Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2009 March 2

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March 2

Egyptian Goose?

Egyptian Goose?

I saw two of these birds in a park in Southern California. I hadn't seen this type before, so I took a picture and did some searching. It appears to resemble an Egyptian Goose, although from what I can tell that bird isn't usually found in the U.S. Any ideas of other similar-looking birds or might the two birds I saw have been a little far from home? --Nick—^Contact/_Contribs 01:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe they are continent hopping – how far from home is Britain to Southern California? Julia Rossi (talk) 01:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Could it possibly have been an escapee from someone's collection? In the UK, there are loads of touristy-type places that have fancy geese and peafowl wandering around the place, looking pretty... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 01:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Certainly the top-left photo here looks identical to your photo...so I think we can be sure it's an Egyptian Goose. Is it possible that the park keeps these exotics (perhaps with clipped wings to keep them there) as a part of the attraction of the place? Could you tell us the name of the park and it's location? Perhaps there is information to be found about that someplace online. SteveBaker (talk) 01:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Doh! Yeah, the bird may very well belong to the park (sorry, I didn't fully read the question). It may even have been pinioned to stop it from flying away... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 01:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Nah, it's a small neighborhood park with a lake maintained by the city. It must just be feral or an escapee or something. Thanks though, I appreciate the confirmation of my suspicions of the type of goose. --Nick—^Contact/_Contribs 02:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

[1] says that there are feral Egyptian Geese in SoCal. [2] says that there are small 'escapee' colonies in many US states. In comments attached here it's clear that sightings in California certainly happen...it's hard to say how common they are. SteveBaker (talk) 02:03, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It could also be someone's fancy lawnmower service. Don't know whether they still do it, but back in the 70s a couple of people rented out geese as environmentally friendly alternative to keep people's lawns short. They had clipped wings and their owner would come back after they had spent the allotted time grazing to collect them. This ghit seems to indicate they're still doing that [3] 76.97.245.5 (talk) 09:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

You might want to go with a mushroom/chestnut stuffing with appleauce over long-grain and wild rice. B00P (talk) 10:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there a psychological reason why...

...certain people get *really* offended and/or angry if one is to in any way criticize their favourite fictional character in the context of discussing say, a TV show or a movie? I don't know for certain if it's just a web forum thing - but I don't personally know any people like that in real life. It's (very) easy to think of them as 'insane fanboys', or even 'idiots' - but is there any deeper psychology at work here? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 03:24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

There's a concept in psychoanalysis: Identification (psychodynamic). It seems to be a defense mechanism and about lacking awareness at least. From experience, it's subjective, about lacking boundaries, and it's like an opinion is not an opinion it's a personal extension of the self. When you try talking about things people are heavily invested in for whatever ego-reasons, there's really no way around it. You might find Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences interesting though it needs cleanup. Julia Rossi (talk) 04:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you point me to an example? I'm not familiar with this phenomenon. LANTZY^TALK 04:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The classic example would be this exchange between Tuvok01 and SithLord12. Be sure to read Ms. Keavney's commentary, too, about SithLord12's good intentions. (Any resemblance to WP:AGF is of course purely accidental.)--Goodmorningworld (talk) 12:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh, yeah. I can't actually find any bona-fide examples of precisely what I was talking about in my OP offhand. I don't make a habit of bookmarking them and those kind of threads usually get deleted by the mods/admins for being 'very silly indeed' at whatever board they happen to occur at. FWIW, it seems to get nastiest when people are discussing whom <character> should choose as his/her 'one true love' out of two of more possibles. It often (usually?) leads to fictional characters being insulted and fans of those characters jumping in to defend their fictional honour like a pack of rabid dogs... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 00:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That probably points toward identification, as another poster said, then, becuase the person has chosen to...for lack of a better word...model their lives on that character, and feel insulted when it is stated that what they think is true of a character cannot occur. Sort of like when people choose to walk around speaking Klingon and dressing like one all the time. So, if person x thinks character A would hook up with character B, they are really saying, "if I were A, I would like B," because they might actually be putting some of their own personality into person A. Thus, when another comes along and says, "But, A would never like B, they are incompatible because..." the original person gets all offended becuase in their minds, A is hooked up with B, because they have become A int heir minds,a nd chosen B.

I think that makes sense, anyway.Somebody or his brother (talk) 17:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Nonstick coatings

Would diamond make a good nonstick coating for things? Like teflon, it's extremely low-friction, but unlike teflon, it's extremely hard (and presumably wear-resistant). --Carnildo (talk) 05:21, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

This company makes cookware using a composite containing diamond crystals. You might also find this link interesting. LANTZY^TALK 05:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

You might have the reverse problem here. That is, instead of the utensils scratching the pan, the pan would scratch the utensils. Also, the mechanism you use to adhere the diamond dust to the pan might not be able to hold up to the stresses of cooking, meaning it would eventually come loose and be eaten. I'm not sure if diamond dust would be harmful if swallowed. I imagine it would be biologically inert, but might scratch up your teeth or intestines going through. See diamond tool for some of the other issues with using diamond powder. StuRat (talk) 14:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If my diamond-coated frying pan scratches my stainless-steel spatula, it's a much smaller deal than if my spatula scratches a teflon-coated frying pan. --Carnildo (talk) 01:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There are wooden and nylon spatulas especially made for teflon (certainly cheaper than diamond coated cookware). Why use stainless on the teflon?63.88.67.230 (talk) 05:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Because roughly 99% of the items in my kitchen are steel: everything from whisks to knives to the uncoated sides of pans. I'd rather have a coating that I don't have to keep away from everything else. --Carnildo (talk) 01:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The answer is no, (probably) - diamond has a three dimension lattice (unlike slippery graphite which is two dimensional) and teflon which is linear chains (probably) - so the surface of the three dimensional lattice will have reactive sites (unlike graphite and teflon) - usually these sites have -OH functional groups (hydroxyl) which is definiately sticky...

However 'fluorinated diamond coating' would not have this problem, and would be a much more scratch resistant coating than teflon - so such a coating could be a better replacement for teflon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FengRail (talk • contribs) 15:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Established biological basis for neuroses and biological therapy!

By now it is well established that psychoses have a biological basis and respond to biological treatments.Is there similar evidence for biological basis for neuroses as well?(Ramanathan) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.247.70.129 (talk) 12:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Our article on Neurosis notes that they can be treated by drugs. Since drugs have to act on the physical body, it seems rather simple that yes, neurosis are sometimes treated "biologically". --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Hardness of teeth

What is the approximate hardness of human teeth on Mohs scale? DuncanHill (talk) 14:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Hydroxylapatite 5, or even Tooth enamel: second paragraph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FengRail (talk • contribs) 15:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I didn't think to look under tooth enamel! DuncanHill (talk) 15:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Blow it out your hole...

Why is it that more volume of a gas can pass through a given hole in a given time period than a liquid ? I know this is the case because the air hole on the far side of a can of juice doesn't need to be anywhere near the size of the liquid hole. I would guess it's because gases are far more compressible. So, this would mean the air compresses as it goes through the hole and decompresses on the other side, right ? Is this what's happening ? Also, what is the ratio, 10:1 ? That is, can ten times the volume of air pass through a given hole over a given time period as the volume of water which can pass ? Assume that the pressure differential is the same for both fluids (air and water). StuRat (talk) 15:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Compression is probably indeed a factor, but I'd imagine that the fact that air suffers much less from drag than water does also plays a part in this. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 16:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the Cap'n that it's drag/viscosity. A (thought) experiment to rule out compressibility would be to have a high-viscosity liquid in the jar, and a reservoir of low-viscosity liquid connected to the "air" hole. The limiting action is how fast the partial vacuum inside the jar can suck a fluid (gas or liquid) in through the pinhole in order to equalize the pressure of the outgoing thick stuff. I know intuitively that I could suck water through a pinhole more easily than I could suck cold honey through that same hole. --Sean 16:21, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The different viscosities is the answer. The air compresibility plays very little role here. Dauto (talk) 17:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

As an alternate perspective (it's the same reason, just a different way of looking at it) gases have about 1/1000 the molecule density of liquids. As a liquid passes through a hole, more molecules are dragging against the edge of the hole, and against each other, than with a gas. More of these unproductive collisions is essentially greater friction, slowing the motion of the bulk fluid. With a gas, you have about 1/1000 of these frictional interactions, so it flows much faster. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Im not sure the original claim is true. You say "more" like "more volume" - but I'd go by the mass. I'd be surprised if more MASS of gas could pass through a typical sized hole at soda-can-like pressures than mass of liquid. Remember one 240mL can of coke would produce 660 liters of steam if you turned it into gas. Could a can of liquid drain out of a quarter inch hole faster than telephone booth of gas under similar pressure? I think so. SteveBaker (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The example given was a carton refilling with air after the liquid is poured out - that's clearly a matter of volume, not mass. --Tango (talk) 19:24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

No - quite the opposite - my point is that the air hole can be much smaller because only a VERY tiny amount ("mass") of air is required to replace quite a lot of liquid. The volume is the same - but the number of molecules per second going through the two holes is vastly different. SteveBaker (talk) 20:57, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but the OP's statement is still correct. You have equal volume going through both holes (otherwise the carton would collapse), yet the air hole is smaller. That corresponds to a greater volume of air going through a given hole than water could fit through that hole. The difference in mass may well be the explanation for that, but that doesn't make the statement incorrect. --Tango (talk) 21:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

True - but I'm trying to point out that 'equal amounts' shouldn't mean 'equal volumes' - and if you consider the number of molecules having to make it through the two holes - the entire question is moot because the amount of liquid and the amount of air are vastly unequal. So the ability of some amount of liquid/gas to flow through a hole may not be all that different. When you look at it like that, any mystery and suspense in the original question kinda goes away. SteveBaker (talk) 00:10, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The Hagen-Poiseuille equation models laminar flow through a straight tube.

$\Phi ={\frac {|\Delta P|\pi R^{4}}{8\eta \Delta x}}$

$\Phi$ is flow

$|\Delta P|$ is change in pressure

$R$ is the radius of the tube

$\eta$ is dynamic viscosity

$\Delta x$ is the length of the tube

The dynamic viscosity of water is 1 centipoise, while that of air is about 0.017 centipoise. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, so that would mean that the air hole can be 1/59th the size of the water hole. With a rather thick juice, even more of a difference would work. I didn't know the difference was that much. Thanks. StuRat (talk) 15:00, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify the answer to the original question: yes, more volume of gas can flow than liquid (per unit time), because of the difference in viscosity. To Steve: The original claim certainly is true. The question explicitly asks about volume. If you are considering "mass" (not "volume"), that's an entirely different question. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Above, the incorrect statement was made, "You have equal volume going through both holes (otherwise the carton would collapse)" - it is certainly possible that the liquid drains out sufficiently fast that the gas pressure will drop (unable to be replenished by enough room air to maintain atmospheric pressure). The only hard requirement is that the pressure maintain high enough that there is a net flow of liquid out the other port (remember, though, that the liquid is acted on by air pressure inside the can AND by its own weight). After the liquid flow is done pouring, there may still be gas flow continuing to repressurize the can interior. In some extreme examples (say, dumping out an entire gallon of water from a "milk-jug" sized container) you can actually hear the container depressurize and repressurize. In cases where the liquid pressure is sufficiently high, (lots of mass in a tall-shaped container, e.g.) the internal gas pressure can drop significantly. Nimur (talk) 22:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

There are three possibilities - equal volume going in and out, the container collapsing (or, more likely, being squeezed) or the liquid "glugging" out as you describe. My statement was slightly incorrect in that I missed out the final option (and, I guess, there is a special case where it would glug but you finish pouring before the first cycle is complete). --Tango (talk) 16:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if there's a formula to figure out how long it takes for a "glug". I know the flow rate out of the hole decreases right before the glug, so the formula would need to take this variable flow rate into account, if we wanted to know how much time would elapse between glugs. With a small hole you seem to get alternation between liquid flow out and air flow in, but larger holes allow both to happen simultaneously. StuRat (talk) 14:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, so that would mean that the air hole can be 1/59th the size of the water hole.

— StuRat

No, that not correct. The dynamic viscosity of water is about 59 times that of air. However flow is proportionate to the radius raised to the power four. Thus the radius of the water hole needs to be about 2.8 times that of the air hole for equal laminar flow through both holes (if the holes are the same length and the pressure gradient is the same). Axl ¤ [Talk] 18:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I see. That's a bit closer to my estimate of 10:1. Thanks. StuRat (talk) 19:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Chloroplasts and mitochondria

Hi,

Hopefully a very easy question - is there a word for chloroplasts AND mitochondria collectively? I thought plastid meant this, but apparently that's only chloroplasts (and related) organelles. Is there a better word than "DNA-containing(-but-not-the-nucleus-)organelles"? Symbiotic organelles? Any ideas?

Thanks

141.14.245.244 (talk) 16:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

"Obligate endosymbionts" was my first thought, since Endosymbiotic theory is the theory that deals with the origin of such organelles, but the term is a bit more inclusive than you're thinking of. You may not be able to find a term that neatly excludes the nucleus: see Viral eukaryogenesis.-gadfium 20:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Eggs or secretion by unknown Animal/Creature ?

Please could you identify what has laid a amound of very very small black balls held together with a very gluey subtance on my garden lawn?. I do have a garden ornamental raised pond.It is not frogspawn or toads which are laid in bead like strands. No these black balls are completly joined together in a formation similar to a blackberry, but minute.The mound measured about 3inches in width and bound together with a subtance not visible.I have never seen anything like it before. Supersaddlers (talk) 16:08, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Could it be frogspawn? DuncanHill (talk) 16:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• 
  Is this something like it? (pic added by DuncanHill, before the question was amended to say it wasn't frogspawn)
• 
  Or this? (pic added by DuncanHill, before the question was amended to say it wasn't frogspawn)

My guess would also be frogspawn -- you say that it's not that, because frogspawn looks like "beadlike strands", but I believe that's only true for toadspawn! Frogspawn looks like clusters, as you describe (and as is pictured above). -- Captain Disdain (talk) 17:03, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks like frogspawn to me, but why not in the pond? Perhaps they need your assistance there. Julia Rossi (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Ponds and streams are dangerous places for frog eggs, so many frogs lay their eggs out of the water, but in such a place that the lil tadpoles will fall into the water upon exiting the egg mass. Leave 'em where they are! Matt Deres (talk) 19:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Where are you in the world? Snails lay egg clusters of differing colours. Salamandars spawn are in a lump.91.111.64.177 (talk) 22:51, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

About miracles

Most religious people try to prove some scientific facts from their religious books and present them as a miracle of their religious books .Most of them (may be all) are the wrong uses of words . My question is ," Is their any miracle which is free from doubt, can be proved from these books ".Any one know about such miracle which we all can understand

A miracle is something that happened through divine intervention. If there were miracles that were free from doubt, that would be a proof of some kind of god. If there were a conclusive proof of a god, I'm pretty sure I would have heard about it, so I'm going to say "no". --Tango (talk) 17:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, most religious people make no attempt to disprove what their senses tell them about God's creation, and happly allow God to make his creation however he sees fit, with evolution and the Big Bang and all that. There are a few vocal crackpots who do what you are describing, but they are simply heavily reported on because they are so vocal and such huge crackpots. The rest of the religious people are happy not trying to tell God how he should operate, and just accept him and his creation for what it is. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a mistake to claim that science proves that miracles could not have happened; if a creator God exists it's surely possible that he could override his own created physical laws. It's silly to try to prove God exists by finding an explanation for miracles within scientific law, for exactly the same reason. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If there were something that one could describe as a 'miracle' - it would have to be a solidly demonstrable thing with tons of evidence that everyone could look at and agree upon - otherwise it's just going to be dismissed along with UFO sightings and the Loch Ness Monster. So if this is something that's free from doubt - then the world of science would be most unlikely to say "Wow! A miracle - there must be a God." - we'd be much more likely to say "Wow! An event happened in the world that disproves one or more 'laws' of science. Let's study it carefully and amend our laws accordingly." - let's think of an actual example...everyone thought that the Coelacanth (a fish) was long extinct. We had fossils of it - but no biologist had ever suspected that they still existed. Then, in 1938 someone caught one, had it stuffed by a taxidermist and sent it to a biologist. So - did we fall on our knees and say "Lo! A miracle hast been wrought by a divine being - yeah this long dead fish has been brought to life by His divine will. Let us abandon our crappy science and go hence to the nearest Mosque/Church/Synagogue and praise Him."...no - we crossed out the bit in the Biology textbook that said "The Coelacanth was a prehistoric fish living in the Middle Devonian, Late Paleozoic and Mesozoic." and wrote "The Coelacanth is a fish which has been around since the Middle Devonian and can still be found off the coast of South Africa."...problem solved. The only way that a 'miracle' (that is to say - an undeniable event that does not fit into the present laws of science) would result in all of this religious stuff being considered "true" would be if careful study of the event somehow showed the definite presence of a "God" as the only way it could have come about. But most of these events don't come close to that. Looking at the christian miracles - we have stuff like "A Virgin Birth"...yeah - right. I wish I had a dollar for every teenage girl who got 'knocked up' after an illicit fling who then claimed she'd never had sex in her life...sure - that's a miracle...NOT! The 'water into wine' - meh - I bet that any decent member of the Magic Circle could pull that one off easily enough. The story of the loaves and fishes - well, that sounds a lot like some kind of a spontaneous block party we had when I lived. I had some food - some neighbours came over - we decided to make a party of it - more people came over - but we didn't have enough food - so people disappeared and came back with whatever leftovers they had in the fridge - before you know it we had a 100 people and more food and drink than we could possibly get through. Was it such an amazing party that you'd want to write about it...sure! Was is 'magic'...no. We have 'raising the dead' - well, where are the medical records to prove that the guy was actually dead. There are plenty of documented cases of people being thought to be dead - then waking up in the morgue some hours later. The problem with most of these things is that they aren't written with a scientist's skepticism. SteveBaker (talk) 18:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

This priest held that a belief in miracles was atheistic. DuncanHill (talk) 18:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

You might check out Hume's famous piece, Of Miracles. --140.247.253.176 (talk) 19:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

"Most religious people" of my acquaintance do nothing like what the original questioner claims. Maybe he ran into a zealot or crackpot somewhere, or tuned into a TV religionist from an extreme faction. There is no "Journal of Repeatable and Well Proven Miracles" describing phenomena inexplicable by the laws and generally accepted theories of science. "Now watch me turn this wine and bread into flesh and blood!" A miracle performed at every Mass, when the Priest says the words of institution, but the transubstantiation cannot be proven by DNA or mass spectrometer analysis, since the "essence" changes while leaving the "accident" the same. Edison (talk) 19:43, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I guess the whole point of miracles is that they stand outside science: if proven by science, they are not miracles, but natural (if rare) occurrences. How do you prove something that doesn't conform to scientific laws? With great difficulty! Hence miracles are always very firmly tied up with faith. That they cannot be proved does not automatically or reasonably mean they cannot exist. That some claims to the miraculous are disproved does not mean all miracles are false claims; nor does it mean that if (somehow) one miracle could be "proved", then all miracles exist. Philosophers and theologians have pondered these things for generations. Miracle offers various views on the subject. You might also consider looking at Miracles by C.S. Lewis. Also, look at Epistemic theory of miracles, which considers "miracles" to be events outside our understanding, rather than outside science. Which is quite plausible. Many things we consider normal and logical today would seem miraculous to our ancestors. Only arrogance holds that our modern scientific understanding is complete. We cannot possibly be able to explain everything correctly; there must be things we don't understand, or that are beyond our comprehension. And thus it is impossible to either prove or disprove God, or to prove or disprove miracles, until we have reached the knowledge of all things. Gwinva (talk) 04:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You said "I guess the whole point of miracles is that they stand outside science:" - but the problem is that science is about explaining absolutely everything (or at least that is the goal). So if a 'miracle' happens (something that science cannot yet adequately explain) then our job as scientists is to get on with explaining it. If necessary we'll change our laws to incorporate the new phenomenon...and as soon as we do that, it's a part of science and (as you said: "if proven by science, they are not miracles") that removes the 'miracle' status. At the time that the Coelacanth was discovered, a superstitious person with a familiarity with fossil Coelacanths might well attribute the 'magical' resurrection of an entire species to be a miracle. But scientists don't do that - we merely go and revise our laws to compensate. Since you can now look up "Coelacanth" in an encyclopedia and it says "Not Extinct" - we can hardly regard it's discovery as a miracle anymore. This means that there cannot (by definition) be miracles which can be solidly proven to exist - because the moment you have that proof, science adapts to it - and then (by YOUR definition) it's no longer a miracle. Hence, if we follow your reasoning - the only "miracles" left in the world are the flakey 'unfalsifiable' ones that can't be properly shown to have happened. As usual in religion - as soon as you point out an unfalsifiable element of their belief - you're told that this is a part of the 'faith'...in otherwords "it's like that because we say so". SteveBaker (talk) 18:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You could have falsifiable miracles, but only by completely destroying science. Science is based on the assumption that things are inherently predictable and explainable and are governed by set laws (even if we don't know what those laws are). The existence of a god (Level 2 or higher) would render that assumption false, and would allow miracles that cannot be explained by science - you just have to say "God did it" and get a new job. --Tango (talk) 18:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah - but the moment a god shows his hand by doing things that science can examine - he ceases to be unfalsifiable and thus can be the subject of study. We could look carefully at what happens when these miracles happen and perhaps start to make deductions, new laws of the universe. By becoming detectable, god becomes merely another part of the universe for us to study - just like a black hole or a higgs boson. God with unlimited powers (level 2 and up on the increasingly useful 'Baker Scale of Omnipotence') are tricky because they could be messing with the brains of the researchers - but if that is possible then all of the science that we already "know" has to be flushed down the toilet because we have no experiment that can confirm it. In a sense, any proposition (including science itself) becomes unfalsifiable. SteveBaker (talk) 23:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I guess the most easy way to call it is, miracles are supernatural claims, supernatural as in, unnatural and not possible. If a miracle happens, it automatically becomes a non-miracle. ch¹⁰ · 18:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The 68 allegedly miraculous cures at Lourdes present an interesting case. Many thousands of people have claimed to have been miraculously cured this way, but only 68 cases have ever been accepted as miraculous by the Catholic Church. There are 2 parts to this process: the International Lourdes Medical Committee (CMIL) must first decide the case is "medically inexplicable". CMIL is an international panel of about twenty experts in various medical disciplines, and of different religious beliefs. They conduct rigorous and searching examinations over a long time, and certain criteria must be met, before any cure can be declared as "medically inexplicable". The Catholic Church can then go the next step and accept the cure as "miraculous". That is, not only can it not be explained by medical science, but it is, they say, evidence that the hand of God is at work. What the CMIL does, and the conclusions it comes to, would be fully acceptable to science, because the members of CMIL are themselves scientists. What the Church does would not, because they can never provide any proof that would satisfy a scientist that the cure is evidence of the work of a supernatural being. And that's the sticking point. Whether such a case is merely medically inexplicable, or crosses over into a miracle, comes down to a matter of personal belief. Looking at some of the prominent Lourdes cases, I guess if I were the patient, I wouldn't spend any time arguing the toss. I’d just be happy to have been cured after all reasonable hope of a cure had long since faded. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well the catholic church don't seem to have high standards, trying to claim that mother Teresa has preformed miracles, presumably just because a woman touched a locket she'd owned or something like that... ch¹⁰ · 19:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm no supporter of the RC Church, but the record shows they are extraordinarily reticent about ever regarding any claimed apparition, cure or whatever to be of supernatural origin. They insist on evidence that goes way beyond what any court of law would require, and they generally take decades or even centuries before declaring that a dead person has intervened in some living person's life and can now be regarded as a saint. There's a lot of crap written about Mother Teresa and her claimed intercession and miracles after she died. I don't know what episode you're referring to, but the vagueness of your language makes it sound like it's in that category. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There are some severe problems with the way these 'miracles' are handled:

• While they say that the board who votes on these events contains both believers from the catholic church, believers from other religions and non-believers, the fraction of the latter groups amongst the voting body is small (I don't have the numbers to hand but it's below 10%).
• They only require a 2/3rds majority in order to pronounce the case as 'medically inexplicable' - so it's easily possible for a catholic-only vote to proclaim this. Sadly, the voting is not carried out openly - so we have no way to check.
• The criterion is "medically inexplicable" - only the church itself can proclaim a 'miracle' - and that process is not related to science at all.
• There is a LOT of money spent by tourists and pilgrims at Lourdes - and they get a big spike in revenue when one of these 'official' miracles happens. It's perfectly possible that all manner of skulduggery is going on behind the scenes here. We all know the ways in which the Catholic church covers up inconvenient misdeeds - even when they are of a serious criminal nature. How much does it cost to get fake diagnoses, doctor reports and so forth? Not a fraction of what a decent sized gift-shop makes in a year...and Lourdes has PLENTY of gift shops!

So all we really know is that a bunch of doctors (possibly all catholics and possibly all believers in the 'Lourdes miracle') couldn't figure it out - and there are strong motives for all concerned to find more miracles. That's not a standard by which modern science works. Furthermore - nobody looks to see why so few people pass this criteria. If there was something miraculous going on - why are so few people truly getting better? Nobody studies them to discover whether they've been more pious or led a more virtuous existence than the others. There is no element of prediction here...proper scientific method would require them to seek out cases that are as close as possible to the 'miracle' cases and ask why these other people didn't also get better. Out of 5 million visitors each year - and over the course of 150 years since the place was 'discovered' to be miraculous - we only have 68 successes?! That's beyond "not statistically significant"!! The extenuating circumstances of someone who is literally one in a million can be quite extreme...who knows what medical mixups and confusions may have gone on to make just one in a million cases turn out to be "medically inexplicable"? Where is the study comparing them to the 'control group' who didn't go to Lourdes - or the 'double-blind group' who were taken to the next village along from Lourdes? I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that ANY group of 5 million sick people wouldn't have a couple of 'inexplicable' cures.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence...and we don't come close to that standard here.

SteveBaker (talk) 04:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Good points, Steve. All I'll say is that there are a large number of scientists who happen to also be devout Catholics (or Jews, Muslims, whatever), who would never for a second allow their religious beliefs to ever influence the way they go about their scientific work. It might in some cases influence their choice of projects, but not how they do their scientific/medical investigations or what conclusions they come to. It's possible, of course, that there are some who do let their religious beliefs get in the way, but would they retain their scientific standing for very long? I doubt it. As for the voting procedure, non-unanimous but majority votes are the norm, most everywhere. That applies in most legislatures, whose decisions affect entire countries. It applies in the Australian High Court, whose decisions on constitutional issues affect the entire country. It probably applies in the US Supreme Court and similar bodies. A 2/3 vote is more stringent than a simple majority. Even if a particular CMIL vote happened to be unanimous, that in itself wouldn't "prove" that the case in question was any more "inexplicable" than another case, because if there had been 20 different people on the panel, it may well have come out as a lower vote for "inexplicable", or maybe even not inexplicable at all. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

A Priest can say "..This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me" and bread miraculously becomes Jesus' flesh, in its essence. The physicallly testable "accident" remains bread. If the Priest could say "Lord, please make a kilogram of gold appear on the altar," and a kilogram of gold magically popped into existence on the altar, remaining there for chemical analysis, that would be a repeatable miracle, suitable for the confounding of any doubter. However, a competent magician could make comparable phenomena occur via apparatus, trickery and distraction. Magicians have sawn ladies in half, without any enduring ill effects, and have made elephants appear and disappear, without any real miracle. Edison (talk) 05:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

the question will be ... will you believe if god perform a miracle if you saw a man came down from the sky , its easy to say this an alien if you read any book talking about scientific facts , its easy to say Avery advanced civilization had lived in the past .

the problem is what is a miracle to you ... and did you think that god will perform a miracle to each one of us , according to his own standards.

i think you should believe in a religion if your convinced with it. i think the best thing to do is to ask god if he exist to show you the way ...

Its easy to disprove god existence , and its easy to prove it but i think is not every thing is meant to deal with using your solid mind , you should follow your heart a little.

That's a little silly. If you could prove God exists, then you could not prove he didn't exist - or vice versa - because those two "proofs" would conflict with each other. The truth is that God's existence can neither be proven nor disproven, in a way that would satisfy scientific criteria. It can be proven or disproven according to some people's personal subjective criteria, however. For others, it's simply unknowable. I agree with your last statement. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Creating New Land

Would it ever be possible to pump desalinated sea water from the Atlantic/Mediterranean into the Sahara and create plains and forests? What would the energy requirements be and could they be met through massive nuclear or fusion power plants? Would the sand/soil need to be treated in some manner besides the addition of water? What about other inhospitable biomes; with enough investment (orbital mirrors, cloud seeding, etc?) could we make Greenland green?

Thanks for your thoughts! —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheFutureAwaits (talk • contribs) 19:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well your first big problem is that desalination is very expensive. It's barely economical as a source of drinking water. (Or rather, it _isn't_ economical, except in countries with expensive tap water and the resources to manage the heavy capital investments required) --Pykk (talk) 19:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you read Land reclamation? I don't think it answers your specific question, but it's a good place to start. Desalination requires very large amounts of energy. If someone invents a viable method of fusion, then that wouldn't be a problem, but there are no signs of getting that worked out any time soon. If you want to warm up Greenland, it might be best to wait and let global warming do the job. --Tango (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well I guess I'm thinking more in terms of theory than real cost (whether or not it's economical is a lesser issue). The heart of my question is really if it could one day be possible to make most of the Earth's land area verdant through the directed use of technology and what steps would need to be taken? For example, do we have enough water to irrigate the continents? Thanks again! TheFutureAwaits (talk) 20:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

You may need to breed plants that like to grow in salt water, even so you may need to keep that water circulating to stop salinity getting too high. Then desalination is not required. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If you have unlimited budget and unlimited energy to throw at desalinization - then certainly there is enough water in the ocean to do the job. Without desalinisation though - definitely not. There is a world-wide shortage of fresh water as it it - this would make things a LOT worse!! But with unlimited energy/money - that's not an obstacle. Fertiliser can be made from air and water if you have enough energy. The soil would initially be pretty poor - but I'm sure you could find something that would grow. After enough years - you could make 'ordinary' crops grow...but depending on how you got your energy, the consequences for the ecosystem - global warming and all that kind of think might be somewhat horrific. SteveBaker (talk) 20:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Going back to Graeme's point, I don't think it would prohibitively hard to de-desertify at least part of the Sahara. The Qattara Depression is up to 133 metres (436 ft) below sea level, and its northern extent is only about 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of the Mediterranean Sea. It certainly isn't inconceivable that one could build a wide canal which would deliver a constant supply of salt water to the depression, eventually filling it, which would provide a source of moisture for eastern parts of the Sahara. The environmental/climatological impact would be incalculable however, so I don't think it would be worth the expense.-RunningOnBrains 21:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

You don't really need a canal. A large siphon should do. --164.67.100.97 (talk) 00:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

How high is the ridge between them? A siphon can only lift 30 feet or so above the starting point. --Carnildo (talk) 01:31, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Even if it was possible, I seriously doubt it would have a good effect. If anything it would probably just ruin the worlds balance and screw up our weather horribly. If you've ever seen An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore talks about how when huge frozen masses melt (such as Greenland) the sea level rises significantly around the world. Not only would it would be difficult, but once it was done millions of people would be dead. It's probably better we can't do it. -Pete5x5 (talk) 21:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your point is. I've never been, but I'm pretty sure that you don't see a lot of "huge frozen masses" in the Mediterranean Sea. APL (talk) 01:00, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There's been lots of plans like that. See Sahara Forest Project for instance. Dmcq (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting points Pete5x5, though if we were to melt Greenland while pumping massive amounts of water into the world's deserts we could possibly do both at a pace that would keep world sea level at an equilibrium. I'm not saying it would be practical, but it's possible in theory. In regards to global warming, I know it's an issue we're all familiar with and this topic somewhat lends itself to an al gore discussion, but given enough energy, capital and technology it seems like any unwanted ecological consequences could be negated. Or are there some fundamental limits when geoengineering the planet? Oh and dmcq thanks for the link, this discussion has been very interesting so far. TheFutureAwaits (talk) 23:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The Quattara Depression thing is mentioned in a book from the fifties, called "Engineers' Dreams" [4], that also has a discussion about Atlantropa (mentioned a few questions down). You could also generate quite a bit of power this way, by controlling the inflow of water so that evaporation made sure the depression did not fill, water would always flow in, excellent for hydroelectric power (a similar scheme has been proposed for the Dead Sea). However, I expect the salinity would then always increase, so habitability might not improve much (unless the output from the hydroelectric plants was sufficient to extract the salt with conventional methods). Jørgen (talk) 01:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Link for Atlantropa, mentioned above. Pfly (talk) 08:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Peachy, and the new land can then be settled by all the people who lose their homes to Tropical cyclones because the Saharan Air Layer is no longer what it used to be. I bet inhabitants of Bangladesh and Southern Louisiana are just waiting to move to Darfur. In Israel they do use desalinated water in agriculture [5]. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 11:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Besides - it would certainly hasten global warming. Water is dark - it absorbs heat - ditto plants which are evolved specifically to absorb sunlight rather than reflecting it. Bright white desert sand is highly reflective. So - you replace the sand with plant cover and irrigation water - the planet's net albedo drops a notch further - and the planet gets hotter...doubly so if you go around deliberately melting that nice shiney-white snow and ice to do it! SteveBaker (talk) 04:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Death by bloating

Are there any documented cases of intestinal gas buildups leading to a ruptured intestine? I realize flatus is generally harmless, but bloating can be unpleasant. If carried to an extreme, can enough gas be produced in situ to cause actual harm? Perhaps if part of the intestine was also blocked up for some reason leading to a pocket of trapped gas? (For the record, I'm not looking for personal medical advice. I'm just curious if gas buildup has ever been documented to cause more serious problems. Physically, it seems like it probably could, but I'm not sure.) Dragons flight (talk) 19:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Bowel obstruction can certainly be a serious condition. I don't know if the gas is generally a significant factor or not. --Tango (talk) 19:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The Mythbusters 'pop-rocks and soda' experiment suggests not...but that's not really much to go on. SteveBaker (talk) 20:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It however does happen in ruminants and other animals that subsist on high-fiber diets (sheep, goats, cows, horses). There's a scene in Tess of the D'urbervilles (or was it Return of the Native? Some Hardy novel) where they have to go around puncturing the sheep to prevent flatulence from rupturing their intenstines. this text (page down and do a search for "Colic") describes the treatment of "wind (flatulent) colic" where it says "Wind colic may need prompt use of the trocar and cannula to puncture high up in the right flank for liberation of gas" Basically, you drive a metal straw into the horses flank to relieve the pressure from unpassed farts. So, it does happen that bloating can be more than unpleasant, and must be relieved by drastic measures, at least for some farm animals. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it was Far From the Madding Crowd, which I had the misfortune to read for O-level. DuncanHill (talk) 21:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Mr Creosote SpinningSpark 22:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Duncan, it was Far from the Madding Crowd. The scene in the film version, with Alan Bates puncturing the sheep, has remained with me since my adolescence. Deor (talk) 23:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Alan Bates, that was it. The film was better than the book, by several hours. Still, at least I learnt how to deal with exploding sheep. DuncanHill (talk) 23:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Your wording made me realize it... it never occurred to me that there could be a basis in reality for that particular Warcraft item. And apparently use of that concept isn't limited to Warcraft, either. You learn something new every day. ^_~ arimareiji (talk) 00:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

We do not give veterinary advice, but if horses consume too much green corn/Maize, they can die unless veterinary surgical or other intervention occurs to deal with the resulting colic. Edison (talk) 03:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Toxic megacolon is the article you're looking for. Mattopaedia ^{Have a yarn} 04:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Though the article isn't that clear, the references in it seems to be referring to an enlarged colon as a result of infection or inflammation. I'm not sure if an enlarged colon due to gas buildup would be described the same way. Dragons flight (talk) 06:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Amazed no-one has linked bloat yet. DuncanHill (talk) 13:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The OP linked to bloating. I'm surprised to discover that they are different articles... --Tango (talk) 13:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Dragons flight, I only glanced at the article to convince myself it was there - I didn't look long enough to see if it connected the dots. As a result of infection, inflammation, infarction or some mechanical cause like volvulus, you get a segmental obstruction of the colon somewhere. Many of the native gut bacteria are gas producers (mostly CO₂, and some aromatic amines with wonderful names like cadaverine and putrescine) - these little dudes go on producing gas & it's got nowhere to go. The internal pressure increases beyond capillary venous pressure resulting in no venous (or lymphatic) drainage from the segment, but blood keeps flowing in. This builds up gut wall pressure and also causes an accumulation of toxic metabolites. Eventually the gut wall becomes ischaemic. The resultant increase in migration of cellular inflammatory mediators, particulary neutrophils, release a whole bunch of lytic enzymes in an attempt to mop up this mess. The combination of necrosis from the ischaemia and (largely) proteolysis from neutrophil granules weakens the gut wall, leading to perforation, septicaemia, peritonitis and septic shock. Untreated, this is uniformly fatal. Hope that makes things clearer! Mattopaedia ^{Have a yarn} 12:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Damming the Strait of Gibraltar

My friend (who comes up with these sort of mad-but-close-to-genius ideas) suggested that you could dam the Strait of Gibraltar, opening up trade routes, generating electricity, immunising the Med from sea-level rises and looking impressive. The possibility comes from Strait of Gibraltar#Inflow and outflow that stats there is a net inflow to the Med, so you build the dam, wait a couple of years for the waterlevel to lower slightly (hopefully avoiding the effect on people's coastlines) and then run turbines. I've posted it here because I want to know if there are any scientific reasons why this can't happen. As I see it, there may be salinity questions; also effects on the environment. Secondly, how much would the sea level need to drop, and would this mean coastal settlements a long way away from the coast? Thanks, - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 20:03, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

In the geological past this has happened, the Mediterranean was reduced to some salt lakes more than a thousand meters below sea level. These have formed thick salt deposits. The area was a desert, this would affect the climate of the surrounding countries with reduced rain and more extreme temperatures. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Your friend is not really original. See Atlantropa. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Trust me, he is. Replacing all cars with tanks to save on military budgets. Has anyone had that one before? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 21:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't such high tank availability drastically increase the need for military hardware? Perhaps most of that expense would be pushed off to local law enforcement. APL (talk) 01:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Opening up the med to development, tanks on the streets – I think this guy's in the pay of the road-building industry. Algebraist 09:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I highly doubt that your friend's benefits of "opening up trade routes, generating electricity, immunising the Med from sea-level rises and looking impressive" would outweigh the "catastrophic drought and death of thousands or millions from heat and famine". That may be an over-statement, but I can't see a reduction in the size of the Mediterranean doing anything good for the European/North African climate.-RunningOnBrains 21:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well the map for Atlantropa shows the effect of over a 100m drop; I'm no expert in dams, but you could build a far more modest one with less of a drop, which would mean very little reduction in the size of the Med itself. I can't help but think my own question was actually a bit silly, because what I really need is an investigation into that exact proposal, which has not happened. I can't even imagine we'd be able to model the climatic changes (and there'll be some) until the thing actually happens. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 22:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Geo politically it might turn out to be a very bad idea. Neither the British nor the Spanish would likely be too happy to move closer to invading hungry refugees of the next conflict in Africa. Even if you could keep climate change at bay, lots of countries around the Mediterranean depend on tourism. They bank on their beaches, reefs and waterways being just the way they are now. The archeologists who found the remnants of the library in Alexandria might have an easier job with a lower water level, though :-) 76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You could probably get benefit from tidal flow by installing a bank of turbines in the waters around the island without resorting to damming it. The trouble with a dam is that it relies on the height difference between the two sides - which is bad because it entails raising the height of the dammed-up water - with consequences for fish migration, flooding in coastal areas, etc. However, a gigantic, slow-turning turbine could capture the flow both into and out of the 'med without making any difference to those kinds of thing. SteveBaker (talk) 15:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

If this method does end up saving the Mediterranean from any sea level rise, then it will make it worse elsewhere in the world. Also, you'd need to make sure that the dam is at least several hundred metres wide, and the entire dam is at least 70 metres above present sea level, and it should be anchored deep into the land and seabed. Also, you should have some kind of locks in the dam such as they do at canals once sea levels rise, so that ships can pass. The dam, however, could disrupt ocean currents, and thus weather patterns, in the Mediterranean, but you could perhaps build a controlled water flow system, draining into the other side. The end result, though: Spain is a desert, Southern France is a desert, Italy is a desert, Serbia is a desert, Albania is a desert, Greece is a desert, Turkey is a desert, Ukraine is a desert...you get the idea. Who would pay to fund the project? A better alternative would be damming the eastern end of Lake Manych-Gudilo (or is that a bit OR?), which would provide both economic and environmental benefits. ~AH1^(TCU) 02:20, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Gardening: Are hardy annuals usually or always self-seeding?

In Britain the term hardy annual is used a lot by gardeners. Being only a beginner gardener, I found out recently that hardy annual plants can be sown outdoors in situ without having to begin their life in a greenhouse, as is required with half hardy annuals. Another category is hardy perennial. I like self-seeding flowers as they save you the trouble of planting them again next year, and they can build up into large dense masses of hundreds of flowers which out-compete the weeds and look nice as a solid block of colour. Unfortunately seed packets never, and gardening books rarely, tell you if a flower is self-seeding or not. Does a flower being a hardy annual imply that it is self-seeding? 89.240.206.134 (talk) 22:08, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Another question is why are all those links red? Wikipedia should have those articles. There is annual plant which implies, but does not specifically answer your question. SpinningSpark 22:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Yet another question, apropos of little, would be... how did the less hardy plants ever survive to the present day? Would the answer be the same as in When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth?, i.e. those plants have been inbred far beyond the traits of their original ancestors? arimareiji (talk) 00:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

A classic example is Maize/Corn, which thousands of years ago became dependant on humans to reproduce. There can be no feral maize, because it simply cannot reproduce on its own. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Mexican plant teosinte is thought to be the ancestor to modern corn/maize and still grows wild in Mexico. Edison (talk) 03:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, but it appears to be quite a distinct, distant relative to modern Maize. It is to Maize what the Chihuahua is to the Great Dane... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe more like the wolf is to the chihuahua? Sorry, I'm an analogy geek. arimareiji (talk) 05:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason why many plants are Half Hardy Annuals is because they are native to a hotter climate than that in Britain. A plant from Mexico for example is not going to thrive in Scotland, unless you grow it in a greenhouse and only allow it outdoors in the summer. 78.146.195.92 (talk) 00:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Back to the original questions. Hardiness describes the tolerance of cold weather. Both hardy and half-hardy annuals do not need warm soil temperatures to germinate, i.e. in principle they can self-seed. Hardy annuals will also tolerate frost (i.e. they can be sown in late summer/autumn, will overwinter as small plants and generally flower early the following year). In my experience, whether plant will in practice self-seed or not, depends more on their hardiness with regards to slug attacks. By and large mainstream british gardening culture dislikes self-seeding annuals, I think "self-seeding" and "weed" are pretty much used as synonyms (a view that I don't subscribe to). Get some stuff and try it out, the things that are likely to succeed fortunately tend to be cheap to buy. I've had success with Calendula (pretty much indestructible), Ox-eye daisies, Wallflower, Nasturtium (you need a critical mass here, but once established they come back on their own) and Cornflowers (they need a bit of help against slugs). 195.128.250.230 (talk) 22:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)