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	= May 7 =

	== Speed of light, dark energy, dark matter ==

	Could it be that dark matter and dark energy necessary exists, only because the speed of light in a vacuum and/or other values are assumed to be constants? I recall an unexplained discrepancy, when the LHC experimentally determined the mass of a proton, and found it to be in disagreement with the established value. Could the speed of light actually be dependent on distance, where a small change only becomes noticeable over galactic distance? ] (]) 01:15, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	:Sure, why not? --]] 01:43, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::Surely there must be a logical reason why I've not heard of any such idea investigated by a prominent scientist. I would consider this a case in point of Occam's Razor - conceding an error of assumption is a far simpler path than inventing mysterious matter and energy, and deriving all the physics involved. ] (]) 02:49, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			= December 13 =
	:Why do you think that the proton mass or dark matter and energy have anything to do with a variable speed of light? No one has investigated this idea because it isn't an idea, just a juxtaposition of headlines you saw in Discover magazine. -- ] (]) 07:50, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::That was something close to what I was thinking, but then again, who knows. PP, if you have a mechanism in mind according to which a variable speed of light would explain the observations that induce cosmologists to postulate dark matter and dark energy, please do enlighten us.
	::Actually, since the two things <small>(dark matter and dark energy)</small> have basically nothing to do with one another except the word "dark" and the fact that we don't know their origin or composition in detail, maybe just pick one of the two and start with that. --] (]) 08:08, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::I don't have a mechanism in mind, but there is clearly a link, since the speed of light features in virtually all formulas relevant to cosmology. The gravitational constant is it self a function of the speed of light. All that remains is to find the dependency of the speed of light on space-time. I raised the point about the proton mass to exemplify how another constant is not so constant after all, it's not only LHC that reported a discrepancy, a few observatories also gave similar reports when studying the more distant gas clouds. ] (]) 08:35, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::The speed of light is important because of basic relativistic mechanics. Since all motion is relative to the speed of light, it will show up in any calculation where anything moves. Which is pretty much every physics calculation--]] 13:00, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::::Not just relativity, but most ] phenomena also depend on the speed of light. The absorption and emission spectra of atoms are considered one place where changing physics might reveal itself over time. People have ], and perhaps the best that can be said at the present is, if there is any variation in electromagnetic coupling over space/time then the variation isn't very large (no more than parts per million). ] (]) 16:14, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::::Well, exactly my point. Is something moving, or have the potential to move in electromagnetism? If yes, speed of light will enter into the calculations. Since physics = the science of motion, the speed of light is a fundamental concept that will show up in almost every single calculation somewhere. --]] 16:16, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::Blood is in virtually every part of the human body, so cancer and asthma and this other disorder that's in the news must be related to blood, and we could cure them by reducing the amount of blood. Physicians should investigate that, but maybe they're reluctant to admit that their careers have been a lie.
	::::The proton discrepancy that you're talking about is presumably the ]. Maybe you read which says "proton mass" in the headline even though it talks about size in the body, suggesting that Discover's editors don't know the difference between mass and size, which is pretty bad even by the usual awful standards of these publications. Different attempts to measure the charge radius by different methods give inconsistent results. Since they don't measure the radius directly but rather calculate it from indirect evidence, the natural explanation is that there's an error in the calculations. It could be a sign of new physics (rather than just a simple error), but even if it is, it's new physics that invalidates their calculation of the radius, not new physics that means the radius is not constant. -- ] (]) 17:29, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			== What is the most iconic tornado photo ==
	:See ]. --] (]) 14:29, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
			{{hat\|Request for opinions}}
	::Thank you. I didn't know we had an article on that, although I should have guessed, since WHAAOE. ] (]) 21:33, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
			What photo of a tornado would you say is the most iconic? I'm researching the history of tornado photography for an eventual article on it and I've seen several specific tornadoes pop up over and over again, particularly the ] and the "dead man walking" shot of the ]. Which would be considered more iconic? ] \| ] \| ] 17:21, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

			:At the top of this page is a bullet point stating "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate": this reads to me like a request for subjective opinions. Perhaps you would like to consider what quantifiable and referenceable metric would answer what you want to know?
	== beating dogs (and other animals) to improve the flavor of the meat ==
			:Presumably you also want only real tornadoes considered? Otherwise some might nominate the the twister from ], or from more recent tornado-related movies – ], anyone? :-). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 18:07, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
			:"Swegle Studios" has a couple of YouTube videos dedicated to the backstories of famous tornado photos and video; you might find them useful in your research. , . ] (]) 18:40, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

			:I googled "most iconic tornado photo" and a bunch of different possibilities popped up. I don't see how you could say that any given photo is the "most iconic". ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 18:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
	In online forums and blogs (and occasionally in mainstream press articles), I sometimes hear the claim that certain peoples in various Asian countries try to inflict as much pain as possible on dogs and other animals before they slaughter them. The reason given is that this somehow makes their meat taste better. Western travelers to remote areas claim to have witnessed this pratice first-hand.
			{{hab}}

	But to me, it sounds like a strange claim, as I've heard that slaughterhouses in America try to keep animals calm, not for humane reasons, but because if the animal is frightened, it somehow degrades the quality of the meat.

			= December 15 =
	I've heard further claims that those two slaughter methods are not necessarily contradictory and that the beating/torture technique is intended to stimulate all the meat-ruining adrenaline so that it can then leave the system, after the animal has been sufficiently beaten,leaving the meat pure.

			== help to identify ] ==
	I find these claims are as poorly sourced and sketchy as they are shocking. Is there anywhere I can read a dispassionate description of this practice as well as whether there is any science behind it (i.e., beating or not beating an animal and its effect on the taste/texture of meat)? When I google it, all I can find are very emotional and sensationalist accounts by animal welfare groups, who are very rightfully upset, as it's a very cruel practice. But I don't need to be told it's cruel (that seems obvious, at least to those of us in the West who are socialized to care about dogs)--I am just wondering if there's any actual utility/purpose to the practice.

			] in New South Wales Australia]] Did I get species right? Thanks. ] (], ]) 06:56, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
	In short, do people really do this? Is there any evidence that it works?--] (]) 09:35, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			:related: https://species.wikimedia.org/Wikispecies:Village_Pump#help_to_identify_species ] (], ]) 06:57, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
	:Hi There is a good body of science behind keeping animals as calm and unstressed as possible before slaughter. Excessive stress before slaughter can lead to a condition called ]. In addition, having stressed animals before slaughter can lead to them becoming more aggressive and bruising each other. Both can be extremely costly. As for beating animals before slaughter, I do not know of this. But, it could certainly change the texture of the meat - but bruised meat is generally thought to be less palalatable (at least in Western culture). I don't think beating would be succesful at ridding the body of adrenaline as the body can produce adrenaline de novo under conditions of stress, e.g. by beating. So, I doubt the body would ever be rid of adrenaline.<span style="font-family:Segoe print; color:red; text-shadow:gray 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;">DrChrissy</span> <sup><span style="font-family:Segoe print; color:red; text-shadow:gray 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;">]</span></sup> 11:46, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			:FWIW, I can't detect any visible differences between the plant in this photo and the ones illustrated in the ] and the ] articles. However, the latter makes it clear that ''Polygala'' is a large genus, and is cultivated, with hybrids, so it's possible that this one could be a close relative that differs in ways not visible here, such as in the bark or roots. That may or may not matter for your purposes. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 10:11, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
	:I would expect that beating animals would result in blood in the muscle tissue. Most Westerners don't like the taste of blood (the iron specifically makes it taste bad), but I suppose others might, particularly if they were deficient in iron (bone marrow is a good source of blood, too). Of course, there are easier ways to mix blood with meat, and blood rapidly goes bad, so doing the mixing immediately after the blood is removed from the animal and right before cooking would make the most sense. Also note that it isn't necessary to slaughter an animal to get blood from it. I believe there's a tribe in Africa that keeps cattle, and draws some blood to mix with milk to make a drink. ] (]) 12:01, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			== How to address changes to taxonomy ==
	::That would be the ]. ] (]) 14:38, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			Hi all,
	:::Yep, that's them. Thanks. ] (]) 21:38, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
			I am a biology student brand new to wiki editing who is interested in cleaning up small articles/stubs for less known taxa. One that I've encountered is a mushroom that occurs in the pacific northwest ('']''). The article mentions that this fungus is occasionally mistaken for another fungus, '']''. <br>

			However, the issue I've run into is that ''F. pinicola'' used to be considered a single species found around the world, but relatively recently was split into a few different species. The original name was given to the one that occurs in Europe, and the one in the pacific northwest (and thus could be mistaken for ''F. ochracea'') was given the name '']''.
	:::: @ StuRat ''"Bone marrow is a good source of blood too"'', Really? have you ever seen or eaten bone marrow? not much blood at all, . ] (]) 07:30, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
			<br>
			The wiki page says <blockquote><p>Historically, this fungus has been misidentified as ''F. pinicola.'' When both species are immature, they can look very similar, but can be distinguished by lighting a match next to the surface of the fungus. ''F. pinicola'' will boil and melt in heat, while F. ochracea will not.</p></blockquote>
			<br>Since the source says ''pinicola'' (as likely do most/all other sources of this info given the change was so recent), and since technically it's true that they used to be mistaken for it... what would be the most appropriate way to modernize that section?
			<br>

			<B>My questions are</b>:
	:::::Perhaps I should have said iron. That's where red blood cells are formed, and it has a definite metallic taste as a result. ] (]) 01:01, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
			Should I replace ''F. pinicola'' with ''F. mounceae''? Or is that wrong because the source doesn't refer to it by that name? Would it be better to write something like (now known as/considered ''F. mounceae'') next to the first mention of the species? Or is that a poor choice because it implies all the members of ''F. pinicola'' were renamed ''F. mounceae''?
			<br>

			Any advice on how to go about updating this section is incredibly appreciated
	::::::It certainly is ''a belief'' that stress hormones tenderise the meat (not the bruising of the meat) see:. I was also told once by a vet who worked in the meat industry in the UK that people who steal deer to sell as venison like to chase them around before they shoot them as they believe it will make the meat is more tender. I don't expect that much scientific research has been done on this as it would be difficult to construct an ethical experiment. <span style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texhtml">]</span> ] 13:34, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
			<br>
			] (]) 10:21, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::First, take these sorts of questions to the relevant Wikiproject, in this case ]. I am not as familiar with the consensus at ], but it seems like they defer to '']'' and ] to decide. Those sources presently seem to consider '']'' a good species. Also, be careful about "replacing", there are rules to ensure the continuity of the article history. By the way, there is a hilarious but unencyclopedic/copyvio recipe appended to the '']'' article. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 11:09, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::Thanks for the tips, I didn't know about projects so I'll go read up on that. And thanks for the warnings about replacing things. I've been reading a lot of help pages, but I'm still in the process of learning the all conventions and what mechanics break if you do things the wrong way.
			::::I actually saw the recipe ages ago before I made my account and completely forgot about it... it was one of many things that prompted me to get into wiki editing. ] (]) 23:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

			== Does stopping masturbation lead to sperm DNA damage? ==
	:::::::And I've heard just the reverse, in the case of turtle soup, that the turtles must be killed instantly to avoid stressing them out. ] (]) 18:34, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			I'm looking for information on the potential link between the frequency of ejaculation (specifically through masturbation) and sperm DNA damage. I've come across some conflicting information and would appreciate it if someone could point me towards reliable scientific studies or reviews that address this topic.
	== Dairy cattle and osteoporosis ==

			Specifically, I'm interested in whether prolonged periods of abstinence from ejaculation might have any negative effects on sperm DNA integrity. Any insights or links to relevant research would be greatly appreciated. ] (]) 17:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
	Human women who nurse are subject to ]. As I understand it, calcium is removed from the bones to add to the milk. So then, does the same happen with cattle ? It seems that we force them to produce far more milk in their lives than is natural. If not, why not ? What protection do cattle have against calcium loss, and can this protection be extended to women ? ] (]) 12:08, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
			:Only males may abstain from sperm-releasing ] that serves to flush the genital tract of old sperm that in any case will eventually dissipate. No causal relationship between masturbation and any form of mental or physical disorder has been found but abstinence may be thought or taught]]] to increase the chance of wanted conception during subsequent intercourse. ] (]) 00:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
			::There's many rumors about that topic. One is that not ejaculating frequently increases the risk of developing ]. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 01:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
			:Nothing really conclusive but there's some evidence that short periods are associated with lower DNA fragmentation, see<small>
			:* {{Cite journal \|last=Du \|first=Chengchao \|last2=Li \|first2=Yi \|last3=Yin \|first3=Chongyang \|last4=Luo \|first4=Xuefeng \|last5=Pan \|first5=Xiangcheng \|date=10 January 2024 \|title=Association of abstinence time with semen quality and fertility outcomes: a systematic review and dose–response meta‐analysis \|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/andr.13583 \|journal=Andrology \|language=en \|volume=12 \|issue=6 \|pages=1224–1235 \|doi=10.1111/andr.13583 \|issn=2047-2919}}
			:* {{Cite journal \|last=Hanson \|first=Brent M. \|last2=Aston \|first2=Kenneth I. \|last3=Jenkins \|first3=Tim G. \|last4=Carrell \|first4=Douglas T. \|last5=Hotaling \|first5=James M. \|date=16 November 2017 \|title=The impact of ejaculatory abstinence on semen analysis parameters: a systematic review \|url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5845044/ \|journal=Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics \|language=en \|volume=35 \|issue=2 \|pages=213 \|doi=10.1007/s10815-017-1086-0 \|issn=2047-2919 \|pmc=5845044 \|pmid=29143943}}
			:* {{Cite journal \|last=Ayad \|first=Bashir M. \|last2=Horst \|first2=Gerhard Van der \|last3=Plessis \|first3=Stefan S. Du \|last4=Carrell \|first4=Douglas T. \|last5=Hotaling \|first5=James M. \|date=14 October 2017 \|title=Revisiting The Relationship between The Ejaculatory Abstinence Period and Semen Characteristics \|url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5641453/ \|journal=International Journal of Fertility & Sterility \|language=en \|volume=11 \|issue=4 \|pages=238 \|doi=10.22074/ijfs.2018.5192 \|issn=2047-2919 \|pmc=5641453 \|pmid=29043697}}
			:</small>
			:for example. ] (] • ]) 02:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
			:Mature sperm cells do not have ] capability.<sup></sup> Inevitably, as sperm cells get older, they will naturally and unavoidably be subject to more and more ]. Obviously, freshly produced spermatozoa will, on average, have less DNA damage. It is reasonable to assume that the expected amount of damage is proportional to the age of the cells, which is consistent with what studies appear to find. Also, obviously, the more the damage is to a spermatozoon fertilizing an oocyte, the larger the likelihood that the ] in the resulting zygote, which does have DNA repair capability, will be incomplete. The studies I've looked at did not allow me to assess how much this is of practical significance.  --] 09:40, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

			= December 16 =
	: ], ] . -- ]'''ᚠ'''] 12:13, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			== ] ==
	:I think you've made a false link. Women lactate; women are more subject to osteoporosis; therefore lactation causes osteoporosis. , for example, says that osteoporosis is more common in older women, past the menopause: hardly a time of significant lactation. It cites hormonal changes as the major cause, and does not mention lactation at all.--] (]) 16:14, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

			Thanks to those who answered my ], I think it should be added to a disambiguation page. If anyone wants to help me write that, reach out.
	::Their bones are depleted of calcium both during lactation and after menopause. The cumulative effect of both can be brittle bones. And note that your assumption that the effect must occur concurrently or immediately after the cause is a logic error. Take ]s, which occurs years after having ], or ], which can occur long after contracting ], or ], which can occur decades after getting severe ]s. ] (]) 16:21, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

			A sandpile seems disorganized and inert, but these are critically self-organizing. Do the frequency and size of disturbances on sand dunes and snowy peaks follow power law distribution?
	:::I've provided a link from a Governmental health organisation that suggests no link with lactation. Could you cite some actual evidence for your unbased assertion?--] (]) 19:46, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
			] (]) 01:18, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
			:Shouldn't this be at the Math Desk? <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 05:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
			::If the question is not about the model mentioned in the heading but about the physical properties of sand dunes and snowy peaks, this here is the right section of the Reference desk.  --] 08:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::I await a non-mathematical answer. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 09:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::It depends is probably a fairly reasonable non-mathematical answer for these kinds of systems. For sand dunes anyway, sometimes avalanche frequency is irregular and the size distribution follows a power law, and sometimes it's close to periodic and the avalanches span the whole system. It seems there are multiple regimes, and these kinds of systems switch between them. ] (]) 09:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::Thank you! I'm impressed this seems so casual, but surely you read this somewhere that might have a URL?
			:::::] (]) 22:29, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

			:Hi, this is an interesting and somewhat open question! A lot of work is done on these models but much less on careful analyses of real dunes. I did find that is freely accessible and describes some physical experiments and how well they fit various models. The general answer seems to be that the power law models are highly idealized, and determining the degree to which any real system's behavior is predicted by the model ahead of time is very difficult. Update: and it does include discussion of how well the model fits experiments.] (]) 17:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
	::::Googling "calcium during lactation", I found quite a few entries, including , which says calcium tends to be depleted both during pregnancy and lactation. Challenging facts is fine. Firing shots at fellow editors is not. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 20:37, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
			::That dissertation is great!
			::] (]) 22:30, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

			== Polar night ==
	::::That link says that extra calcium is needed during lactation. It also says that this comes from milk, and the information is provided by "The Dairy Council", so no surprises there. However, the link provides no link between lactation and osteoporosis. Stu is continuing to make stuff up rather than provide properly referenced information. The shot I fire is that this supposed to be a reference desk, with information referenced rather than assertions that something is true because the editor thinks it might be.--] (]) 09:09, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

			Are there any common or scientific names for types of polar night? The types that I use are:
	:::::Read through these studies: and don't be so rude. If your goal in life is to insult people rather than answer questions, you don't belong here. ] (]) 11:56, 9 May 2015 (UTc)
			* ''polar night'' - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below horizon entire day (there is no daylight at solar noon, only civil twilight), occurring poleward from 67°24′ north or south
			* ''civil polar night'' - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below -6° entire day (there is no civil twilight at solar noon, only nautical twilight), occurring poleward from 72°34′ north or south
			* ''nautical polar night'' - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below -12° entire day (there is no nautical twilight at solar noon, only astronomical twilight), occurring poleward from 78°34′ north or south
			* ''astronomical polar night'' - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below -18° entire day (there is no astronomical twilight at solar noon, only night), occurring poleward from 84°34′ north or south

			These names were changed on ] article, and I wnat to know whether these named I listed are in use in any scientific papers, or in common language. (And I posted that question here and not in language desk because I think that this is not related to language very tightly.)
	::::::I'm not trying to insult you: merely to point out that you are quoting as fact something that appears simply untrue. Your initial statement is "Human women who nurse are subject to ]." I believe this to be completely false, based on the link I quoted and even the links you quote: the final one says that calcium deficiency from lactation is reversible and at most, a very minor possible cause of osteoporosis. Imagine that you were a mother about to give birth and followed a link to this ref desk and read that "Human women who nurse are subject to osteoporosis." If there was not a follow up statement pointing out that this has no basis in fact, you could end up changing the way mothers nurse their children, with likely adverse affect on their childrens' health - see, for example, study on development in children and the effect of breast feeding. I would argue I belong here as a qualified scientist who checks references before inventing non-facts. Thanks for the insult, though.--] (]) 15:44, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
			--] (]) 18:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

			:Some definitions at from the ]. ] (]) 22:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
	:::::::"Completely false" and "a very minor possible cause of osteoporosis" are incompatible. If it's a cause, even a minor one, that's not "completely false". And that's all quite irrelevant to my Q, which was how cattle deal with the continuous loss of calcium from constant lactation. All of my sources showed that calcium loss does occur due to lactation in women. Whether this eventually leads to osteoporosis in women is a minor quibble, and we've wasted way too much time on it. I think me pointing out your logic error made you angry, and you decided to "get even". ] (]) 23:39, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
			::These seem to be generalizable as: X polar night is a period, lasting not less than 24 hours, during which the sun remains below the horizon and there is no X twilight. The specific definitions depend then on the specific definitions of ]/]/]. These can be defined with a subjective observational standard or with an (originally experimentally determined) objective standard.  --] 10:36, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::FWIW, I as a former amateur astronomer have never previously thought about the question of ''Polar'' twilight and night nomenclatures, but immediately and completely understood what the (previously unencountered) terms used in the query must mean without having to read the attached descriptions. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 16:34, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

			= December 17 =
	::::::Just looking through the abstracts of the studies you linked to, most of them say something along the lines of " Pregnancy-and lactation-associated osteoporosis is an uncommon condition that may be a consequence of preexisting low bone density, loss of bone mineral content during pregnancy, and increased bone turnover. So it's obviously not a general problem in lactating women and you wouldn't expect it would normally be a problem in cattle, providing they get enough calcium in their diet. <span style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texhtml">]</span> ] 12:41, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

			== differential equations with complex coefficients ==
	:::::::In women: The calcium loss in the bones often occurs, but only rarely rises to the level of causing osteoporosis during lactation. However, this calcium loss can set them up for osteoporosis later in life, post menopause, when additional calcium loss can occur, unless they replace the calcium in the bones after lactation: .

			In an intro ODE class one basically studies the equation <math>\dot x=Ax</math> where x is a real vector and A is a real matrix. A typically has complex eigenvalues, giving a periodic or oscillating solution to the equation. That is very important in physics, which has various sorts of harmonic oscillators everywhere. If A and x are complex instead of real, mathematically the ODE theory works out about the same way. I don't know what happens with PDE's since I haven't really studied them.
	:::::::In cattle: My question here is based on dairy cattle producing far more milk than they would in nature, with little opportunity to replenish the calcium, post-lactation. ] (]) 12:59, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

			My question is whether the complex case is important in physics the way the real case is. Can one arrive at it through straightforward coordinate transformations? Do the complex eigenvalues "output" from one equation find their way into the "input" of some other equation? Does the distance metric matter? I.e. in math and old-fashioned physics we use the Euclidean metric, but in realtivity one uses the Minkowski metric, so I'm wondering if that leads to complex numbers. This is all motivated partly by wondering where all the complex numbers in quantum mechanics come from. Thanks. ] (]) 22:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
	::::::::An example showing that breastfeeding can actually reduce the indicence of osteoporosis is : "''Another important element used in producing milk is calcium. Because women lose calcium while lactating, some health professionals have mistakenly assumed an increased risk of osteoporosis for women who breastfeed. However, current studies show that after weaning their children, breastfeeding mothers' bone density returns to prepregnancy or even higher levels (Sowers 1995). In the longterm, lactation may actually result in stronger bones and reduced risk of osteoporosis. In fact, recent studies have confirmed that women who did not breastfeed have a higher risk of hip fractures after menopause (Cummings 1993).''"--] (]) 16:06, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

			:Perhaps I don't understand what you are getting at but simple harmonic motion is xdot=jwx where w is angular frequency and j is i ] (]) 00:35, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
	::::::::If you read it says in the discussion:"Noticeably, milk fever is very rare in first lactation cows; incidence increases dramatically in third and greater lactations. Several factors contribute to the aging effect. Advancing age results in increased milk production, resulting in a higher demand for Ca. Aging also results in a decline in the ability to mobilize Ca from bone stores and a decline in the active transport of Ca in the intestine, as well as impaired production of 1,25(OH)2D3". It also discusses strategies for dealing with the problem. <span style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texhtml">]</span> ] 13:21, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
			:If PDEs count, the ] and the ] are examples of differential equations in the complex domain. A linear differential equation of the form <math>\dot x=Ax</math> on the complex vector space <math>\mathbb{C}^n</math> can be turned into one on the real vector space <math>\mathbb{R}^{2n}</math>. For a very simple example, using <math>n=1,</math> the equation <math>\begin{bmatrix}\dot z\end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix}i\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}z\end{bmatrix}</math> can be replaced by
			::<math>\begin{bmatrix}\dot x\\\dot y\end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix}0&-1\\1&0\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}x\\y\end{bmatrix}.</math>
			: --] 01:11, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::Shouldn't this be at the Math Desk? It almost seems like the IP could be trolling, given the same question just above. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 14:49, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::The question whether the complex case is important <u>in physics</u> the way the real case is, is not a maths issue. IMO the Science section is the best choice. I do not see another post that asks the same or even a related question.  --] 21:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::Just as above, I await a non-mathematical answer to this question. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 07:01, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

			Thanks all. Greglocock, your SHO example is 1-dimensional but of course you can have a periodic oscillator (such as a planetary orbit) in any orientation in space, you can have damped or forced harmonic oscillators, etc. Those are all described by the same matrix equation. The periodic case means that the matrix eigenvalues are purely imaginary. The damped and forced cases are where there is a real part that is negative or positive respectively. Abductive, of course plenty of science questions (say about how to calculate an electron's trajectory using Maxwell's equations) will have mathematical answers, and the science desk is clearly still the right place for them, as they are things you would study in science class rather than math class. Lambiam, thanks, yes, PDE's are fine, and of course quantum mechanics uses complex PDE's. What I was hoping to see was a situation where you start out with real-valued DEs in some complicated system, and then through some coupling or something, you end up with complex-valued DEs due to real matrices having complex eigenvalues. Also I think the Minkowski metric can be treated like the Euclidean one where the time coordinate is imaginary. But I don't know how this really works, and Misplaced Pages's articles about such topics always make me first want to go learn more math (Lie algebras in this case). Maybe someday. ] (]) 07:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
	== Ladybirds ==

			= December 18 =
	What is the difference between primarily red with black dot-type ladybirds, and primarily black with red dot-type ladybirds? It might be an old wives' tale, but when I was a kid, I was taught that the black ones sting/bite. I've never been bitten nor stung by any kind, and we have loads of them in our gardens. <span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texhtml"><font face="MV Boli" color="blue">] (])</font></span> 13:04, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			== Why don't all mast radiators have top hats? ==
	:Here's a link to ] ("ladybug" in the US). ] (]) 13:15, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			]Our ] article describes a device called a "top hat" which increases the range for mast radiators that can't be built tall enough.
	:They are just different members of the ], or even just different colorations of the same species (]). To my knowledge, none of them are all that different in terms of behavior, with the exception of the ], whose population has skyrocketed in the USA in recent years (also note the variety of colors/patterns in that species). They can be a bit of a pest, and swarm in to homes in the cool season. I don't think any beetle can sting, though ladybirds will bite on occasion (rather minor, no lasting mark or itching). My impression is that the asian ladybird beetles might be a little more likely to bite, but that may just be an artifact of the fact that they occur in bigger swarms, which would increase your chances of being bitten. ] (]) 13:19, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::Thanks, both of you. I didn't take it seriously, to be honest, believing it to be an old wives' tale. <small>And Stu, I prefer the term 'ladybird', because 'ladybug' is the word I had to teach in Japan (as schools prefer American English), and to me it sounds like a ]. 'Ladybird' sounds so much better, as a harmless little creature. </small> <span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texhtml"><font face="MV Boli" color="blue">] (])</font></span> 13:35, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::: (EC) SM, that link just reminded me of something we did as children, as a good luck charm. We get them to crawl onto our little finger, and then blow them away, making a wish at the same time. Is this practice common anywhere else? <span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texhtml"><font face="MV Boli" color="blue">] (])</font></span> 13:43, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::I see from the link that the asian beetle is indeed in the UK now, so you ''probably'' see mostly that type, though there will still be natives mixed in at lower concentrations. If you see more these days than when you were young, the explanation is probably the invasive species. Distinguishing the species is rather difficult for the non-expert, because color is useless, you have to look at the ] to make sure. Keep your eye out for the larvae, they look like fierce little dragons, and many people wouldn't recognize them as beetles . As for names, I prefer "ladybeetle" - as it clearly indicates the beetle status ;) ] (]) 13:41, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			So, why would you bother building a mast radiator without a top hat? Couldn't you just build it shorter with the top hat, and save steel? ] (]) 15:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
	::::We used to recite "Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire and your children are flown" while the ladybird was on the little finger, before blowing it and making a wish. There is an , as well as spotter charts and more information on the . ] (]) 14:05, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::::I ''knew'' it wasn't a false memory. Thanks, Duncan! <span style="text-shadow:#BBBBBB 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texhtml"><font face="MV Boli" color="blue">] (])</font></span> 18:54, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::::Huh. A variant of that line also occurs in ]' '']'', but I never knew the referent. Listen here if you're interested . ] (]) 21:05, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::::::Of course, we have an article: ]. In London, her "children are gone!" ] (]) 21:36, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::::::I learnt that nursery rhyme in school in the US back during the Nixon Administration. We realized that ''ladybird'' was a mistake for the proper term ''ladybug'' from the illustrations. The only people who need feaar being bit by ladybugs are aphids. As for ''Ladybird'', that is a ]. ] (]) 22:22, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::::::::A personal anecdote, I know, but I was bitten by several ladybirds in the ], when we had a veritable plague of them in the UK. It wasn't very painful, and it's true that they don't ], but they are not entirely innocuous. ] (]) 18:10, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::::::::You will find that in the article - with citations! Well - not that you personally were bitten, but people in general were see: ] <small>And, of course, it's ladybug that's a mistake - they're not bugs at all. You wouldn't believe how much trouble the difference in names causes for that article</small>. <span style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texhtml">]</span> ] 19:08, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::::::::::I'll assume Cardinal Fang had the two of you in the comfy chair while this was going on? ] (]) 20:57, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

			:The main source cited in our article states, "{{tq\|Top loading is less desirable than increased tower height but is useful where towers must be electrically short due to either extremely low carrier frequencies or to aeronautical limitations. Top loading increases the base resistance and lowers the capacitive base reactance, thus reducing the ''Q'' and improving the bandwidth of towers less than 90° high.}}"<sup></sup> If "reducing the {{serif\|''Q''}}" is an undesirable effect, this is a trade-off design issue in which height seems to be favoured if circumstances permit.  --] 21:41, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
	:FWIW, I was always taught as a kid that the black-with-red-spots type were poisonous while the red-with-black-spots ones were harmless. There were some that were yellow with block spots too. I assumed that they were the red type that hadn't 'ripened' yet. --] (]) 22:05, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

			== Name of our solar system ==
	== ] ==

	Is ~~there~~ a ~~connected~~ ~~multi-tooth~~ ~~veneer~~ ~~? If so~~, ~~does it still require an adhesive~~ or ~~grinding~~ ~~down~~ ~~the~~ ~~existing~~ ~~teeth~~ ? ] ~~doesn't~~ ~~list~~ ~~any.~~ ] (]) 14:28, 7 ~~May~~ ~~2015~~ (UTC)		Is our star system officially called "Sol", or is that just something that came from science fiction and then became ubiquitous? ] (]) 22:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
			:It's called the ], and its star is called Sol, from Latin via French. Hence terms like "solstice", which means "sun stands still" in its apparent annual "sine wave" shaped path through the sky. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 23:31, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::Via French? According to the OED, it came direct from Latin.<sup></sup>  --] 11:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC)}}
			::::Old French plus Latin. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 14:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::Also in Old French, the word meaning "sun" was '']''.  --] 23:42, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::Let's say {{fact}} to that claim. The star is indeed called Sol if you're speaking Latin, but in English it's the Sun (or sun). Of course words like "solar" and "solstice" derive from the Latin name, but using "Sol" to mean "the Sun" does seem to be something from science fiction. --] (]) 06:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::"Sol" is occasionally used to mean the Sun by astronomers. I feel like it is used in contexts where it is necessary to distinguish our experience with the Sun here on Earth, such as sunsets, from more "sterile" aspects of the Sun one might experience off the Earth. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 08:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::Being an astronomer myself, I don't think I've ever heard anyone use "Sol" outside of a science fiction context. --] (]) 09:06, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::Scientific articles that use the term Sol; and . These are rather speculative but as I mentioned, the usage is for off-planet situations. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 13:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::Using Sol, Terra and Luna to refer to the Sun, Earth and Moon only happens if you write your entire article in Latin and in science fiction, not in regular science articles. They are capitalised though. Just as people write about a galaxy (one of many) or the Galaxy (the Milky Way Galaxy, that's our galaxy). The Solar System is also capitalised. ] (]) 10:38, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::The article says "Sol" is the "personification" of the sun. Google Image the term "old Sol" and you'll see plenty of images of the sun with a face, not just Sci-Fi stuff. And "Luna" is obviously the basis for a number of words not connected with Sci-Fi. Lunar orbit, lunar module, etc. And the term "terra firma" has often been used in everyday usage. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 11:34, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::: And yet, if you ask 1,000 people "What's that big yellow thing up in the sky called?", you'll get 1,000 "the Sun"s and zero "Sol"s. Yes, in specialised contexts, Sol is used; but that doesn't justify saying our solar system's star "is called Sol" without any qualification, as if that were the normal, default term. It's not. -- ] </sup></span>]] 12:16, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::::::And after you've gotten that response, ask them why it isn't the "Sunner System". And why a sun room attached to a house isn't called a "sunarium". And why those energy-gathering plates on some roofs are not called "sunner panels". ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 14:22, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::::::What does that have to do with anything? The question was 'Is our star system ''officially'' called "Sol"?' (my emphasis). The answer is it is not. And that does not preclude other terms being derived from Latin ''sol'' (or, often enough, from Greek ''helios''), nobody denies that, it is irrelevant to the question. --] (]) 14:52, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::::::::The problem is that the OP's question contains false premises. One is the question of what the "official" name is. There is no "official" name. It's the "conventional" name. And the second part, claiming that "Sol" comes from Sci-fi, is demonstrably false. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 15:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::::::::Then demonstrate (that the usage of "Sol" as a name for the Sun, in English, not its use to derive adjectives, originated outside of SF), with references. The original question does not even include any premises, with maybe the exception of "ubiquitous". --] (]) 15:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::::::::::"Is our star system officially called "Sol" , or is that just something that came from science fiction and then became ubiquitous? ". And the wording of your own question, just above, does not make sense. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 15:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::::::::::Looking at Newspapers.com (pay site), I'm seeing colloquial references to "old Sol" (meaning the sun) as far back as the 1820s. No hint of sci-fi derivation. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 15:32, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::::::::::::Great! Well done. --] (]) 15:41, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::::::::::::Feel free to box up this section. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 15:52, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::::::::::The 1933 OED entry for ''Sol'', linked to above, gives several pre-SF uses, the earliest from 1450.  --] 23:48, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::::::::::Yes, of course, but that's not surprising, is it? 15th century humanists, astrologers and pre-Victorian poets liked to sprinkle their texts with Latin words. But I don't think this is what the question is about. It's a matter of context, but it should be up to OP to clarify that. --] (]) 08:48, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::::::::::::It's not surprising, but the discussion was not whether the use of ''Sol'' in English texts is surprising, but whether it originated outside of SF.  --] 10:52, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::::::::::::In my view, the question has a clear scifi bent, and that particular usage ("Where shall we go for our vacation? Alpha Centauri or Sol?") does not originate in the 15th century. The word is much older, of course it is, but the usage is not. In the 15th century people didn't even know that the Sun is just an ordinary star and could do with a particular name to distinguish it from the others. The connotations of ''sol'' were vastly different from what they are today and from what is implied in OP's question. Incidentally, the ] doesn't even define a name , although they recommend using capitalised "Sun". Certainly no "Sol" anywhere. --] (]) 12:04, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::::{{small\|Does that make it a Sol-ecism? ] (]) 12:19, 19 December 2024 (UTC)}}
			:::::::::<small>More like a ]. Meaning a factory where suns are made. From Sol = sun, and ipso = facto. Thus endeth the entymogology lesson for today. Go in peace to love and serve whomsoever. -- ] </sup></span>]] 19:37, 19 December 2024 (UTC) </small>

			== Mountains ==
	:Wouldn't a "connected multi-tooth veneer" be a "]"? --]] 15:50, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

			Why there are no mountains on Earth with a height above 10,000 m? As the death zone is about at 8,000 m, and above 19,000 m, there is an Armstrong limit, where water boils at normal human body temperature, it is good that there are no more mountains higher than 8,000 km than just 14, but if there were hundreds of mountains above 9,000 m, then these were bad to climb. If there were different limits for death zone and Armstrong limit, would then there be possible to have higher mountains? I have just thought that, it is not a homework? --] (]) 22:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
	::Yes, except that as it says "Grills are made of metal". I'd looking for the same thing, but with white ceramic or other white material (] is both white and partially metal, but it reacts with calcium, so not a good choice here). ] (])

			:There are ] that are over 20km high. Given that some of those are on airless worlds, I don't think the air pressure has any bearing on it. ] (]) 22:57, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
	== Oxygen content of the atmosphere ==

	] gives the Earth's oxygen content as 20.946%. Does it stay that constant? ] <sup>]</sup> 17:48, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	]]
	:No, neither as a percent composition nor as a total amount. For example, we just reached a global average of 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. If the relative proportion of one compound is on the rise, this impacts the relative proportion of other compounds within the atmosphere. Additionally, there are sources adding oxygen to the atmosphere, such as plant photosynthesis, and actions that remove it, such as combustion and aerobic respiration. These will all have their own impacts on the precise percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere. That said, all of these factors may be either well balanced or very small in impact to the point that, over the significant figures in your percentage, the number may not be changing. That is not the same thing as being a constant. --] (]) 17:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::CO<sub>2</sub> levels do not significantly affect oxygen levels. Look at the number you just quoted. CO<sub>2</sub> has risen to 400 ppm. That's parts per million. Oxygen is 20.946 %. That's parts per ''hundred''. 400 ppm is 0.0400%, which means it would ''just'' start to budge the oxygen amounts, but not by much. While your general point may be sound (that is, the relative amounts of other gases DO affect O<sub>2</sub>), significantly CO<sub>2</sub> is ''just not one of those gases''. The Earth's atmosphere today is basically only 3 gases which have any individual statistical significance: nitrogen, oxygen, and argon (in that order). Everything ''not'' one of those gases only accounts for about 500 ppm, or 1 20th of one percent. The amount of oxygen ''does'' change dramatically as noted below, but only on very long time scales. An interesting article to read would be ], which is believed to correspond roughly with the ]. --]] 19:08, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::Don't forget water vapor... ] (]) 02:32, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::That's why I said the impact would likely be below the significant figures of the percentage given. Not sure what you are responding to since I had already said that. That said, 1/20th of 1 percent could actually put that in the significant figures of the percentage given (20.946% vs. 0.05%, or in the case of 400 ppm, 0.04%), so actually, CO2 level changes could be significant enough for the percentage of O2 given. After all, a change of 50 ppm (say for 350 ppm to 400 ppm) could be significant enough for a change from 20.941% to 20.946% O2. That would only work if the only other gas impacted was oxygen, of course, which I doubt. --] (]) 23:02, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::The small rate of decline of atmospheric oxygen is used to help us figure out the budget of CO2 produced by fossil fuel combustion. The decrease in O2 is consistent with the amount of oxygen needed to burn fossil fuels, reduced by a (somewhat uncertain) sink. See for example Keeling et al. (1996), Nature, 218-221. ] (]) 02:30, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
	:Additionally, the portion of oxygen in the atmosphere has changed over the course of the Earth's existence, including over the last several hundred million years. See ] and the figure at right. --] (]) 18:00, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:And for more short-term variations see . If I am reading Fig.1 correctly, the seasonal variation is few 10s of ppm, with year-to-year variation being few ppms. So the last digit in 20.946% may vary by 2-3 within a year, and over a decade. ] (]) 20:28, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


	=== Effect on large dinosaurs ? ===

	One theory I've heard is that large dinosaurs required a high oxygen content in the air. So, did the age of large dinos correspond with the high points on the chart ? ] (]) 20:18, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	::Look at ], which puts them appearing at 231 mya, dominant until 66 mya. Lungs are tricky though. It is true that higher concentrations of O2 allowed for bigger insects in e.g. the Jurassic. Here's a paper on the topic of the Paleozoic O2 spike and consequences for physiology and evolution ] (]) 20:53, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	::Based on the figure I posted above, oxygen levels do look to have been higher during the age of dinosaurs than today, as much as 30% or so vs. the 21% of today. Whether that enabled larger dinosaurs is another matter altogether. We have larger air breathing animals today, such as the ]. How much oxygen a whale needs vs. a dinosaur and indeed how much oxygen a dinosaur needed is well beyond my skills. --] (]) 23:06, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:::Whales swim in the water, and I believe that's far more efficient than running is, requiring less oxygen. ] (]) 22:22, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::I had thought of that, but consider that whales need to do that without constant access to new air. They get a gulp of air, and then that's all they have for awhile while swimming. --] (]) 22:33, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
	*This thesis is the subject of the book ''''''''''. ] (]) 22:18, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	Thanks for the responses. I knew that the oxygen level must change some and I know it changes over long periods. But it seems to be remarkably close to being constant, i.e. very well balanced. ] <sup>]</sup> 23:05, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	== Predictions of temperature fluctuations ==

	Why, in some places, the weather is so stable year-round, whereas in other places, the temperature can drop and rise extremely, leaving little room for comfortable and cool temperatures? What are all the variables that may influence the temperature at a specific location? Distance from the equator, amount of sunlight, number of clouds, water bodies, mountains, global climate change, etc.? ] (]) 18:17, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:The largest factors are latitude, with locations farther from the equator being more variable (both seasonally and daily), and distance from large bodies of water (especially oceans) due to the moderating effects of water's large thermal inertia. On a day-to-day basis, the presence or absence of cloud cover can make a big difference. Winter months tend to have more variability than summer months, and this is especially true is areas with sporadic snow cover. ] (]) 18:35, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:::Agree, but note that bodies of water lose their moderating effect when completely covered with ice. At that point, they behave like land, as far as the weather is concerned. Thus polar regions can hit extremely low temperatures, even small islands in the middle of the Arctic ocean. ] (]) 20:11, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	::The OP would be well served to start with an article like ] and then follow links from there. The broad, average weather trends for a specific location is called "climate", so looking in to what ''causes'' the climate of an area will lead to understanding the issue. A common scheme is the ] system, and our article (and articles on the specific Köppen climate types) go into some considerable detail which should answer the OP's question. --]] 18:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	== The force that pushes me outward ==

	The centripetal force is the force orthogonal to the circular pathway, pointing at the center. Driving on a highway or riding on a roller coaster, you may feel a force that pushes you in the opposite direction of the vehicle movement. What is that force called? Or perhaps, you are feeling the force that pushes you in the linear direction, tangent to the "circle", but the circular pathway forces you to go in the circular motion instead of flying out of the circular motion? Is there a reason why the circular highway roads often have a set diameter, given the average speed limit of the road? ] (]) 20:16, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:The apparent (sometimes labelled "fictitious") outwards force is called ]. For any given radius, there is a maximum speed at which it is possible to follow the circular road without skidding, but this speed depends on the road surface and the tyres. A tangential force is felt when the speed is changing. Here in the UK, the radius of the circle varies, but when expected speeds are higher the radius is greater so that skidding is less likely. The frictional force at the tyres needed to keep a vehicle going round in a circle is proportional to the square of the speed, and inversely proportional to the radius. See the article on ] for details. ] 20:32, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::Centrifugal force is labeled a ] because it is one. Another synonym for "fictitious force" is "inertial force." I think the OP's question is probably better understood in terms of ] and ], and ]. The units are different from force. When you feel "pushed to the left" as your car turns to the right, there is no actual force pushing you to the left. That's why centrifugal force is a fictitious force. Rather, the car is supplying a centripetal force to ''you'' and you only feel pushed to the left because of your frame of reference in the car, and your inertia. I'm just trying to explain the same thing you are, but with slightly different words. I'm not sure, but I don't think the fictitious force of centrifugal force is even taught that often in high school and non-major physics at the undergraduate level any more. Most courses that I'm familiar with stick to centripetal force and inertia/momentum. ] (]) 20:46, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::Yes you are correct that it isn't taught (for good reasons). I mentioned the word "centrifugal" only because the OP asked for the word, so I linked to our article. In my teaching, I never mentioned either "centrifugal" or "centripetal" except to warn about mis-use. Were I inclined to totalitarianism, I would ban the words because of widespread misunderstanding, but I do occasionally use the concept of centrifugal force in my own thinking as a shortcut to an answer within a limited rotating frame. ] 21:36, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	There is nothing fictitous about the force. If you hold a rope in each hand and a giant whirls you around his head via the end of one rope, and a large rock is attached to the outboard end of the other Giant----You----Rock , the force you feel in your left hand, say inboard, is no more or less fictitious than the force in your right hand, yet one is towards the centre (centripetal), and one is towards the outside, centrifugal. Calling it fictitious doesn't make it go away. Now, I'd entirely agree most times it is easier to write the equations in an inertial reference frame, but that is not the point.] (]) 23:27, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:I just call it the tension in the rope, and, as you say, that is indeed real. Calling it "centrifugal force" tends to lead to misunderstandings by those who don't fully appreciate the difference between an inertial frame and a rotating frame of reference. ] 07:06, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
	::Actually, it's easier to write the Newtonian force equation (F = m·a) in the ''non''-inertial reference frame - specifically the one whose rotation exactly matches the object that's spinning. ''That's'' the frame where the force looks like a ''constant'' and you can solve for the equation of motion very simply! If you write the equations in an ''inertial'' reference frame, the force (its direction and magnitude) vary with time.
	::The tricky parts really come in to play because you can't write ''all'' of the forces in the same reference frame. If you were spinning a bucket, and you considered the rotating reference frame inside the bucket, you'd have to consider that the force of gravity varies with time (i.e. because the bucket's orientation is changing as it spins).
	::Physicists who have to deal with this problem ''simply avoid it.'' After spending a few years of Newtonian mechanics, physicists learn to write equations of motion in terms of ''energy'' instead of in terms of ''force.'' This is the translation to an equivalent formulation of dynamics: ], ], or ] (and so on). In these treatments, we don't care what's rotating or what force it feels: instead, we simply consider how systems will evolve, and what trajectories objects will take, when subject to potential energy systems and external constraints. The accelerations that these objects feel are produced as ''outputs'' of the calculations. This makes simple work out of the analysis of non-rigid bodies, rotating (or otherwise transformed) reference frames, and so on. It is how we model ], robot movement, and complex systems. A classical application: ''how much torque'' must be supplied by the motor at robot's wrist, ''when the robot arm's shoulder-joint is rotating''? ... And if the robot arm has six shoulder-joints, each one also moving? If you try to solve that using Newtonian mechanics and a rotating reference frame, you'll give up in a hurry and seek out one of these other analytical methods! Instead, we use ] that are more suitable for fast calculation, ''and'' that account for real effects ("fictitious" or otherwise).
	::] (]) 16:13, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

	== Would a roller coaster be exciting in space? ==

	What makes a roller coaster exciting? Is it the gravitational force that pulls the coaster straight down, creating the allusion of a freefall? Would a roller coaster be just as exciting in a gravity-free environment, like in space? ] (]) 20:47, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:It is difficult to predict, given that different experiences are involved. I think that the built-up of dread before a massive descent would no longer occur, because there is no descent. All there are in place of descents are rapid changes in curvature. However, the ride would be very disorientating on account of there being no up or down. That in itself could lend a factor of excitement. There's no way to tell whether the tradeoffs are of equal value or not, without a trial and error. ] (]) 21:20, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:Note that a roller coaster, by definition, requires gravity. That is, it's lifted using power, then it's dropped and gravity does the rest. You could power the entire length of the ride, or rely on inertia to finish the trip, but that would result in a gradually slowing ride. Perhaps if you put enough (powered) acceleration at the start, that might make up for the lack of a "drop" in the middle.

	:If your space station already has a (human-sized) centrifuge, for health reasons, perhaps you could make that into a virtual roller-coaster, with the aid of some VR goggles, to match the view with the changing g-forces. ] (]) 21:28, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	*Going to space to ride a rollercoaster is like going to Paris to check out their McDonald's restaurants. I am not sure that a roller coaster requires gravity ''by definition'', as what it requires is acceleration, and the changes in velocity caused by the deflection of a track (or a track substitute). Theoretically that's easy to design.

	:] (]) 22:04, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	== Females & make-up ==

	Everything has an evolutionary meaning, make-up included. "''''"... The question is, are females aware that their make-up is a tool for attracting males? --<span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color:#ffff00;">] <sup>]</sup></span></span></span> 22:00, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:Yes. ] (]) 22:04, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

	:You could try asking some. Top tip: adult females of the human species are referred to as 'women'. ] (]) 22:07, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::<small>No concern for the poor adult human males? ] (]) 22:14, 7 May 2015 (UTC)</small>
	:::Oh, good point. Yeah, it's not cool to talk about men like they're specimens in a nature documentary either. ] (]) 22:54, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::<small>Enough people behave as animals in this regard, yielding to instinct with little concern for the impact upon dignity or self-worth. ] (]) 23:01, 7 May 2015 (UTC)</small>
	*Sexual selection applies both ways, it explains the showy colors of male songbirds such as the ]s and the ] and human penis size. The quoted source is not the best, I'd just read ]. As for humans, being sapient, the answer, as noted, is yes. ] (]) 22:14, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	::I agree that the cited source is no good. The quote is simply not true. I call {{citation needed}} on the claim that Darwin said any such thing. ] (]) 22:45, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
	*If one really wants to understand human behavior from an objective point of view (that is, viewing humans as animals), the landmark work in this vein is ]'s '']''; besides the original book there have been several adaptations for film and for television. Morris is the ''sine qua non'' of this field of study. --]] 02:11, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
	::" serialized in the '']'' explanations failed to convince many academics starring Johnny Crawford and Victoria Principal " Why would you recommend this? -- ] (]) 05:01, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::Desmond Morris's standing among academics has little to do with whether his theories are correct or not. In talking about him with my anthropology profs, it seems that a lot of his work is dismissed out of hand because of his apparent focus on treating people as animals (vis a vis his background in zoology). As a "celebrity" he also suffered from the kind of excessive scrutiny guys like ] and even ] had to deal with. For example, now that he's safely dead, Sagan can get all kinds of ], but alive he was denied membership in the ]. Personally, I doubt we'll get a proper handle on Morris's methods and conclusions until after he's gone as well. ] (]) 13:33, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:''The Descent of Man'' is in the public domain and you can read it for free online. That page does seem to misrepresent what he said. The closest I can find in the book is "Man is more powerful in body and mind than woman, and in the savage state he keeps her in a far more abject state of bondage than does the male of any other animal; therefore it is not surprising that he should have gained the power of selection. Women are everywhere conscious of the value of their own beauty; and when they have the means, they take more delight in decorating themselves with all sorts of ornaments than do men." But then he goes on to list examples of savage women having some choice of their mates and says "We thus see that with savages the women are not in quite so abject a state in relation to marriage as has often been supposed." And he seems to think the civilized races are quite different, saying "Civilised men are largely attracted by the mental charms of women, by their wealth, and especially by their social position; for men rarely marry into a much lower rank. With respect to the opposite form of selection, namely, of the more attractive men by the women, although in civilised nations women have free or almost free choice, which is not the case with barbarous races, yet their choice is largely influenced by the social position and wealth of the men ." The only mention I noticed of shapely breasts is a statement that Northern American Indians are especially attracted to "breasts hanging down to the belt", as one of many examples of differences in standards of beauty between different races. There are also amusing passages like "The resemblance of '']'' with his jet black skin, white rolling eyeballs, and hair parted on the top of the head, to a negro in miniature, is almost ludicrous." So maybe you should not take what Darwin says as gospel. -- ] (]) 05:01, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

	= May 8 =

	== Glue ==

	Can anybody recommend a glue that will bond plastic to metal. I'm currently building a model but it came through ebay and is missing the screws required. --] 19:27, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

	:This resource has recommendations for bonding many substances to other substances. In this case they recommend ], or "LePage's Metal Epoxy" - additional info on these products, and reasons for recommendation are available at the site. ] (]) 19:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

	:Have you looked for the required screws ? I should think if you took it to a good hardware store they could try out various screws until they find a match. Note that screws generally have far more holding power than adhesives, unless a very large area of adhesive is applied. Some screws are also removable, in case you need to do maintenance on the item. ] (]) 00:58, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:Some ]s will work, if the parts mate smoothly. Don't use too much. <font face="Century Gothic">   → ] ] ] ]</font> 02:33, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:Use two component ]. Ensure the metal parts are not too smooth. Degrease before applying the epoxy. Degrease metal parts with brake cleaner. Do not touch surface to be glued after degreasing. Note, how to handle this products! False use is dangerours. Small amounts are expensive, applications for ] may have better pices. --<span style="color:#00A000;">Hans Haase (])</span> 09:12, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

	:There are several problems with using glue where the model was designed to use screws:

	:# The glue (especially the kinds that work with metals) takes up space. So you'll never be able to get the parts to fit together as accurately as they should.
	:# Screws not only hold the thing together, they also force a very specific and precise alignment of the parts together that you may find difficult to get right with glue.
	:# Screws can generally provide more strength than glue...not always...but in the case of plastic-to-metal, I'd be quite surprised to find a glue that was anywhere near as strong.

	:Inaccurate fitting may make it much harder (or perhaps even impossible) to put the rest of the kit together - so these are not minor issues.

	:Since you're likely to need to take a trip to the hardware store to get the rather specialised glue that you need - why not just buy screws instead - it's actually likely to be cheaper. ] (]) 15:21, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
	::It totally depends on what the model is and exactly how the pieces fit, and I agree with steve above, but if screws are not an option, I've recently had fantastic results with 2 part ] glue on a car key. My car key is combination remote "fob" type thing which had just a tiny screw holding the actual key part into a tight fitting plastic housing. The plastic housing developed some cracks and eventually the screw gave way and little bits of plastic chipped out and the metal key part, with a surprisingly small ] fell out. I took the key fob apart and just glued the key in, I wasn't incredibly hopeful but the key is over $100 to replace so I thought I'd give it a shot, and it's turned out remarkably secure. ] (]) 22:58, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

	= May 9 =

	== Dark Matter ==
	Is Dark Matter death? ? asked by Ed Slater artist from Dumfries
	:No. --] (]) 00:27, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
	::Says it all, really. ] is a process, whereas ], if it exists, is a ], so the OP's question can be answered in the negative on purely ] grounds. You can have a bottle of dark matter (how large it would be and what the walls would be made of is another question), but you can't have a bottle of Death. ] (]) 09:34, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
	:] tried to measure a loss of weight from patients/corpses at the moment of death (see also ), claiming positive results. If this were taken at face value it might back up a death-based mechanism of dark matter production. However, it's been nearly a century since this was even a sci-fi grade reference, since it is universally assumed that the small sample size and measurement error were to blame. ] (]) 11:34, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	*You can't have a bottle of death, but you can have . (Tevildo's point is actually quite important, and you'll find a lot of the motivation behind drug and gun control legislation is the ideas that those things themselves are evil, not how they are misused.) ] (]) 18:30, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:I dunno. It's not death as depicted by the Grim Reaper or "souls" as seems to be implied above. However if it's the result of universe expansion and cooling, it could very well represent the death of the stars, galaxies and universe. I suspect there is a volume and temperature that no longer supports ] or any type of ]. "Assumed room temperature" may be quite apt description of "death" and if the universe assumes the temperature of dark matter.... --] (]) 05:48, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

	::This is the science death desk, however, not the metaphorical death desk. ] (]) 14:48, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::<small>Brings to mind a creepy but well-executed little piece by ], called ''The Diagnosis of Dr. D'arqueAngel''. --] (]) 00:11, 11 May 2015 (UTC) </small>

	== ] ==

	Hi there!<br />
	What are the symbols of this formula meaning in the context of the ]: ''dF = (GMρA/r<sup>2</sup> − ρAv<sup>2</sup>/r)dr'' ?<br />
	Thank you for your answer!<br />
	] (]) 10:06, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:''F'' is the force on a particular point in the cable exerted on it by the cable below it (which is calculated by integrating the above formula), ''G'' is the ], ''M'' the ], ρ the density of the cable, ''A'' the cross-section area of the cable, ''v'' the orbital velocity of any part of the cable and ''r'' the distance from the Earth's center. - ] (]) 10:30, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	: The equation appears in by ], where the symbols are explained thus:
	::G is the gravitational constant
	::M is the mass of the Earth
	::ρ is the density of the tower and A is its cross-sectional area
	::v is the velocity at point r on the tower due to the Earth’s rotation.
	:It's not explicitly stated in the paper, but dF is the increase in the (vertical) force on the tower for an increase dr in height. Lindert's posting above agrees with Pearson's definitions. ] (]) 10:37, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	== Extinct (planes) ==

	Considering we have not yet found a viable alternative to oil and gas, is it possible that commercial passenger planes could become extinct by the end of this century? ] (]) 10:49, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:I doubt it. I web searched ''natural gas powered plane'' and came up with ; you can repeat for the fuel source of your choice. (In the 50s they even considered ]s!) Now powering a plane with heavy, high pressure tanks of combustible gas doesn't sound like the most appealing idea, but people do what they have to. Also see (I think we had a thread on that recently) ] (]) 11:39, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	::The weight might be an issue, but as for flammability, the current ] is somewhat flammable, too. ] would be the logical replacement. Since it's considerably more expensive, you could expect air travel to reduce, but not end. ] (]) 11:42, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	: There are many alternatives, both old and new. Just as we had electrical cars in the 19th century, we also had ]s crossing the atlantic way back. ] is one of many newer alternatives. ] (]) 13:13, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	::Lighter-than-air travel is inherently dangerous, as winds can easily blow the ship off course, make mooring impossible, etc. It's also inherently slow. You might think it would at least be peaceful, but those steering props still cause noise and vibration. I should think travel by ship or train would be better alternatives, should planes somehow become impractical (a decades-long volcanic eruption filling the sky with ash could do it). ] (]) 13:24, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:::I'm still holding out for a ] myself - a giant membrane, light as parachute cloth, covering a vast area, with actuators to wiggle it up and down in wave patterns and/or open and close pores in the material, with some kind of howdah in the middle and (of course) exquisite computer modelling to guide it. ] (]) 16:11, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	::::I wouldn't write off airships just yet although they're being developed for cargo rather than passenger transport. <span style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em; class=texhtml">]</span> ] 16:46, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:::::Yea, with some types of cargo scheduling is less critical, so intermittent, slow deliveries might be acceptable. ] (]) 17:49, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:I added to the title to give a clue what the Q is about. ] (]) 13:19, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:Misplaced Pages is not a crystal ball. Come back in 80 years and we will delighted to give an answer about fin-de-sicle plane fuel. --] (]) 17:51, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:Not likely. Unless batteries with comparable energy density to fuel can be developed, hydrogen or ] are the most likely option. <span style="font-family:Broadway">]]</span> 23:23, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:No. Oil and gas will be around much longer than the end of this century. Of course, a hundred years ago, if you phrased the question using steam trains and coal: steam trains are all but gone as are trains that run on burning coal directly - nothing to do with supply though. Quite possible that suborbital ballistic transport using rail guns or other technology is available. In that sense, we're not a crystal ball but there's no reason to think it will be limited by supply of oil or gas. --] (]) 06:21, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

	:'''completely extinct'''? Almost certainly not. Even in a worst case scenario, enough fuel could be synthesized that the elite could still get where they wanted to go.
	: Could fuel become scarce enough that middle-class luxury travel goes extinct? Sure. But for the majority of the world's population, airfare is out of reach ''anyway''., so we don't have to work too hard to imagine what that would be like. ] (]) 18:28, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

	:The same processes used for the production of ] can produce fuel suitable for jet engines. The ] for converting gaseous hydrocarbons (biogas is mosly methane) to liquids is also a well established industrial activity. ] (]) 09:48, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

	== The adipose tissue has the smallest amount of extracellular matrix ==

	We learned that the adipose tissue has the '''smallest amount of extracellular matrix'''. What does it mean? ] (]) 11:42, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
	:], ]. ] (]) 13:34, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
	::To put it in context, consider ]. It works well enough (though it strikes me as kind of a brutal procedure). But it wouldn't work with a bone, or even most internal organs (though that's kind of hard to evaluate because if you want to remove those usually you need to get every last cell and deal with a much larger blood supply). Adipocytes are huge cells without much structure, separated by narrow gaps, and adipose tissue tends to fit into various spaces whichever way pressure dictates. ] (]) 16:17, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	== Why is it more windy over the ocean than it is over land? ==

	Is it simply because of the lack of physical barriers obstructing the wind? ] (]) 13:39, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:This link gives the math to explain it. ><nowiki>http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.iawe.org/Proceedings/7APCWE/T2D_5.pdf&sa=U&ei=mB5OVdrFIMLQswHi7oDADw&ved=0CBYQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNEw46UhkdHaqUXR0eOTB20-UPZ9rA</nowiki>< ''Topographical effects on wind speed over various terrains''.--] (]) 15:05, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
	:: A more direct version of that link: http://www.iawe.org/Proceedings/7APCWE/T2D_5.pdf —] (]) 19:07, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

	:Yes. Trees or even plants slow wind considerably, and hills and mountains even moreso. Completely flat ground with no vegetation, like ]s, might not. And note that the wind speed difference between land and sea fades with altitude. ] (]) 15:07, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	: There's a piece missing as there is off-shore winds that are largely unaffected by the coast and are larger over oceans because of lack of topographical interaction. But there is also diurnal winds (i.e. ] or on-shore winds) that are caused by the difference in air pressure driven by heat capacity differences of land and sea. It's windier at the beach - both on water near the beach and on shore - because the land heats and cools daily while the ocean temps is relatively constant throughout. --] (]) 06:55, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

	== Estrogen talking ==
	{{hat\|hat the trolling}}
	Would it be scientifically accurate to make a stement such as "I bet thats your estrogen talking" if you notice a woman saying something bizarre? ] (]) 17:43, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:No. That would imply that the ] alone can form a sentence. While it can influence behavior, it certainly isn't the only factor. Same for ], ], etc. A more accurate statement might be "You seem to be under the influence of elevated estrogen levels", which will make for fine last words, etched on your tombstone. ] (]) 17:45, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:: That made me lol. Anyway, I think that statement only applies to postpubescent and premenopausal women, isn't it? ] (]) 19:09, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::See ]. That should answer any questions you have. --]] 23:26, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

	:::Well yes, elevated estrogen levels aren't normal outside that age range, but abnormal cases can occur, such as due to a tumor on an ovary. ] (]) 23:27, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
	{{hab}}

			:Multiple sources from web searching suggest the ''theoretical'' maximum height for mountains on Earth is around 15,000 m – the limiting factor is ]; the higher (therefore more voluminous) a mountain is, the more its weight causes the crust beneath it to sink. The actual heights of mountains are a trade-off between how fast tectonic movements can raise them versus isostatic sinking ''and'' how quickly they are eroded, and tectonic movements do not last for ever. See also ]. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 00:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
	== Science and applied science ==
			::And erosion goes faster as the mountain gets higher, in particular when it's high enough to support glaciers – one reason why mountains can get higher on an airless world. Now it gets interesting for a mountain high enough to reach into the stratosphere, as it would be too dry to have anything but bare rock. I suppose it would locally raise the tropopause, preventing that. ] (]) 11:13, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

			= December 19 =
	What's the distance between a natural science, and it's engineering or applied version? Think: chemistry and chemistry engineering, or biology and biotechnology. Is it common to find someone with a pure science background competing against someone with an applied science background? --] (]) 17:59, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
	:"Applied", meaning using something for a purpose? Maybe see ] vs ] or ] vs ] or ] vs ]? There's a lot of overlap, where people working on basic science are still aiming to solve an applied problem (very common, especially to have a "so what good is this new thing?" answer for purposes of getting grants and publications), or working in applied science and still developing new basic science along the way. ] (]) 19:28, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
	:I don't think it makes sense to put a hard division between theoretical and applied sciences...or between the people who work in them. To pick a well known counter-example: ] - probably considered to exist at the extreme theoretical end of the scale of scientific achievement - famously designed the ] and a hearing aid...both being examples of practical consumer product engineering at the very opposite end of the scale. Is this common? It's a matter of degree - so I don't think it's possible to nail it down. ] (]) 20:10, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

			== Does human DNA become weaker with each generation? ==
	* An example: the applied version of biology, chemistry, and in some degree physics, is medicine. --<span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color:#ffff00;">] <sup>]</sup></span></span></span> 20:13, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

			As with photocopying something over and over, the text becomes less clear each time.
	:There is often not a clear distinction. If you look at the articles in the for instance, it can be difficult to imagine a real "application" for all of them. Is the really of any industrial interest? Probably not, or else it would be published in a more engineering-focused journal. Research published in something like the is certainly going to be on the "applied" part of the spectrum, while is more "pure." But most research published is more toward the middle of the spectrum, not "science for the sake of science" but still several degrees removed from any real-world application. <span style="font-family:Broadway">]]</span> 23:16, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

			Does human DNA become weaker with each generation? ] (]) 21:22, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:Sure, DNA replication is not perfect, although ] reduces the error rate to about 1 mistake per 10<sup>9</sup> nucleotides (see our article on ]). But that is per generation of cells, not of the whole organisms. Many mutations will be neutral in effect (because much of our DNA is redundant), some will be deleterious, and a few might be advantageous. It is the process of natural selection that hinders the spread of deleterious mutations: sometimes this aspect is called ]. One thus usually expects a stable ] over time rather than that "DNA becomes weaker with each generation". Medical science is reducing the selection pressure against some mutations, which consequently may become more common. One of the problems for asexual organisms is referred to as ]; assuming that reverse mutations are rare, each generation has at least the mutational load of its predecessor. In contrast, in sexual organisms ] generates the variation that, combined with selection, can repair the situation. Sexual organisms consequently have a lighter genetic load. ] (]) 22:42, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::So ] won't work properly in case of ] ? ] (]) 23:16, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::The larger the degree of inbreeding, the larger the chance that deleterious traits are expressed. But this very expression of traits leading to decreased biological fitness of their bearers is what actually enables purifying selection in the longer term.  --] 23:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::@] so ] won't stop these deleterious traits to get expressed? ] (]) 14:11, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::No, this is not an issue of ]. The genes involved are faithfully reproduced and passed on from generation to generation.  --] 15:53, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			:Or stronger e.g. "", and those guys live for centuries and have much more DNA than us. ] (]) 15:21, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			::@] If not due to DNA damage, why do babies from inbreeding appear like DNA-damaged species? ] (]) 17:29, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::Inbred offspring of species that normally outcross may show abnormalities because they are more likely than outcrossed offspring to be ] for ] that are deleterious. In individuals that are heterozygous at these loci, the recessive alleles will not be expressed (because the other wild-type dominant allele is sufficient to do their job adequately). See our article on ]. ] (]) 19:26, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

			== Larvae going south ==
	:You mention chemistry/chemistry engineering and biology/biotech. The way you describe things as "pure" vs "applied", and using the word "compete", I am here assuming you mean lab chemistry and chemical engineering. All have been in labs, but chemical engineers are also trained to put together the industrial side: pipes, valves, pumps, tanks and other chemical machines. There is not a lot of "competition" here. Nor is there much competition between biology and biotechnology. In biotech fields where the science is well known and scalability is a factor, it is often built by chemical engineers. Biologists are usually more interested in animals or plants than any tech. The "purest" forms of chemistry is in my experience performed by physicists and mathematicians. There is overlap among all, but I see a lot more cooperation than competition. There is definitely no general "distance" between "pure" and "applied" in science. Most uses of the word "applied" that I have seen have been for marketing purposes rather than any strict division between them. ] (]) 23:21, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

			In a novel I've just finished ('']'' by ]) he writes:
	:I've known a couple of people who did maths at university that worked as, or at least, alongside, engineers. I've also known at least one who did pphysics and several who did materials science working as engineers. ] (]) 00:17, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
			* '' leave the body in an orderly fashion, following each other in a neat procession that always heads south. South-east or south-west sometimes, but never north. No-one knows why''.

			The author has done considerable international research on the science of forensic identification of decayed bodies and I assume his details can be trusted.
	= May 10 =

			I've looked online for any verification of this surprising statement, but found only , which seems to debunk it.
	== Are there places on Earth where no practical amount of clothing and fast walking will keep you from discomfort? ==

			Is there any truth to this? -- ] </sup></span>]] 23:38, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
	Let's say you're of average build, not with a body built for it like Eskimos. You could have gigantic downy outer shoes and un-stiff enough clothing inches thick and huge mittens over gloves but I imagine that eventually your eye holes will hurt. So you'd need goggles but if it'd take so many nose-less balaclava layers that it'd be uncomfortable to breathe and so you'd need added oxygen and near airtightness and two helmets and a personal heater like an astronaut and that's when it stops being clothing anymore and more like a spacesuit. If it would require a wind too strong to not tumble in then then I guess that for all practical purposes it never gets cold enough because you physically couldn't go out without bouncing downwind for miles. There should be two answers to this, one with traditional clothing materials and one with all the stuff that modern technology can manage like all those Uniqlo-type thin products or mirror coating on all skin touching surfaces or whatever. <small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 10:57, 10 May 2015 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

			:Can't speak to its truth, but . . .
	:The short answer to the question ''exactly as posed'' is probably "yes, the inside of a Swedish sauna or Turkish bath". However, assuming the questioner specifically has cold environments in mind, the answer would appear to be the colder parts of Antarctica. See, for example, ]' reports of his expeditions. ] (]) 12:04, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
			:* Does Beckett state this in his own auctorial voice (i.e. as an ])? If so, he might be genuinely mistaken.
	::The lowest temperature recorded at ] in the Antarctic winter is -89.2°C, colder than ], so very likely to be "uncomfortable" even with actively-heated clothing. ] (]) 12:11, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
			:* The book was published nearly 20 years ago, what was the accepted wisdom ''then''?
			:* What specific species (if any) is the book describing? – your linked Quora discussion refers only to "maggots" (which can be of numerous species and are a kind of larva, but there are many others, including for example ]).
			:*Alternatively, if the statement is made by a character in the book, is that character meant to be infallible, or is he portrayed as less than omniscient, or an ']'?
			:Regarding the statement, in the Northern hemisphere the arc of South-east to South-west is predominently where the Sun is found well above the horizon, the North never, so the larvae involved might simply be seeking maximum warmth or light. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 02:18, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

			:: This appears in the very first paragraph of Chapter I, which starts out:
	:You can use the , which moistens the air you breath in using the moist in the breath you exhale.] (]) 16:28, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
			::* ''A human body starts to decompose four minutes after death. Once the encapsulation of life, it now undergoes its final metamorphoses. It begins to digest itself. Cells dissolve from the inside out. Tissue turns to liquid, then to gas. No longer animate, the body becomes an immovable feast for other organisms. Bacteria first, then insects. Flies. Eggs are laid, then hatched. The larvae feed on the nutrient-rich broth, and then migrate. They leave the body in an orderly fashion ...'' (then the quote above completes the paragraph).
	::As in ]? ] (]) 20:51, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
			:: It's not until para 2 that he starts talking about any human characters, and not until para 4 that he invokes the first person.
			:: That's as much as I know. But I find it hard to believe he'd just make up a detail and put it in such a prominent place if it could so easily be debunked if it were not true. -- ] </sup></span>]] 02:39, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::I wonder how they would measure the migratory path of maggots within a sealed coffin. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 02:51, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::: The context of the novel is about finding decaying corpses that have been dumped in a forest. No coffins involved. -- ] </sup></span>]] 06:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::::], see also ] research facilities. ] (]) 13:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::::Could it be that the larvae are setting off in search of another corpse? The prevailing wind in the UK is from the south-west, so by heading into the wind they won't be distracted by the frangrance of the one they've just left. ]\|] 09:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

			If you can, have a look at 'Heinrich, Bernd. “Coordinated Mass Movements of Blow Fly Larvae (Diptera: Calliphoridae).” Northeastern Naturalist, vol. 20, no. 4, 2013, pp. N23–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43288173.' Here are some extracts
	== Misconceptions about hiv ==
			* On the fourth day, after a cooling night with dew on the grass, a stream of tens of thousands of larvae exited from beneath the carcass within 1 h after sunrise, and proceeded in a single 1-2-cm-wide column directly toward the rising sun...
			* However, in this case, the larvae left at night, within 1 h after a cloudburst (at 21 :00 hours). But, unlike before, this nocturnal larval exodus in the rain was diffuse; thousands of larvae spread out in virtually all directions over an 8 m2area. Apparently, the sudden moisture had cued and facilitated the mass exodus, but the absence of sun had prevented a unidirectional, en masse movement.
			* However, on the following morning as the sun was starting to illuminate the carcass on the dewy grass, masses of larvae gathered at the east end of the carcass at 07:00 hours. In one half hour later, they started streaming in a column directly (within one degree) toward the rising sun, and the carcass was then nearly vacated.
			It goes on. Maggot migration appears to be a bit more complicated than the novel suggests. ] (]) 09:39, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			I suppose you could try to address it from the other direction and look at the technology your average maggot has access to in terms of light detection, heat detection, olfactory systems, orientation in magnetic fields (like many arthropods) etc. They presumably have quite a lot of tools. ] (]) 10:13, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

			:If orderly migrating maggots tend to move towards the sun, they should display a northward tendency in Oztralia.  --] 10:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
	Why is there a misconception that people with HIV are unhygienic looking, overweight and unattractive? When in reality none of these factors are proportional to the likelihood of a person having HIV? <small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 14:58, 10 May 2015 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
			:: Maybe, but the novel is set in England.
	:Can you provide any evidence that significant numbers of people actually have such a misconception? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195) ] (]) 15:21, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
			:: I must say, as soon as I read the quoted para for the first time, my immediate thought was that it might have something to do with the magnetic field of the earth. -- ] </sup></span>]] 10:42, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
	::Such a misconception seems very out of place, since in Africa (where it is most common) I've read that in some places the virus is literally ''called'' "thin". And of course, for sexual transmission the more attractive individuals would find it easier to end up in risky situations. But I suppose crusted-over injection site infections on a drug user would be a bad sign. :) ] (]) 17:56, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
			:::Prime suspect might be the Bolwig organ, the photoreceptor cluster many fly larvae have. ] (]) 10:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
	*See the ] fallacy to understand why we cannot answer your question meaningfully. Your question is functionally equivalent to "When did you stop beating your wife"? The original question presupposes a supposition (That there ''is'' in fact such a misconception) which has not yet been shown to be true. It could be. It could not be. We don't know. But you can't assume it to be true, so any question you ''do'' ask assuming it to be true is therefor unanswerable. Please present evidence of your first supposition, or the rest of the question is unanswerable. --]] 00:08, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
			:::Obviously, Jack, you need to create a corpse, place it in a nearby forest, and carefully observe which way the maggots go. For Science! And Literary Criticism! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 21:01, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

			= December 20 =
	*'']'' is a short section. Many elements of ] correlate with health and lack of disease, and "attending to these factors increases reproductive success", so it is understandable that some people might be inclined to naively assume that a potential mate who appears attractive is less likely to have any particular disease, and many elements of full blown AIDS, such as ], ], and ], are quite unattractive. Public health campaigns which emphasize these symptoms in order to frighten people in to practicing safe sex run the danger of reinforcing this misconception in populations which do not fully understand the long ] typical with HIV infection. Over the last few years I have seen public health advertisements in Thailand, South Africa, and Brazil which emphasize the fact that young, attractive, healthy looking people can still carry and transmit HIV. I had hoped to link to some but my google-fu is weak today. Most of the "HIV Looks Like Me" campaigns (such as this well done <sub>YouTube</sub>) seem to be centered around destigmatization, though they might teach the "you can't tell by appearance" lesson better than those ads I saw which specifically targeted it. -- ] 01:26, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			== Winter solstice and time of sunrise? ==
	::(no offence to anyone intended) TBH, in my homeland, the idea that HIV+ people are pale, skeletal figures with open sores seems to be quite common. Just speaking from my limited personal observations of other people's opinions of whether someone 'looks like they have AIDS/HIV'... I don't really think that the immediate assumption that HIV+ person is likely to be a heroin addict or promiscuous homosexual with the 'well, you brought this on yourself, didn't you, son?' thing has ever really gone away either... --] (]) 01:35, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			How is it that despite December 21st supposedly being the shortest day of the year, sunrise here happens later and later until December 26 and only on January 05 starts to turn around to occur earlier and earlier. On December 25 it takes place at about 08:44, between December 26 and January 04 it takes place at about 08:45, and on January 05 it takes place again at about 08:44. (Google rounds out the seconds). Is it Google's fault? Is it everywhere the same? Confused in Brussels, Belgium. ] (]) 12:06, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
	= May 11 =
			:The pertinent article is ], start with the section ]. The details are not that simple to understand, but it's basically due to the ellipticity of Earth's orbit and its axial tilt. --] (]) 12:22, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			::Also note that sunset begins to be later on 22 December so that the time between sunrise and sunset is a few seconds longer than on 21 December (3 seconds longer on 22/12/24 in Brussels according to ). ] (]) 13:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			::Also see ]. The obliquity of the ecliptic (that is, the Earth's axial tilt) is the main component and hardest to understand. But the idea is that the time when the Sun is exactly south (that is, the true noon) moves some minutes back and forth throughout the year and it moves quite rapidly to later times in late December. ] (]) 19:05, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

	== ~~Fish~~ ~~identification~~ ==		== Three unit questions ==

			# Why territorial waters are defined by nautical miles instead of kilometers?
	A friend of mine has two of these fish in her (non-salt water) fish tank. She was told by the pet store that she got them from that they were a particular type. I think she was told the fish were ]s but I'm not sure of that. She was told that they'd be rather docile but they've killed nearly every other fish in the tank and even killed the snails that were once in the tank. They are also larger than she was told they would get. Their length is maybe about 3.5-4 inches. The slightly fuzzy images are and . Sorry about the quality. They were moving very quickly. Can anyone tell me what kind of fish they are? <span style="font-family:monospace;">]</span>\|] 04:27, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
			# Why GDP is usually measured in US dollars rather than euros? Euro would be better because it is not tied into any country.
			# Are there any laws in United States that are defined by metric units?
			--] (]) 23:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
			:#There were nautical miles in use before there were kilometers.
			:#There were US dollars in use before there were Euros.
			:#Yes.
			:The questions all reduce to Why can't millions of people make a change of historically widely accepted units that continue to serve their purpose, and convert to different units that would have no substantive difference, because someone has an opinion. ] (]) 00:52, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
			::Do any people use metric units in marine and air navigation like "The ship is 10 kilometers from the port", "The plane is 10 kilometers from the destination? And is there any European country with metric flight levels? --] (]) 07:22, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::Inland shipping (rivers, canals and lakes) in Europe (except the UK) is fully metric. Ships going for example ] – ] may have to switch units along the way. Gliders and ultralight aircraft in Europe often use metric instruments and airport dimensions are also metric (including runway length). Countries are free to define their territorial waters in whatever way they deem fit, so with nautical miles having no legal status in a fully metric country, they may define their territorial waters as extending 22224 metres. ] (]) 11:23, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::Our ] article says: {{xt\|"In 1929 the international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as exactly 1,852 metres (which is 6,076.12 ft). The United States did not adopt the international nautical mile until 1954. Britain adopted it in 1970..."}}
			::As the US customary units are actually defined in terms that relate them to metric units, any US law based on measurements is technically defined by metric units.--] (]) (]) 01:55, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::The US dollar has been the world's dominant ] for about 75 years. As for the metric system in the US, it is standard in scientific, medical, electronics, auto manufacturing and other highly technical industries. By law, all packaged foods and beverages have metric quantities as well as customary quantities. See ]. ] (]) 02:28, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
			The Wikipaedia article on the Nautical Mile talks about how the term originated, it was originally defined in terms of latitude not as a number of meters ] (]) 10:03, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

			The euro is tied to multiple specific countries is it not? If you use euros you're just changing from one "dependency" to a "dependency" on the ] countries. A statement of the problem or problems intended to be addressed would be useful. Currency values are interconvertible in any case. Economics does sometimes use the "]" for certain things, which is intended to adjust for differences in ] between countries and over time. But since it's not an actual "real" currency it's not something one can easily "visualize" in their heads, which is likely why it's not used more. --] (]) 05:41, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
	:They could certainly be gold barbs which are highly bred and variable; the fish have the ] (carp-related) body form and the typical barbs on either side of the mouth. These just aren't very brightly colored. That can come from genes, food, and/or environment. The problem is they are notoriously aggressive, . ] (]) 05:34, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			= December 24 =
	== Names of internet trunk lines ==

			== Unknown species of insect ==
	]
	I noticed on this map that the internet trunk lines are all named after famous explorers. Are these really the official names? Or just something the author came up on their own? ] (]) 05:58, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			Am I correct in inferring that ] this guy is an ]? I was off-put by the green head at first, but the antennae seem to match. ''']]''' 03:00, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
	:As far as I can tell they made the names up. Greg's Cable Map, which is their only cited source for the cables, doesn't use those names. They also seem to have made up the lines themselves. Also, apparently there's no Internet surveillance in Canada, and the US imprisons people whereas most other countries don't? Or something? I deleted the image from the one Misplaced Pages article where it appeared. -- ] (]) 07:42, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	::I agree with BenRG. The map does not correspond - not even in abstraction - to any other reliable source I've ever read. Consider reading ]. That list names the companies who administer the cables and you can follow up on each line in much greater detail. The cartoonish "subway-map" doesn't even seem to have connections in the right places! ] (]) 10:18, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::IMNSHO that map is a complete waste of bytes. ] (]) 10:28, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	::::Maybe a high-tech version of the fictitious "Train leaving on Track 5 for Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga." ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 17:15, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			(reference: https://www.genesdigest.com/macro/image.php?imageid=168&apage=0&ipage=1)
	== Cats like earwax ==

	~~Why~~ do ~~cats~~ like ~~licking~~ ~~earwax?~~ ] (]) 11:57, 11 ~~May~~ ~~2015~~ (UTC)		:<s>It looks like one of the invasive ]s that happens to like my blackberries in the summer.</s> ] (]) 13:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
	: Your premise is faulty. Cats lick their butts too and I doubt they like it. It is about ].] (]) 12:43, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	::I meant ''human'' earwax! LOL ] (]) 12:47, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			::I would say not necessarily a Japanese beetle, but almost certainly one of the other ] beetles, though with 35,000 species that doesn't help a lot. Looking at the infobox illustration in that article, 16. & 17., "]" looks very similar, but evidently we either don't have an article or (if our ] article is a complete list) it's been renamed. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 14:18, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
	:See ], ], and e.g. here . Cats groom each other, and domestic cats often groom humans. Some cats go for an ear, others might go for a human's nose or hair. You might be interested in these books on human-animal interaction and domestic cat behavior . Google /cat groom human/ for more perspectives on the topic. ] (]) 13:36, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	*See the ] fallacy. The OP has posed us a question which is '''literally''' unanswerable in its current form. It takes the form "When did you stop beating your wife?" The OP's question requires us to assume to be true a statement which ''has not been shown to be so yet''. Namely, that cats enjoy licking earwax. Since we don't know if that statement is true or not, we cannot possibly provide an answer as to ''why'' it would be true. First establish that it is true, then we can look for references to answer why. Otherwise, there's no point in answering it. --]] 14:19, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	::A quick search reveals a fair amount of online discussion about this behavior, including some videos documenting it, so the premise of the question seems sufficiently well established. It is likely that Misplaced Pages lacks an article on this and that we will be unable to provide a link to a reliable source explaining it, and so the questioner will have to be satisfied with unreferenced discussions on other web sites. -- ] 14:51, 11 May 2015 (UTC) <small>OR: I was unable to duplicate the behavior with my cat and my ear wax.</small>

			:::Yes, it's not the Japanese beetle for this beetle appears to lack its white-dotted fringe although its condition is deteriorated. Its shape is also more or less more slender; and not as round. ] (]) 15:02, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
	::The suggestion is that it smells foody . ] (]) 15:03, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::The most obvious immediate response to the OP in a case like this would be, "Who says they do?" Some of you have now answered that question. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 17:11, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	:::Or perhaps cats have qualia that we don't have for "groomy". ] (]) 18:29, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			:Perhaps it is the ] ]. Shown . ] (]) 16:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
	== If I have twice the metabolic rate of a normal person then does that mean I have twice as much brain power? ==
			::That looks like easily the best match I've seen so far, and likely correct. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 17:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

			= December 25 =
	My laptop of similar design as another laptop is much more powerful, because it consumes 50 watts when using all its 4 cores at maximum power compared to the 15 watt laptop that I decided not to buy. I was wondering if the same can be said about my brain. Someone of my weight and height has a metabolic rate of about 15 Kcal per day, however, my metabolic rate is about 3800 Kcal/day. If I take into account the 1000 kcal due to exercise, then I'm still at about twice the metabolic rate of a normal person of my weight and size. Since the brain is supposed to use about 20% of the energy used by the body, does this mean that my brain is capable of working twice as hard as the brains of other people? ] (]) 18:27, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			== Mass of oscillating neutrino ==
	:Doubtful. There's no reason to think an increased metabolic rate means every aspect is increased proportionally. You might move more than the average person, or keep the room cooler, requiring burning more energy to stay warm. Also, wouldn't it be a measure of your current energy usage, including your brain, not the maximum possible ? ] (]) 18:32, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			From the ] it follows that a particle that is not subject to external forces must have constancy of mass.
	:<small>Perhaps your brain is only half as efficient! ( <small> No insult intended.) </small> :) </small> ] 19:38, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

	~~::<small>That~~ ~~would~~ ~~mean~~ it ~~generates~~ ~~excess~~ ~~heat~~, ~~making~~ ~~him~~ a ~~hothead~~. ~~:-)~~ ] (]) 19:51, 11 ~~May~~ ~~2015~~ (UTC) ~~</small>~~		If I am right, this means that the mass of the neutrino cannot change during the ], although its flavoring may. Is this written down somewhere? Thank you. ] (]) 19:24, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
			:Any (flavored) neutrino that is really observed is a superposition of two or three mass eigenstates. This is actually the cause of ]. So, the answer to your question is complicated. ]_] 19:40, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
			:Important note: particle physicists today generally only ever use "mass" to mean "]" and never anything else: . Like the term says, invariant mass is well, invariant, it never changes ever, no matter what "external forces" may or may not be involved. Being proper particle-icans and following the standard practice in the field, then, the three neutrino masses are constant values. ..."Wait, three?" Yeah sure, turns out ]. As mentioned, due to Quantum Weirdness we aren't able to get these different states "alone by themselves" to measure each by itself, so we only know the differences of the squares of the masses. Yeah welcome to quantum mechanics.
			:]: "Quantum mechanics describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And yet it fully agrees with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as She is {{snd}} absurd." --] (]) 06:06, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
			::The equation <math>E^2 = (p c)^2 + \left(m_0 c^2\right)^2</math> uses invariant mass {{math\|''m''<sub>0</sub>}} which is constant if {{math\|''E''}} and {{math\|''p''}} are constant. The traveling neutrino has a varying mass mixture of different flavors with different masses. If a mixture of different masses changes, you would expect the resulting mass to change with it. But somehow this does not happen as the neutrino mass mixture changes. These mixture changes cannot be any changes. The changes must be such that the resulting mass of the traveling neutrino remains constant. My question is whether this is described somewhere. ] (]) 11:16, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
			:::I freely confess I'm uncertain exactly what's being "asked for" or "gotten at" here. Have you looked at the ] article? From it: {{tpq\|That is, the three neutrino states that interact with the charged leptons in ]s are each a different ] of the three (propagating) neutrino states of definite mass. Neutrinos are emitted and absorbed in weak processes in flavor ]s '''but travel as mass eigenstates.'''}}
			:::What is it that we're "doing" with the ] here? For the neutrino, we don't have a single value of "mass" to plug in for <math>m_0</math>, because we can't "see" the individual mass eigenstates, only some ] of them. What you want for describing neutrino interactions is ], which is special relativity + QM. (Remember, relativity is a "classical" theory, which presumes everything always has single well-defined values of everything. Which isn't true in quantum-world.) --] (]) 18:41, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
			::::Not all potential evolutions of a linear combination of unequal values produce constant results. Constancy can only be guaranteed by a constraint on the evolutions. Does the fact that this constraint is satisfied in the case of neutrino oscillation follow from the ], or does this formulation allow evolutions of the mass mixture for which the combination is not constant? If the unequal values are unknown, I have no idea of how such a constraint might be formulated. I think the OP is asking whether this constraint is described somewhere.  --] 00:51, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

	: The section ] suggests that more intelligent individuals have a higher neural efficiency, using ''less'' energy per task. Also if one measures metabolic rate by food intake, rather than a thermal measurement, it may not be a higher metabolism, just less efficient food digestion. Or a large ]. --] (]) 19:54, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			= December 27 =
	:The statement about CPUs is dubious. with a TDP of 47W is probably less than twice as fast on highly parallel workloads as with a TDP of 15W, and for serial computation it may actually be slower. (If I wasn't restricted to CPUs released at the same time, I could have picked .) -- ] (]) 20:18, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			== Low-intensity exercise ==
	== Self-driving cars and speed limits ==

			If you exercise at a low intensity for an extended period of time, does the ] still occur if you do it for long enough? Or does it only occur above a certain threshold intensity of exercise? ] (]) 20:13, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
	How much is known about the higher-level strategies being pursued by self-driving car manufacturers regarding how aggressively to drive, and in particular, regarding speed limits?
			:Hows about you try it and report back? :) ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 21:31, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

			== ] vs ] ==
	Searching, I find news items where the self-driving car dutifully goes at exactly the limit while all other traffic funnels around it, and also where Google's cars are programmed to go up to 10 miles over like real drivers "if necessary" to keep up with traffic. However, I don't know how many of Google's 1.7 million miles were logged at over the speed limit - indeed, I wonder if they can even say without being subpoenaed for statistics that could provide greedy states with millions in fines?

			Hi,
	One question is whether the puny human held in the vehicle has any say over whether to violate a speed limit when there are no other cars around, as they might be wont to do in less effectively administered cars.

			What is the difference between an auxotroph and a fastidious organism? It seems to me the second one would have more requirements than the first one, but the limit between the two definitions is rather unclear to me.
	Another is what the automated car should do when (as too often happens) other drivers start whipping past at 15, 20, 25 miles faster than the speed limit. In particular, if speeding further is not an option, I am curious whether the designers have built in enforcement capabilities. I remember one of the automated car designers had been quoted saying that non-automated driving would eventually be illegal - what better way to start than by having their excellent 360 degree video capabilities collect images of other cars driving past, coupled with both speedometer and GPS data from the automated car, uploaded directly to police each and every time a vehicle passes the automated car? Continuing with reports whenever someone fails to signal, fails to stop ''behind'' the stop sign, etc., until at last every last pathetic human admits that it is cheaper to take a very subprime loan on a new Google car than to try to face down an unending series of citations until their license is revoked anyway. Does the design of these cars have support for automated police reports; has the legal framework been laid for automated prosecutions? (Since unlike with an actual policeman with a radar gun, there would be no witness needing to show up in court) I feel like ''someone'' must have looked into such predictable consequences - have they?

			Thank you ] (]) 23:17, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
	:Our traffic laws currently rely on spotty enforcement. If you got a ticket every time you went 1 mile over the limit, changed lanes without using your blinker (I got a ticket for this !), or failed to come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign, you would lose your license after a single drive. Increased enforcement, by any means, would make this situation untenable. There are even situations where it's impossible to follow the law. I've seen stop signs at the entrance ramp to a freeway, with a minimum speed of 45 mph. How can you go from stopped to 45 MPH instantly ? If defies the laws of physics. So, enhanced enforcement would lead to calls for more reasonable traffic laws, which, in the long term, might be best. ] (]) 20:46, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	::While there is no problem with requiring automated cars or humans to use turn signals or stop at stop signs, there may be an actual conflict between laws requiring you to do no more than the speed limit and laws requiring you not to obstruct traffic. ] (]) 21:09, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
	:In many jurisdictions the right to confront your accuser becomes a right to question the technicians / manufacturers responsible for any automated evidence brought against you. If you choose to fight the automated ticket, then they have to produce a responsible human party in a timely manner to explain the operation of the machine and testify to the reliability of its operation or the evidence must be thrown out. I can't imagine Google would really want to tie up the lives of their technicians testifying in traffic court, even if they could make machines capable of reporting violations. ] (]) 21:05, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

			= December 28 =
	:I can easily see roads, at least highways, being limited to self-driving cars once they're widely adopted. Once that happens, the cars can use their own sensors and talk to each other to determine the best safe speed, rendering the concept of a fixed speed limit obsolete.
	:As for automatic enforcement, there's some precedent with speed cameras. From what I've seen, these are usually handled as civil violations rather than misdemeanors, which allows them to get around some of the requirements for being able to contest the ticket with appeals outside the normal court system. But that generally requires each city and town to pass ordinances to implement it. But I imagine such a system would be more likely to lead to violent retaliation against self-driving car owners rather than faster adoption. <span style="font-family:Broadway">]]</span> 21:13, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 00:05, 28 December 2024

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December 13

What is the most iconic tornado photo

Request for opinions
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
What photo of a tornado would you say is the most iconic? I'm researching the history of tornado photography for an eventual article on it and I've seen several specific tornadoes pop up over and over again, particularly the Elie, Manitoba F5 and the "dead man walking" shot of the Jarrel, Texas F5. Which would be considered more iconic? ApteryxRainWing🐉 \| Roar with me!!! \| My contributions 17:21, 13 December 2024 (UTC) At the top of this page is a bullet point stating "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate": this reads to me like a request for subjective opinions. Perhaps you would like to consider what quantifiable and referenceable metric would answer what you want to know? Presumably you also want only real tornadoes considered? Otherwise some might nominate the the twister from The Wizard of Oz, or from more recent tornado-related movies – Sharknado, anyone? :-). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 18:07, 13 December 2024 (UTC) "Swegle Studios" has a couple of YouTube videos dedicated to the backstories of famous tornado photos and video; you might find them useful in your research. Photos, Videos. Matt Deres (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2024 (UTC) I googled "most iconic tornado photo" and a bunch of different possibilities popped up. I don't see how you could say that any given photo is the "most iconic". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Request for opinions

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

What photo of a tornado would you say is the most iconic? I'm researching the history of tornado photography for an eventual article on it and I've seen several specific tornadoes pop up over and over again, particularly the Elie, Manitoba F5 and the "dead man walking" shot of the Jarrel, Texas F5. Which would be considered more iconic? ApteryxRainWing🐉 | Roar with me!!! | My contributions 17:21, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

At the top of this page is a bullet point stating "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate": this reads to me like a request for subjective opinions. Perhaps you would like to consider what quantifiable and referenceable metric would answer what you want to know?

Presumably you also want only real tornadoes considered? Otherwise some might nominate the the twister from The Wizard of Oz, or from more recent tornado-related movies – Sharknado, anyone? :-). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 18:07, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

"Swegle Studios" has a couple of YouTube videos dedicated to the backstories of famous tornado photos and video; you might find them useful in your research. Photos, Videos. Matt Deres (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I googled "most iconic tornado photo" and a bunch of different possibilities popped up. I don't see how you could say that any given photo is the "most iconic". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

December 15

help to identify File:Possible Polygala myrtifolia in New South Wales Australia.jpg

Did I get species right? Thanks. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 06:56, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I can't detect any visible differences between the plant in this photo and the ones illustrated in the species and the genus articles. However, the latter makes it clear that Polygala is a large genus, and is cultivated, with hybrids, so it's possible that this one could be a close relative that differs in ways not visible here, such as in the bark or roots. That may or may not matter for your purposes. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 10:11, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

How to address changes to taxonomy

Hi all, I am a biology student brand new to wiki editing who is interested in cleaning up small articles/stubs for less known taxa. One that I've encountered is a mushroom that occurs in the pacific northwest (Fomitopsis ochracea). The article mentions that this fungus is occasionally mistaken for another fungus, Fomitopsis pinicola.

However, the issue I've run into is that F. pinicola used to be considered a single species found around the world, but relatively recently was split into a few different species. The original name was given to the one that occurs in Europe, and the one in the pacific northwest (and thus could be mistaken for F. ochracea) was given the name Fomitopsis mounceae.

The wiki page says

Historically, this fungus has been misidentified as F. pinicola. When both species are immature, they can look very similar, but can be distinguished by lighting a match next to the surface of the fungus. F. pinicola will boil and melt in heat, while F. ochracea will not.

Since the source says pinicola (as likely do most/all other sources of this info given the change was so recent), and since technically it's true that they used to be mistaken for it... what would be the most appropriate way to modernize that section?

My questions are: Should I replace F. pinicola with F. mounceae? Or is that wrong because the source doesn't refer to it by that name? Would it be better to write something like (now known as/considered F. mounceae) next to the first mention of the species? Or is that a poor choice because it implies all the members of F. pinicola were renamed F. mounceae?

Any advice on how to go about updating this section is incredibly appreciated
TheCoccomycesGang (talk) 10:21, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

First, take these sorts of questions to the relevant Wikiproject, in this case Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Fungi. I am not as familiar with the consensus at WP:FUNGI, but it seems like they defer to Species Fungorium/Index Fungorium and Mycobank to decide. Those sources presently seem to consider Fomitopsis pinicola a good species. Also, be careful about "replacing", there are rules to ensure the continuity of the article history. By the way, there is a hilarious but unencyclopedic/copyvio recipe appended to the Fomitopsis mounceae article. Abductive (reasoning) 11:09, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips, I didn't know about projects so I'll go read up on that. And thanks for the warnings about replacing things. I've been reading a lot of help pages, but I'm still in the process of learning the all conventions and what mechanics break if you do things the wrong way.

I actually saw the recipe ages ago before I made my account and completely forgot about it... it was one of many things that prompted me to get into wiki editing. TheCoccomycesGang (talk) 23:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Does stopping masturbation lead to sperm DNA damage?

I'm looking for information on the potential link between the frequency of ejaculation (specifically through masturbation) and sperm DNA damage. I've come across some conflicting information and would appreciate it if someone could point me towards reliable scientific studies or reviews that address this topic.

Specifically, I'm interested in whether prolonged periods of abstinence from ejaculation might have any negative effects on sperm DNA integrity. Any insights or links to relevant research would be greatly appreciated. HarryOrange (talk) 17:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Only males may abstain from sperm-releasing Masturbation that serves to flush the genital tract of old sperm that in any case will eventually dissipate. No causal relationship between masturbation and any form of mental or physical disorder has been found but abstinence may be thought or taught to increase the chance of wanted conception during subsequent intercourse. Philvoids (talk) 00:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

There's many rumors about that topic. One is that not ejaculating frequently increases the risk of developing prostate cancer. Abductive (reasoning) 01:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Nothing really conclusive but there's some evidence that short periods are associated with lower DNA fragmentation, see

Du, Chengchao; Li, Yi; Yin, Chongyang; Luo, Xuefeng; Pan, Xiangcheng (10 January 2024). "Association of abstinence time with semen quality and fertility outcomes: a systematic review and dose–response meta‐analysis". Andrology. 12 (6): 1224–1235. doi:10.1111/andr.13583. ISSN 2047-2919.
Hanson, Brent M.; Aston, Kenneth I.; Jenkins, Tim G.; Carrell, Douglas T.; Hotaling, James M. (16 November 2017). "The impact of ejaculatory abstinence on semen analysis parameters: a systematic review". Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics. 35 (2): 213. doi:10.1007/s10815-017-1086-0. ISSN 2047-2919. PMC 5845044. PMID 29143943.
Ayad, Bashir M.; Horst, Gerhard Van der; Plessis, Stefan S. Du; Carrell, Douglas T.; Hotaling, James M. (14 October 2017). "Revisiting The Relationship between The Ejaculatory Abstinence Period and Semen Characteristics". International Journal of Fertility & Sterility. 11 (4): 238. doi:10.22074/ijfs.2018.5192. ISSN 2047-2919. PMC 5641453. PMID 29043697.

for example. Alpha3031 (t • c) 02:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Mature sperm cells do not have DNA repair capability. Inevitably, as sperm cells get older, they will naturally and unavoidably be subject to more and more DNA damage. Obviously, freshly produced spermatozoa will, on average, have less DNA damage. It is reasonable to assume that the expected amount of damage is proportional to the age of the cells, which is consistent with what studies appear to find. Also, obviously, the more the damage is to a spermatozoon fertilizing an oocyte, the larger the likelihood that the DNA repair in the resulting zygote, which does have DNA repair capability, will be incomplete. The studies I've looked at did not allow me to assess how much this is of practical significance. --Lambiam 09:40, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

December 16

Abelian sandpile model

Thanks to those who answered my last question, I think it should be added to a disambiguation page. If anyone wants to help me write that, reach out.

A sandpile seems disorganized and inert, but these are critically self-organizing. Do the frequency and size of disturbances on sand dunes and snowy peaks follow power law distribution? Gongula Spring (talk) 01:18, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be at the Math Desk? Abductive (reasoning) 05:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

If the question is not about the model mentioned in the heading but about the physical properties of sand dunes and snowy peaks, this here is the right section of the Reference desk. --Lambiam 08:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I await a non-mathematical answer. Abductive (reasoning) 09:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

It depends is probably a fairly reasonable non-mathematical answer for these kinds of systems. For sand dunes anyway, sometimes avalanche frequency is irregular and the size distribution follows a power law, and sometimes it's close to periodic and the avalanches span the whole system. It seems there are multiple regimes, and these kinds of systems switch between them. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm impressed this seems so casual, but surely you read this somewhere that might have a URL?

Gongula Spring (talk) 22:29, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi, this is an interesting and somewhat open question! A lot of work is done on these models but much less on careful analyses of real dunes. I did find this dissertation that is freely accessible and describes some physical experiments and how well they fit various models. The general answer seems to be that the power law models are highly idealized, and determining the degree to which any real system's behavior is predicted by the model ahead of time is very difficult. Update: This is one of the earlier important works on the topic and it does include discussion of how well the model fits experiments.SemanticMantis (talk) 17:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

That dissertation is great!

Gongula Spring (talk) 22:30, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Polar night

Are there any common or scientific names for types of polar night? The types that I use are:

polar night - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below horizon entire day (there is no daylight at solar noon, only civil twilight), occurring poleward from 67°24′ north or south
civil polar night - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below -6° entire day (there is no civil twilight at solar noon, only nautical twilight), occurring poleward from 72°34′ north or south
nautical polar night - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below -12° entire day (there is no nautical twilight at solar noon, only astronomical twilight), occurring poleward from 78°34′ north or south
astronomical polar night - meaning a day when sun's altitude remains below -18° entire day (there is no astronomical twilight at solar noon, only night), occurring poleward from 84°34′ north or south

These names were changed on Polar night article, and I wnat to know whether these named I listed are in use in any scientific papers, or in common language. (And I posted that question here and not in language desk because I think that this is not related to language very tightly.) --40bus (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Some definitions at The Polar Night (1996) from the Aurora Research Institute. Alansplodge (talk) 22:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

These seem to be generalizable as: X polar night is a period, lasting not less than 24 hours, during which the sun remains below the horizon and there is no X twilight. The specific definitions depend then on the specific definitions of civil/nautical/astronomical twilight. These can be defined with a subjective observational standard or with an (originally experimentally determined) objective standard. --Lambiam 10:36, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I as a former amateur astronomer have never previously thought about the question of Polar twilight and night nomenclatures, but immediately and completely understood what the (previously unencountered) terms used in the query must mean without having to read the attached descriptions. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 16:34, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

December 17

differential equations with complex coefficients

In an intro ODE class one basically studies the equation ${\dot {x}}=Ax$ where x is a real vector and A is a real matrix. A typically has complex eigenvalues, giving a periodic or oscillating solution to the equation. That is very important in physics, which has various sorts of harmonic oscillators everywhere. If A and x are complex instead of real, mathematically the ODE theory works out about the same way. I don't know what happens with PDE's since I haven't really studied them.

My question is whether the complex case is important in physics the way the real case is. Can one arrive at it through straightforward coordinate transformations? Do the complex eigenvalues "output" from one equation find their way into the "input" of some other equation? Does the distance metric matter? I.e. in math and old-fashioned physics we use the Euclidean metric, but in realtivity one uses the Minkowski metric, so I'm wondering if that leads to complex numbers. This is all motivated partly by wondering where all the complex numbers in quantum mechanics come from. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:DA2D (talk) 22:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps I don't understand what you are getting at but simple harmonic motion is xdot=j*w*x where w is angular frequency and j is i Greglocock (talk) 00:35, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

If PDEs count, the Schrödinger equation and the Dirac equation are examples of differential equations in the complex domain. A linear differential equation of the form

{\dot {x}}=Ax

on the complex vector space

\mathbb {C} ^{n}

can be turned into one on the real vector space

\mathbb {R} ^{2n}

. For a very simple example, using

n=1,

the equation

{\begin{bmatrix}{\dot {z}}\end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}i\end{bmatrix}}{\begin{bmatrix}z\end{bmatrix}}

can be replaced by

{\begin{bmatrix}{\dot {x}}\\{\dot {y}}\end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}0&-1\\1&0\end{bmatrix}}{\begin{bmatrix}x\\y\end{bmatrix}}.

--Lambiam 01:11, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be at the Math Desk? It almost seems like the IP could be trolling, given the same question just above. Abductive (reasoning) 14:49, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The question whether the complex case is important in physics the way the real case is, is not a maths issue. IMO the Science section is the best choice. I do not see another post that asks the same or even a related question. --Lambiam 21:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Just as above, I await a non-mathematical answer to this question. Abductive (reasoning) 07:01, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks all. Greglocock, your SHO example is 1-dimensional but of course you can have a periodic oscillator (such as a planetary orbit) in any orientation in space, you can have damped or forced harmonic oscillators, etc. Those are all described by the same matrix equation. The periodic case means that the matrix eigenvalues are purely imaginary. The damped and forced cases are where there is a real part that is negative or positive respectively. Abductive, of course plenty of science questions (say about how to calculate an electron's trajectory using Maxwell's equations) will have mathematical answers, and the science desk is clearly still the right place for them, as they are things you would study in science class rather than math class. Lambiam, thanks, yes, PDE's are fine, and of course quantum mechanics uses complex PDE's. What I was hoping to see was a situation where you start out with real-valued DEs in some complicated system, and then through some coupling or something, you end up with complex-valued DEs due to real matrices having complex eigenvalues. Also I think the Minkowski metric can be treated like the Euclidean one where the time coordinate is imaginary. But I don't know how this really works, and Misplaced Pages's articles about such topics always make me first want to go learn more math (Lie algebras in this case). Maybe someday. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:DA2D (talk) 07:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

December 18

Why don't all mast radiators have top hats?

Our mast radiator article describes a device called a "top hat" which increases the range for mast radiators that can't be built tall enough.

So, why would you bother building a mast radiator without a top hat? Couldn't you just build it shorter with the top hat, and save steel? Marnanel (talk) 15:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The main source cited in our article states, "Top loading is less desirable than increased tower height but is useful where towers must be electrically short due to either extremely low carrier frequencies or to aeronautical limitations. Top loading increases the base resistance and lowers the capacitive base reactance, thus reducing the Q and improving the bandwidth of towers less than 90° high." If "reducing the Q" is an undesirable effect, this is a trade-off design issue in which height seems to be favoured if circumstances permit. --Lambiam 21:41, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Name of our solar system

Is our star system officially called "Sol", or is that just something that came from science fiction and then became ubiquitous? 146.90.140.99 (talk) 22:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It's called the Solar System, and its star is called Sol, from Latin via French. Hence terms like "solstice", which means "sun stands still" in its apparent annual "sine wave" shaped path through the sky. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:31, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Via French? According to the OED, it came direct from Latin. --Lambiam 11:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC)}}

Old French plus Latin. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 14:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Also in Old French, the word meaning "sun" was soleil. --Lambiam 23:42, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Let's say to that claim. The star is indeed called Sol if you're speaking Latin, but in English it's the Sun (or sun). Of course words like "solar" and "solstice" derive from the Latin name, but using "Sol" to mean "the Sun" does seem to be something from science fiction. --142.112.149.206 (talk) 06:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

"Sol" is occasionally used to mean the Sun by astronomers. I feel like it is used in contexts where it is necessary to distinguish our experience with the Sun here on Earth, such as sunsets, from more "sterile" aspects of the Sun one might experience off the Earth. Abductive (reasoning) 08:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Being an astronomer myself, I don't think I've ever heard anyone use "Sol" outside of a science fiction context. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:06, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Scientific articles that use the term Sol; Development of the HeliosX mission analysis code for advanced ICF space propulsion and Swarming Proxima Centauri: Optical Communication Over Interstellar Distances. These are rather speculative but as I mentioned, the usage is for off-planet situations. Abductive (reasoning) 13:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Using Sol, Terra and Luna to refer to the Sun, Earth and Moon only happens if you write your entire article in Latin and in science fiction, not in regular science articles. They are capitalised though. Just as people write about a galaxy (one of many) or the Galaxy (the Milky Way Galaxy, that's our galaxy). The Solar System is also capitalised. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:38, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The article says "Sol" is the "personification" of the sun. Google Image the term "old Sol" and you'll see plenty of images of the sun with a face, not just Sci-Fi stuff. And "Luna" is obviously the basis for a number of words not connected with Sci-Fi. Lunar orbit, lunar module, etc. And the term "terra firma" has often been used in everyday usage. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 11:34, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

And yet, if you ask 1,000 people "What's that big yellow thing up in the sky called?", you'll get 1,000 "the Sun"s and zero "Sol"s. Yes, in specialised contexts, Sol is used; but that doesn't justify saying our solar system's star "is called Sol" without any qualification, as if that were the normal, default term. It's not. -- Jack of Oz 12:16, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

And after you've gotten that response, ask them why it isn't the "Sunner System". And why a sun room attached to a house isn't called a "sunarium". And why those energy-gathering plates on some roofs are not called "sunner panels". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 14:22, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

What does that have to do with anything? The question was 'Is our star system officially called "Sol"?' (my emphasis). The answer is it is not. And that does not preclude other terms being derived from Latin sol (or, often enough, from Greek helios), nobody denies that, it is irrelevant to the question. --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:52, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The problem is that the OP's question contains false premises. One is the question of what the "official" name is. There is no "official" name. It's the "conventional" name. And the second part, claiming that "Sol" comes from Sci-fi, is demonstrably false. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Then demonstrate (that the usage of "Sol" as a name for the Sun, in English, not its use to derive adjectives, originated outside of SF), with references. The original question does not even include any premises, with maybe the exception of "ubiquitous". --Wrongfilter (talk) 15:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

"Is our star system officially called "Sol" , or is that just something that came from science fiction and then became ubiquitous? ". And the wording of your own question, just above, does not make sense. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Looking at Newspapers.com (pay site), I'm seeing colloquial references to "old Sol" (meaning the sun) as far back as the 1820s. No hint of sci-fi derivation. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:32, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Great! Well done. --Wrongfilter (talk) 15:41, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to box up this section. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:52, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The 1933 OED entry for Sol, linked to above, gives several pre-SF uses, the earliest from 1450. --Lambiam 23:48, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, of course, but that's not surprising, is it? 15th century humanists, astrologers and pre-Victorian poets liked to sprinkle their texts with Latin words. But I don't think this is what the question is about. It's a matter of context, but it should be up to OP to clarify that. --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:48, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

It's not surprising, but the discussion was not whether the use of Sol in English texts is surprising, but whether it originated outside of SF. --Lambiam 10:52, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

In my view, the question has a clear scifi bent, and that particular usage ("Where shall we go for our vacation? Alpha Centauri or Sol?") does not originate in the 15th century. The word is much older, of course it is, but the usage is not. In the 15th century people didn't even know that the Sun is just an ordinary star and could do with a particular name to distinguish it from the others. The connotations of sol were vastly different from what they are today and from what is implied in OP's question. Incidentally, the IAU doesn't even define a name , although they recommend using capitalised "Sun". Certainly no "Sol" anywhere. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:04, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Does that make it a Sol-ecism? Clarityfiend (talk) 12:19, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

More like a Sol-ips-ism. Meaning a factory where suns are made. From Sol = sun, and ipso = facto. Thus endeth the entymogology lesson for today. Go in peace to love and serve whomsoever. -- Jack of Oz 19:37, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Mountains

Why there are no mountains on Earth with a height above 10,000 m? As the death zone is about at 8,000 m, and above 19,000 m, there is an Armstrong limit, where water boils at normal human body temperature, it is good that there are no more mountains higher than 8,000 km than just 14, but if there were hundreds of mountains above 9,000 m, then these were bad to climb. If there were different limits for death zone and Armstrong limit, would then there be possible to have higher mountains? I have just thought that, it is not a homework? --40bus (talk) 22:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

There are mountains elsewhere in the solar system that are over 20km high. Given that some of those are on airless worlds, I don't think the air pressure has any bearing on it. 146.90.140.99 (talk) 22:57, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Multiple sources from web searching suggest the theoretical maximum height for mountains on Earth is around 15,000 m – the limiting factor is Isostasy; the higher (therefore more voluminous) a mountain is, the more its weight causes the crust beneath it to sink. The actual heights of mountains are a trade-off between how fast tectonic movements can raise them versus isostatic sinking and how quickly they are eroded, and tectonic movements do not last for ever. See also Orogeny. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 00:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

And erosion goes faster as the mountain gets higher, in particular when it's high enough to support glaciers – one reason why mountains can get higher on an airless world. Now it gets interesting for a mountain high enough to reach into the stratosphere, as it would be too dry to have anything but bare rock. I suppose it would locally raise the tropopause, preventing that. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:13, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

December 19

Does human DNA become weaker with each generation?

As with photocopying something over and over, the text becomes less clear each time.

Does human DNA become weaker with each generation? HarryOrange (talk) 21:22, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure, DNA replication is not perfect, although proofreading reduces the error rate to about 1 mistake per 10 nucleotides (see our article on DNA Replication). But that is per generation of cells, not of the whole organisms. Many mutations will be neutral in effect (because much of our DNA is redundant), some will be deleterious, and a few might be advantageous. It is the process of natural selection that hinders the spread of deleterious mutations: sometimes this aspect is called purifying selection. One thus usually expects a stable mutation–selection balance over time rather than that "DNA becomes weaker with each generation". Medical science is reducing the selection pressure against some mutations, which consequently may become more common. One of the problems for asexual organisms is referred to as Muller's ratchet; assuming that reverse mutations are rare, each generation has at least the mutational load of its predecessor. In contrast, in sexual organisms genetic recombination generates the variation that, combined with selection, can repair the situation. Sexual organisms consequently have a lighter genetic load. JMCHutchinson (talk) 22:42, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

So purifying selection won't work properly in case of Inbreeding ? HarryOrange (talk) 23:16, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The larger the degree of inbreeding, the larger the chance that deleterious traits are expressed. But this very expression of traits leading to decreased biological fitness of their bearers is what actually enables purifying selection in the longer term. --Lambiam 23:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

@Lambiam so DNA repair won't stop these deleterious traits to get expressed? HarryOrange (talk) 14:11, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

No, this is not an issue of damage to the DNA. The genes involved are faithfully reproduced and passed on from generation to generation. --Lambiam 15:53, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Or stronger e.g. "...we found that genes specifically duplicated in the Greenland shark form a functionally connected network enriched for DNA repair function", and those guys live for centuries and have much more DNA than us. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:21, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

@Lambiam If not due to DNA damage, why do babies from inbreeding appear like DNA-damaged species? HarryOrange (talk) 17:29, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Inbred offspring of species that normally outcross may show abnormalities because they are more likely than outcrossed offspring to be homozygous for recessive alleles that are deleterious. In individuals that are heterozygous at these loci, the recessive alleles will not be expressed (because the other wild-type dominant allele is sufficient to do their job adequately). See our article on inbreeding depression. JMCHutchinson (talk) 19:26, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Larvae going south

In a novel I've just finished (The Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett) he writes:

leave the body in an orderly fashion, following each other in a neat procession that always heads south. South-east or south-west sometimes, but never north. No-one knows why.

The author has done considerable international research on the science of forensic identification of decayed bodies and I assume his details can be trusted.

I've looked online for any verification of this surprising statement, but found only this, which seems to debunk it.

Is there any truth to this? -- Jack of Oz 23:38, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Can't speak to its truth, but . . .

Does Beckett state this in his own auctorial voice (i.e. as an omniscient narrator)? If so, he might be genuinely mistaken.
The book was published nearly 20 years ago, what was the accepted wisdom then?
What specific species (if any) is the book describing? – your linked Quora discussion refers only to "maggots" (which can be of numerous species and are a kind of larva, but there are many others, including for example Processionary caterpillars).
Alternatively, if the statement is made by a character in the book, is that character meant to be infallible, or is he portrayed as less than omniscient, or an 'unreliable narrator'?

Regarding the statement, in the Northern hemisphere the arc of South-east to South-west is predominently where the Sun is found well above the horizon, the North never, so the larvae involved might simply be seeking maximum warmth or light. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 02:18, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

This appears in the very first paragraph of Chapter I, which starts out:

A human body starts to decompose four minutes after death. Once the encapsulation of life, it now undergoes its final metamorphoses. It begins to digest itself. Cells dissolve from the inside out. Tissue turns to liquid, then to gas. No longer animate, the body becomes an immovable feast for other organisms. Bacteria first, then insects. Flies. Eggs are laid, then hatched. The larvae feed on the nutrient-rich broth, and then migrate. They leave the body in an orderly fashion ... (then the quote above completes the paragraph).

It's not until para 2 that he starts talking about any human characters, and not until para 4 that he invokes the first person.

That's as much as I know. But I find it hard to believe he'd just make up a detail and put it in such a prominent place if it could so easily be debunked if it were not true. -- Jack of Oz 02:39, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I wonder how they would measure the migratory path of maggots within a sealed coffin. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:51, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

The context of the novel is about finding decaying corpses that have been dumped in a forest. No coffins involved. -- Jack of Oz 06:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs, see also body farm research facilities. Alansplodge (talk) 13:44, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Could it be that the larvae are setting off in search of another corpse? The prevailing wind in the UK is from the south-west, so by heading into the wind they won't be distracted by the frangrance of the one they've just left. Shantavira| 09:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

If you can, have a look at 'Heinrich, Bernd. “Coordinated Mass Movements of Blow Fly Larvae (Diptera: Calliphoridae).” Northeastern Naturalist, vol. 20, no. 4, 2013, pp. N23–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43288173.' Here are some extracts

On the fourth day, after a cooling night with dew on the grass, a stream of tens of thousands of larvae exited from beneath the carcass within 1 h after sunrise, and proceeded in a single 1-2-cm-wide column directly toward the rising sun...
However, in this case, the larvae left at night, within 1 h after a cloudburst (at 21 :00 hours). But, unlike before, this nocturnal larval exodus in the rain was diffuse; thousands of larvae spread out in virtually all directions over an 8 m2area. Apparently, the sudden moisture had cued and facilitated the mass exodus, but the absence of sun had prevented a unidirectional, en masse movement.
However, on the following morning as the sun was starting to illuminate the carcass on the dewy grass, masses of larvae gathered at the east end of the carcass at 07:00 hours. In one half hour later, they started streaming in a column directly (within one degree) toward the rising sun, and the carcass was then nearly vacated.

It goes on. Maggot migration appears to be a bit more complicated than the novel suggests. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:39, 20 December 2024 (UTC) I suppose you could try to address it from the other direction and look at the technology your average maggot has access to in terms of light detection, heat detection, olfactory systems, orientation in magnetic fields (like many arthropods) etc. They presumably have quite a lot of tools. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:13, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

If orderly migrating maggots tend to move towards the sun, they should display a northward tendency in Oztralia. --Lambiam 10:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Maybe, but the novel is set in England.

I must say, as soon as I read the quoted para for the first time, my immediate thought was that it might have something to do with the magnetic field of the earth. -- Jack of Oz 10:42, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Prime suspect might be the Bolwig organ, the photoreceptor cluster many fly larvae have. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:49, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Obviously, Jack, you need to create a corpse, place it in a nearby forest, and carefully observe which way the maggots go. For Science! And Literary Criticism! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 21:01, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

December 20

Winter solstice and time of sunrise?

How is it that despite December 21st supposedly being the shortest day of the year, sunrise here happens later and later until December 26 and only on January 05 starts to turn around to occur earlier and earlier. On December 25 it takes place at about 08:44, between December 26 and January 04 it takes place at about 08:45, and on January 05 it takes place again at about 08:44. (Google rounds out the seconds). Is it Google's fault? Is it everywhere the same? Confused in Brussels, Belgium. 178.51.16.158 (talk) 12:06, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

The pertinent article is Analemma, start with the section Earliest and latest sunrise and sunset. The details are not that simple to understand, but it's basically due to the ellipticity of Earth's orbit and its axial tilt. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:22, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Also note that sunset begins to be later on 22 December so that the time between sunrise and sunset is a few seconds longer than on 21 December (3 seconds longer on 22/12/24 in Brussels according to this). Alansplodge (talk) 13:33, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Also see Equation of time#Major components. The obliquity of the ecliptic (that is, the Earth's axial tilt) is the main component and hardest to understand. But the idea is that the time when the Sun is exactly south (that is, the true noon) moves some minutes back and forth throughout the year and it moves quite rapidly to later times in late December. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:05, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Three unit questions

Why territorial waters are defined by nautical miles instead of kilometers?
Why GDP is usually measured in US dollars rather than euros? Euro would be better because it is not tied into any country.
Are there any laws in United States that are defined by metric units?

--40bus (talk) 23:30, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

There were nautical miles in use before there were kilometers.
There were US dollars in use before there were Euros.
Yes.

The questions all reduce to Why can't millions of people make a change of historically widely accepted units that continue to serve their purpose, and convert to different units that would have no substantive difference, because someone has an opinion. Philvoids (talk) 00:52, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Do any people use metric units in marine and air navigation like "The ship is 10 kilometers from the port", "The plane is 10 kilometers from the destination? And is there any European country with metric flight levels? --40bus (talk) 07:22, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Inland shipping (rivers, canals and lakes) in Europe (except the UK) is fully metric. Ships going for example Tilbury – Duisburg may have to switch units along the way. Gliders and ultralight aircraft in Europe often use metric instruments and airport dimensions are also metric (including runway length). Countries are free to define their territorial waters in whatever way they deem fit, so with nautical miles having no legal status in a fully metric country, they may define their territorial waters as extending 22224 metres. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:23, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Our nautical mile article says: "In 1929 the international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as exactly 1,852 metres (which is 6,076.12 ft). The United States did not adopt the international nautical mile until 1954. Britain adopted it in 1970..."

As the US customary units are actually defined in terms that relate them to metric units, any US law based on measurements is technically defined by metric units.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 01:55, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

The US dollar has been the world's dominant reserve currency for about 75 years. As for the metric system in the US, it is standard in scientific, medical, electronics, auto manufacturing and other highly technical industries. By law, all packaged foods and beverages have metric quantities as well as customary quantities. See Metrication in the United States. Cullen328 (talk) 02:28, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

The Wikipaedia article on the Nautical Mile talks about how the term originated, it was originally defined in terms of latitude not as a number of meters 114.75.48.128 (talk) 10:03, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

The euro is tied to multiple specific countries is it not? If you use euros you're just changing from one "dependency" to a "dependency" on the eurozone countries. A statement of the problem or problems intended to be addressed would be useful. Currency values are interconvertible in any case. Economics does sometimes use the "international dollar" for certain things, which is intended to adjust for differences in purchasing power between countries and over time. But since it's not an actual "real" currency it's not something one can easily "visualize" in their heads, which is likely why it's not used more. --Slowking Man (talk) 05:41, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

December 24

Unknown species of insect

Am I correct in inferring that this guy is an oriental beetle? I was off-put by the green head at first, but the antennae seem to match. Jay Cubby 03:00, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

(reference: https://www.genesdigest.com/macro/image.php?imageid=168&apage=0&ipage=1)

~~It looks like one of the invasive Japanese beetles that happens to like my blackberries in the summer.~~ Modocc (talk) 13:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I would say not necessarily a Japanese beetle, but almost certainly one of the other Scarab beetles, though with 35,000 species that doesn't help a lot. Looking at the infobox illustration in that article, 16. & 17., "Anisoplia segetum" looks very similar, but evidently we either don't have an article or (if our Anisoplia article is a complete list) it's been renamed. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 14:18, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it's not the Japanese beetle for this beetle appears to lack its white-dotted fringe although its condition is deteriorated. Its shape is also more or less more slender; and not as round. Modocc (talk) 15:02, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps it is the shining leaf chafer Strigoderma pimalis. Shown here. Modocc (talk) 16:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

That looks like easily the best match I've seen so far, and likely correct. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.223.204 (talk) 17:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

December 25

Mass of oscillating neutrino

From the conservation of energy and momentum it follows that a particle that is not subject to external forces must have constancy of mass.

If I am right, this means that the mass of the neutrino cannot change during the neutrino oscillation, although its flavoring may. Is this written down somewhere? Thank you. Hevesli (talk) 19:24, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Any (flavored) neutrino that is really observed is a superposition of two or three mass eigenstates. This is actually the cause of neutrino oscillations. So, the answer to your question is complicated. Ruslik_Zero 19:40, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Important note: particle physicists today generally only ever use "mass" to mean "invariant mass" and never anything else: . Like the term says, invariant mass is well, invariant, it never changes ever, no matter what "external forces" may or may not be involved. Being proper particle-icans and following the standard practice in the field, then, the three neutrino masses are constant values. ..."Wait, three?" Yeah sure, turns out neutrinos come in three "flavors" but each flavor is a mixture of the three possible mass "states". As mentioned, due to Quantum Weirdness we aren't able to get these different states "alone by themselves" to measure each by itself, so we only know the differences of the squares of the masses. Yeah welcome to quantum mechanics.

Richard Feynman: "Quantum mechanics describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And yet it fully agrees with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as She is – absurd." --Slowking Man (talk) 06:06, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

The equation

E^{2}=(pc)^{2}+\left(m_{0}c^{2}\right)^{2}

uses invariant mass m₀ which is constant if E and p are constant. The traveling neutrino has a varying mass mixture of different flavors with different masses. If a mixture of different masses changes, you would expect the resulting mass to change with it. But somehow this does not happen as the neutrino mass mixture changes. These mixture changes cannot be any changes. The changes must be such that the resulting mass of the traveling neutrino remains constant. My question is whether this is described somewhere. Hevesli (talk) 11:16, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

I freely confess I'm uncertain exactly what's being "asked for" or "gotten at" here. Have you looked at the neutrino oscillation article? From it: That is, the three neutrino states that interact with the charged leptons in weak interactions are each a different superposition of the three (propagating) neutrino states of definite mass. Neutrinos are emitted and absorbed in weak processes in flavor eigenstates but travel as mass eigenstates.

What is it that we're "doing" with the energy–momentum relation here? For the neutrino, we don't have a single value of "mass" to plug in for

m_{0}

, because we can't "see" the individual mass eigenstates, only some linear combination of them. What you want for describing neutrino interactions is quantum field theory, which is special relativity + QM. (Remember, relativity is a "classical" theory, which presumes everything always has single well-defined values of everything. Which isn't true in quantum-world.) --Slowking Man (talk) 18:41, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Not all potential evolutions of a linear combination of unequal values produce constant results. Constancy can only be guaranteed by a constraint on the evolutions. Does the fact that this constraint is satisfied in the case of neutrino oscillation follow from the mathematical formulation of the Standard Model, or does this formulation allow evolutions of the mass mixture for which the combination is not constant? If the unequal values are unknown, I have no idea of how such a constraint might be formulated. I think the OP is asking whether this constraint is described somewhere. --Lambiam 00:51, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

December 27

Low-intensity exercise

If you exercise at a low intensity for an extended period of time, does the runner's high still occur if you do it for long enough? Or does it only occur above a certain threshold intensity of exercise? 2601:646:8082:BA0:CDFF:17F5:371:402F (talk) 20:13, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Hows about you try it and report back? :) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:31, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

fastidious organism vs auxotroph

Hi,

What is the difference between an auxotroph and a fastidious organism? It seems to me the second one would have more requirements than the first one, but the limit between the two definitions is rather unclear to me.

Thank you 212.195.231.13 (talk) 23:17, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

December 28

Categories: