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July 29

Radioactive casting

When radioactive metals are molten down and cast into ingots, how is the critical mass taken into account when melting down the metal? How is the process different from handling non-radioactive metals? What shapes are typical for radioactive ingots? I have an idea, for a shape: hexagonal column with a hole through the middle, the diameter of the the hole being proportional to the fissile cross section. Plasmic Physics (talk) 03:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think nobody ever dared to produce an ingot larger than the critical mass of the fissible isotope. As a lot of radioactive elements are not undergo fission for most of the radioactive isotopes you do not have this problem.--Stone (talk) 08:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Surely, more than one ingot's worth of metal is melted down at once? Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hollow spheres and columns are often used for storing very high grade fissile material for the very reason you've mentioned — the air gap increases the critical mass considerably. --Mr.98 (talk) 10:26, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is the safety margin, by how much percent is the ingot from critical mass? How about radioactive foil, possibly laminated between layers of wax, for the more radioactive metals? Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The requirements are quite detailed and baroque. Calculating critical masses requires a lot of careful work based on the geometry, composition, and neutron moderation or reflection issues. I'm not sure there is one "safety margin" figure. The NRC has all sorts of regulations and approved containers and etc. and these have been designed and reviewed by great numbers of engineers.

Wax is probably not a good thing to use in a radioactive context, because it likely would slow neutrons down (acting as a moderator), which actually increases induced radioactivity and fissioning. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:40, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about a silicon based wax? If not, what would you use to protect the foil surface from oxidation, while simultaneously acting as a spacer, and must be flexible? Plasmic Physics (talk) 15:07, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What your looking for are things like the "upper sub-critical limit" etc. This resent document goes into the Canadian regulations in some detail. Nuclear Criticality Safety Regulatory Document RD-327. This is not to say however, that following them to the letter will avoid you severely depressing your local real estate values and getting the neighbours grumpy. --Aspro (talk) 11:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping for a percentage. For instance, the neutron flux must be no less than 40% from critcality at any point within the ingot. Plasmic Physics (talk) 15:07, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Having a molten fissile elements with more than a critical mass just sounds like such a bad idea. There are fission reactors that use uranium metal alloys, but the most common fissile fuel is uranium oxide (UO2), which is produced as a powder (from U3O8 and UF6), packed into molds and sintered together in a furnace. The production process never requires molten uranium. For many of the same reasons that one would have to be careful about molten uranium, there are presumably very detailed rules for the handling and concentrations of such powder to avoid a criticality event; however, the powder has the advantage that it can be handled and formed at room temperature. Many of the alternatives of uranium oxide fuel, such as uranium nitride, uranium carbide, and plutonium oxide, are similarly formed via powders rather than as pure metals. Dragons flight (talk) 16:01, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Besides the whole critical mass issue it is in any case a really bad idea to melt metallic Uranium because due to its pyrophoricity it requires very little provocation to ignite it.

Post graduate study in the renowned medical colleges in U.S.

After we are done studying the under graduate classes for M.B.B.S. , we have to have the M.D. degree. So are there scholarship oppurtunities for deserving students to have post graduate study in the renowned medical colleges?113.199.183.176 (talk) 04:01, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Try checking the websites of those specific colleges, or Google American medical scholarships and Nepalese medical scholarships for your country of origin, based on your IP address. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 20:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brain in the heart

There have been several articles on the web spreading this rumor? Are there any reliable sources that talk about heart thinking and memorizing?--Almuhammedi (talk) 08:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like nonsense. Anyway as for RS, the best I could find is [1] which appears to have been published [2]. Although for some reason on the Royal College of Psychiatrists website, glancing thru it and seeing discussions on things like the human 'spirit' and bioelectromagnetic communication between people doesn't exactly give me confidence in it, perhaps partially explaining why it was published in the The Arab Journal of Psychiatry Nil Einne (talk) 08:53, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't take much googling to find people claiming that this discovery that our brains are "really" in our hearts is the literal fulfillment of a Qur'an passage. Maybe this is the Islamic equivalent of the "Lost Day" urban legend. APL (talk) 09:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to have root in this research here where it is apparently discovered that the heart has a small nerve cluster that is used to control and regulate the heart. Probably because the researcher seems to have dubbed this a "little brain", all the crazy pseudo-scientists have latched onto it and made up all manner of crazy stories.

However this nerve cluster is obviously not sophisticated enough to do anything the potions and crystals crowd says it does, if only for the fact that it's tiny. Ants have brains almost ten times larger. APL (talk) 09:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The heart does have a system of cardiac ganglia (little clumps of neurons). Here's a diagram showing where all the cardiac ganglia are.[3] There are neurons connected to the heart for several reasons. Some of those neurons are a part of the parasympathetic nervous system, a system of neurons that regulates the body's functions when the body is at rest. Other of the heart's neurons are part of the sympathetic nervous system, which prepares the body for a fight-or-flight response by, for example, speeding up the heart. And still other of the heart's neurons are a part of the sensory system. But saying that the heart "has a brain" just because it has some neurons is really an exaggeration. The heart's neurons just deal with low-level bodily functioning. There really aren't enough neurons involved to call what they do "thinking". It just looks like some new age types have exaggerated, twisted, and adapted something that started off as a bit of scientific reality to meet their own beliefs and viewpoints, similar to how the flaky quantum mysticism grew out of the scientific quantum mechanics. Red Act (talk) 09:58, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's a little more to it than that. The heart has a sort of central controller called the sinoatrial node, which serves as pacemaker for the whole system. It is connected to other parts of the heart by very specialized muscle cells called Purkinje fibers, which function almost like nerves. But I wouldn't myself call this a "brain", and I don't see anything mystical about it. Looie496 (talk) 16:29, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Think of how clever a gnat is, with such a tiny brain. We can't rule out that there is some thought in the heart and other ganglia. There is an operation, vagotomy, which affects the vagus nerve further away from the brain than the heart, which has subjective effects on a person. The enteric nervous system is also dubbed a "second brain". Vagus nerve stimulation is even said to have anti-depressive effects. I don't think it's unreasonable to suppose that all the little (and large) ganglia throughout the body are part, one way or another, of "thinking", in some sense of the term. Of course, none of this changes that the biggest lump of grey matter is in the head. Wnt (talk) 17:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The brain, heart and lungs are codependant. That's about it. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 20:04, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"We can't rule out" coupled with a total lack of evidence and a total lack of connection to what we do understand (in this case about the necessity of sense perception for thought) is what is called "faith". This, however, is the Science reference desk. μηδείς (talk) 20:12, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And I described evidence - vagus nerve stimulation as an antidepressant. Of course, the theory to explain that may or may not involve any sort of "thought" in the heart, but it provides a starting point for new hypotheses. Science tells us we should keep an open mind and not declare that all thought (defined how?) must be in the brain. Wnt (talk) 20:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also note that according to James–Lange theory the heart rate itself is an integral part of the process by which we feel fear. Wnt (talk) 20:40, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is very shaky way to advocate believing in any specific thing. Absence of evidence is also an absence of reason to believe. (excepting religious faith.)

Besides, let's not forget that many individuals have had their hearts removed entirely and replaced with either someone else's heart or even a machine. Do they normally report a change in personality or thought processes? I've never heard of such a thing. APL (talk) 21:07, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Utter bollocks. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:10, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for interactive explanations. One more question relevant; what are the current (approx) records of those lifespans who survived with artificial heart? Had some suffered brain problems as stated in the webs? By the way; not only some Muslims exaggerate with these rumors but some others as well (perhaps creationists in general are looking after such hopes to support their belief).--Almuhammedi (talk) 19:33, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Curious anecdote: [4] Wnt (talk) 05:30, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why do horses whinny?

What is the purpose or function of whinnying, and other horse noises? I know nothing about horses. 92.29.113.104 (talk) 10:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See communication. Cheers. --Jayron32 12:29, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Our analysis of the acoustic structure of whinnies of 30 adult domestic horses (ten stallions, ten geldings, ten mares) revealed that some of the frequency and temporal parameters carried reliable information about the caller’s sex, body size and identity." from this 2009 article. Sean.hoyland - talk 12:43, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is whinnying different from neighing, or are they just two different names for the same thing? Are these the only noises horses make? 92.29.113.104 (talk) 17:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if equestrians distinguish whinny from a neigh. For instance, I think whickering is considered fairly distinct from either previous term, but wiktionary [5] just defines it with 'neigh'. I do know that many people can distinguish several types of dog bark, e.g. some barks loosely communicate 'hello, let's play', while other indicate 'back off, or I will bite'. --The point is, there are many, many vocalizations that horses make, and they can communicate many different things. I think this is more important to recognize than what names we call these sounds. Probably the best way to learn is to spend more time around horses and equestrians ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 18:45, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mpemba effect

Are there any new studies explaining this phenomenon in details?--Almuhammedi (talk) 13:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

this list has articles dating from as early as 1969 and as recently as 2009. --Jayron32 13:13, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the hope of pulling in other readers, we should explain that this is the disputed? observation that "hot water freezes faster than cold". I should say that what confuses me about it is: if 35 degree C water freezes faster than 5 degree C water, what temperature is it before it freezes? Isn't it 5 degrees C itself sometime? Though the "convection" explanation from the article might explain this... Wnt (talk) 20:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You really need to read the article. The claim is not "disputed", the effect is just not what you said it is, that "hot water freezes faster than cold" in all cases. If the effect were simply that "hot water freezes faster than cold" than it would be essentially wrong. What the Mpemba effect covers is a narrowly constructed set of conditions where warmer water would be said to freeze faster than colder water would. It isn't a universal effect, but rather a minor effect in a well-constructed scenario. If applied to its correct conditions, it works, and therefore isn't generally disputed. There is some dispute about how important the effect is in the field of thermodynamics, but it is a real, repeatable experiment, if you do it right. --Jayron32 23:27, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Evaporation" also addresses that. The 35C water will eventually cool to 5C, but by then there might be a lot less of it.

If you ask me, this part of the effect is almost certainly why the old trick of tossing a pan of hot water into the air on a cold day will make snow, but a pan of cold water often won't. The tiny droplets in the air have a very large surface-area to volume ratio. APL (talk) 04:41, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Transmitter question

what is the full form of STT in STT 433 MHz Transmitter? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.104.43.155 (talk) 14:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure, is that its brand name? Is it the company that operates the transmitter? Looking at the wikipedia article STT my best guess would be Singapore Technologies Telemedia or possibly Suomen Tietotoimisto. --Jayron32 14:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A Google search says that it means "Sunrom Technologies Transmitter" -- Sunrom also makes a corresponding receiver called the STR-433. Looie496 (talk) 16:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another possibility: PTT is very common (especially in old-fashioned handsets, or in HAM radio gear). "PTT" means "push to talk" or "press to transmit" - i.e., hold down a trigger-button while speaking to transmit. STT, on the other hand, can stand for "Speak to Transmit" - in other words, instead of a button, you just talk into the handset or microphone, and it automatically transmits. You're always potentially transmitting (though you probably have a squelch circuit that may or may not be tunable). This mode is also known as "speakerphone," "squelch," "vox", "always on," "hot mic," and so forth. Nimur (talk) 18:15, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See this document. There's really no doubt that it means "Sunrom Technologies Transmitter". The device is a little $5 chip used to build remote controls. Looie496 (talk) 22:11, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How did Dewar make his flask

I saw a PDF available for $35 from the American Chemical Society, but wasn't going to pay that much just to satiate my curiosity. I just want to know how James Dewar constructed his Dewar flasks in the 1890s. I saw on the first page of the ACS paper how the larger outer flask, that had a tube near the neck for evacuating, was cleanly cut using a wire running a higher current and then pouring cold water on it, after which the smaller flask was placed inside and the outer flask melted back together, and I can imagine that glassblowers melted some glass to seal the portion between the two necks at the top, but I'm wondering how he quickly sealed off the tube at the top after having pumped out all the air. The pressure difference between the inside of the vacuum section and the room in which you're working would have made it hard to just use hot tongs and expect the glass to seal the hole nice and cleanly without molten glass getting sucked in and in general just getting a mucky mess (or just blowing a hole in the neck while you're heating it and ruining your vacuum). 20.137.18.50 (talk) 14:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty easy to heat a glass tube and get it to constrict and seal under vacuum rather than the glass getting sucked back into the tube. See for example this tutorial. DMacks (talk) 15:01, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The key point is that glass being, well, a glass doesn't have a single sharp melting point where it goes from completely solid to completely liquid. Instead it has a range of temperatures where it gradually softens. If you apply just enough heat, you can get it soft enough to deform and fuse, but not so soft it loses all structural integrity. So if you melt a glass tube under vacuum, the center of the zone you are heating, being the softest, will collapse inwards and it will do so without deviation as both ends of the tube are under vacuum. The areas adjacent to the center of the zone will be less deformable, and will resist getting sucked inward. And since it's not completely liquid, the adjacent areas will support the more deformable center zone. -- 174.24.213.112 (talk) 15:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) The last page of the document you (IP 20.137.18.50) linked contains this paragraph (hope this helps): "If new flasks are used it is unnecessary to clean them with cleaning solution, but they should be washed with stannous chloride, rinsed and silvered. Rinsing and silvering should be done with a small quantity of liquid, by shaking and rotating, rather than filling the entire space between the walls. Two or three coats of silver are desirable. The silver is then washed out of the evacuating tube with cotton soaked with very dilute nitric acid, the entire flask rinsed several times with water, and the evacuating tube necked down at F for sealing off. Evacuation is carried out at about 400° in the electric furnace over a period of thirty-six hours, by means of a mercury vapor pump and liquid-air trap. Evacuation for a shorter period of time fails to outgas the silver completely and the flask deteriorates rather rapidly. Sealing off is done as soon after turning off the heat as possible. Our practice is to anneal two of the Dewar flasks at once (this requires the moving of one while hot from one ring stand to another already in the furnace) and later to evacuate them together." -- Scray (talk) 15:17, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Scray. I didn't see that part. I wouldn't have thought they'd evacuate that way. I thought they would just attach a tube and turn on a vacuum pump (which I assumed they had in the 1890s). I'm going to have to search 'mercury vapor pump' and 'liquid air trap' now so I can at least visualize what they're talking about. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 16:50, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem - I realized that you couldn't have seen that page without paying the fee; I have full access (being an academic). I'm glad that helped. -- Scray (talk) 22:22, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To me, "mercury vapor pump" says diffusion pump, but those weren't invented until 1915. --Carnildo (talk) 00:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dewar was a technician of absolute genius quality. He seems to have been the first human to have devised a vacuum flask, (decades before 1915) with glass surfaces coated with mercury, to achieve the greatest possible thermal isolation of extremely low temp substances. Edison (talk) 02:59, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly a Sprengel pump 75.41.110.200 (talk) 03:09, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Palladium

Why is palladium able to store so much hydrogen? --134.10.113.198 (talk) 16:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Palladium#Hydrogen_storage and Palladium hydride for a general overview. This google search turns up a veritable shitload of good sources which explore the mechanisms behind hydrogen absorption onto Palladium. This article goes into some really good details of the mechanism. You do need to be a little careful in your research, as the hydrogen/palladium system was the basis for the whole cold fusion bullshit back in the day; but also be aware that the system also has its more commonplace uses, like in catalytic hydrogenation, either as finely palladium on carbon, or in Lindlar's catalyst --Jayron32 17:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nightmares and Nightterrors.

Exactly what is the purpose of nightmares and nightterrors. --86.45.162.217 (talk) 20:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you aren't falling into the error of attributing purpose to evolution, but merely employing a common though technically incorrect idiom? That aside, not every biological phenomenon is a beneficial, selected character; some are just by-products of other biological aspects of an organism - to draw a computing software analogy, they're a bug, not a feature. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.110.58 (talk) 21:38, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is OR, but I have most commonly had nightmares when something is wrong, most often I'm either too hot or having trouble breathing efficiently because something is covering my head. In those cases it seems like one function of the nightmare is to cause awakening. Looie496 (talk) 22:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Like regular dreams, one possibility is that they allow us to review things that happened previously (bad things, in this case) to decide on alternative courses of action, or to imagine future scenarios, and develop a plan of action, should they occur during waking hours. Note that "things which happened" don't have to have been real, they could have been watched in a movie or on TV or merely been heard about. StuRat (talk) 22:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is like asking "what is the purpose of schizophrenia?" Sometimes there is a cause that can be pointed to, but purpose? I don't think so. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:16, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nightmares and night terrors seem to be an instantiation of free-floating anxiety. Will a tornado or earth quake destroy all one's possesions? Will things turn out all right in general? Will a burglar break in? Will interpersonal relationships prosper? Will travellers get where they are bound without accident? Will there be enough money for retirement? Will the world's geopolitical affairs turn out ok? Will they ever get the debt limit increased in the US? Is the mole cancerous? Will one's job lead to advancement? Will the school course result in a good grade? Will one go to heaven or hell in the afterlife? Gasp! Wake up in a cold sweat!Edison (talk) 01:33, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't he get prosthetic implants?

Look at Nick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zzTFrmEQh4&feature=autoplay&list=WLE9874D88A2291309&index=42&playnext=2

If I were in his situation, I'd move heaven & earth to get implants of prosthetic arms and legs and never tire of that pursuit until I have them installed.

Would it be possible to have four prostheses installed on him? What's stopping him for having them? --70.179.165.67 (talk) 20:42, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't speak to individual cases, but with prosthetic limbs costing upwards of $100,000 US per limb, expense might be a factor. - Nunh-huh 21:58, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do they still make wooden legs? Seems to me that would be far cheaper and better than nothing if you couldn't afford a very expensive high-tech leg. Nyttend (talk) 01:12, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like his situation is very different from a war amputee with a pegleg. His arms are simply not there period, no stump, I don't even know if the shoulder blades are there. There's nothing to strap a prosthetic on to, no easy means to control it. It is true that certain neuromuscular interface technology might be able to accomplish this, but this seems like it has been remarkably slow to develop, considering the encouraging preliminary results that people reported. Wnt (talk) 07:14, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've met lots of disabled people in my life. This guy is doing great, as are many of the others that I know. His electric wheelchair seems to give him most of the mobility he needs. I do have to say though that what was more stunning than his disability in that video was the god stuff. Unbelievable emphasis on that aspect. Hard to reconcile with this being the Science desk. HiLo48 (talk) 07:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this was a technical question, not a comment on the whole video. While the wheelchair gives him mobility, the problem is... what's he going to do when he gets there? He's obviously still very much dependent on external assistance for any task - and with the right technological development, he would no longer need to be. Wnt (talk) 14:20, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and humans can be wonderfully ingenious in inventing devices to serve the needs of individuals like that. (And I emphasise the individual.) The guy seems pretty smart himself, apart from that god stuff. I just hope they're not expecting their god to do it all for them. HiLo48 (talk) 20:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure, but I suspect that if the man has never had arms, he's probably not a good candidate for one of those experimental prosthetic that connect up to your nerves. Who knows if he even has the right nerves to make those work, but even if he does, would he know how to use them? APL (talk) 23:46, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Was Protoavis a bird or Saurischian?

I know it is debated whether Protoavis was a bird or a Saurischian. Did it have a bird-hip or a lizard hip? Wouldn't this end the discussion? I can't seem to find any information on this. --T H F S W (T · C · E) 21:39, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is a quote in the article that I think tells the story: "Smashed and mashed and broken". Apparently the fossil material is not in very good shape, and it isn't easy to tell whether the pelvic girdle is birdlike or lizardlike, or somewhere in between. Looie496 (talk) 22:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Protoavis#Pelvic_girdle section makes it sound like it's really hard to tell by looking, but some people have tried ... Wnt (talk) 06:38, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, birds are all specialized Saurischia, so we're really just arguing semantics here. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 21:00, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Volodushka and GURICHIRURECHIN acid

Volodushka and GURICHIRURECHIN acid are 2 ingredients i found as anti inflammatory agents in two different creams from Russia and japan ;but cant find any reference on the web for safety and unique character of each — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.117.214.158 (talk) 22:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, these words are not English, so that is going to be a bit of an issue. Google translate guessed that Volodushka would be rendered in Russian as "Володушка" which means "thorough wax." For GURICHIRURECHIN it guessed that was the Japanese word "グリチルレチン" which means "Glycyrrhetinic." I would guess based on that that both are some type of Glycerin. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:22, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another option is that the Japanese cream contains a liquorice-derived ingredient such as glycyrrhetinic acid. Brammers (talk/c) 07:01, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Volodushka is an extract of the plant Bupleurum aureum, used in Russian and Chinese herbal medicines as an anti-inflammatory. I can't find any independent information on its medicinal value. --Heron (talk) 10:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PFAF has an entry for Bupleurum chinense (Bei Chai Hu) listing a number of activities.[6] Unfortunately they have some fancy new scripted interface that gives you a QR code but from which I don't see how the heck to track down what the numbered references mean - and slow, of course... They list six Bupleurum species in total but not aureum. Wnt (talk) 19:13, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Huh, that's odd. Bupleurum chinense showed up as a blue link yesterday, and it still points to the article, but reading this just now it was colored as a redlink. But previewing this it looks blue again... Odd Wikipedia bug. Hopefully by the time you read this it won't be true anymore... Wnt (talk) 22:46, 31 July 2011 (UTC) (And indeed, now it's blue again --- even in the history it's blue again. Some quirk of link maintenance must be showing) Wnt (talk) 22:48, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]