Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 April 2

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April 2

Pew Center Research for interracial marriage

Earlier, I always ignore interracial marriage statistics in every states could vary, but the interracial marriage patterns in California is interestingIt said White interracial marriage is 20% is California, but I don't know what interracial pairings are White married to? Whites can marry to any type of race. What does other races typically refer to? American Indians?? Aborigine Australians??--69.226.42.134 (talk) 00:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

In California, that's usually Hispanics and Asians. 24.23.196.85 (talk) 00:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

What would it take for Google Nose (and other scent-searching services) to actually work?

I loved that April Fools "feature," but I hope for the day that smells transmitted online becomes reality.

What would need to be invented?

What hurdles need to be overcome?

Could someone please explain how it could one day actually work?

PS: Would it get you every conceivable smell you could search for? Or what limits will there be by the time the tech actually comes?

Thanks. --70.179.161.230 (talk) 04:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, we do have devices that do a chemical analysis of substances (gas chromatography–mass spectrometry devices, etc), some of which have odors. Unfortunately, such devices are quite large, slow, expensive, require expertise to use, and often provide an incomplete analysis, so not a good fit for a cell phone app. But, once a vapor is analyzed for it's constituents, it would just be a matter of checking that combination of ingredients against a database of every odor on Earth. That part could be done fairly quickly, using modern search methods. So, if you have a lab with the proper equipment, and we can get it all to work a bit better, I don't see any problem with submitting the info to an app which would search the database and find a match. If you still want to involve a cell phone, perhaps it could take a sample of the odor in the field, which you could then take to the lab for processing. StuRat (talk) 05:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I can imagine that one could eventually produce an analyser that would fit into a phone though it would be quite tricky, however generating scents is quite a bit more difficult as there are so many of them and one would need to generate a number of different chemicals at once. So I don't see one being able to hold up the phone to ones nose to smell a rose anytime soon. Dmcq (talk) 09:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

See Olfactory_receptor#Diversity for an indication of where the problem is with generating scents. It isn't like just coping with the few types of colour receptors in the eyes. I guess there might be some simplifications but it isn't going to be straightforward. Dmcq (talk) 09:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The difficult part would be in producing the sensation of the aroma. This has been tried in the past in theatres by producing it artifically with the Smell-O-Vision system and there have been attempts to improve on this more recently see: [1] and [2] Theoretically, you could analyse a smell and transit all the information to reproduce it elsewhere but the number of "ingredient" scents needed at the the other end to reproduce every conceivable aroma would be the limiting factor. Richerman (talk) 10:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Many years ago, I worked on the design of a "Leisure Simulator" (the Advanced Technology Leisure Application Simulator that Disney use for their Star Tours ride). That thing is basically a small movie theatre on hydraulic rams that can shake you around, tip the thing sideways, etc. We considered adding smells to the system to make it seem more real. We'd made "experiences" for this thing that would benefit from realistic smells being injected into the cabin...and since we were already stimulating eyes, ears, temperature and sense of balance to give you the feeling of really being there - it made sense to consider adding smell as the "missing" fifth sense.

We found it VERY easy to get a hold of condensed liquids that embodied many different smells - and even some that could be mixed in different quantities to make an even wider range of recognizable scents. It was fairly easy to have the computer control the injection of a microscopically small spritz of these chemicals into the airconditioning system at the right point in the ride (we used multiple inkjet printer heads with the "ink" being replaced by various smelly chemicals). So we had a ski-run "experience" - filmed with an olympic skiier belting down a picturesque valley with a camera bolted to his helmet and motion sensors on his feet. At one point, he passes a railway track with an old steam locomotive, then past an open restaurant patio, and so forth - with appropriate smells being injected at the right points in the movie.

The difficulty was not in dispensing the correct smell at the correct time - it was in getting rid of the smell afterwards! Even with the minutest amounts of these chemicals - so the smell was really subtle - you just couldn't get rid of it fast enough...and over time, it would get into the carpetting and seat cushions and the place would never smell right. After months of effort, we ended up abandoning that project - it simply didn't work as you'd hope it might.

So if you had a machine set up to do this - it could probably be made to produce smells on demand from some library of scent components - but it would end up smelling badly of the last dozen scents it produced - and those would only die away very slowly.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Pity that failed. I can see that could happen though the ways dogs can tell where you've been a week later. I wonder if or how they can tell what's a newer scent or an older one. Dmcq (talk) 14:48, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think they can, to anything other than to a minor degree. Once a smell is identified as to type, and the extent of the surface area that's smelly worked out (say the frangrance of Master's boot on the ground), the dog would reasonably assume that a stronger smell is the more recent. I have a dog myself (german shepherd cross). She can reliably track my recent movements around the farm. I've watched her nose down, starting at teh back door of the house following the exact route I followed last. However, I frequently exercise her with tenis balls, and I hide the balls at various places. If she wants an extra tenis ball game, she'll check all the hiding places she found I've used in the past, clearly using her nose to verify she's gone to a valid place. But she's just as likely to concentrate on hiding spot I haven't used for weeks, pushing things about to expose it, and ignore a nearby one that I used yesterday, and actually has a ball in it. Floda 121.215.153.97 (talk) 15:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Illegal drugs

Can a person purchase illegal drugs for scientific research? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 05:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by "a person", and the jurisdiction. If you are a qualified researcher and can make a good case for it, then you may be able to do a study, in many places, yes. StuRat (talk) 05:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, in many jurisdictions buying drugs in small quantities is not a criminal offense, even if you are a consumer. OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

It's quite likely that a person can do so, yes. Whether it's legal, of course, is a separate question. If you do it illegally, it may still be scientific research, but you may experience difficulties if you publish it or try to get paid for it. --Trovatore (talk) 13:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

In the United States, the Controlled Substances Act, which is what designates specific substances as illegal drugs, allows for the application for permits to obtain or manufacture the drugs for research or approved medical consumption. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

(ec) The answer to this question varies wildly by jurisdiction, drug, and scenario. The short answer is 'Yes, under appropriate circumstances'; the longer answer is 'In the United States, yes, if you are affiliated with a legitimate research institution or facility, you fill out a bunch of paperwork, and you comply with rigorous inventory tracking and auditing requirements.' If you go to Sigma-Aldrich's online catalog, you can find pricing and delivery times for cocaine (hydrochloride salt, 10g for $1965), methamphetamine (hydrochloride salt, 25g for $532), LSD (1mg for $99.90) and so on. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, I wonder what their profit margin is on the cocaine. Though I don't know if it's purified from the drugs of busted criminals or extracted from coca plants growing at a special DEA greenhouse (also used for training drug dogs). Also you can buy cockroaches (Blatella germnica) (200 count for 2 UK pounds, plus shipping). If you lived in my apartment you could just put a trap in the kitchen but hey, for 2 quid.. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Medical-grade drugs are not derived from illegal sources (for lots of obvious reasons). Drugs seized in police raids are destroyed, not re-introduced into legal circulation. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

That's a bit of generalization. There certainly have been cases of confiscated illegal drugs being sold by the police rather than destroyed. 202.155.85.18 (talk) 03:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

There is also pseudo narcotics scents for training dogs without all the legal headaches. OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:49, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

They are not just used for research. Methamphetamine is prescribed for ADHD and cocaine is (or at least was until recently) used as a topical anesthetic. I was given cocaine eyedrops before a retinal exam in a California hospital in 2001. They seemed to think it was no big deal.

At least some of the cocaine comes from the same plants as the coca extract that's still an ingredient in Coca-Cola (ref: the Coca-Cola article). -- BenRG 20:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The key term in the US is that these are "controlled substances," as opposed to "banned substances." --Mr.98 (talk) 14:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I regularly use cocaine for Drosophila experiments. Our stock solution is 3 mL @ 10 mg/mL and is worth $6 and can be used to induce intoxicated states for hundreds of experiments at 15 flies each. Also, I don't even have to keep a controlled substances logbook. 71.207.150.146 (talk) 23:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

An interesting example of someone who did this is Alexander Shulgin. 202.155.85.18 (talk) 03:42, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Science (blood pressure vs atmospheric pressure)

Why do we bleed when blood pressure is less than atmospheric pressure? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coolvins86 (talk • contribs) 06:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

If it were, we wouldn't. It all depends what it is measured relative to. The confusion arises because liquid pressure is measured differently from gas pressure. Dbfirs 06:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Blood pressure is greater than atmospheric. For both liquids in elastic pipes/tubes (which is what blood in blood vessels is) and gasses, pressure is measured in either of two ways, depending on application: absolute pressure, and gauge pressure. Blood pressure is normally measured in gauge pressure, which is the pressure above atmospheric. Wickwack 120.145.186.248 (talk) 10:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Also note that blood pressure isn't constant, while you're alive, but rather varies at the point in the heartbeat cycle. See systolic pressure (maximum) and diastolic pressure (minimum). So, even if the average was lower than air pressure, you'd still bleed if at any point in the cycle your blood pressure was higher. Of course, you'd also suck in bubbles into your bloodstream when your blood pressure was below atmospheric pressure, which would be very bad. This is one reason why blood pressure never normally drops below atmospheric pressure. StuRat (talk) 12:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

What utter nonsense. Atmospheric pressure acts on every part of the body surface. Body tissues conduct this pressure to every vessel within. That is the reason why absolute blood pressure cannot ever be below atmospheric, even if you've just died. The need to keep air out is NOT a reason for the pressurised blood system sinply because creating a vacuum in the blood system has never been possible in the animal kingdom. Floda 120.145.186.248 (talk) 14:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

While StuRat does sometimes offer up utter nonsense (and his habitually lax attitude toward providing references for his claims can make it hard to discern when and where), it's not correct to say that it's impossible to create a vacuum (a weak, partial vacuum, relative to ambient atmospheric pressure) in parts of the circulatory system. When breathing, downward motion of the thoracic diaphragm creates negative pressure in the thoracic cavity. Normally, this negative intrathoracic pressure is useful—as long as your airway is clear, it pulls air into the lungs until the intrathoracic (inside the chest) and atmospheric (outside the chest) pressures are equal. However, it all can go horribly wrong if there is a puncture or opening in a vein. Air can be drawn directly into the venous circulation, in serious cases causing an air embolism; this is a particularly serious risk if an individual has an improperly-managed central venous catheter, [3]. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

While I appreciate the support for my factual statement, your criticism of my contributions elsewhere does not belong on this page. You should know better. And note that I did provide links here. StuRat (talk) 08:23, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Both of the links you provided are redirects to the same article: blood pressure. That article doesn't address negative venous pressures at all—in other words, the source that you provided was generally relevant to the topic at hand, but had nothing to do with the specific statements you offered up as fact. Moreover, your statement that "blood pressure never normally drops below atmospheric pressure" is true only of arterial circulation—negative pressures are routinely encountered in the venous circulation, to the point where ways to avoid it during insertion of (for example) central venous catheters is an area of research: [4]. Both your response and Floda's were flawed, albeit in different ways. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

My first post on this question was correct, and StuRat clearly wrong. This is my reasoning:-

1. The OP asked how come we bleed, he being under the mistaken belief that "blood pressure" is less than atmosphereic pressure. It is reasonable to assume that he was refering to the ordinary accidents of life that lead to bleeding. The situation described in the paper, insertion of a central venous cathether, cited by TenOfAllTrades is artificial, and somewhat contrived, requiring specific muscular action or body movement.
2. There is not normally a vacuum in the venous system. While the pressure is a lot less than the arterial pressure, it is still above atmospheric, being about 3 to 8 mmHg measured central venous. Everybody that has seen a nurse insert a catheter in a good arm vein to get a blood sample or for an IV drug administration has seen that blood backs up in the catheter - proving that vein pressure is positive. See table in Wikipedia Blood Pressure Article. I accept that a vacuum can be created for a very short time by specific muscular movement or body movement, however this cannot have had any evolutionary impact. It therefore cannot be the reason that StuRat nominated for us having blood pressure above atmospheric.
3. In any case, when lay people, and doctors, refer to "blood pressure" they mean arterial pressure. That is what the OP was asking about, and the most reasonable thing we could assume that StuRat was commenting on.

Floda 58.169.234.119 (talk) 03:24, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I added to your title to make it useful. StuRat (talk) 13:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The confusion comes about because we live in a world where air is everywhere. It's scientifically true that the pressure in a totally deflated car tyre is 101.325 kPa (1 atmosphere or "atm") - but it's a bit confusing! It makes more sense in day-to-day matters to pretend that the atmosphere isn't there and instead talk about the amount of pressure ABOVE atmospheric pressure - so that the pressure in a deflated car tyre is conveniently zero.

That's the standard by which blood pressure is measured - the pressure OVER atmospheric pressure. This is also a useful thing to do because atmospheric pressure varies - and we really don't care what the absolute pressure of the blood in our bodies is - only how much it is in excess of air pressure...whatever that is on any given day. Measured in this way, your blood pressure remains the same whether it's measured at sea level on on a mountaintop.

For historical reasons, the two numbers you get (like 120/80) are measured in mmHg - or "millimeters of mercury" above normal air pressure. 1 mmHg is a quaint, old-fashioned unit that's defined as 1/760th of normal air pressure. So 120 mmHg is about 0.16 atm and 80mHg is 0.1 atm...relative to air pressure - or 1.16 atm and 1.1 atm in absolute "scientific" terms. So our blood is always at least a tenth of an atmosphere above normal air pressure...and therefore it squirts out of our bodies quite impressively when you make a big enough hole.

The two numbers (120/80 or whatever) represent the peak pressure, when your heart is squeezing hard, and the minimum pressure, when the heart is relaxing to take another beat. The difference is noticable (hence your pulse - which is the blood vessel expanding and contracting with the waves of pressure - but relative to atmospheric pressure, it's not that great - and even during the lull between heartbeats, there is still plenty of pressure to prevent air from being sucked back into your system (which would be A Very Bad Thing!)

SteveBaker (talk) 14:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Just for more detail, blood pressure is a function of three factors, force (heart contraction), blood volume (how much blood is being pushed, or resisting being pushed) and resistance (vascular diameter). Stress causes increased bp due to both vasoconstriction (higher resistance) an increased contractility. Vascular disease causes increased bp via the arteries becoming less elastic, unable to expand in response to the pulse, leaving the same force pushing the same volume through a smaller tube. I remember seeing a historical case where a man was let blood and was ok, then lit up a cigar and dropped dead. The bloodletting dropped the blood volume, then the nicotine (actually cotinine, its metabolite) caused vascular dilation - by lowering volume and eliminating vascular resistance he didn't have enough pressure to keep the vasculature inflated and would have died of systemic circulatory collapse. Agricolae (talk) 15:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Wace examination

Show me biology specimen for wace 2013 examination — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.220.68.29 (talk) 17:45, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Since the IP geolocates to Lagos, this presumably is about the WAEC (West African Examination Council). It's not likely that we will be able to help. Looie496 (talk) 18:04, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Let's not be hasty to give up! To begin with we do have an article on West African Examinations Council, including several links (not the least of which is a WAEC Ghana site which Avast! claimed was a malware site, giving as its full and apparently unexpandable explanation that it was "http://awesomecounters.net/5869487-F7C6F..." in "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox4\firefo..." of type "URL:Mal").

Nonetheless just typing into Google 'WAEC biology sample question' got me to [5] which includes stuff like [6] with entries like "SPECIMEN E- Lung of freshly killed goat." I am curious now... Wnt (talk) 00:13, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

chemistry

give complete desription about carbocation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Titunsam (talk • contribs) 19:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Easy: carbocation. μηδείς (talk) 19:18, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Placebo effect

An interesting online "interview" of James Randi (famed sceptic) here on Slashdot:

  http://features.slashdot.org/story/13/03/27/1548222/interviews-james-randi-answers-your-questions

...quotes him answering a question about the placebo effect:

"Re the placebo effect, it only makes you feel better momentarily. The question I ask: "do you want to actually BE better, or only FEEL better?"".

Is that true? I was under the impression that placebo could actually provide a permanent "cure" for various afflictions. If he's right, doesn't this mean that studies that conclude that drug XYZ is "no better than placebo" (and thereby prevent the drug from reaching the market) might actually be discarding potentially useful treatments that might not have a short-term effect that's better than placebo - but which don't wear off soon after as Randi seems to be saying that placebo does.

SteveBaker (talk) 19:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Most illness that people get are 'self-limiting'. Meaning the sufferer can recover without any medical treatment. Yet pharmaceutical companies are driven by profit so they would love you to take their products, even when they are no more effective than placebo. Someone is not going to end up any weller just because that took a branded pharmaceutical product in this instance … generally. Untreated Sacarlet fever for instance, can lead to damage of the hart valves even when the patient appears to completely recover. Yet, in this case, the antibiotics would prove better than placebo. --Aspro (talk) 20:52, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, I wouldn't listen to Randi's reasoning too much as he confuses his form of pseudo scepticism with scientific scepticism. To my mind, the value of placebos is that if it makes one feel better, then it get one out of the mind-set that you are ill and must therefore modify your life style until you feel better. In that mind set, one can easily continue to monitor one's symptoms and believe one's still ill. See: Medical students' disease--Aspro (talk) 21:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

This article shows, trained doctors are too often willing to prescribe placebos.Doctors told to stop prescribing antibiotics for coughs and colds to ensure infections don't become resistant to them. --Aspro (talk) 21:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I personally take offense at the suggestion that Randi is a pseudoskeptic. He is one of the real fathers of the skeptical movement, he's the Houdini of his generation. Sure he's not "flawless", no one is and he will readily admit it, but very few people have done as much as him to debunk so much of the absolute garbage our society is completely steeped in and most people believe. As for the placebo effect, most people do also have a misconception about it, it's a far more complicated topic then just "mind over matter", in fact, it is mostly NOT even that. The best description of placebo effect I have heard is EVERYTHING in a trial or experiment EXCEPT what the medicine ACTUALLY does. That includes all the little biases and subtle statistical anomalies which can creep in make it LOOK like there has been an effect, when in fact there was none. Yes, placebos can have a real effect on certain conditions, but by far the conditions which they have an effect on are subjective conditions, like pain and anxiety. Playing video games has been proven to work on pain, no one would claim playing video games actually makes you BETTER, it just distracts you. The difference is neuanced, but real. There is no such thing as a placebo for cancer or HIV. Vespine (talk) 01:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I also strongly disagree with the suggestion that Randi is a pseudoskeptic.

I stopped at I personally take offense. That is an emotional judgment, not a view based on reasoning.--Aspro (talk) 13:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

If you stopped reading here, why did you reply to the rest of my comment? APL (talk) 18:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

He has certainly been described that way many times, but usually by complete nutters who level that accusation at anyone who doubts them. Randi is a high-profile target for that sort of thing. APL (talk) 04:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you accusing me of being a complete nutter? This guy is a magician, an expert at misdirection to make his audience swoon. I don't ever see his name on the speakers list at CERN or any other notable organizations. --Aspro (talk) 13:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, no. Absolutely not. I apologize for the implication.

I was assuming you had gotten your information from them. APL (talk) 18:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

A magician is an expert at detecting the tricks that people like Uri Geller use to misdirect their audiences. I don't know why you expect a CERN physicist to be better at detecting trickery than an expert in trickery. As for pseudoskepticism, our article says: "the true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved."

Randi has said many times that this is precisely the position he takes. He is not a debunker, and does not claim to disprove supernatural phenomena. See, for example, this clip. --140.180.248.141 (talk) 17:06, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Why should should you think CERN physicist bother with detecting magic – they are scientists? Yes, of course Randi is well placed to debunk other magicians like Geller because he is one himself and he knows many of the tricks. That's what I'm saying. It his propensity to lead his sheep (his audience) into believing that Sutor, ne ultra crepidam doesn't apply to them either, whether in magic or 'any other field. That is the problem. They are lead into believing that they can pontificate, using just their uneducated feelings in areas of which they have little knowledge. Worst, anyone that disagrees with their 'feelings' they can only believe, there on, that any dissenters to their 'feelings' - are simply nutters. I have great respect for Penn & Teller that not only explain the mechanics of their tricks but debrief their audience about the psychology behind it. Which some magicians don't. Aspro (talk) 17:55, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

"Sutor, ne ultra crepidam" applies to you more than anyone else, especially since you feel the need to resort to name calling and ad hominem attacks. You clearly have no idea what Randi does, because debriefing his audience about the psychology behind his tricks is a large part of it. He doesn't present a magic trick and say "well, that proves I have supernatural powers", and certainly doesn't pretend that any of his magic is more than trickery. If you want to criticize Randi on this forum that's not actually a forum, make sure to criticize Randi, not the strawman you've set up. --140.180.248.141 (talk) 19:57, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Most doctors who do this do it not for any placebo effect, but simply because it is easier to write a worthless prescription than to teach the patient why it is worthless. Re Aspro - the profit driven pharmaceutical companies selling you worthless drugs to treat things that go away on their own is not really what this is about. In most of the developed world, a drug has to be proven better than placebo to get regulatory approval, and can't be sold otherwise. (At least in the USA, this is different with dietary supplement companies, where they don't have to prove anything, and can't be made to stop making a claim unless proven false.) Whether the benefit is worth the cost is a different question, but there must be a benefit.

Pain, migraine, addiction, etc, have significant psychological components in addition to their physiological ones, and giving a placebo can treat these psychological manifestations. Where Randi's reasoning fails is that it assumes you have two options - give a placebo or else treat the root cause. There is nothing to stop you from doing both, using the placebo to treat the psychological symptoms at the same time you are trying to treat the physiological ones. In other cases an effective treatment for the physiological symptoms has yet to be identified, so any gain you get from them thinking they are doing something about it is better than nothing. Placebos are medically justifiable. The question is whether trust is so central to a healthy doctor/patient relationship that the lie inherent in placebo use can be ethically supported. As to the original question, not likely. We are not throwing out good drugs for want of long-term studies. With all of the money that a drug company has invested, bringing it to that point, they are also going to test duration of effect vs. placebo, and if the effect lasts longer, then that satisfies the better-than-placebo criteria. Agricolae (talk) 01:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Most doctors who do this do it not for any placebo effect, but simply because it is easier to write a worthless prescription than to teach the patient why it is worthless. The doctors, as you say do it to please . That is the meaning of Placebo Middle English, from Late Latin , I shall please The 'effect' of the worthless and sometimes harmful prescription, is that they go away satisfied. So they most definitely are are proscribing placebos.--Aspro (talk) 13:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, my Middle English is a little bit rough. In Modern English, "Sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, a phenomenon commonly called the placebo effect." The doctors are not doing this to induce a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, they are doing it to make the patient feel better about their doctor. Not really the same thing. Agricolae (talk) 15:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, in Randi's statement there's a hint of what i think is an old-fashioned view of healthcare. Today's healthcare is about providing well-being, and not only about beating the disease. That means that making someone feel better is worthwhile, even if it doesn't affect the underlying condition. Sjö (talk) 05:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Nitpick : A drug that's "no better than placebo" is basically just a placebo. The effective treatment should show a placebo effect and actual improvement, for a greater total improvement. APL (talk) 04:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Writing a placebo prescription is only "ethical" in the sense of medical ethics, which endorses any practice that a society-wide basis enriches the medical cartel and condemns any practice that decreases their income. In this sense it is ethical to write a placebo prescription that costs money at a pharmacy (I suppose the more it costs, the better it works!) but unethical to tell a patient that exercising 30 minutes a day will cause great relief (because it doesn't produce income and may even reduce his visits down the line). However, these ethics could be reversed if sage heads fear that the patients will be overly put off by a mercenary scheme...

But enough of this. Research is always ongoing - there is always some new paper or obscure ancient pharmacopoeia that suggests an idea that may work though it probably doesn't. Why should anyone suffer under a false hope when they can grasp at a real one?

As for placebos improving or curing conditions, it need not be magical. A disease may go away or temporarily regress on its own. If the patient's mind is open to the possibility it might have gotten better, he is more likely to report an improvement. Reporting versus experiencing being two different things.

I don't know if this is still on topic but I noticed or became aware of something when I became old enough to go to my doctor on my own. Note: This is in UK where medical services are free. The Doctor might say something like: “Oh, come back in two weeks if it hasn't cleared up.” I came to think this meant he was triaging “ Although I haven't got the foggiest idea of what you are suffering from, based on my training and experience, what is see before me does not indicant anything that I recognise as anything serious. So, consider your complaint as a trifle. I can prescribe you XXX if you wish but it wont do you any good (hints of.. are you a man or a mouse)” Result: I traveled home from his surgery feeling ready to take on the World again. Yahoo! --Aspro (talk) 14:03, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I think there are also some cases in which a placebo by chance has hidden therapeutic benefit. The absolute classic was a case in which treatment of PXE patients with a drug whose name I now forget but is known to the archives caused more improvement with the placebo than the experimental drug, because it contained "inert" magnesium that helped to dissolve deposits. But the water taken with a pill might matter, for example. In such cases of course one should look for the true cure and not the false one. Wnt (talk) 17:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Again with Randi's false dichotomy. The choices are not always real (hope of a) cure vs. false one. Nobody likes the situation, but in some cases the choices are to do something that is only of possible psychological benefit or do nothing at all (because there is no effective treatment, and exercise doesn't fix everything that ails people). But in saying that, I guess that makes me part of the medico-pharma conspiracy. Agricolae (talk) 20:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, the thing is... if you're going to recommend a treatment for purely psychological benefit, why not recommend exercise of some sort or another? It's free, readily available, and if it's not good for the condition in question it's sure to be good for something else.

I can't help but think that this talk of "placebo" is code for homeopathy, a particularly bogus type of placebo that sells for great profit and even has the weight of a formal regulated prescription system to prevent people from shaking water to compete with it. Everything is a racket. Wnt (talk) 23:56, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

When inquiring into things that have a lot of emotional belief and baggage it is important not to fall into such traps of Association fallacy with all their 'possible' codes.Aspro (talk) 16:12, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Why is ustalic acid a white solid?

It has a highly-conjugated pi system-- I know a lot of the connections are cross-conjugation links but still. 71.207.150.146 (talk) 22:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You're forgetting that the substance has a relatively large molecular mass, and it is also relatively polar, and prone to hydrogen bonding. Plasmic Physics (talk) 00:14, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay that's why it's a solid, which I don't dispute (salicylic acid is a solid)-- but why is it white? 71.207.150.146 (talk) 02:46, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Because its main absorption is in the UV range? I don't have the spectroscopic data in front of me, so I can't tell you for sure. 24.23.196.85 (talk) 04:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

That depends, are you talking about the bulk substance, or the powdered substance? A white powdered substance would be due to, what I assume, is the Tyndall effect, so has to do with the particle size, and not the identity of the substance. A white bulk sbstance would be due to poor absorption in the visible sectn of the spectrum, meaning that the molecule lacks the necessary chromophores. Plasmic Physics (talk) 05:48, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

In the X-ray structure of that compound (cited ref #1 in the article doi:10.1039/B202607D) the pi system looks very twisted, which would reduce the conjugation of it. The two phenyl rings are each rotated about 70° (estimated by my eye) from the alkene/alkene plane, and the carboxyls are also off by about 20° from it. DMacks (talk) 09:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree, the only conjugated systems are the styrene structures. This is actually a known phenomenon for substituted glyoxylic acid derivatives. Cacycle (talk) 10:04, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

How is the styrene unit conjugated if the aryl and vinyl are not coplanar? DMacks (talk) 15:46, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not really that big - compare anthracene (versus tetracene which starts to show color and pentacene which lives it). The key yardsticks to use here are Woodward's rules, but I fear I may run astray trying to apply them. In particular I am not sure which double bonds extend the conjugation - though I think based on the angle DMacks pointed out, we can rule out those phenyl rings. Wnt (talk) 17:07, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

is the low testosterone industry just a huge scam?

I'm a genetic XY taking spironolactone (as well as estradiol) and I feel *better* and happier and much more completed and at peace without evil evil testosterone in the way. I also can't believe that testosterone prolongs life spans in males (as suggested in the article) as females live longer than males and I remember reading somewhere that this was a testosterone-linked phenomenon (remove testosterone and lifespan increases). I can't imagine why someone (who wasn't intent on bodybuilding) would want to increase their testosterone; it just seems like something society has too much of, and AFAIK testosterone induces depression, anxiety and anger, rather than inducing any sort of satisfaction in life. 71.207.150.146 (talk) 23:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

What is your question? 24.23.196.85 (talk) 00:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Is low testosterone a legitimate psychological problem? 71.207.150.146 (talk) 02:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

AFAIK low testosterone can lower male sex drive -- but I'm not 100% sure if this is actually the case, and if so how much of a problem it actually would be. 24.23.196.85 (talk) 04:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It can certainly do that and a lot more. Any time you have an extensive campaign of TV advertisements (as are currently happening in the USA), there are going to be a lot of people who think they have the thing when they don't. But "low T" is a genuine condition that can cause quite serious problems. Looie496 (talk) 15:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

There is a big problem with saying that many men are unhealthy because they have "low T" - namely, if there are many men with this characteristic, how can we be sure it is a disease rather than a natural variation? If there are genes in the pool that code for low T, then we should ask, are they of recent origin or have they endured millions of years? Certainly some conditions are of very recent origin, e.g. Klinefelter syndrome, but when low-T pills are marketed to men who grew up without diagnosed troubles, or are even "in the normal range" now (as the article says) there are good odds these are ancient genes that helped many a man survive.

Now if someone can tell you that you will live longer if you take their supplement, or promise you some other concrete benefit (indeed, even at the expense of lifespan if that is your priority), that is one thing - the problem is, when the claimed benefit is decreasing some vaguely defined psychological states may or may not be what a given individual counts as being good. It is not really curing disease but just playing with one's internal state. Of course, the same thing is even more so true with spironolactone/estradiol; the key here is that the person needs to understand that this is a matter of personal choice and responsibility despite what may well be unknown risks. I should note that some expectations like the preservation of muscle mass by testosterone may not hold up [7].

Complicating this is the prevalence of endocrine disruptors in many items which interfere with the normal hormone condition - it is conceivable in some cases that such supplements make sense as "fighting fire with fire" when the person in a natural environment would have no problem in the first place.

The distinction between health and disease is clearly a philosophical question of great significance; it might be worth asking Humanities people to chime in on this one. Wnt (talk) 16:53, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Low testosterone causes problems, but so does high testosterone. So, only people who have been diagnosed with low T should take supplements. StuRat (talk) 21:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Some people don't want to feel depressed or like they have a low libido. Others want to be better weight lifters. Who is to say that one is medicine and the other is criminal when they take the same thing? There are people who have high testosterone naturally anyway, after all. For that matter, why should one person be seen as having an innate right to be transsexual by taking their testosterone out of all normal bounds, but another shouldn't have the same natural right to take on a "supermale" bodybuilder identity with big bulging veiny biceps that might be just as integral to his own sense of sexual identity? When I said this is an important philosophical question I meant it. Wnt (talk) 00:00, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, in the specific case of testosterone, it can cause rages and risk-taking behavior which could result in injuries to others, so this seems to fall in the category of things which can be legally regulated. Then there is the potential for injury to one's self, which libertarians would argue shouldn't be regulated, but others disagree and want more of a nanny state. However, even if there were no side effects, there could still be the trickier issue of everyone having to take it to compete (for example, if people in the military took it, perhaps they could carry heavier loads, but soon the military might require everyone to take it, so they all could). StuRat (talk) 00:23, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

These may indeed be valid objections - but don't they apply to "low T" treatment? It would seem the whole point of the TV ads, the constant campaign to get people to take them and other drugs against depression is that a society of coloni has less and less tolerance for people who are not motivated to put out fast, eager service with a happy smile. Raising low T for "energy" is just as much about competition as raising high T. I wonder if it may also come with an equal degree of increase of potential aggressive behavior. I did some quick looking and found [8] which describes a study finding increased "aggression proneness" in female-to-male transsexuals; on the other hand this says there is no proven link between testosterone and crime - this is obviously a complex question and we may need more than a dilettante search to make a conclusion. But philosophically, if female-to-male transsexuals suffer a female-to-male increase in crime statistics, does that justify banning the practice? Wnt (talk) 12:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)