has been "vindicated". The BMJ appears to be respected, peer-reviewed journal. Why did they publish this? What am I missing? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:17, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What you have linked to is not a "paper": it is a "Response," or an "electronic letter to the editor." It is not held to the same standard as the peer-reviewed research on which it provides commentary. See more on this topic: Responses, at Resources for the reader. That commentary is, in the most real sense, the actual equivalent of an internet-comment - not a "paper." It's some random guy's response to the paper - and that random guy may or may not hold any credentials. Heck, per the BMJ's policy on internet-responses, that guy might not even subscribe to the journal! The actual paper, in this case, was BMJ 2010;340:c1127, which is a bit more circumspect in its claims.

Nimur (talk) 00:24, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The random guy seems to be a commercial lawyer rather than a physician. The vindication that he's claiming is about bowel disease and autism, and not about vaccination. - Nunh-huh 01:57, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I missed that in AQFK's original comment. I'm not sure whether AQFK didn't read the response or what, but there is absolutely nothing about vaccination in it. The only mention the author makes of vaccination is in another response but it has nothing really to do with research [1]. (Incidentally, I don't know if it's BMJ's fault or what but some of the formatting is very bad as reflected there. Also [2].) Nil Einne (talk) 03:38, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) Our Autistic enterocolitis article also reports some more papers published after that, especially [3]. Also you can see the other rapid responses including the responses to that response here [4]. Note that the headline research the response cites is this [5] [6] a conference paper. I'm not finding any signs the research was ever published in peer review form, for example looking at combinations of the various researchers [7] [8] I only found [9] [10] [11] [12] and well a bunch here [13] which don't have to do with ASD/autism. In other words, the research which 'vindicates' Wakefield's findings 'yet again' was apparently never properly published. Also if you actually look at the conference paper, it's not clear to me it even provides any real evidence for the basic hypothesis namely that there is some form of colitis unique to people with autism spectrum disorders, or at least some specific form of colitis more common among them. Instead it was just a report of finding GI symptoms in patients with ASD and how these lead to various problems. This is even more reflected in the other papers I listed, but it can be difficult to work out and manage conditions in someone with limited verbal communication. (I say this from experience although not autism.) The number of cases seems high, but these were people being enrolled so may be more likely to have problems plus even if GI symptoms are high (dietary management is also probably a common difficulty), it doesn't mean they are they are some specific form of colitis. It could be there is something more revealing presented at the conference, but I strongly doubt the author of that response attended it or is otherwise aware of any such thing. Nil Einne (talk) 02:37, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I earlier looked into research about autism published by the authors of the paper to try and confirm there was no publication of that research. If you are interested more generally in hypotheses surrounding possible connections between GI symptoms and ASD, this author seemed the only one who published anything remotely related [14]. (Note not all of these are by the author, I assume all KC ones are, K ones may be, Kx are obviously not.) See e.g. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]. I would also mention [22] by a different author mostly because it highlights you can't assume something is unique to ASD just because you found it in a study of ASD patients. Also [23] [24] seem to be related to my earlier mentioned possible dietary management difficulties. (And especially with the second result, it's worth remembering parents dealing with the pressures of a child with ASD may make different choices too.) Nil Einne (talk) 03:27, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

January 31

–150°F

Today is one of the coldest days on record in my area and Chicago would get down to –27°F tonight which would tie the all-time cold record. It is appropriate to have a discussion of what would happen if the temperature gets down to –150°F like it occurred in Manhattan in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. I know it's impossible for this to get this cold in my area, but let's imagine if that happens and what would the effects be on people, structures, and things?, such as people freezing to death in less than a minute and cars won't run and widespread power outages. Cash in your opinions, like what would you do if it gets this cold and power goes out and heating system wouldn't run... Planet Star 01:26, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is not really an opinion page, so there's nothing to cash in. One thing to note is that it can get pretty freakin' cold on Mars, and pretty hot, too, but it seems that our exploration machinery has been designed to survive the temperature extremes. Closer to home, Antarctica has cold temperatures almost as extreme as what you're describing, but the scientists there make do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:47, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In lieu of idle speculation, here is the Climate Program Office division for Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessements, a part of the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. They have published science-guided, forward-looking policy projections for realistic climate change phenomena. For example, Climate Impacts on the Pacific Northwest.

The American Meteorological Society also publishes an annual bulletin, Explaining Extreme Events from a Climate Perspective. Here's a link: from the Bulletin, (PDF) - (though at the time of this writing, their server is having technical problems - you can find the publications mirrored on a few other websites).

On an unrelated note - I've been watching and reading a lot about the very cold weather impacting the central parts of the USA and Canada. It's of course very cold. But I could not find any location where the cold was actually record-setting. I've read a lot of area forecast discussions for regions like Wisconsin, Minnesota; North Dakota, and so on. They use words like "dangerously cold." But I have not yet found even a single instance of all-time record-setting cold. Most of the sites I researched are still quite a bit hotter than 1966 (among many various other historical events that also set other records). Here's the Chicago temperature record list; here's the Chicago Forecast Discussion (for the 908 PM CST Wed Jan 30 2019 issue, they list out records in great detail). If I missed an actual (all-time) record-setter, I would be grateful if someone would let me know!

Nimur (talk) 03:13, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The weathercasters I've heard have been saying "coldest in 20 [or 30] years" - that kind of thing. But how would you answer the OP's question about "what if it dropped to minus 150"? I googled "how do they stay warm in antarctica" and a bunch of items came up. Here's one.[25] Here's another, in a conversational style.[26] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:55, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Humans would survive by avoiding exposure to those temperatures, using heaters and insulation to remain warm. If large populations had to protect themselves from such extreme temperatures, on a regular basis, it would be very costly in terms of energy, with catastrophic consequences in terms of economic and ecological impact. Surely other health effects would be implied. A quick glance through some cold winter back-issues of CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly bring up epidemiological research on the effects of cold weather on influenza, nutrition, and psychological health, among many others. Hypothermia, which is obviously a serious health-problem for an affected individual, barely registers as statistically-relevant at the population-level.

I am reminded of some of our more off-the-wall questions about earth-science, like "what if" Earth stopped rotating? I have usually summarized the answer to these type of physics questions - "it depends": how would [the earth's temperature drop a hundred degrees below normal]? If you can specify that, we can follow through with the consequences by applying some kind of reasonable scientific extrapolation.

On the other hand, if you just want to make something up, "just imagine" that the Earth magically changes its [temperature], all bets are off. We can't meaningfully speculate what consequences follow when one law of physics breaks "because of magic." Anything could happen. Everything we know about the way climate works, and how humans adapt to it, would be off the table.

Nimur (talk) 13:28, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That magical force that could stop the earth from rotating could also move the earth's orbit out to around where Mars is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:58, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For the rest of the world, –27°F is -33°C and –150°F is -101°C. You're welcome. Fgf10 (talk) 08:39, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Indeed, we still use Fahrenheit in the United States for nearly all practical purposes, even in the scientific study of weather and climate. In our defense, it makes certain rules-of-thumb easier to memorize. For example, we (... all Americans...) have memorized the adiabatic lapse rate, which is conveniently 4.6 degrees Fahrenheit per thousand feet. As we surely all agree, this is much easier to remember than two degrees Celsius per thousand feet; and far easier to memorize than degrees (of any scale!) per meter; and since we so commonly perform these calculations in our head, instead of consulting our paper-charts for the International Standard Atmosphere, we use a little bit of convenient rounding to gloss over the details of a wet- or dry- airmass and nonlinear thermodynamic variation as a function of pressure-altitude, which is why the various authoritative sources for these data provide different values and/or unit conversions that seemingly don't compute. Surely our esteemed readers will recall the many times we've discussed units-of-measurement, practicality therein, and the theoretical underpinnings of metrology in the context of realistic constraints on accuracy and precision... but this was supposed to be a discussion about meteorology,... Nimur (talk) 13:28, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If the OP had asked about a constant 40 below, it would have worked either way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:58, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Air is actually an thermal insulator so humans in healthy conditions are capable, with some preparation like staying dry and have good isolation, to survive very low temperatures even for days. Elderly, ill and drugged people may be in great danger. --Kharon (talk) 10:43, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Chicago was for a time colder than the South Pole, with a forecast of -10F/-21F that day [27]. True, it's summer in the South Pole and not in Chicago, and the list of weather records includes a -129 F for Vostok Station. Some consideration of their situation might therefore shed some light on what is possible, at least. Wnt (talk) 04:05, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is already allot of historic and scientific data and theory about the Late Antique Little Ice Age and the Little Ice Ages just a few 100s of years ago. So such extreme Weather conditions seem quite common. We seem to live in a lucky timeframe regarding our Climate. --Kharon (talk) 08:31, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What's the reason for two different colors of figs in the same tree?

If I'm not mistaken (base on my memory a long time ago), figs can be totally green or totally dark color (something like black) on the same tree, on the same time while they are ripe. If it's true then what's the explanation for that? Are there more trees like that? 93.126.116.89 (talk) 11:14, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Some fig varieties have two crops of figs in the same year, one set called breba figs growing on the previous year's shoots, while the main crop grows on the same year's shoots, so you could get two sets figs of different colour on the same tree, but not ripe at the same time. Mikenorton (talk) 12:29, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ancient site

hello, long time ago I watched a documentary about some "mysterious" site, I think in Miami, something like the plan of an ancient city, or maybe out-of-place artifacts like ancient piping, or something of the sort, and they initially didn't know if it was pre-Columbian or modern and they mentioned some financial goings-on where someone bought it for like 1 dollar. I skimmed this and this pages in the hope it would help my memory along but nothing rings a bell. Does someone by chance know what I'm talking about Aecho6Ee (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Might it have been a site of the Miami people rather than the Florida city of Miami? The city in Florida only has a coincidental name; the name of that city is named for an entirely unrelated people group with a similar name. The Miami of the Great Lakes region and the South Florida city are often confused, but are not related. --Jayron 32 16:27, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Any chance it was Baigong pipes? Matt Deres (talk) 19:48, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Miami Circle? —2606:A000:1126:28D:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 04:57, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Photo of early man stone tool rejected

I am a professional photographer and amateur archaeologist who is frustrated that you will not allow me to contribute my PERSONALLY PHOTOGRAPHED image of a stone tool I FOUND. Your "solutions" require hours to understand, and make the entire process of contribution IMPOSSIBLE. Ny the way I have contributed financially for many years, and am insulted that my professional images are rejected by your complex process - which only a coder would appreciate.

Robert Marcos Here's my work: http://www.robertmarcos.com/macro/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert Marcos 2010 (talk • contribs) 16:07, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert Marcos 2010: Sorry, Mr. Marcos, but when I check your contributions here at English Wikipedia, I can find no record of you having uploaded any image here. Perhaps you uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons instead? While both sites are under the Wikimedia umbrella, English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons are separate websites with completely different user bases, administrator corps, policies, and the like. If you did upload it to Commons and are having trouble there, can I suggest you ask for help on that website? The Commons Help Desk is the correct place to get help with that website. If this is not what happened, perhaps you can explain, in more detail, the nature of the problem you had with uploading your photograph? The process can be a bit arcane at times, and I, or someone else here, can help walk you through it. I hope we can help you, Mr. Marcos. --Jayron 32 16:24, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any contribs for that account name in Commons, either. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:43, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think the original poster is saying that he wants to contribute an image, but that the process is hard to understand and he has been unable to properly "jump through the procedural hoops". --Khajidha (talk) 16:48, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It has become a minor nightmare, which is one reason why I've contributed no pictures for a few years now. It used to be much easier. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:19, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It strikes me as a difficult question for a person, like me, who just reads the various guides available at Commmons and isn't an expert in copyright law. Robert Marcos 2010 found and photographed the stone tool. He has copyright in the photograph and can license it to Wikimedia readers, no problem there. But should we consider the tool a utilitarian object that is not subject to copyright, or a sculpture? Since Mr. Marcos found it, it may very well be unpublished. If it were created after the concept of common law copyright became established in Mr. Marcos' location, it might be protected by copyright. I don't know if a creative work created before the concept of copyright came to be can be eligible for copyright or not. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:16, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The tool was created by a person who is older than several thousand years old. No known copyright law, under any conditions, can protect the copyright for an unknown person who died thousands of years ago. The oldest copyright protections in the world don't last longer than about 70 years past the life of the creator. I may be wrong on the number "70", but it certainly isn't "10,000". Under no circumstance is there any extant estate which could own the copyright on a stone tool, or a neolithic cave painting, or anything like that. --Jayron 32 19:25, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If there is, that would be a genealogical coup. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:23, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's no definitive answer, but the best estimate we have for the most recent common ancestor to every human on earth probably lived in the first millenium BCE (see here), which means that anything older than that is, quite literally, the intellectual property of all of humanity. Which again, makes knowing who owns the copyright entirely pointless. --Jayron 32 21:10, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that assuming this is indeed an old stone tool (and not simply a reproduction or fake) there is zero chance of any copyright concern which means including zero chance anyone competent on commons will complain. But I'd be careful with 70 years being the longest. I think perpetual copyright still exists in some limited circumstances in at least one jurisdiction (Singapore), although it's only going to cover recent works. BTW, per public domain and List of countries' copyright lengths there is 100 years for Mexico albeit I'm a little uncertain if it covers all post 2003 works. Nil Einne (talk) 01:21, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Getting back to the point, my suggestion (not TPTB's suggestion, but perfectly fine) is to choose "Plain form for local uploads", and in the summary add "{{GFDL-self}}" and a sentence saying where and when you found it, the approximate age, and where and when you photographed it. Then ignore the officious people (or more likely robots) who will then plague your talk page insisting you use their preferred format. Henry ^Flower 21:25, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Although you'd significantly limit re-users of the image if you licence them GFDL only. Nil Einne (talk) 00:49, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How are you trying to upload images? Personally, I feel that the commons upload wizard is not actually that complicated for your own images. Have you tried it Commons:Special:UploadWizard? It does not require anything I would call 'coding. It does require a small amount of reading and thinking about stuff you may not have thought about before but this may be a good think. For example, do you understand that if you choose to upload your images, you are not simply contributing them to wikipedia? Anyone anywhere is legally free to use them in accordance with the terms of the licence, whether commercially or whatever. This includes modifying them in any way they wish, recolours them, removing watermarks, cropping out what you photographed and putting onto a video etc. There are some licences e.g. the GFDL which make re-use in some contexts (such as printing them on a shirt or on a mug) less likely but ultimately you should expect they may be re-used. On the other hand, if you're happy for this to happen, maybe it will be better to choose the default licence Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0. This is almost (we use 3.0) the licence primarily used by wikipedia for textual contributions nowadays. If you're happy with that licence, it's offered by default for your own work, so you don't have to worry about choosing licence. Note that in case where what you photographed is natural, or so old that it's clearly not under copyright, it would likely be simplest if you choose 'own work' in the wizard. Nil Einne (talk) 02:16, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, if you want use to upload your images on your website for you from your website, this adds a lot of complexity since there is no indication on your website that your images are suitability licenced. We would have to contact you via your website, and you would need to email and confirm a suitable licence. It's likely far easier if you simply upload them yourself. Nil Einne (talk) 01:03, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia (and sister projects) has issues with people who will upload images and claim to own copyright or a license on them but don't. So they have a process WP:OTRS to try to verify if there really is permission, and demand it be followed when some new account shows up and uploads a bunch of pictures off a potentially unrelated website. However, there is another way to get your images on Wikipedia, which is to give them a Creative Commons license on your original website. Then any Wikipedian knows he can upload them and anyone can verify they are free for Wikipedia to use. Note that the license has to be unrestrictive like CC-BY or CC-BY-SA, in particular CC-BY-NC (noncommercial use only) isn't good enough because Wikipedia wants to allow general reuse by all comers. Wnt (talk) 03:57, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Alternating current waveform creation application for MacOS

Good evening. I was thinkinking about a project to study intervals, and wavelengths of alternating current. What application should I use to draw alternating current waveforms on MacOS? Vs⁶ ₅⁰⁷ 23:26, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Matplotlib and NumPy provide powerful free-software mathematical graphing tools. Nimur (talk) 00:04, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

GNU Octave and Scilab also work well, and if you are not a programmer may have a less steep learning curve than Python. If you are a programmer they may drive you batshit crazy. Greglocock (talk) 00:59, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Butterfly size

What is the size range of Limenitis arthemis? The article doesn't say -- and although I've seen quite a few of them when I visited Nashville, I cannot rely on my own size estimates because they tend to be exaggerated (especially if the species in question trigger a phobic reaction -- which these ones didn't -- but even without one, I tend to overestimate the size of larger butterfly species). 2601:646:8A00:A0B3:855:E0A8:6DB:BEBB (talk) 06:41, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You have phobias about butterflies? I shudder to think what your reaction to spiders would be. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:59, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Only about 11 of the larger species from the genus Papilio (none whatsoever about any of the Nymphalidae), and none at all about spiders -- and if you can't be helpful and answer the question, will you please keep your yap shut?! 2601:646:8A00:A0B3:70AE:764:63A1:67AC (talk) 10:20, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]