Science desk
< June 12	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 14 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 13

Size difference and premature birth

In mammal hybrids, if the mother's breed tends to be much smaller at birth than the father's, does this increase the risk of a premature birth? Of injury to the mother during birth? Of the offspring being malnourished due to insufficient lactation? Neon Merlin 04:50, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Dystocia is one of the leading causes of stillbirth. DroneB (talk) 10:21, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As an example, you could look at hinny, a cross between a male horse and a female donkey. Our article doesn’t say much, but maybe some references there would help. Loraof (talk) 16:19, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That, along with mule, indicate the size of the offspring is influenced by the size of the mother. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:23, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Lignite mines in Gujarat

Does anyone know a source for the annual production (or capacity) of the Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation lignite mines

Thanks in advance!--DCKH (talk) 12:12, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No odor disinfectants

Is there any disinfectants I can use similar to lysol that I can mix with water to mop my floors or clean with that do not have an odor? I like lysol but the odor is too strong especially when mopping.--User777123 (talk) 19:54, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you just search Google or Amazon for "odorless disinfectant" you'll get a variety of results, though I can't personally vouch for any of them. A lot use dissolved silver as the disinfectant. Research has shown that at the appropriate concentrations, dissolved silver (usually as silver nanoparticles in a solution of water and sodium citrate) is effective as a disinfectant, but slow acting, often taking hours to fully sterilize a surface rather than minutes for harsher chemicals: [1]. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:17, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but they won't be very useful for cleaning. The Lysol product that the OP is talking about is not just a disinfectant, it also contains solvents that loosen dirt from the surface. It won't be easy to find a powerful solvent that doesn't irritate the nasal cavity if it is inhaled. Looie496 (talk) 23:26, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are odorous but volatile disinfectants, which are odorless in the sense that they evaporate without leaving a smelly residue (contrary to perfumed disinfectants like Lysol). For home use I'd suggest sodium hypochlorite (or sodium percarbonate) or an acid like hydrochloric or acetic acid. Alkalis can be mixed with surfactants, acids usually cannot. I use a mixture of dishwashing detergent and sodium hypochlorite, it works great. --185.13.106.237 (talk) 23:35, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Borax (sodium borate) is an odor-free, and readily available option, (it also has anti-fungal properties and repels ants). The Disinfectant article might be of interest. —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 05:22, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Or use microfibre cloth with steam cleaning: [2]. --62.99.192.174 (talk) 15:52, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]