Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2012 October 22

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October 22

Asians in science and math

Why are there so many Asian scientists/mathematicians? --168.7.239.202 (talk) 05:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Because there are a lot of people in Asia. It is the most populous continent by a long shot. 3/5ths of all people on earth are Asian, give or take a few. --Jayron32 05:12, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

But there are disproportionately more Asians in those fields than in other fields. --168.7.239.102 (talk) 05:18, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean people of Asian descent in developed countries? I think you'll find that in most developing countries, including Asian ones, proportionally there are few people in those fields then in developed ones because there isn't enough money. Nil Einne (talk) 05:29, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

And on the disproportionate. Are more than 60% of the world's mathematicians and scientists from Asia? I'd like to see where that is reported before we start explaining why. It does no good to explain a concept that hasn't even been established as true yet. --Jayron32 05:33, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I see that you're at Rice University. It's likely that immigrants' children in general go disproportionately into STEM (science / technology / engineering / mathematics), and Asians are the most visible of those at university. —Tamfang (talk) 05:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I perused our article on STEM fields, which linked to a publication from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Education Supports Racial and Ethnic Equality in STEM, which confirms the assertion implied in the original post, with data to back it up: "non‐Hispanic Whites and Asians are much more likely than other minority groups to have a bachelor’s degree..." (corresponding to an overrepresentation in technical jobs related to science, engineering, and technology). The full report outlines a lot more data, and authoritatively speculates on some root-causes, concluding with the fairly benign policy recommendation to improve educational opportunities for all underrepresented demographics. Nimur (talk) 05:38, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

See also Race and intelligence.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:18, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Nothing to do with race and intelligence. Far more to do with motivation, ambition and effort. That's in my experience anyway. Children from immigrant families tend to work harder at school than the locals. HiLo48 (talk) 07:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

They are the locals once they've immigrated. Particularly if the immigration occurred in the previous generation. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 09:11, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you're leaving out parental pressure as a force as well — this is well-known and in fact quite commented on. See the whole flap on the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother from last year. I am not sure that the children are any more ambitious than any other children — but they are certainly pressured to perform. A similar factor is quite obvious in other sub-cultures of this sort (e.g. Jewish lawyers and doctors). My experience working with children in educational contexts (clearly anecdotal, but not baseless) is that groups of children are more or less similar across cultures in their aptitude for frittering away time and lack of interest in the tedious, but the overall household's attitude towards education makes the biggest differences across groups. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:58, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Days, hours, seconds, angles

Not sure whether it belongs here or into some other reference desk. What is the reason that we have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and not factors of 10 or 100 (with modified definitions of second/minute/hour/day...)? Same for angles, why do we have 360 degrees in a full circle? Are there other examples? I understand that in science usually people would use SI units (or whatever system is convenient for their use) and radians for angles, but this question is about commonly used units. Also, are there any cultures that use different systems to measure time, angles,...? bamse (talk) 07:41, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The History section of Degree (Angle) has some good insight. HiLo48 (talk) 08:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

One factor is that you want a number which can be easily divided by many low numbers. 10 and 100 can't even be divided by 3. On the other hand, 24 hours can be divided into 2, 3, or 4. So, you could have 2, 3, or 4 shifts of guards, without having to teach your guards fractions so they would know who they needed to show up. 60 can be divided by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 (as can 360), so even better. StuRat (talk) 08:33, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

You might also be interested in decimal time, which was introduced after the French Revolution, but didn't last long. It always seemed odd to me that the metric system didn't feel the need to do anything about our messy, non-decimal units of time, that being one of the most basic dimensions of measurement. StuRat (talk) 08:38, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

it did. Powers of 10 seconds are in common use Kilosecond Femtosecond 157.193.175.207 (talk) 12:34, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

How about for astronomy ? A terrasecond is less than 32,000 years, so not of much use to astronomers. StuRat (talk) 23:27, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The age of the universe is less than an exasecond. Orders of magnitude (time) 81.11.174.45 (talk) 05:54, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

As for other units, angles can also be measured in gradians, where a circle is divided into 400 parts instead of 360. This does at least give you 100 units in a right angle. In civil engineering, angles are also measured in terms of slope or grade. Those aren't directly proportional with radians, degrees, or gradians, and are generally only useful for angles less than 90° and greater than -90° (because you hit infinite values at 90° and -90°). StuRat (talk) 08:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the sexagesimal system is very, very, very old. It commonly gets dated to the Sumerians but that's just another way of saying "the earliest written records we have use it — it may be even older." It has numerous practical advantages when it comes to quick calculation and division, as previously noted, of the sort that would have been very useful to people in pre-calculating machine ages (i.e. almost all of human history). The relevance of measuring angles to measuring time is fairly clear if you consider early time-keeping systems (e.g. sundials). Decimal systems are relatively new in most cases; one might suggest that their prioritization of precision and easy orders of magnitude over division indicates a considerable difference between the concerns of the modern world and those of the deeper past. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:46, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! bamse (talk) 19:46, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

What noise do germs make?

What noise do germs make? My 4-year-old son asked me to post this question onto Reference Desk. He intended it as one asks, 'What noise does a cow make?' or 'What noise does a duck make?', but you may interpret 'noise' more broadly if you wish, perhaps as any physical communication with other organisms including humans. By 'germ' he meant any micro-organism, as is his usual practice. 82.31.133.165 (talk) 08:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that any sound they make would be too high of a frequency for us to hear. I don't believe they communicate with each other, but they probably do make some very low volume, high frequency sounds accidentally. Like us, they might make sounds during digestion, for example. Those capable of movement would also make noise as they whip their flagella around, etc. However, there are some retroviruses which neither digest nor move on their own. They are just like a form letter which reproduces simply by convincing something else to copy it. Those should be completely silent, except for when they are actually being copied or moved about by external forces. I wonder if anybody has recorded the sounds germs make and shifted the frequencies/boosted the volume so we can hear them. StuRat (talk) 08:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, it seems the technology that would allow us to 'hear' bacteria is experimental at best. (I'm interpreting 'germs' as equivalent to 'bacteria' - I suspect that it would be even more difficult to 'hear' viruses, since they are more inert and often many orders of magnitude smaller.) Here is an article about the development of a Nano-ear, which can hear sounds on the scale at which we expect that bacteria would produce sounds. There's a link in the comments to an ongoing study at University of Southern California called E. Musicii, which states its aim to measure environmental effects on E. Coli bacteria by listening to the sounds they produce under various stresses. Now, from what I can gather from reading the report (and bearing in mind that this is being filtered through my rather average GCSE Biology), they cant't actually hear the bacteria, but they can see the movements of the flagella, and can translate these into human-audible tones. What they've noticed is that in normal conditions the bacteria produce a random mish-mash of tones at varying frequencies. (Interestingly, they all seem to be variations on a sine wave, although that's not commented on as far as I can see. I'll come back to that in a bit.) However, when they introduce some stress into their environment, such as excess salt, the bacteria seem to start to harmonize - that is, they start to rotate their flagella at similar frequencies, and hence the sound produced can be likened to 'singing'. In some ways, you could think of this like humans in a zombie movie. Initially, people are moving around and talking randomly - there is a general hubbub of uncoordinated noise. However, on the introduction of 'environmental stress' (zombies), the noise harmonizes as screaming.

So, how to explain this to your son? Well, he should probably know that no-one has yet 'talked' to a bacteria. Who knows, though, maybe he will be the first! But we do know that some bacteria have rope-like arms (flagella), and we think that these make a noise. You can probably demonstrate this: Try taking two bits of rope (each about the length of one of your arms would be good) and tying some thin paper (tracing paper should work well) to one end. Now you can whirl these around (might be best to be outside at this point) and hopefully the paper should make a noise. You should also be able to show how, by whirling faster or by making the rope shorter, you can change the sound you make. This is how we think the flagella would make a noise. Now go back inside and find a sine-wave generator. (I bet there's a iPhone app.) Explain that this noise is simply the same noise as you were making with your rope-and-paper flagella, but sped up many times. Show how you can make slooooow, loooow sounds, and fast, high ones. Thus you can explain that this is how we think that bacteria sound - and that they can change the sounds they make by either making high sounds or low sounds.

Best of luck, and I hope to hear from your son in 50 years time when he wins his Nobel Prize for becoming the Doctor Dolittle of the germ world! - Cucumber Mike (talk) 09:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Bacteria mostly communicate between themselves using chemical signals. As for sound, as a rule of thumb, an object can only make and perceive noise at a wavelength up to its body size. For an large-average bacterium, body size is about 5 micrometer. This results in the lowest possible frequency of around 64000 kHz. For the absolutely amazing Epulopiscium fishelsoni with a size of up to 700 micrometer (n length), the lowest frequency we can expect it to produce is 450kHz. Human hearing stops (depending on age and AC/DC) at around 20kHz. So there is little chance that humans will ever hear the noise (if any) of bacteria directly. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

An object can only make a noise at a wavelength up to its' body size? Really? What utter nonsense! If a surface moves at frequency x, then energy at frequency x is coupled into the air in contact with it, as the surafce necessarily whacks air molecules that strike it. Size of the surface has nothing to do with it, except in so far as it affects the efficiency of coupling (at low frequencies) and interference effects giving a directional effect (at high frequencies. I have in front of me now, stereo speakers having 130 mm diaphrams in the bass drivers; these are in appropriately designed boxes about 200 x 450 x 250 mm. A wavelength of 130 mm in air corresponds to a frequency of 340 m/s divided by 0.13 m ie 8460 Hz - a high trebble note! In fact they are close to flat down to 50 Hz - a low bass note. I myself, a real live male human, have a mouth about the usual size - about 100 mm or so wide open. I can loudly sing a bass note. An object can only percieve sounds up to a wavelength up to its size? Again, what utter nonsense! Go find a typical microphone - you can buy in any decent music shop a microphone less than 100 mm long with a response down to 16 Hz. Even your cellphone can pick up sounds down to 300 Hz - a wavelenth around 100 times the size of the phone. Keit 60.228.242.118 (talk) 11:35, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Another factor, of course, is that the speed of sound in air is not the same as the speed of sound in a bacteria, or in a human's vocal chords, and so on. For effective coupling - in other words, for efficient production of sound, we can approximately say that the wavelength should correspond to the object size - but this is not a strict physical law. Nimur (talk) 01:49, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

• There was a bit about this a few years back - recognizing cancer cells by how they scream when exposed to light (I'm not making this stuff up... I never need to!) [1][2] - see [3] (The sound of the cell itself is focused on at [4][5][6]...) But I only heard about it in eukaryotic cells - there might be bacterial data with more digging. Wnt (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Punk rock noise. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:33, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The word "noise" is redundant there. :-) StuRat (talk) 23:22, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, horrible, innit. Don't you just yearn for the old songs, like It'sy Bit'sy Tee'nie Wee'nie Yell'ow Pol'ka D'ot Bi'kini. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 09:17, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

You know, Jack, in my watchlist, the question says "what noise to germs make?" and your edit summary says "yearning", which makes as much sense as anything else. --Trovatore (talk) 09:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Pay it no mind. Onward to glory. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Angel Oak

On your page Angel Oak you state, what I have found at the Angel Oak site in Charleston, SC, that the Angel Oak is about 300-400 years old. Now on the Angel Oak web site and your site of List of Oldest Trees it states the Angel Oak is 1,500 years old. I don't know the age of the tree but there is a big difference between 400 and 1,500 years. I am still researching the age but if you can find the answer that is closer to what the age is could you (a) let me know and (b) correct it on one of your two locations (the two I have found anyway). Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.214.14.23 (talk) 15:19, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

That's Angel Oak and list of oldest trees for the lazy. At a glance, the 300-400 year estimate is covered by this ref: [7], but we can probably find more reliable sources... SemanticMantis (talk) 16:49, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

This reference may explain the uncertainty about its age as "...heart rot makes it impossible to obtain accurate core samples". Obviously both articles need some editing. hydnjo (talk) 02:17, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Crab breathing

Do some crabs have both gills and lungs? Do some have only lungs? Only gills? Freshwater crab#Description and life cycle says In addition to their gills, freshwater crabs have a "pseudo-lung" in their gill chamber that allows them to breathe in air, but that's about all I can find.

In particular, what about shore crabs on a saltwater shore?

Crab#Evolution says Crabs are found in all of the world's oceans. Does this mean just the shores of all the oceans, or does it mean there are crabs that spend their entire life on or under the ocean surface? Duoduoduo (talk) 17:38, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

For the last, there is a crab species that lives only at hydrothermal vents, described here [8]. It's hard to find a ref that specifically says this, but I doubt they ever come anywhere near the surface. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:00, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe there are no crabs with true lungs, only gills. Many types of crabs live in deep water -- some in very deep water: the large-clawed spider crab from the Gulf of Alaska holds the known record, I believe, being found down to 11,000 feet. (The thought of an Alaskan king crab coming up onto the beach is kind of terrifying!) There are no crabs that spend their lives on the surface -- they are all bottom-walkers. Looie496 (talk) 19:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

This pdf, "freshwater crabs in africa" [9] has a little more info on their behavior and morphology. As Looie alludes, the "pseudo lung" is just a specialized gill. The article "Role of Lungs and Gills in an African Fresh-Water Crab, Potamonautes warreni (Decapoda: Potamoidea), in Gas Exchange with Water, with Air, and during Exercise" seems to be a good authoritative source, if you have access to JSTOR [10]. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:07, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Horseshoe crabs, which aren't really crabs, have book gills. StuRat (talk) 23:19, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Crab eyestalks

Do all crabs (both true crabs and otherwise) have eyestalks? The stub article eyestalk doesn't even mention crabs. The article on the non-true crab porcelain crab says they have them and implies that at least some true crabs do too, but that's all I can find. Duoduoduo (talk) 17:46, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The horseshoe crab isn't really a crab, and it appears to lack eye-stalks. StuRat (talk) 23:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Pale Male's longevity

Does anyone have any thoughts as to how the famous hawk, Pale Male has lived for so long, when so many of his numerous mates and offspring appear to have had substantially shorter lives? He seems to have been one of the first urban hawks and continues to remain as always, at an advanced age for his species in the wild, while others have succumbed to the hazards of their habitat. Just plain luck? Or that hundreds of humans have his back? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 19:56, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, your source says that lifespans of 30 years are known. As a rule, any wild animal that is being given human help should live longer, if the humans know what they're doing. Also, since it's a sample size of one, we can't rule out selection bias - there might be some other urban hawks you never heard of because they died after a few years. Lastly, it's within the realm of probability - for a single hawk to live to the maximum lifespan could happen, regardless of any other circumstance, simply by chance. (I also consider the faint possibility that a dead hawk could have been replaced to keep a tourist attraction, but I assume that the feather patterns and other physical traits are distinctive enough to the hobbyists who watch the nest and take high quality photos to make this exceedingly difficult.) Wnt (talk) 21:19, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Nature is red in tooth and claw. In any animal population which is roughly "stable", each adult, during the course of its whole life, will on average raise just one single successful progeny. So for every animal which has 'several' offspring each year, the completely normal natural thing to happen is for the majority of them to die. This realization is what led Charles Darwin to realize the power of natural selection. Vespine (talk) 21:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Astrology

I use Wikipedia regularly & am very impressed. However, I am concerned about the page on Astrology. This page seems especially biased to me, referring to astrology as pseudoscience without any factual basis. Astrology is already handicapped in today's world & we do not need Wikipedia exacerbating the situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zen99 (talk • contribs) 21:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I hate to break it to you but the article is accurate. Astrology is completely pseudoscience. Most people have a "pet" pseudoscience they love to believe in and champion, and think is NOT pseudoscience, I personally used to have many, including astrology. But your mission now, if you chose to accept it, is try to learn how and why people believe in astrology and why they are wrong. Vespine (talk) 21:35, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Let me get you started, try this article: Confirmation bias.. Also, if you are genuienly interested in learning, and I hope by being here you are showing that you are, find and read this book: Demon haunted world. Vespine (talk) 21:47, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

If I might focus that a bit, the primary guidance in Wikipedia on subjects such as astrology is WP:FRINGE and in its most basic form that policy reflects Wikipedia's general point of view that articles should reflect prevailing scholarly opinion. As Vespine says, the prevailing scholarly opinion is that astronomy astrology is pseudoscience. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC) <Self-dope-slap> — TransporterMan (TALK) 13:59, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I hope you mean "astrology" and not "astronomy." Astronomy - the scientific study of stars and stellar physics - is widely regarded to be a real science. Nimur (talk) 21:58, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

And if you need someone to clarify the difference, ask a cosmetologist. :-) StuRat (talk) 23:05, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

It's as valid as crystal dangling, reading tea leaves, using the lines on the hand to predict fortune and crystal ball gazing. Get over it. It's bunk and has no place in society other than to pacify the weak-minded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.158.236.14 (talk) 08:26, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

On a related subject - is there a name for the "I agree with the sceptics that the vast, vast majority of it is bunk/woo/hooey/etc., however there are a small number of legitimate practitioners who can really can make it work" effect? I've heard this said of many different methods of divination and alternative medical treatments for which there is little-to-no scientific evidence of efficacy... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:32, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, there are fields which have legit practitioners as well as quacks, like chiropractic doctors. I fully believe they can adjust your spine to help a sore back, but cure cancer ? Not so much. StuRat (talk) 23:56, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

One simple fact about astrology is that it's based on ancient gods (typically Roman and Greek). Therefore, if you don't believe in ancient mythology, it seems odd to believe in their predictions. StuRat (talk) 23:07, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

What if the classical gods were invented to explain the true effects detected by astrology? —Tamfang (talk) 03:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Then all the different forms of astrology would need to agree. They do not. StuRat (talk) 05:10, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Come now, every science has had some wrong paradigms now and then. —Tamfang (talk) 20:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

How dare you defame the gods! I demand that you sacrifice a hecatomb on the altar of Apollo for this heresy. --140.180.242.9 (talk) 04:22, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

How much is a hecatomb in the English System? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Just to be contrarian, I'll point out that lack of scientific evidence doesn't mean something isn't true ;) If you enjoy astrology, and feel that it adds something valuable or meaningful to your life, why should you care if it is considered a science by the scientific community? Science is not the only valid way of obtaining insight into the human condition. Just ask any humanist, artist, philosopher, etc. Really, the only reason we scientists get annoyed with psuedosciences is because they often claim to be using scientific reasoning when they are not. SemanticMantis (talk) 23:25, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I think many scientists get annoyed with astrology for other reasons, and I don't even know if what astrologers say should be considered a claim of scientific reasoning. Anyway, the article can be discussed at Talk:Astrology but note it's listed at Wikipedia:Database reports/Talk pages by size with 4.1 MB of discussions. It's a high profile article and has been discussed extensively. You will probably find it impossible to get consensus for removing the well-sourced statement that astrology is a pseudoscience. Some articles receive far less attention and may be more colored by the views of a single editor but that's considered bad in Wikipedia. Maybe an article like John Frawley (astrologer) (current version) is more to your liking but merely posting the link here may get others to change that. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

As a humanist, I vehemently disagree. If the only reason for believing in something were "it makes me feel good" instead of "it's true", modern society would be impossible. In a high-tech world where countries have the weapons to destroy civilization, it's downright dangerous to have scientists, engineers, or politicians making decisions based on their own personal fantasies instead of logical reasoning. What if the US president decided to attack China because he sees some astrological sign? (After all, that's why William the Conqueror invaded England.) What if a nuclear power plant designer decided not to include a safety mechanism based on the good fortune he expects from astrology? On a smaller scale, what if one of your closest relatives refuses to seek medical help for cancer because, according to a horoscope, he expects good health soon in the future?

Read the article on secular humanism, and you'll learn more about what they believe in. They explicitly reject all superstition, including religion, because it hampers progress towards a better world. Your comparison with artists is invalid because artists don't make claims that unambiguously contradict scientific evidence. Neither do most philosophers, although there's no shortage of philosophers who engage in pseudoscience and make stuff up as they go along. --140.180.242.9 (talk) 04:22, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

What's your evidence that William the Conqueror invaded because of an astrological sign? My understanding was that his main reason for invading was (unsurprisingly) that he wanted to rule England. He felt he had a better claim than Harold II, and he'd employed a number of ruses (including tricking Harold into taking an oath on holy relics - suggesting William took a rather cynical approach to mystical topics) to bolster his claim. And he attacked when he did because the wind had been against him previously. (It had been against him for so long that Harald Hardrada and Tostig Godwinson had invaded in the North of England, and been defeated, while William waited. Not sure where astrology comes into this. AlexTiefling (talk) 06:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

He might have invaded anyways, but 1066 saw Halley's Comet extremely bright, and it was certainly interpreted as a sign (in favor of William and against Harold) after the fact. It does feature prominently of the Bayeux Tapestry. See Halley's Comet#1066. Also see Post hoc, ergo propter hoc ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Huh, I always thought William took Halley's Comet as a bad omen for Harold, and decided to start the invasion on that basis. Now I see that he probably didn't interpret the comet that way until after the invasion had gone well. --140.180.252.244 (talk) 10:39, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Not quite in the "President orders China to be bombed" league, but see Nancy Reagan#Influence in the White House. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

@242.9: I think you misread or misunderstood part of my comment. I did not mean to imply that philosophers or humanists believe things because they make one feel good. I said "Science is not the only valid way of obtaining insight into the human condition", and I stand by that claim. I should not have tried to speak for e.g. humanists or philosophers, so I will just speak for my self: I believe that we can obtain insight into the human condition through e.g. art. Lastly, I apologize for my poor wording. I mean "humanist" in the sense of "a professional practitioner in the humanities," (see [11]) and not secular humanism, or any other type of humanism. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:05, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I can think of at least one astrology thing that wasn't related to ancient gods - [12] (perhaps the second most unlikely Nature paper, which I'd rank just ahead of Duesberg's commentaries but not quite as unlikely as that one with the "patterned water") Wnt (talk) 04:17, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Didn't Hans Eysenck do a scientific study that demonstrated correlations of personality type to birth sign (though not predictions)? -- Q Chris (talk) 08:46, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Michel Gauquelin. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The astrologer Michel Gauquelin did. A repeat of the test, by independent scientists showed no such correlation, though Gauquelin did try and pressurize them to add and remove people in the sample. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

He finished up killing himself. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:20, 24 October

They do say it's generally best to finish what you start. —Tamfang (talk) 20:21, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

The following is a quote from a letter written by Carl Jung to Sigmund Freud dated 12th June 1912 : "My evenings are taken up largely with astrology. I make horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth. Some remarkable things have turned up which will certainly appear incredible to you . . . . . . I dare say we will one day discover in astrology a good deal of knowledge that has been intuitively projected into the heavens". Cinquefoil (talk) 19:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Your page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life is lacking a critical characteristic of "Life" in the 'Definition Section"

Dear Sir:

your definitions of "Life" is lacking a critical characteristic of "Life" in the 'Definition" section. All life must have a set of instructions inherently as a part of its existence, called its "Genome". The web page, http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/resources/whats_a_genome/Chp1_1_1.shtml of the Genome News Network will help you clarify the issue.

Of the seven characteristics given for life none are more important than the fact that some form of instructions for its making must be inherent in it. Without this it cannot become alive.

Also, I don't believe that your sentence "Life is considered a characteristic of organisms that exhibit all or most of the following:[25][27]" in the article is accurate. Yes, life is a characteristic of "being alive" but it is not necessarily a characteristic of an organism because a dead organism is an organism that does not have life. Froibleonline (talk) 22:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposed amendments to individual pages should be raised on their talk pages. Talk:Life is the page you want. We do already have an article on genome, as well as many thousands of editors who know a great deal about genomes. And while I'm not one of those users, it occurs to me that it is not a foregone conclusion that a thing must have a genome in order to be considered alive. As for the Genome News Network, you may wish to read our policy on reliable sources. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:41, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

PS: You don't need to address us as 'dear sir'. Not all of us are male, but all of us are ordinary users like you. This is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and so all the editors are also the ordinary readers. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:42, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

"...not all of us are male...": on the Science desk? Amongst the people likely to respond to this question, everybody probably is male. --140.180.242.9 (talk) 04:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

User:TammyMoet and User:Medeis, among others, would probably disagree with that remark. Then there are anonymous IPs, of whom we know nothing. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:41, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Why keep a dog and bark yourself? ;) --TammyMoet (talk) 09:54, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Telecommunications energy use

Hello Wikipedia. How much energy does the world's telecommunications infrastructure (particularly the World Wide Web including all computers and servers) consumes in one day? Thank you!--Colonel House (talk) 22:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Typing "internet energy consumption" into Google got me this as the first result. --Jayron32 23:00, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

So its 2% of all electricity produced globally. Thank you!--Colonel House (talk) 23:13, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course, that number supposes that all 500000 data centers consume 10MW. Given that it's a clean energy site, I suspect 10MW is a high-end outlier and that the true average is much lower. — Lomn 23:26, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Agency tends to provide more authoritative information than Google for these sorts of questions. I directly navigated to their website and found a breakdown of commercial electricity in the United States. If that brief overview doesn't sate your demand for statistics, large quantities of annual statistics are also made available. It is also worth reading How can we compare or add up our energy consumption? This document will help you make meaningful sense out of the large number of different types of statistics with respect to electricity, and energy in general.

Consider these statistics ranking economic sectors by energy-intensiveness: the four largest sectors are petroleum refining, chemical processing, forestry, and steel production. These dwarf the telecommunications industry in terms of total electricity and energy use. In fact, in the Annual Energy Outlook - which, at over 250 pages, is about as thorough a data-analysis report on energy consumption as you can get - telecommunications is so irrelevant that it only appears as a few footnotes on statistics for electricity consumption: an aggregate statistic of "Total energy consumption by end use" for commercial and industrial sectors provides one line-item, which "includes miscellaneous uses, such as service station equipment, automated teller machines, telecommunications equipment, and medical equipment." That entire "Other Uses" category constitutes just about 5% of total commercial energy consumption. Nimur (talk) 00:55, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Unfertilized bird eggs

Farm chickens lay unfertilized eggs. That is the extent of my knowledge on the subject. But do other birds routinely lay unfertilized eggs? If so, do they treat the unfertilized eggs differently? Do they know which eggs have not been fertilized and kick them out of the nest? Thanks. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:54, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure, most (all?) birds will lay some unfertilized eggs. Basically, this is just saying that no fertilization process is 100% successful. Human breeders commonly candle eggs to identify and remove infertile ones. In agricultural chickens, the eggs are infertile because the hens don't have access to mates. In the wild, birds might not reject unviable eggs until they rot, but unfertilized eggs are usually eventually rejected if the parent is brooding viable eggs. That being said, I think that frequent egg laying without insemination might be a highly derived trait only present in domestic fowl. That is, I suspect most wild species would not lay eggs unless they have been inseminated, and have a decent chance of producing viable eggs. SemanticMantis (talk) 23:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

If you keep a female of any species of parrot as a pet, the chances are that she will occasionally lay an infertile egg when springtime comes around. They tend to sit on it as if it was a fertile egg. The advice I've always heard is to leave her to it until she comes to the realization that it's not going to hatch and abandons it of her own volition. Otherwise she might lay more eggs, which isn't good for her. Also, a mated pair of Budgerigars, in my experience with them, will sometimes produce an entire clutch of 5/6 eggs that never hatch, perhaps because they were never fertilized in the first place (though there could be other reasons). Or only one egg will develop and hatch. I think that there's an element of hit and miss about it. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Be aware that farm chickens will also lay fertilised eggs if they happen to have a rooster handy. That means that those free range eggs you can pick up at the farm gate may well be fertilised. HiLo48 (talk) 07:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep, it's not an urban legend that people sometimes crack open a free range egg and find a half-finished foetus inside. Happened to my grandmother about ten years ago with some eggs that had come directly from a local farm. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and in some places/times, this is a feature, not a bug ( at least for duck eggs ;) See Balut_(egg). SemanticMantis (talk) 00:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)