Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 March 28

= March 28 =

Dolomiti Direkt
Does the Dolomiti Direkt Bank belongs to Südtiroler Sparkasse? I can´t find the Bank in this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCdtiroler_Sparkasse_%E2%80%93_Cassa_di_Risparmio_di_Bolzano but on the website of Dolomiti Bank Direkt there is the Logo of Südtiroler Sparkasse--Ip80.123 (talk) 12:02, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, it appears to be a brand of theirs. See the Sparkasse's corresponding page on direct banking: (in German) or  (in Italian). ---Sluzzelin  talk  12:33, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Is eating sweet corn really dangerous?
Apparently my body has a hard time digesting sweet corn. In fact, I wonder if I'm able to extract any nutrional value out of it at all. This got me wondering, what if I was stuck on a desert island where the only thing that grew was sweet corn? Wouldn't this be incredibly dangerous and kill me pretty quick. Much the same as swallowing beach pebbles would. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.5.255.114 (talk) 18:04, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * sweet corn is not dangerous at all, of course....unless you're allergic to it..it may not be as healthy as other things relatively speaking, however...according to the google nutritional display for sweet corn, you could get just about all your nutritional needs if you ate a dozen or so ears a day, including fiber, protein, vitamin C...you could live a very long time on this alone...the human body can withstand A LOT...68.48.241.158 (talk) 18:33, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * It's one of the least healthy veggies, for several reasons. It has little protein, and it's nutritional completeness score is only 48/100: .  However, it can take people several months to starve to death when eating nothing, and babies can survive for years on human milk alone, which is even more nutritionally incomplete (29/100): .  So, I'd predict it might take years to actually die from a sweet corn-only diet.  Lack of sodium might be one of the biggest problems.  (We aren't used to thinking of sodium as being critical, but it really is, it's just that in our culture we get way too much.)  Boiling the corn in seawater would solve that, provided you had a pot and way to build a fire.  If not, you could just dip it in seawater and eat it raw, but that would subject you to microbes and parasites in the seawater, which could possibly kill you before starvation would have.  StuRat (talk) 18:49, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Things go bad on any single-ingredient diet. Corn has its own special problems though. See Nixtamalization. The indigenous Americans all knew to slake their corn, but when white Europeans showed up, they thought it was fine to eat it without any treatment. In the short term, and with an otherwise diverse diet, that is fine. However in the long term, if you subsist largely on un-slaked corn, you would likely get Pellagra. See the "history" section of that article for more details on how it affected Europeans in the Americas. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:28, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * bottom line though: if otherwise healthy you'll die in a matter of several weeks if you eat nothing at all...whereas eating just corn you'd live at least many, many months and possible many years...you'd be thanking the corn for all that it was providing you instead of dwelling on what is wasn't..68.48.241.158 (talk) 19:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I think the "apparent assumption" is at least questionable. Very often, the shells of whole kernels are not digested and passed out again. It looks as if the kernel has not been digested at all, but in reality, the internals have all been consumed, leaving just the outer shell. There is a Naked Scientists discussion here and an article here. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Unless you swallow it without actually chewing :-) Alansplodge (talk) 21:32, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * In that case I would still assume stomach acids are able to dissolve the internals. See stomach acid. No references though. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 22:27, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The problem is that stomach acid takes time to dissolve the contents, and the less the surface area for the reaction, the longer it will take, and it's only in the stomach for a few hours. So, chewing helps to squish the contents out to where they can be digested and more acid can get inside the kernel to dissolve anything left in there.  Also, slitting each kernel with a knife while on the cob can help to increase the surface area and thus make it more digestible. StuRat (talk) 22:50, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Urine
This word confuses me.

What are the origins for it.

When I say it, it's like I'm saying "yer rine"

It's like I'm saying it's someones rine (rine is like germanic for rhine, the name of a river)

So Im saying its your river.

In effect when refurring to my pee, I should say myrine

I dont understand this language. what gives? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.252.206.39 (talk) 18:13, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=urine68.48.241.158 (talk) 18:36, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The similarity in sound between urine and you is coincidental - urine is from the latin word urina, but the latin for you is vos or tu. Totally different. 217.44.50.87 (talk) 20:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * BTW, we Brits, for no apparent reason, generally pronounce it as "your-in", but the other way is heard sometimes too. Alansplodge (talk) 21:30, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The traditional British pronunciation is still /ˈjʊərɪn/ (you're in), Alan, but I agree that you southerners probably say /ˈjɔːrɪn/.  It comes from Old twelfth-century French, by the way, from Latin ūrīna and related to Greek οὖρον. Many European languages have a similarly-derived word.     D b f i r s   07:08, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, to my southern ears, "you're-in" and "your-in" are homophones, so I'm going to have to take your word for it. Alansplodge (talk) 08:00, 31 March 2016 (UTC)