Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2018 August 14

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August 14

Glyphosate use by country

I cannot find a map or anything. Thank you for any help you can offer. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:45, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't see that anyone has made such a map. The closest I can get to answer you is to point you toward [1]. They have some very extensive data there on farming and pesticide/herbicide use by country by year. You can click on "pesticide use" for instance, and look up all of the data on pesticide/herbicide use in all countries with available data in a certain year. Unfortunately they don't break the categories down to individual chemicals, just to classes of chemicals. You would also of course want to normalize data by amount of farmland, or total agricultural output or something. Which you should also be able to find on that website. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:31, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that link.

I found this too.

It would be great if we could get a map image together for the articles. Do you think that is possible? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:26, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

It would be nice - there is certainly a lot of great data in there. But searching the site, I can't find anything like that level of detail for glyphosate. I even looked in the raw data, it's not there. It's just bundled into "herbicides". Someguy1221 (talk) 23:49, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Since Monsantos patent expired in the year 2000, Glyphosate is contained in over 100 products of different brands. Also you have to keep in mind that these Products are, like the original "Roundup"-Product from Mondsanto, always Mixtures of up to 30 or more different Toxic Agents - often changed over time and on top kept disclosed as business secret, with only Glyphosate mentioned like a "quality guarantee". So it would not only be some huge work to sum up all the different Brands market share but also likely impossible to sum up individual Toxic Agents to a total physical volume or weight used in some region or country, especially in socalled free market economies with little or non regulation and oversight. --Kharon (talk) 00:52, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Beyond the data already linked, there is an estimate for US and global usage of glycophosphate until 2014 here [2]. Although the US has not issued one report since 2007 (per the above source), it's clear that the US data comes largely from US government sources. I suspect getting accurate data is actually a far bigger problem in developing countries like India or Brazil than in developed ones even those generally recognised as having freer markets, despite Kharon's suggestions to the contrary. (Compare for example their relatives levels on the Index of Economic Freedom or Economic Freedom of the World). Nil Einne (talk) 09:04, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

@Nil Einne Actually you generalized my suggestion. I was very specific in questioning the common recognition of governmental brandings ("socalled") and pointing out the actual regulation and oversight. I also like to add that regulation and oversight does not necessarily need to be governmental. I think the International Agency for Research on Cancer is one surprisingly honorable example for exactly that in the case of Glyphosate, where even more surprisingly so many governmental institutions obviously failed or became corrupted for decades, up till today, which closes a circle to the "socalled" definition i chose. --Kharon (talk) 14:27, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Your English is difficult to understand but the fact remains that your claim was highly misleading. Regulation and oversight can be a part of relatively free market economies. Fairly unfree economies often have a lot of regulations but these can be poorly enforced or are just of questionable usefulness. As demonstrated by the many examples, both here and elsewhere, where developed countries with relatively free markets are far better than many developing ones with fairly unfree markets and often plenty of government barriers in many areas. And frankly despite the many flaws in US government agencies, I'd trust their statistics on glyphosate use much more than I would most statistics from NGOs in India or Brazil. And this isn't even because the NGOs are incompetent, they may be but the wider issue is that it depends significantly on local conditions. Note that my point had absolutely zero to do with actual controls or health research or other alleged 'toxic agents' anything of that sort, I'm not interested in such a debate and the RD isn't the place for it anyway. I was solely addressing the question which was specifically about the amount of glyphosate used, not anything else. Nil Einne (talk) 23:53, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

You misread my point and thus blamed me for conclusions i never intended/took. I simply tried to correct that. Besides, your excessive explications do draw some sharp contrast to your claim of no interest in that point/debate. It is however still addressing the question of "finding a map or anything about Glyphosate use by country". --Kharon (talk) 03:15, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

You explicitly claimed "Brands market share but also likely impossible to sum up individual Toxic Agents to a total physical volume or weight used in some region or country, especially in socalled free market economies with little or non regulation and oversight". I've pointed out why this is bullshit because in reality, free market economies can have far better oversight and monitoring than less free ones as shown by the numerous developing world countries compared to the often far less free developed ones. I don't understand what you mean by "excessive explications do draw some sharp contrast to your claim of no interest in that point/debate". I am only interested in correcting bullshit on the RD and your claim that free market economies can't have decent monitoring of glycophosphate (or general herbicide) use, or at least far better than less free market economies is clear bullshit and you've offered zero evidence to the contrary. (I do actually think your toxic agents thing is highly flawed, but it's something that is complicated and also stupid so I can't be bothered challenging it compared to your clearer bullshit claim.) Nil Einne (talk) 12:28, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Alastor angulicollis

Hello, everyone! We have that article there but, unfortunately, no image... There also seems to be no proper image on Google at all! Can anybody provide assistance with finding a picture of this species?--Neufund (talk) 22:58, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

oh, this is super obscure. The only mentions of Alastor angulicollis in scientific literature are the two publications where it was independently identified, and then in two lists of species. Some modern databases also list this as Hypalastoroides angulicollis, and treat Hypalastoroides as a genus (and Wikipedia even has an article on Hypalastoroides. But one species directory places Hypalastoroides as a sub-sub-genus inside of Alastor. Anyway, I can't figure this out! The Smithsonian apparently has a pinned specimen, but no pictures of it. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:26, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

There is no photo yet at [3]. Information was uploaded by Петр Храмов (Peter Khramov) whom one may ask about a photo. DroneB (talk) 15:53, 15 August 2018 (UTC)