Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2014 February 12

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February 12

Why are bears so scary?

From an evolutionary biology perspective, why are bears so violently equipped? Most dangerously equipped animals are either predators who engage very large prey (lions, tigers, and so forth) or prey who want to fight off dangerous predators (rhinos, hippos, elephants, and so on). It's obvious to me what competitive advantage being a killing machine serves those creatures.

But what about bears? They are just as specialized a killing machine as anything I've listed above, but they eat berries, insects, and fish. I see from wikipedia articles on various species of bear that they sometimes hunt ungulates, but they don't seem to be well set up to do so, and it seems like it's not a major part of their diet.

I realize that anthropomorphizing evolution can get you in trouble, but what are the bear's razor claws, massive strength, and other dangerous attributes for? gnfnrf (talk) 03:49, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Since I was unable to find a source specifically answering your question, I'll offer what would be declared on WP as an "improper synthesis". Bears evolved among Pleistocene megafauna and were  predominantly carnivorous, but: "After a period of almost exclusively eating meat, they became omnivores for reasons that are yet to be explained".[1] They are among the few megafauna that survived the Quaternary extinction event, and perhaps adapted to omnivory due to the relative lack of large prey, but retained their "scary" attributes.  ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 05:28, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

It's worth remembering that claws have more uses than just as weapons - many bear species are excellent tree climbers for example, where claws provide grip in an animal otherwise not obviously adapted towards arboreality. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:47, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Some bears also hunt and eat full grown seals.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:20, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

True enough - but we are discussing bears in general, rather than polar bears in particular, and since they all have well-developed claws, any evolutionary explanation needs to explain the non-seal-eaters (more so since polar bears and grizzlies have diverged relatively recently, and by some definitions might not even be considered separate species). If the proto-bear was a carnivore, as the link provided above suggests, 'claws-originally-evolved-for-hunting' make sense, and the question comes down to why, when (most) bears became opportunistic omnivores, they retained the hunting weaponry - which must entail some metabolic cost. Maybe the claws are just generally sufficiently useful for foraging, digging, climbing etc to be retained, or perhaps (pure guesswork) they are retained because the most direct competition a bear faces is other bears - diminished weaponry might put an individual bear at a distinct disadvantage in any encounter. Perhaps bears are scary so they can scare other bears. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:15, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Nobody seems to have mentioned that they're Godless, soulless killing machines. --Trovatore (talk) 09:24, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Bear claws also seem to be needed for fishing. Animals with less impressive claws, like wolves, don't seem to be as successful in pulling slippery fish out of the water. StuRat (talk) 14:18, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Those claws are also good for opening beehives and getting into rotten logs for fat juicy grubs, etc. Even though they are omnivores they are the top predator in their environment(s), so they are well equipped to take down rather large pieces of meat when the opportunity arises. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:33, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Also consider that bears sometimes fight with each other, and those with better weapons are more likely to survive, gain control of the hunting ground, win mates, protect their young, etc., and thus pass on their genes.

And warding off competitors from other species, like wolves, is also important. (Since wolves hunt in packs, they can do more damage than their individual size and "weapons" would indicate.) StuRat (talk) 14:18, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• Go to youtube and search for "grizzly versus moose" or "grizzly versus elk". I think you might be impressed. Looie496 (talk) 15:12, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

On the other hand, I was pretty impressed by a clip I once saw, of a black bear having been treed by a wolverine. The claws came in pretty handy at that point. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:42, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• It's fools errand to use evolution to predict existence. It's always a predicate. "Bears exist therefore they were naturally selected." We always have the answer before we test a hypothesis. Evolution as a theory is much more suited to explaining adaptations and families of species that have common ancestors (i.e. Darwin's finches). It really should be a "Law" as it's always observed because it's impossible not to be observed. Creatures that exist adapted and were selected and creatures that died out did not and weren't. If sabre toothed giraffes existed, evolution would explain it because it can't NOT explain it. There would be a scientist that proposes a reason how sabre toothed giraffes have an advantage. It's an acyclic directed graph where we are always at the end. --DHeyward (talk) 03:58, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Genetic bottlenecks are observed, but they aren't adaptive evolution or survival of the fittest. Not everything is selected for. See Gould and Lewontin The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm on spandrels. μηδείς (talk) 04:36, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Go read the brown bear article and I think you'll answer most of the OPs questions. I like Heyward's point... it's often instructive to work backwards when thinking about evolutionary questions; evolution is almost certainly more right than we are. For example, why do humans have sickle cell anemia (or any other number of on their face, maladaptive traits). Those questions lead to interesting and illuminating answers. So if you ask yourself why otherwise docile ungulates have giant antlers/horns on their heads, or why some bird has elaborate get-yourself-noticed-and-eaten displays, perhaps the answer's a bit deeper. That said, I don't think you need to dig very deep to see why any apex predator's interest in keeping its weapons and size up are advantageous. Keep in mind too, taking just North America, the bear evolved with many more super carnivores than exist today. Inland bears can be surprisingly small compared to the gigantic grizzlies you see in nature videos eating salmon. Shadowjams (talk) 05:31, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Yet another NORAD-related question

Was the AIM-4 Falcon/F-106 combination capable of splashing contemporary Soviet cruise missiles (such as the AS-1 Kennel or the AS-3 Kangaroo or the AS-5 Kelt), or did the only hope of a successful intercept rest on intercepting the bombers before they could launch their missiles? 67.169.83.209 (talk) 10:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd never heard of an air to air missile designed for use against aircraft being used against other missiles. I would strongly bet that the intention of all of those programs was always to intercept the planes, not the missiles post-launch. According to our article, the AIM-4 had a crappy record as it was. Given how early AIM missiles were in their development back then, I think it's much more likely that they were meant for aircraft. Shadowjams (talk) 05:39, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Depends on the Falcon variant. A NUCLEAR Falcon (the AIM-26 variant, sporting a W54 "Wee Gnat" selectable yield warhead and a bigger motor than an early AIM-4, or an AIM-47 - which would eventually evolve into the Phoenix - successfully tested from a YF-12A with six inrercepts) would, of course, knock anything down within range of its warhead.

But the guidance on the Falcon, nuclear-armed or not, probably wouldn't be up to an intercept of something with the comparatively small radar cross-section of a cruise missile. There were IR and semi-active radar seeker heads on Falcons, and I don't know what the seeker head performance would be on anything smaller than a bomber or another interceptor (see below).

Now, the AIM-4H Falcon, which was to have both a proximity fuse and laser guidance, just might have knocked a large cruise missile down, but it's still doubtful. The weapons operator would have to acquire the target first for laser lock-on, which I'd think would be problematic for a cruise missile intercept. In any case, AIM-4H never saw service. Maj. Dave Cobb of the 114th Fighter Interceptor Wing got an F-102 drone during the 1980 William Tell Interceptor Weapons Meet with an AIM-4G; it's a gentle irony that one of the first interceptors intended to use Falcons was knocked down by one. loupgarous (talk) 17:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! So the answer would be a qualified "no"? 67.169.83.209 (talk) 08:46, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Global Warming Diagram

I am in a bit of a debate regarding the accuracy of wikipedia. This has now been presented to me to challenge wikipedia. The topmost figure in Global_warming i e : File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg seems to differ from the one in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/18/hansens-nasa-giss-cooling-the-past-warming-the-present/ I am trying to find a good explanation, but it is taking some time, and was hoping that some of you are more familiar with the subject. I know very little about climatology. Should I have posted this on the climate change talk page? I am not at this stage trying to improve the page, just getting some info. DanielDemaret (talk) 12:58, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The figure in our article appears to be a direct copy of a recent version of the very first graph on the page at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/, as indicated in the figure's caption in our article. Different data on other websites (including those of climate change denialists like Watts) are down to either using outdated versions of the data or just plain errors on the part of bloggers. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:17, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I was aware of where the first diagram is from. It is well referenced in the article. I am just assuming that the other diagram must have been up for debate somewhere in the civilized world, since the WUFT is the largest blogg of its kind. I have so far seen no rebuttal, no discussion of any kind of it. Surely someone must have either tried to refute or affirm it? DanielDemaret (talk) 13:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I may have found the answer. It seems to be an original diagram depicting a small difference between the diagrams, not a different version of the diagram itself. The explanation seems to be a change in software explained in the article Instrumental_temperature_record. The problem seems to be that a lot of people seem to think this diagram implies that there is no warming.DanielDemaret (talk) 14:00, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Call me a cynic, but for the friendly people at WUWT, that is more likely the goal, not a problem. WUWT is just an echo-chamber for standard science denialism. It's not a reliable source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:08, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

There's few things less productive for a scientist than arguing with people who think scientists are conspiring against them. Yes the figures have been altered a little. One can't stick a thermometer into the ocean and measure a global temperature, that is just some agreed figure based on the data that is thought to be representative. The figures have been altered retrospectively as well for consistency as they think they have better figures which cover a wider area and are a better basis for discussion and modelling from. It is best to use as consistent and wide ranging a base as possible. Dmcq (talk) 14:12, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The old adage about wrestling with a pig comes to mind. (Had WUWT found and blogged about the exact opposite result – a small revision to the model making the rate of warming slightly less steep, instead of slightly steeper – there still would have been an announcement of scientific conspiracy. It just would have been "NASA reveals previous estimates faked!" instead of "NASA faking new estimates!") TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:20, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I think Berkeley Earth is actually a good example of the futility of engaging with most so called climate 'sceptics'. Given the people involved (reputable scientists who had expressed some scepticism in the past) and their stated intentions, as our article mentions it was initially welcomed by many such critics of climate change research including Anthony Watts. But when the project failed to find what they wanted it to find, many and again including Watts decided the study was flawed.

Of course it's always possible to be welcoming of something and only later find out when it's published that the methodology etc is flawed, instead of deciding it's flawed because you don't like the results, but there's little real evidence this is what happened here. And I don't think this is the first time 'sceptics' have welcomed something until they didn't like what it said.

It's also IMO notable that it isn't uncommon to find a prominent reputable scientists who was publicly known to be somewhat sceptical until they looked at looked at the evidence as happened there. While this happens in the reverse as well, it seems a lot less, in particular that the scientists support was known before hand. More commonly it's only afterwards we hear how they were once supporters until they looked at the evidence (and in fact in plenty of these cases the person was barely known beforehand). Of course being supportive of climate change being the mainstream thing is something people are less likely to write about anyway but even if you look hard it you'll likely find that while these people may have genuinely 'changed their minds', it's not very public at all.

And it's suprising how accepting people are of 'sceptics' who don't even understand the difference between climate and weather. TO be fair, I don't think this applies to any of the people discussed here but this should be and obvious sign to ignore anything more the person has to say, but it often doesn't seem to go like that.

Nil Einne (talk) 02:53, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

@DanielDemaret: yes, that is exactly right. The WUWT graph is labeled "Adjustments made since 2008". That means adjustments made by scientists to the GISS model since 2008, not adjustments made to Earth by God (or whatever) since 2008. --Bowlhover (talk) 14:42, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The fact is that making precise global measurements (and, worse still, predictions) is a tricky business. For starters, you're looking at an average over points on the surface of the earth averaged over the course of a day, averaged over the course of a year. And you're doing that from date obtained using indirect measurements such as infrared radiation levels measured above the atmosphere by a satellite - versus data measured at discrete points on the ground using thermometers versus ancient tree-ring data, ice-core samples and who-knows-what else. Well, you get the idea.

The idea that you'll find a precise and unchanging set of data describing what's happening now, and in the past is somewhat ludicrous...it's simply not possible.

HOWEVER, no matter what science you use to do those measurements, you always come up with an alarmingly rapid and large temperature increase that correlates sufficiently well with atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gas quantities to leave absolutely no doubt that global warming is a real thing and that human activities are overwhelmingly largely to blame.

So nit-picking the tiny details as a way to avoid the incredibly bloody obvious trend is just a tactic of the incompetent, the corrupt and (sadly) the people who really wish it wasn't true and have that peculiar mind-set that says "because I don't want it to be true, it must be false".

That said, scientists really do need to debate how they are doing these measurements - we do need to make increasingly accurate predictions about how bad this will be, how long it will take, and what (if anything) we can do about it. So you should expect a lot of debate about some fraction of a degree of temperature difference between measurements from one source of data and another, different statistical approaches and new ways to infer temperature trends from other sources. The horrible error that so many people are making is to confuse this natural tendency of scientists to work to refine their tools with some kind of confusion over whether global warming is really happening or not. There is absolutely NO confusion on that point.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:54, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

It's somewhat similar to what has happened (and still is happening) in evolutionary biology circles. Scientists studying that stuff need to debate points and refute errors and do all the other things scientists do, but largely feel hamstrung due to the creationist nitwits who seize upon any debate as proof that there's "no agreement" about the situation. Our article on Stephen Jay Gould touches on some of the pitfalls of that kind of scenario. Hopefully, the climate modellers will be able to avoid this trap. Matt Deres (talk) 17:37, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, "Will the polar bears become extinct in 5 years 7 months and 12 days - or will it be 5 years 7 months and 26 days?" turns into "Scientists can't agree on when Polar Bear extinction will occur"...which then becomes "Scientists can't agree on polar bear extinction"...which becomes "Will polar bears go extinct? SCIENTISTS DON'T AGREE!"...and then "Polar bear extinction is a myth put about by the Obama administration". SteveBaker (talk) 17:58, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

If you're debating the accuracy of wikipedia, have you read our article on Reliability of Wikipedia? Richerman (talk) 20:38, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The above hot air rather ignores the main point of the skeptics. Should you base economic and social strategy on the results of a group of rather similar computer programs that on average wildly overpredict the measured temperature rises? Some economists argue that adaptation to the effects of climate change is more cost effective than attempting to forestall a temperature rise that may or may not occur within a meaningful timeframe by restricting the output of the one gas demonised by the above unreliable models. The reality is that the climate change lobby has largely lost its way in influencing the real world. IPCC is busted, the models are busted, and the third world is building coal power stations as fast as it can. As is Germany. The behaviour of the rest of the first world will have less and less effect as the CO2 output of third world countries rises, I vaguely remember that China is already the biggest emitter, and that within 5 years the first world will only be emitting 1/3 of the total anthropogenic CO2. So whatever ranting and raving occurs in conferences and common rooms around the world, the real world will have walked on by. Greglocock (talk) 21:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

NASA's amputation of the first part of the GISS database (made in the 1800s by politically-unbiased human observers on the surface with thermometers) and ALL of IPCC's follies and outright frauds notwithstanding, the facts on the ground still favor striving toward a planetary lifestyle less dependent on dense energy sources (unless the Polywell inertial containment electrostatic fusion power plant can be made to work, in which case, party on, Garth!). We don't have enough uranium for the whole Earth to have nuclear power for THIS century; thorium might push that out another two centuries, but the fact is, fission's a bridge power supply for the human race, not sustainable for more than a few hundred years. And it's up in the air when we hit zero reserves for fossil fuels, no global warming pun intended.

So global warming itself is almost a side issue; we don't have enough energy sources for the human race to go on living a high-energy use lifestyle unless nuclear fusion can be made to work. There are two ways to go about making power by nuclear fusion:

- thermonuclear power, which is neutron-intensive and thus has the potential for the same nuclear waste stream as fission when you consider a fusion plant will have to bury its reactors at regular intervals - the things will absorb so many neutrons that embrittlement of steel structural members becomes a real issue, and you have to take them out of service before they fail in situ and crap the reactor and its surroundings up with tritium (a very, very bad thing when it gets into people).

- The other approach is what's been called "cold fusion." Never mind all that discredited work with deuterium in battery jars by Pons and Fleischmann... the Navy is even now working with a group of former Los Alamos physicists to get the Polywell inertial containment electrostatic fusion reactor to work, for several good reasons: it doesn't require mongo power input through batteries of weapons-grade lasers into the reaction chamber to get a fusion reaction, just a modification of the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor which has been proven technology since the mid-20th century, it's much smaller than a thermonuclear reactor, and it can potentially use boron-11 (which is 80% of natural boron) as a fuel, in which case its neutron flux is a small fraction of any thermonuclear reactor's, which dramatically reduces shielding requirements, neutronic steel embrittlement, AND the need to transmute lithium into tritium to keep the reactor fueled. It would be first case of large scale nuclear power where neutrons didn't figure as a central part of the process. Neutrons, if you don't know, account for ALL the nuclear waste coming from any nuclear reactor, and the boron fusion reaction (which is actually, arguably, a fission reaction because once the boron-11 nucleus accepts a proton, it breaks up into several helium nuclei, or alpha rays, but its promoters sell it as a fusion reaction, so, oh, well) is predicted to produce neutrons in three percent of its reactions (so-called "side" reactions). In any other nuclear reactor, 100% of the nuclear reactions either depend on a high neutron flux or produce neutrons during fission or deuterium-tritium fusion.

We'd all better pray, spin Tibetan joss wheels or do whatever we do for summoning good luck that the boron-11 Polywell reaction works. Because if it doesn't, eventually humanity will have to face life without energy-dense sources of power, and that won't be pretty.loupgarous (talk) 10:39, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Your very long post is short on links and references, which would give it much more weight, User:Vfrickey. μηδείς (talk) 02:57, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

off topic insult slinging
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
You sound to me rather like one of those people who is told they may have cancer, they go to the hospital and are told yes they do have cancer. So they look up the diagnosis on the web and find some pages saying you can cure cancer with homeopathic medicine and bright thoughts and that anyway doctors can be wrong in their diagnosis and there are many types of cancer. So they say the doctors are wrong but take the homeopathic medicine just in case and eventually die saying how useless the doctors are. Dmcq (talk) 22:54, 12 February 2014 (UTC) Well as it happened I did have cancer. Oddly enough I used treatments that have been demonstrated to work in the real world, not in badly designed trend following computer models (the construction and correlation of computer models is actually a large part of my job). Next question? Greglocock (talk) 23:34, 12 February 2014 (UTC) Why didn't you take homeopathic medicine instead or ignore it? A diagnosis by a doctor is quite frequently wrong. Yet for climate change you do not take expert advice.If you know so much about modelling that you can cast scorn on their models why not try and identify a problem? Can't be too difficult for you, after all greenhouse gases have been known about for more than a hundred years and the effect was worked out then without a computer. Dmcq (talk) 00:18, 13 February 2014 (UTC) The problems with the GCMs are known, and discussed endlessly. The problems with the statistical methods used by the climate reconstructers are also discussed, but briefly, by statisticians. I'm not going to waste my time tilting at windmills, the real world says the GCMs don't matter. In the 12 hours since this question was asked here, the Chinese have built another 10% of a coal powered power station approximately.Greglocock (talk) 00:45, 13 February 2014 (UTC) You have said basically that increasing CO2 may have no effect in the next hundred years. That flies in the face of established science. Then you go on about China constructing loads of power stations, that is true but they also seems to have a greater drive than the US to fix their problems. Just because a person loses something doesn't mean it doesn't matter if they lose a lot more. You spent your time contributing here to say how useless climate scientists are at their work and why their conclusions should be ignored, why was it so important to you to do that? Dmcq (talk) 01:07, 13 February 2014 (UTC) The process will not improve if it is not criticised. That is how science works. Mindless acceptance of what 'experts' say is not how science is done. If one person reads all this and thinks, hang on, what Greg wrote must be wrong, and checks and finds that it isn't, then I will have helped to educate the world. A tiny little bit. Equally, if any of my statements are wrong and someone corrects them then I'll have learnt something. win win. Greglocock (talk) 01:20, 13 February 2014 (UTC) The science Reference Desk is for answering questions using established science, not for original research or speculation (even though the latter is unfortunately common). It is certainly not for improving "the process". If you believe you have something of scientific value to contribute, publish it in a respectable journal and add a reference to it. Otherwise, stop hijacking someone else's question to advance your own agenda. --Bowlhover (talk) 03:25, 13 February 2014 (UTC) And who made you God? My position is supported by some real scientists, I doubt many would support your rather deadening approach.Greglocock (talk) 03:50, 13 February 2014 (UTC) We don't do the debate thingy. μηδείς (talk) 04:33, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

GEOGRAPHY VREDE FREE STATE SOUTH AFRICA

THE ANGLE OF THE SUN RAYS FROM 1 APRIL TO 31 AUGUST AT HOURLY INTERVALS FROM 07H00 TO 18H00 AT 27DEGREES,20MINUTES AND 41.21 SECOND SOUTH AND 29DEGREES, 11MINUTES AND 17.15 SECONDS EAST" 41.132.97.178 (talk) 14:18, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

1. Please don't type in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS...it's harder to read!
2. What is your question?

If what you're looking for is a huge table of numbers for the sun angle (azimuth and elevation?) for every hour over 5 months at a very specific point on the earth's surface - then I doubt you'll find that.

However, This web page provides a way to calculate the position of the sun for any point on the earth's surface at any time of day on any day of the year. So, just enter all of your data for a particular date and time - and it'll give you the result. This website will plot a graph of sun azimuth and elevation for some period of time and some latitude and longitude - but doesn't produce an actual table of numbers. If you really need a complete numerical table - then you'll probably have to get someone to write a little computer program to calculate it all automatically. I'm sure there are plenty of standard libraries of software to do that - and whoever you employ to write the software would easily be able to find that.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:34, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I wonder how many of these standard libraries account properly for the equation of time. —Tamfang (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

respiratory insufficiency

what are the stages of respiratory insuficiency? 91.218.51.196 (talk) 14:51, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

See Respiratory insufficiency. We won't do your homework for you. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:41, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Onions and hair regrowth

I have heard that onion juice if regularly rubbed on the scalp will promote hair regrowth and will stop hair loss. Is it true ? This link claims so http://www.healthextremist.com/onion-juice-for-hair-growth-and-reversing-grey/. Can it cure even male pattern baldness? Please give your views! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.15.60.174 (talk) 15:44, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

If it was that easy, don't you think that the manufacturers of Minoxidil, Dutasteride, Finasteride and others would have saved their billions of dollars of research money?

No, it doesn't work. SteveBaker (talk) 16:00, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

What about this product Reloxe ? http://reloxe.com/store/faqs/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.15.60.174 (talk) 16:08, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

We aren't qualified to give you medical advice, but you might want to read our articles on hair restoration and management of hair loss.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:16, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, so, let's look at Reloxe shall we?

Look at the list of ingredients: here. Basically it's a vitamin pill. Now take a box of breakfast cereal off of your kitchen shelf and see what of those things you're already getting in your daily diet. Many cereal brands offer close to 100% of the RDA for most those things. Will eating two bowls of cereal every morning stop you from going bald? I really don't think so.

Now ask yourself whether we should trust these guys. Let's look at their FAQ. In there, it says "Reloxe has all of the ingredients from the market leading brand"...well, the leading brand of baldness cure is Rogain (aka Minoxidil) - which contains the active ingredient "6-Piperidin-1-ylpyrimidine-2,4-diamine 3-oxide"...how much 6-Piperidin-1-ylpyrimidine-2,4-diamine 3-oxide that is in Reloxe? OK - so let's look at their ingredients list....hmmm.....not much of that in there then! So they are evidently being "economical with the truth". If you can't trust a simple statement like that - what can you trust? If they'll lie about one thing - how can you trust anything they say? They talk vaguely about "research" - but there is no indication whatever in any of their literature that research was actually done. Do a google search for "Reloxe research" and all you find are sites parroting the same exact words from the Reloxe web site. Where is this research published? How can we check it?

Then ask yourself: If this stuff is so good, how come it's not on the store shelves with all of the other somewhat effective baldness treatments...they say that "it's not available in stores". Why is that? They say it like it's some amazingly good thing - but clearly if they sold the stuff in WalMart, they'd make a killing. The fact is that it's not in stores because stores won't sell it.

The basis of their claims are probably based around this statement in our Baldness article: "Studies have shown that poor nutrition, limited food intake, and deficiencies in certain nutrients can cause thinning. These include deficiencies of biotin, protein, zinc and poor human iron metabolism, although complete baldness is not usually seen. A diet high in animal fats (often found in fast food) and vitamin A is also thought to have an effect on hair loss." - so if you are indeed deficient in biotin/protein, zinc or iron - then perhaps you should take Reloxe because it contains all of that stuff....of course a vitamin pill will do that for you too - and those are MUCH cheaper! But anyone who can afford Reloxe is probably eating plenty enough to not be deficient in any of those things. If you really think that you are - then quit the fast food and eat some veggies.

And then of course, there is that bit about vitamin A...er...wait...our article is saying that TOO MUCH vitamin A causes baldness? This article in the American Academy of Dermatology says exactly that. But doesn't Reloxe contain vitamin A? Huh! So taking this stuff could easily CAUSE baldness?!?! Seems like it to me. If you're already eating too much fatty meat and you're going bald because of it - then it seems likely that taking Reloxe will only make matters worse.

Bottom line is these quack medications with no peer-reviewed scientific studies behind them are always, 100% of the time, useless bullshit. I only bothered to read their website because I felt it would help you to see it debunked - generally, don't give these "nutritional supplements" a second look.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:37, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Another approach is to be proud of one's baldness. It's pretty fashionable these days anyway. HiLo48 (talk) 01:41, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Works well for me! I liked the comment about StarTrek's Jean-Luc Picarde - some fan asked why, with all of their technology, the people of the 24th century hadn't yet cured male pattern baldness. The answer was that in the 24th century, nobody will need to have their baldness cured. That's a very deep and perceptive statement.

Baldness isn't a disease - 73% of men eventually go bald, and 4 out of every 7 men do so for genetic reasons. That means that the gene for baldness is the "normal" one - and those guys who never lose their hair have a genetic flaw. We don't understand why this gene is so prevalent - but evolution must have a reason. SteveBaker (talk) 03:07, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Part of the issue is that baldness is mediated by normal levels of testosterone. Every effective treatment for baldness is a testosterone antagonist (some, like finasteride, have label indications for treating benign prostatic hypertrophy on the same basis that they inhibit the action of testosterone). The women who say bald men are sexier aren't just blowing smoke. loupgarous (talk) 12:02, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

If true, then could easily explain why 4 out of every 7 men have the gene for baldness. If lack of hair is a signal to women indicating likely reproductive success, and if there is no significant survival disadvantage to being bald, then we'd tend to evolve to have the gene dominate the population. This might also explain why it only kicks in later in life - that's when a man has the biggest need to signal his continued reproductive capability. Even more interesting are the men who shave their heads in an effort to fake the presence of that gene. SteveBaker (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Historically, the vast majority of men bred long before they went significantly bald. Baldness itself is a secondary effect of genes that have other benefits. Although we certainly have a better article, see penetrance, which is all I could find. μηδείς (talk) 02:54, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Your impulse to look at traditional herbal medicine is valid, but "I heard that onion juice..." is likely to be a meme of recent origin, selected only from among the remarkably limited set of species available in an American supermarket. Of all the variants of herbal medicine, I think that Chinese herbal medicine is the most advanced as practiced, and as a matter of research, it is worth pursuing, at least provided one can track back a claim to well known compilations or widespread practice, to exclude someone who simply imported a crate of some powder and started looking for ways to market it.

Now despite that rule, a way to begin is simply to do a general web search, read a few references and list their suggestions, because they are current and understood entities. Doing so, our candidates include of course He Shou Wu (Polygonum multiflorum); Paeonia lactiflora, Angelica polymorpha, Rehmannia glutinosa, and Ligusticum wallichii or Ligustrum lucidum; the advocates of Ganoderma lucidem speak up; Cuscuta hygrophilae, Psoralea corylifolia, Schisandra chinensis, Thallus algae, Morus albus, Stinging nettle, Angelica sinensis, Eclipta prostratea, Sesame indicum, Salvia miltiorrhiza, Han Lien Tsao, Di Chien Tsao, Dong Gui, Bai Zhu, ginseng.^{www.naturalnews.com/035817_Chinese_herbs_hair_loss_baldness.html} Now these rank in popularity from He Shou Wu, which is everyone's first suggestion, to a long tail of ideas which may be someone trying to sell you the medicine shop, but potentially contains some interesting lead for further research.

Now for a proper search of PubMed. This gets us a bazaar of ideas like Pueraria thomsonii^{PMID 21822606} and tobacco leaves soaked in cow urine^{PMID 21589756} ... there's a reason why I didn't go for this first. It provides somewhat better references for, shall we say, "rare but serious side effects" like dermatitis from neem oil^{PMID 18627678} (though I stray from the subtopic...), arsenic poisoning from herbal kelp,^{PMID 17450231} and intriguingly, hepatotoxicity from Ban Tu Wan.^22878995 (this turns out to be a formulation of "Radix palygonl muliflori, Rehmannia Glutinosa, Radix et Rhizoma Rehmannia, Radix Angelicae Sinensis, Radix Salvia Mittorhiza Bge, Radix paeoniae Lactiflorae, Fructus Schixandrae, Ginseng, Fructus chaenomells, Rhizoma Notopterygli", i.e. mostly drawn from the above items) but it is intriguing that it and He Shou Wu share reports of hepatotoxicity. Note that TCM practitioners say that there is a role for liver qi in baldness, steroids cause peliosis, etc. However, I'm a bit worried the people posting side effects also have an agenda to push.

Now when we choose the most propitious spot to dig, we come up with a bit of treasure: PMID 21419834 and PMID 23896496. Unfortunately, these studies, while showing "hair growth", do so in anything but a bald man. Searching Google Scholar pulls in a bit more, including more reports of hepatotoxicity (though good herbalists of ancient times preferred topical applications), an article saying one compound in He Shou Wu is substantially more potent than minoxidil^[2] and a depressing patent where someone has identified a compound from He Shou Wu they say acts on baldness and argues that this creates a claim for any administration of an extract of Polygonum containing that compound [3] (claim 19). And you thought biopiracy was dead... Anyway, the funny thing is that hybrid Chinese-Japanese knotweed is an invasive species in the U.S. and elsewhere that occurs in tremendous abundance; many people would not need to go far to harvest this herb.

Anyway, this is a big topic, I'm not going to research it all this morning, but I encourage you to continue looking. Wnt (talk) 14:50, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Eclipse picture wanted

I'd like to see a pic of the Earth eclipsing the Sun, as seen from the Moon (or lunar orbit). Seems like this should happen often enough and we've had enough missions to the Moon that we'd have photographed this by now. However, when I Googled it I didn't find any. Maybe missions to the Moon specifically avoid these periods, so the solar panels get all the sunlight they can ?

(If anyone is curious, this event takes place in the bad sci-fi movie First Men in the Moon, adapted from the HG Wells book, but the Earth seemed entirely too small relative to the Sun in that scene, and I wanted to compare that with the real thing.) StuRat (talk) 19:13, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Given that the Earth is a lot larger than the moon, the Earth will completely cover the moonsun, and what you will see is just the dark side of the Earth. If you google for that term, there are a number of candidate images. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Presumably what Stu is looking for is a photo of earth taken during the totality phase of what we call a lunar eclipse. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:31, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Here you go: [4].

There are other pictures as well. For example, see [5]. --Bowlhover (talk) 19:45, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks ! The partial ring of light around the Earth is interesting, due to the atmosphere of the Earth being lit up. I wonder if the ring would be complete, when the Sun is directly behind the Earth. The first pic at the 2nd link makes sense, but I don't get the 2nd (blurry) pic there, or why the incomplete section of the ring at the first link is actually near the side where the Sun is. StuRat (talk) 03:01, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

A few clicks from Bowlhover's link brings me to the Kaguya press release associated with the photo. That dark area that interrupts the Earth's circle is the lunar horizon. According to the release, this photo was the first time that such an eclipse was ever photographed from the moon.... so I'm not sure how the Apollo photos of Earth occluding the sun fit into that history. I suppose lunar orbit "counts," but transitional orbit from Moon to Earth does not. Nimur (talk) 07:57, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks all, I'll mark this Q resolved. StuRat (talk) 19:26, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

Well, I'll call it resolved if Chang'e 3 keeps going and going and going... until April 15, and sends back good pictures! Wnt (talk) 19:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)