Science desk
< August 31	<< Aug \| September \| Oct >>	Current desk >

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.

September 1

Avective movement

I was recently reading about water movement, and came across the phrase "avective movement". I understand what advection (with a "d") is (movement of something in the water along with the bulk movement of the water itself). Is "avection" just another name for (or perhaps a misspelling of) that? Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:04, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Its a printing error. There are only 2 words with "vection" in Fluid dynamics. Advection and convection. --Kharon (talk) 01:33, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I asked because I came upon it in a book, where it appears many times in various chapters, so I wasn't confident that it was just a one-time typographical error. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:50, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What are charged polymers used for?

I'm interested in all uses. I do know the charged polymers are used as flocculants. 2600:1002:B018:80CC:DD95:93FC:45D9:2C40 (talk) 20:40, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No clue if this is helpful, but the relevant WP article seems to be Polyelectrolyte (cf Flocculation). 2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 00:49, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mainly used as part of Polymer capacitors which can be found in almost everything counted as electronics today. --Kharon (talk) 01:45, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ion exchange resins would be a large application. 202.155.85.18 (talk) 07:54, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Doing serum electrolytes home ?

I wonder if technology exists to measure blood electrolytes in home conditions and I mean mostly sodium and potassium? Thanks, AboutFace 22 (talk) 22:38, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are in-home test strips for sodium only (from urine), but other electrolytes require blood sample. There was an interesting "prototype wearable microneedle device" from Sandia Labs (2014):[1]. 2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 01:02, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, it is interesting. I wonder what progress has been made since 2014 when this article was published? Do you have any idea if this devices has been approved by the FDA? Or perhaps it is commercially available already? Thanks, AboutFace 22 (talk) 14:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find any subsequent references in the usual places. 2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 18:47, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]