Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2017 December 20

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December 20

Cognitive task where children were much better than adults

I'm trying to find/remember an scientific article about a task/game were small children outperformed adults by far. It was not learning languages. I think it was something like playing Concentration (game)--Hofhof (talk) 01:46, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

This is probably not it, but there was an episode of Brain Games (National Geographic) in which subjects were asked to do something concerning a board that showed pictures of animals along with their names - the wrong names, I think. That factor messed with the adults' heads. But it didn't bother one subject: a very young girl who hadn't learned how to read yet! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:18, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

That anecdote is a twist on the Stroop effect. (A common variant is a list of names of colors where each item is printed in the 'wrong' color, e.g. Green Red Blue. The task is to say the color of each word ("red", "green", "orange") and not just read the list.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:54, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

It's a much cooler experiment with people that have had their cranial hemispheres bisected along the sagittal plane to treat seizures. Instructions: Say the word and write the word. They have no idea that they wrote something different from what they said. BTW, there's lots of cognitive tests that develop and slow adults down. One has to do with why children often write letters and numbers backward. Adults catch these errors very quickly while children are still applying basic recognition. A "chair" is still a "chair" regardless as to whether the seat is on left of the back or the right. The letter "h" is only an "h" if the seat is on the right. That's a big step in cognition. I have a feeling that in elderly people, it progresses to knowing it's incorrect but unable to identify what is incorrect. --DHeyward (talk) 06:05, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Are you thinking of a practical & imaginative task/game? Nathan Furr in Forbes describes the Marshmallow Challenge:

"Why Kindergartners Make Better Entrepreneurs than MBAs - As it turns out Tom Wujec has run this same marshmallow experiment hundreds of times and found something interesting patterns. When comparing the performance of different groups, Wujec found that, for all their training, MBAs actually perform the worst on average in building marshmallow towers. Engineers perform moderately well (thank goodness), but which group performs the best? Kindergartners! But why? The reason is quite simple: MBAs want to plan their way to an optimal outcome and then execute on the plan. <snip> In contrast, kindergartners do something much different. Instead of wasting time trying to establish who is in charge or make a plan, they simply experiment over and over until they find a model that works."[1]

Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:15, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Children are better at instantly recalling numbers displayed on a screen for a fraction of a second than adults. And Chimpanzees are even better at such instant recall tests. Count Iblis (talk) 17:28, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The claim has indeed been made for the Concentration game [2], but this has more recently been questioned [3]. Jmchutchinson (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Crop rotation

Where do sunflowers fit in in terms of crop rotation? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:0:0:0:64DA (talk) 09:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

There are too many other factors for a simple answer - where are you growing them, what else is being grown as well, what technologies and agrichemicals are available. Wymspen (talk) 10:47, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, suppose you are following a variant of the Norfolk four-course system (cereal crop, root crop, cereal crop, legume crop), in a temperate climate (say, Oregon), with mechanized tillage and harvesting, and using chemical fertilizers, but with minimal herbicide use. 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:0:0:0:64DA (talk) 11:05, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

If you Google "sunflowers crop rotation" (without quote marks), there are a lot of references including SUNFLOWER: A Native Oilseed with Growing Markets from Iowa State University. Alansplodge (talk) 15:09, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

This pretty much answers my question! Thanks! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:0:0:0:64DA (talk) 12:46, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Looking for any reliable sources regarding "brainwashed" experiment

I am trying to construct a reliable article (in Hebrew Wikipedia) regarding this rather shocking experiment. I couldn't find any. Google Scholar yielded nothing while looking for it, or finding relevant results regarding Dr. Mark Stokes or Dr. Synthia Meyersburg, the leading scientists behind the experiment. I recall that in the past there was an article here, but it seems it got deleted. Any input is welcome! אילן שמעוני (talk) 11:49, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Those individuals don't have articles here either. On Google, I see a lot of Mark Stokeses, and a number of Cynthia Meyersburgs, but no Synthia Meyersburg. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:54, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly my results so far. אילן שמעוני (talk) 13:30, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The Truth: Massacre at Cinema 16 in Aurora Colorado (p. 96) by Steve Unruh (2014), Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency, LLC. ISBN 978-1628570830: "Entitled Brainwashed, the experiment was overseen by Harvard Univeristy's Dr. Cynthia Meyersburg and Oxford University's Dr. Mark Stokes, and certified hypnotherapist Tom Silver and how suggestible they were". Alansplodge (talk) 14:09, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Also a mention on the Coastal Carolina University website: CCU science professor featured on Discovery Channel program (October 26, 2012). It seems to have been an experiment staged for a TV program rather than pure academic research: Discovery Channel’s Curiosity episode “Brainwashed” disappoints. Alansplodge (talk) 14:19, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

it was an experiment conducted by amateurs supposedly under professionals supervision. While not a scientific experiment per se, exposed to peer reviews, the fact that two scientists did took charge calls for attention. אילן שמעוני (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

It sounds like pseudo-science. They might just as well have run The Naked Gun movie, where Reggie Jackson is hypnotically "programmed" to kill the queen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:22, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Unless two researchers with academic recognition (both of them, especially Stokes, have reputable, peer-reviewed and cited scientific articles)were willing to put their good reputation to risk, which is not likely, this can not be neither a hoax nor pseudo-science. I am looking for evidence weather it was a BAD science. Weather the methodology was rigorous and thorough enough, and to understand why no response came from any academic body. It would seem that such claim requires follow-up controlled experiments. There is some research articles with the claim that such claim is feasible, like THEODORE XENOPHON BARBER: Antisocial and Criminal Acts Induced by "Hypnosis", A Review of Experimental and Clinical Findings, 1961. אילן שמעוני (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Take a look on Germany regarding electric cars and Diesel emissions. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 17:24, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The crucial difference is that in the diesel pollution fraud at stake were entire careers (i.e. the fraudulent researchers were employed by the fraudulent companies), while here we deal with an isolated project. It is highly unlikely that Stokes and Meyersburg would put at risk their entire career for a single one-time reward. Furthermore, since both do have an ongoing career as scientists, such evidence for a pure-and-straight fraud is bound to be either non-existent or extremely hard to prove. Hard core sciences such as neuroscience are unforgiving fields. I urge the skeptics here to try to look further into the matter. Skepticism is indeed sacred, but here it is pointed at an obviously unlikely candidates. There are many questions that are open regarding this, especially the result feasibility and the ensuing lack of academic response - neither condemning nor adopting the outstanding results. אילן שמעוני (talk) 18:42, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Unless two researchers with academic recognition (...) were willing to put their good reputation to risk... Luc Montagnier is a Nobel prize of medecine. He also made an infamous "memory of water" study. Even if it wasn't a POV-push for homeopathy (he is dancing the line around "it is not enough to prove homeopathy works but it certainly means we should give it more attention"), it was certainly crap science and would have sunk his reputation regardless of the subject. There are a few other Nobel prize recipients who went on saying batshit crazy things and put their good reputation to risk though usually outside their area of expertise or outside science altogether (see e.g. James_Watson#Avoid_Boring_People,_UK_book_tour_and_resignation, Ivar_Giaever#Global_warming). Even if you think one of those guys in is the right, you probably don't think all of them are, and the will to bet one's reputation is nothing more than an appeal to authority. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 08:49, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Brainwashing is common language. In science the technology or principle is called "conditioning". See our articles about Classical conditioning, Second-order conditioning, Social conditioning, Covert conditioning etc. etc. I would recommend to stay skeptical about related "stories" and "conspiracy theories" altho this technology is without doubt used everywhere. Sometimes with great (or huge:) success on a grand scale especially in the field of commercials for product and brands and of course in politics. --Kharon (talk) 23:22, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Pharmaceutical trademarks/patents?

Are there any drugs that are in the public domain? For example, can only Tylenol, make Tylenol, only Benadryl, make Benadryl? Aren't some common medicine like aspirin, the ingredients are public, so any pharmaceutical company can make their version of it? They just can't give it a new name.

I'm also asking about how we draw the line for trademarks/patents. For example, take 3% hydrogen peroxide, which is 97% water. That can't be patented or given a trademark name, right? The 1st company that made it. And any chemical or pharmaceutical company can manufacture and sell it, right? Then what if you came up with something that was also 1% this and .5% that. I know there are various types of bleaches that are roughly 8-10% NaOCl and 1% NaOH, but with different patents, like Chlorox. Thanks. 12.130.157.65 (talk) 19:18, 20 December 2017 (UTC).

The majority of drugs are in the public domain. Tylenol and Benadryl are simply trademarks for particular formulations of acetaminophen (a.k.a. paracetamol, APAP) and diphenhydramine, repectively. APAP and diphenhydramine are in hundreds of different formulations, often combined with other drugs. So in the very literal sense, yes, no one else can make something called "Tylenol" or "Benadryl" without permission from the holders of those trademarks. But, anyone can market their own APAP or diphenhydramine under a different name, and many do. These are generic drugs. At least in the U.S. it's standard in most stores that sell over-the-counter drugs to see the store's own generic brand of a medication on the shelf next to the brand-name version(s). "Aspirin" is actually an odd case because it was originally a trademark of Bayer, and in some countries it still is. However, in most of the English-speaking world, Bayer lost its trademark, and since the trademark was well-known, most English-speakers just kept using it as the name of the drug. As the article states, the International Nonproprietary Name for "aspirin" is acetylsalicylic acid, but you won't see this in English outside of the medical literature, where having a standard, neutral, "official" name for a drug is important so everyone's "on the same page". --47.157.122.192 (talk) 19:51, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Canada is one of the countries where Aspirin is still a trademark, but the long phrase "acetylsalicylic acid" is confined to the fine print. What the large lettering on brands other than Bayer says is "ASA". For example, these. --69.159.60.147 (talk) 21:08, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

For starters, read our article on trademarks and patents. If you're interested in the rules that apply to the United States, have a look at:

• General Information Concerning Patents
  • What is a Patent? What Is a Trademark?

Trademarks and patents are not the same thing.

To help explain the difference: Tylenol is a brand-name of the drug acetaminophen. In the United States, Tylenol is only sold by Johnson & Johnson. Other companies may sell the drug acetaminophen but they must call it by a different name. Specific rules apply to the way that the drug can be labeled.

A confounding detail that makes the scenario less clear is the case of a generic trademark: in that case, a brand-name may exist for so long, and become so widely-known as an interchangeable word for the product, that the Government no longer authorizes protection of the exclusivity of that name.

Further, the OP has asked, "...That can't be patented or given a trademark name, right?"

...well, here's some bad news for you: you need a lawyer to get a correct answer to that. Patent law is extraordinarily complicated. You can apply to patent anything you like; the patent office will decide if your patent meets their requirements, (e.g. is it even eligible? ...is it obvious? ...is it equivalent to prior work?) - and they may even grant you a patent for it - even if somebody else has already patented it; but the strength of the protection that it offers depends entirely on how well you know how to use existing legal infrastructure. Granted patents can be invalidated, overturned, bought, sold, negotiated; they may expire; they may be useful or useless; they may provide legal protection for something you can't actually do (reasons of technical difficulty, legality, commercial interest, or any other reasons)... this is why people pay thousands of dollars to specialized attorneys to get real legal advice, because free advice about patents is worth very little.

Let's put it in laymans' terms: you can't patent a drug: you patent a "process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter," or an "ornamental design," or a "variety of plant." And you can't trademark a drug: you trademark a "word, name, symbol, or device," (in the sense of an "emblem").

So - if your new and useful mixture of bleach constituted a "new and useful composition of matter," you could patent that; or you could patent a "new and useful" process for making it; and you could trademark the graphical and verbal means that you use to distinguish your mixture of bleach during actual trade. All of these items are totally orthogonal to the other legal questions about whether you could make, market, and sell it as a food or drug - which is typically subject to the regulatory oversight of the FDA, explained on their website: What We Do. FDA, and many other regulators, will probably have authority to regulate what you make and market.

Nimur (talk) 20:50, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

As a brief note, lumping both inventions and ornamental designs under the heading of "patents" is a peculiarity mostly to the US. Other jurisdictions have more of a separation between patents (for inventions) and registered designs (for ornamental/aesthetic designs). MChesterMC (talk) 14:57, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't see where you are getting that nonsense; ornamental designs are not patented in the US, although they may be trademarked, and the trademark may be registered. μηδείς (talk) 03:03, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Ornamental designs can be patented in the United States. From the content I just linked: What Can Be Patented: "The patent laws provide for the granting of design patents to any person who has invented any new and non-obvious ornamental design for an article of manufacture."

This is called a "design patent" and it is actually one of the easier types to get (in terms of percentage of all applications granted). U.S. Patent Statistics Report, and Design Patents Report. Companies like Samsung, Nike, Sony, and Apple are among the top-ranked grant recipients in recent years. If you look at the legal information pages for any of those companies, you will find extensive further information: for example, here is guidance for dealing with Apple's intellectual property, which includes patents, trademarks, and copyrights: Intellectual Property.

In US law, patent protection is distinct from trademark protection. It is common for a company to use all legal instruments to protect their intellectual property; so, for example, the word "iPhone" is a registered trademark, and the ornamental design of the iPhone is covered by many patents - many of which have been successfully tested in court. In particular, Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. rose all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, where - for the interested reader - the court held an opinion "...consistent with §171(a) of the Patent Act, which makes certain “design[s] for an article of manufacture” eligible for design patent protection," and refined and clarified their position "to permit a design patent that extends to only a component of a multicomponent product."

This legal-ese jibberish was worth $399 million (or some fraction thereof, to be determined in a future trial); so - unlike a bitcoin investment - a strategic design patent is enough to buy a pretty good private jet.

Nimur (talk) 04:54, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

...And, since the original question was about medications, here are a few examples of design patents assigned to Johnson & Johnson, the corporation who exclusively distributes Tylenol, among many other healthcare and consumer products, in the United States:

• D440,156 ...The ornamental design for a combined bottle and cap, as shown and described.
• D574,999 The ornamental design for a skin treatment article,...

And you can easily find thousands of utility patents that might pertain to various products they sell (or could sell).

So, as you see, they protect anything and everything their lawyers and business analysts think they should protect - including the ornamental design of the fuzzy pad you might use to wipe their products on your fuzzy ... skin.

Nimur (talk) 05:09, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

The confusion arose because I took design to mean two-dimensional symbol or logo, like the one Prince used when not publishing as Prince; not design as in three-dimensional form. μηδείς (talk) 16:15, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Recycling cardboard that has stickers on it

I read this article on Earth911's website, and while I already knew about the grease and food issue, and about the kind of gummy glue that is used in some junk mail, I'm curious about the glue issue for coupons on pizza boxes. I work for Pizza Hut, and the coupons we put on top of the boxes have the same kind of glue that is used on shipping labels and similar stickers, not that gummy glue that I already knew is bad for the recycling process. Are they saying that the sticker glue ruins batches of paper too, or are they talking about other pizza chains (or mom & pop restaurants) using the gummy type of glue? If that's the case, how do they recycle any cardboard when almost all of it has some form of glue, stickers, or tape on it? 76.3.174.28 (talk) 20:40, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Almost all recycled paper or card has some degree of contamination. What the recycling companies have to worry about is the level of contamination: the buyers of the paper will accept a small amount, but if the level of contaminants is too high they will reject the batch, or pay less for it. [4] [5] Wymspen (talk) 14:25, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

I always put pizza boxes straight into the trash. If the landfill folks have a process to try to glean recyclables from trash, they can make the decision of what to do with it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:45, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Bugs, many countries have separate wheelie bins for recycling. Only paper, cardboard, cans and glass may be put in them. In my neighbourhood, there's even a third collection of food scraps, peelings, etc, in small bins about 35 centimetres (14 in) by 30 centimetres (12 in) by 40 centimetres (16 in). The householder lines the inside of the bin with a plastic liner, which is itself recyclable. The collection operator simply empties the bin into his truck. Akld guy (talk) 20:55, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we have two bins, one for recycles and one for trash. And anything that appears to be have significant food contamination (such as a pizza box) I put into the trash. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:27, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Further to Akld guy, in my area (in southern England, but rules differ with each Local Authority) households have one (LA-provided) bin for general refuse, one for recyclable paper, cardboard, plastics and cans (cleaned/washed as necessary), one for glass, and one for (industrially) compostable food waste, plus opt-in collections of garden waste. Additionally, batteries can be placed in plastic bags to be collected alongside the glass. General refuse is destined for landfill because it would be uneconomic to sort it, but if one takes items to the nearest LA Recycling centre (aka "tip"), tinfoil, metals, light bulbs/tubes, and clothing can instead be deposited separately, and any burnable waste can be sent to an incinerator to generate electricity. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.220.212.173 (talk) 10:34, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I meant to point out, but forgot, that the food scrap collection in the very small bins is run by a company that turns it into manure and sells it for fertilizer. Akld guy (talk) 20:51, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

I usually rip the top half of the pizza box off and recycle it and throw the greasy bottom half in the garbage, which is acceptable according to the county. 76.3.174.28 (talk) 13:08, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

How do plants deal with dust coating their leaves?

I came across this old account of a "coughing" plant, which I suspect is nothing but a tall tale, but it got me wondering: plants in deserts must sometimes get coated in windblown dust which could impede respiration and photosynthesis by getting on the leaves. How do they cope with this? Can any plants actually expel dust like the "coughing" plant? 23:37, 20 December 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.228.153.91 (talk)

For leafy plants, at least, as far as I know the carbon dioxide intake occurs on the under side of the leaves. (Photosynthesis) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:05, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

It appears that the American Botanist thought little of this story at the time, calling it a "myth". [6] They would perhaps have been more persuasive if they did not provide the sensitivity of Mimosa as the other example of a plant myth in that article.

The original link claims that this "Eutada tussiens" is in fact an Entada species, mentioning Entada scandens while evading any implication that is the plant intended. The story is that the plant is from humid tropical climes, though it ends up being described as coughing in the Sahara. I am reminded of jumping beans, of which the more famous is the Mexican jumping bean, but perhaps Spirostachys africana, being at least African, is more relevant. Jumping beans jump because moth larvae try to move them away from heat, and it seems conceivable this could be observed as "coughing" and thought to be due to the dust rather than the heat. Wnt (talk) 03:13, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the interesting reply. The American Botanist article also includes something about an orchid that extends a tube to suck up water, about which I can't find anything. Seems like these fantastical tales were inspired, at least partially, by the real mimosa which that article dismisses. 169.228.153.91 (talk) 03:32, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

As has been said, respiration occurs through the underside of most leaves, making dust less of a problem. It would take a very thick coating of dust to prevent sunlight penetrating, and in most situations dust would be removed by either the rain or the wind - and most places where plants can grow do get at least one of those. Wymspen (talk) 14:28, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

By that same token, many desert plants, such as the cactus, do not have leaves in the usual sense. My understanding is that this is attributed mostly to reducing moisture loss, but it could also serve more than one purpose. Matt Deres (talk) 16:22, 21 December 2017 (UTC)