Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2011 July 26

= July 26 =

Penile exsanguination
Can traumatic amputation of the penis really cause someone to bleed to death? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 00:31, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What would cause you to suppose that it wouldn't be possible? -- Jayron  32  00:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I've seen sources pointing both ways, but none are in any way reliable sources. And I meant under normal circumstances. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 00:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I firmly disagree that any circumstances involving traumatic amputation of the penis should be considered 'normal'. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:49, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What I meant was, if you cut the penis off of an avergae man, would he bleed to death without medical intervention? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 00:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Define "medical intervention". If you've got a man, tied up, hanging in such a way as to maximize blood flow out of the wound, and restricted in such a way that he cannot even stop the wound himself, and you sever his penis, would it be impossible for him to die from the wound?  I don't see why not.  It may not be guaranteed he would die, but it also may not be guaranteed he would survive.  It would be a possibility he could bleed out.  You could open a similarly sized wound in a part of the body with similar blood flow and cause a similar amount of blood loss.  Still, if you've got a man tied up and you are removing his penis in this manner, I'm not sure his general well-being is of primary concern for you.  -- Jayron  32  01:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

You hear all those stories in the news, a recent one where the wife ran it through the garbage disposer, and none of them say the man bled to death. μηδείς (talk) 00:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Definitely. You only have to Google penis and "bled to death". As one website puts it, "There is some pretty serious veinage in the penis area." Wikipedia predictably has a list of cases of penis removal.--Shantavira|feed me 07:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I guess the stories ending in death aren't that newsworthy...lol...i think. μηδείς (talk) 09:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * More likely to do with the fact most men are going to seek medical attention even if what was cut of has been destroyed by the garbage disposer. Edit: Actually it appears the better answer is you are mistaken about there being no cases in the news where the victim bled to death since our article linked to above mentions several cases where it did happen (one was stabbed as well but this isn't mentioned for the rest). Also in the garbage disposal case the perpetrator herself called the authorities. Nil Einne (talk) 10:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * "In January, 1994, Taichung, Taiwan, Chien Liu-liang, age 51, cut off Yao Kuan-jung's penis with scissors, and threw it into the toilet after learning of his affairs. Yao bled to death." Don't know if that's typical without stitches/reattachment though... Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 13:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

There is an unpleasant picture (I am not inclined to give the link) of a piglet that died of a prolapse after a farmer's clumsy castration (of the pig, not the farmer). Sight of the picture might cause everyone to vomit "Whoop whoop". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:37, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * And then there's Detachable Penis. which we have an article on. Bus stop (talk) 22:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I woke up this morning with a bad hangover, and my penis was missing again...-- Jayron  32  16:31, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Theoretically ANY injury could result in exsanguination, but I've never seen a reliable source say it was likely. There is a lot of venous drainage but it doesn't have the incoming bloodflow of, say, a major artery.  Does it happen? obviously it does. Then again I noticed watching TV that Mythbusters is full of those "damn unlucky" where they test it and test it and it should be impossible but a handful of verifiable cases exist. I would judge this one, "obviously happens, but I don't think it's as likely or common as the internet would tell you" HominidMachinae (talk) 05:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That list shows a remarkable preponderance for China & south-east Asia. Axl ¤  [Talk]  07:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Preference for extreme versions of traits in evolution
I'm trying to remember the name of a particular concept in the theory of evolution. I read about this many years ago but can no longer find any reference to it. It's something like this: if an animal has evolved to look for something that has certain traits, what it will actually look for and prefer is the essentials of that percept, so that the particular measurements don't matter, and it will just want more of the essentials regardless of whether such a thing would actually ever be found in reality. The example I remember had to do with sheep preferring to follow a fake sheep's bottom over a real one because the fake one had more contrast, and therefore, to the sheep, was more "sheep bottom-ish". Another example would be the minimalistic style of cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse with large, expressive eyes that convey emotions quickly. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? -- ✶♏✶ 00:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If the selection is for one extreme version, it's called "directional selection." If it's for both extreme versions, it's called "disruptive selection." Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 00:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * See Fisherian runaway. -- Jayron  32  00:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds like you are after Supernormal Stimuli ?Vespine (talk) 01:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * YES. That is exactly it, Vespine. Thank you. -- ✶♏✶ 01:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Metals in gas form
Other than mercury vapour, are there any other common metals-as-gas? 207.81.30.213 (talk) 06:22, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

All metals can exist in the gas phase. Plasmic Physics (talk) 07:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What does gaseous mercury look like, say at atmospheric pressure? Is it just a transparent gas?  Or does it have a colour? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * According to our article, mercury is a liquid between -38°C and +357°C so it is not a "common metal-as-gas". List of elements seems to indicate that mercury is indeed the metal with the lowest boiling point at standard pressure, 630 K, though that list doesn't include the boiling points of the artificially-created heavy elements (atomic number > 98) which have such short half-lives it is impossible to measure many of their physical properties.  Astronaut (talk) 14:02, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't einsteinium (element 99) and fermium (element 100), which have long enough half-lives to be isolatable in macroscopic quantities, have therefore long enough half-lives to measure their physical properties? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)ko


 * Considering, we don't have images of macroscopic quantites, I doubt it. Plasmic Physics (talk) 15:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Uh, Einsteinium.jpg? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 16:01, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Marvelous! μηδείς (talk) 20:20, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Good one einstein, it's not Einsteinium metal, it's a compound of it in solution. Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "Quartz vial (9 mm diameter) containing ~300 micrograms of Es-253 solid." I now have serious doubts about your statement. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 10:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, statement withdrawn. Plasmic Physics (talk) 06:44, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

By some definitions, hydrogen is a metal when you get it in the solid state, so one could say that at room temperature it is a gaseous metal. The problem is, by definition, a metal has to be solid or liquid; you can't get the "cloud" behavior of electrons when the material is in a gaseous state (as far as I know, someone please correct me if I'm wrong), which is the defining characteristic of a metal.- Running On Brains (talk) 23:35, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Read the article you linked - hydrogen is only a metal under extremely high pressures. Icek (talk) 11:15, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you I forgot to point that out. My example was meant to be slightly absurd anyway. My argument about the inability of gasses to be metallic still stands (although I am curious about the implications if I am wrong). - Running On Brains (talk) 15:38, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Runningonbrains is essentially correct here. For all intents and purposes, the defining characteristic of metals is metallic bonding; gases by definition are unbound, so cannot be metals.  You can have elements from the so-called "metallic" regions of the periodic table which are in the gas phase; for example you can have, say, gas phase mercury molecules.  However, that is gas phase mercury, and not a metal. -- Jayron  32  16:30, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That makes sense now.  My question is now, are there any gaseous compounds that are common or familiar that contain these "metallics"? 207.81.30.213 (talk) 05:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You mean gaseous at room temperature and standard pressure? I can't think of any.  There are some with semimetals or metalloids &mdash; see arsine and silane. --Trovatore (talk) 05:58, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * UF6 is the lowest-boiling/sublimating-temperature compound at 1 atm I can think of that has a "definitely metal atom" in it. OsO4 is not a low-boiling compound, but it does readily sublime at room conditions (it's usually supplied in solutions of known concentration so one does not need to handle the pure material). Whether these are "common" (or especially "familiar") is a matter of opinion:) DMacks (talk) 06:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Taking a cue from UF6, turns out that several other metal hexafluorides are low-boiling materials. DMacks (talk) 07:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Another point to make, all substances have vapour pressures in the solid state, even tungsten metal. Given a couple million years, one miligram of tungsten should completely sublime. Plasmic Physics (talk) 06:41, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That depends on the surface area (not the vapor pressure, but the time). How did calculate or where did you look up the couple million years? Icek (talk) 15:47, 29 July 2011 (UTC)


 * It's a guess, assuming the piece of tungsten is spherical, and the sublimation rate is constant, and a non-equilibrium. Plasmic Physics (talk) 00:24, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

formula of separation
Is there a formula, which relates or connects (or separates) the mass/energy ratio of each subatomic particle so far found hiding in the nucleus of an atom? --DeeperQA (talk) 07:01, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * There are obviously experimental values for particle masses, but I don't think there is a theoretical formula that does what you want. In the Standard Model of particle physics, the masses of the elementary particles are input parameters, so the model takes them as given and does not attempt to explain them or derive them from other parameters. If we knew more about the Higgs boson then we might find a deeper connection between these mass values. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * How about an approximation formula like the one that relates the orbits of the planets? --DeeperQA (talk) 13:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * No simple formula exists. Models beyond the standard model such as grand unified theory, supersymmetry, and technicolor often provide frameworks where relationships between the masses of different particles do arise, but the relationships are complex, involving solutions of differential equations. They are not simple algebraic relationships. Dauto (talk) 14:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * How about weight coefficients from neural networking? --DeeperQA (talk) 14:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * What about them? Dauto (talk) 16:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Surely there is a neural networking model of subatomic particle mass and energy relations compared with other particles. --DeeperQA (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC).


 * I never heard of one. Dauto (talk) 19:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Technicolor?! Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Dauto meant Technicolor (physics). Deor (talk) 15:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 15:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed. thanks for pointing that out. I had the link fixed. Dauto (talk) 16:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

While they don't hide in the nucleus, the masses of the charged leptons obey the Koide formula. Icek (talk) 11:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * That's interesting. Dauto (talk)
 * See also the recently-confirmed CPT symmetry. ~ AH1 (discuss!) 00:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

massaging muscles
I don't understand the difference between chiropractic & osteopathy.--74.176.42.52 (talk) 13:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Your IP is American, so let me give an American answer. In the US, American osteopathy is practiced by fully licensed physicians (known as a doctor of osteopathy or DO), with similar training and equal rights to the better known medical doctors (i.e. MDs).  Such individuals have the training to recognize a wide variety of ailments and respond appropriately, including with medication or surgery.  A chiropractor, in the US, will have less training than an MD or DO, and generally is not permitted to write prescriptions or perform surgery.  Their practice focuses on the manual manipulation of the musculoskeletal system, sometimes with the aid of advanced imaging technology.  In many ways their background and training is more similar to focused professional degree like dentistry.  Modern reviews have found chiropractors to be effective in the elimination or management of some forms of mild to moderate skeletal pain, but chiropractors are unqualified to diagnose and treat more severe ailments, the way that a DO might.


 * It is important to note that in many parts of the world, "osteopath" refers to a profession that is more akin to a chiropractor, with more limited training and fewer rights. However, in the American system only fully licensed DOs are legally allowed to use the term.  Dragons flight (talk) 13:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Clone armies
Would it be possible or practical to clone a person many times to create a clone army as in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 13:37, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Are there any known technologies for speeding up human growth? If not, I don't see how cloning would be any easier then just breeding an army (as long as your evil overlord isn't concerned with ethics).  Googlemeister (talk) 13:41, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It would bypass all the inconvienences of (not) having sex. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 13:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Possible? Maybe in a couple decades. Practical? Unlikely. They're all going to be babies from the get-go, so you'd need a whole hell of a lot of infrastructure to raise them to adulthood. Much easier to just recruit pre-raised civilians. Plus, what if the enemy learns that all the clones are allergic to peanuts, or are susceptible to X disease? Also, what if the Jedi learn of these plans? --Goodbye Galaxy (talk) 13:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Star Wars world: Even if they do learn about it, there won't be a hell of a lot they can do about it. Look at how effective the clones were during the Great Jedi Purge.  Real world: No problem.  Just ignore them Jedi. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 13:54, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And what if we invent some way to drastically speed up their growth in a decade or two? Then would it be practicla? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 13:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And how would cloning an army bge unethical? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 13:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * While ethical standards vary, I suspect most people would agree that humans ought to have the right to determine the course of their own life. Raising someone, clone or not, to be a soldier without giving them any say in the matter would offend the notions of personal freedom that many people consider important.  Dragons flight (talk) 14:07, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Solution: Genetically engineer them to have no free will. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Many people would consider tampering with free will to also be unethical. Of course if you want to use your clone army to raise an evil empire this is probably not a problem.  If you have some more noble goal, then you probably ought to explain why you can't accomplish it with a more conventional army.  Dragons flight (talk) 14:19, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Evil empire! Yay! Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Also I find it unlikely removal of free will is even possible unless you want an army of vegetables. If you're building an army, droids seem much more sensible to me-- Jac 16888 Talk 14:22, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Droids can't problem solve or improvise. And they can't pick up a weapon off a dead droid and keep fighting with it. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:31, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And what use would be an army of plants? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:31, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And a droid is harder to biuld than a human is to clone and gnetically engineer. And droids have the possibility of being defective.  And you have to make an assembly line with all its attendant problems.  And you have to keep people from sabotaging the droid factory. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Whether it is possible (or will be) to build a clone army or not, it's just not practical if you don't have the military hardware. Sure, it might become possible to put some cells in a test tube and leave them for a while to grow into a million or so humans, but a machine gun is not going to replicate itself. You'll just end up with a (possibly huge) unarmed population draining other resources (food & water, clothing, place to stay, etc.), and the cash to pay for the cost of all this could have been 'better' used to advance your current miltary's technology, such as by investing in drone technology or robotics. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  14:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * So make weapons that grow and replicate themselves. (And blame the Yuuzhan Vong for giving me ideas.) Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That still does not offset the costs. You have to invest cash to:


 * develop the technology that allows accelerated cloning;
 * develop existing infrastructure to prevent food/water/living space/other resource shortages caused by sudden increase in population;
 * develop technology that allows cloning of weapons

Compare this to just investing in existing technology (we already have drones and robotics), you can guess which is cheaper. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  15:43, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * But once you have all that, you are going to run out of easily accessible metal a long time before you run out of easily accessible carbon. The carbon is all on the surface or just below it.  Metal you have to go deep for.  And clones are less likely to be defective than droids, considering the number of defective-electronics-related recalls we've had over the last 20 years (16) and the number of defective-organism-related recalls we've had over the last 20 years (zero.) Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 16:17, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * To answer your original question, yes, it is practical, assuming you have a level of technology that can genetically engineer them to age quickly and be compliant but still able to improvise, and can develop organic self replicating weaponry, and you're in a dictatorship so people won't complain its unethical and you have unlimited money and resources.-- Jac 16888 Talk 16:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If you have the tech to build a clone army, I bet you can dig a deep hole. We should also bear in mind that the "energy crisis" is temporary - the Earth's mantle is bursting with energy, the sky is full of it, to those with the tech and a few basic self-fabricating robots there is no problem melting down common feldspar for the aluminum.  Also, "robots" can be made out of carbon and be just a few nanometers on a side and do all kinds of obscene damage (or conduct the most subtle surveillance) on persons and machines.
 * When dealing with humans, why fabricate when you can simply use wild-caught stocks? Do a quick operation, install a prosthetic hippocampus, the poor bastards will be perfectly trained and perfectly loyal.  No need to track them down and force them, just use economics ... who the hell is going to employ someone who has to be schooled for twelve years to be a half-trained idiot?  (this is the "mark of the beast" described in the Revelation of John, I would venture...) Wnt (talk) 16:33, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * We should distinguish cloning from some sort of "accelerated growth". Cloning is simply a genetic procedure to get (in this case) homogeneous soldiers - maybe this helps if you want to keep your perfect set of enhancements, or copy your favorite military hero, but it has the downside that your whole army has the same vulnerabilities.  They might be prone to make the same mistake; more importantly, a bioweapon should be able to exterminate them all quite handily with only "acceptable losses" on the other side which is more genetically variable.


 * Now accelerated growth is useful if you have for some reason a shortage of meat, but what modern society has a shortage of humans for any purpose? Teeth and fingernails don't win wars; they are a raw contest between capital and capital, with incidental human casualties.  True, certain wars like the U.S. is fighting seem to involve "boots on the ground", but not so much wars that people are fighting to win; rather those in which one is trying to "win hearts and minds", i.e. public relations exercises, whether to those abroad or at home.  Now war is politics by other means, or more often politics is war by other means, and I suppose a cloned army of suave, handsome spokespersons who can sound supremely trustworthy while lying might sound useful ... but I doubt we have a politician shortage either.  Besides, political contests are something of an "evolutionary arms race", with different models winning from one year to the next ... that's a situation where sexual reproduction should do better than cloning. Wnt (talk) 16:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Accelerated growth would be useful if you had extremely high casualties in a long drawn out war of attrition, but unless you wipe their brains at the same time, a clone is not going to be any more pre-disposed to pulling a "Charge of the Light Brigade" then a normally born person. Googlemeister (talk) 19:43, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film) See here: "After previously receiving the order from Klaatu to destroy the earth, it then transforms itself into a swarm of self-replicating insect-like nanites that begin destroying everything in their path including the military facility. The swarm of nanorobotic locusts consumes everything in its path and is now on a path to destroy humankind heading to Central Park where the major sphere is located." Count Iblis (talk) 20:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * To answer Wnt, you would have to make all those prosthetic hippocampes. To answer Googlemeister, so accelerated growth would be useful in a kind of vastly ramped-up WWI? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 21:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Not really unless you can reprogram their brains to vastly reduce self-preservation drives. A cloned human would not really be all that different then an identical twin.  They wouldn't be zombies.  Googlemeister (talk) 21:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I meant about the "war of attrition" bit. And what was Jac16888 saying a while back about an army of vegetables? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 21:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And about a bioweapon being able to wipe out an entire clone army with only "acceptable" losses on the other, more genetically-variable side, there's an easy solution: Simply genetically engineer them to have super-strong and super-efficient immune systems. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 21:49, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * A simple nuke would do it - and wipe out the facility that creates the clones. Invest in technology, I say! Not masses of meat. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  23:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The Sontarans were eventually defeated by the Rutans, were they not? μηδείς (talk) 02:52, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You would have to keep the thing carrying the nuke from getting shot down (even if it is a ballistic missile—any society capable of creating and accelerating the growth of a clone army and clone weapons is also going to have anti-ballistic missiles.) And remember my words when your entire droid army is disabled by a simple computer virus! Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 10:13, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Any army with nukes, and knowing that the enemy has anti-ballistic missiles, will have (or develop) the ability to counter that - either by developing better nuclear missiles, or by firing swarms of them, or something. Apologies, but this entire conversation has become pointless. You asked of the practicalities, and then when anyone gives you reasons why it may not be practical, you come up with unlimited tech and unlimited resources and unlimited money to create something that counters their argument. Unlimited tech, unlimited resources, and unlimited money do not exist, and so, to answer your questions (and keeping in line with my earlier answers), no, it is not practical, and will never be. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  15:34, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * So what was Jac16888 saying a while back about an army of vegetables? What use would be an army of plants? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 10:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "Vegetable" is slang for a brain-dead, or nearly brain-dead human. The implication is that if you take away people's free will, you'll also take away their ability to think for themselves. APL (talk) 22:15, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know about free will (it's disputed whether it exists anyway), but if you quick-grow "clones", they won't really have much by the way of memory. Though again the hippocampal prosthesis might fix that, alas. Wnt (talk) 18:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Just build a bunch of cyborgs that vomit grey goo. ~ AH1 (discuss!) 00:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Upper limit on size of atoms
How does the speed of light provide an upper limit to the size of atoms? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Assuming that by size you do indeed mean size, as oposed to mass, the size of atoms is governed by the Bohr radius which is inversely proportional to the speed of light. Dauto (talk) 14:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Please explain. I don't get it. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 14:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * What don't you get? Did you read the linked article? Dauto (talk) 14:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * What I don't get is how that limits the size of atoms. I meant how does that limit the number of electrons in an atom as stated in Extended periodic table.  Would I ask you if I'd read the article and understood it? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 15:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * From what I know, it is more accurate to say that there is an upper limit to the size of electrically neutral atoms, and it is has something to do with the speed of the electrons in the lower s orbitals. The bigger the atoms gets the more energy the lower orbitals have, they move faster. I wonder, is relativistic mass compensated for in this theory? Plasmic Physics (talk) 15:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * So unless Einstein was wrong, the size of an electrically neutral atom larger than that limit would either force the inner electrons into the atomic nucleus or eject the outer electrons from the atom. Is their an upper limit to the size of ions?  Would it be possible for an atomic nucleus to get large enough for its radius to become greater than the range of the nuclear strong force? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 15:20, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * So, as I suspected, by size of an atom you rally didn't mean the size of an atom. What you really mean is the atomic number of the atom. Atoms with extremely large atomic number would have their innermost electrons moving at relativistic speeds which means they must incur an energy penalty in the form of relativistic mass of the electron destabilizing the atom. The physical consequence of that would most likely be that those inner electrons would be absorbed by the nucleus where a proton would be converted to a neutron effectively reducing the atomic number of the atom. We will probability never know for sure since, as you pointed out, large nuclei like those are extremely unstable because their radii is close to the range of the force that keeps the nucleons together. Dauto (talk) 16:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * (edit delayed...) I think the speed of light is the wrong answer, sort of. What really matters is the fine structure constant, alpha, which appears in the Bohr radius.  The alpha constant has many deep significances, and I'm not sure I truly understand what ratio it represents in a real, relativistic and quantum mechanical atom, but the article says it is "The ratio of the velocity of the electron in the Bohr model of the atom to the speed of light."  Now angular momentum is quantized (as with all angular momentum, in units of Planck's constant).  You can picture various "planetary orbits" around a nucleus, but the larger the central charge, the closer the electron has to be and the faster it has to travel to end up with the same angular momentum.  In an atom beyond 137, the orbit (in Bohr terms) would have to be faster than the speed of light.  But relativistic mass should increase the angular momentum by arbitrarily large amounts, so this isn't truly a solid barrier... still, once the relativistic mass is greater than the ionization potential there is no way for the electron to stay there. Wnt (talk) 16:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, and you can also say that the Bohr radius is the electron Compton wavelegth divided by alpha. In natural units, the electron Compton wavelength is 1/m. If I put the speed of light and hbar back, I get: hbar/(m c). Then, the length scale in a nonrelativistic atom shouldn't contain c, and I have the coupling constant alpha vailable which contains an explicit factor of 1/c. Although alpha is still dimensionless, so it actually doesn't depend on c, in non-relativistic physics, we can say that some factors of c are absorbed in the definition of the charge. Anyway, even though it looks stupid from the POV of tradional dimensional analysis, this argument leads to

hbar/(alpha m c) for the Bohr radius. Count Iblis (talk) 18:20, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Extremely rapid alpha decay would be the most likely fate of these very large atoms. Unless of course, you consider a neutron star an atomic nucleus. ~ AH1 (discuss!) 00:00, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Dream induced nausea
I want to make it clear that I'm not seeking diagnosis of any kind.

A while back, I had a bizarre, very real-seeming, dream. Can't remember a single detail about what happened in it, but from time to time something reminds me of it and the whole thing comes flooding back. This causes me to feel very clammy, light-headed, sweaty and nauseous. This lasts from five to ten minutes whilst I "relive" the dream, after which I gradually forget all the details of the dream. I haven't yet had the foresight to write any of the dream down whilst I can remember it.

This happens about once a month or so, and doesn't cause me much alarm. I'm certain there's nothing major wrong with me, but it is awfully baffling. Does anyone have any idea what the hell is going on? Pascal yuiop (talk) 21:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds like the results of a standard nightmare to me. Or, alternatively, perhaps you were nauseous first, and your brain constructed a dream around that feeling, to "explain" it. StuRat (talk) 22:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd consider this a medical question. Imagine Reason (talk) 16:43, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * You may want to try voice-recording the details. Just be sure not to immediately jump to an alien abduction conclusion. ~ AH1 (discuss!) 23:55, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Nausea is a sort of generic symptom, it can be caused by many, many things. I can't give medical advice, not a doctor, ect. but it may be worth telling a doctor especially if you are frequently vomiting. HominidMachinae (talk) 07:14, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Neutron degeneracy
Would a neutron-degenerate fluid be considered a gigantic cluster of billions upon billions of nuclei consisting of single neutrons, or would it be considered a gigantic single nucleus consisting of billions upon billions of neutrons? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 21:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The latter is a better description. Dauto (talk) 22:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I would say that neither is a good description. An atomic nucleus is an entity bound by the nuclear force; neutron-degenerate matter is bound by gravity. Free neutrons are not considered nuclei. (Of course, you run into nomenclature problems when describing hydrogen, which when ionized is just a free proton, but one would logically have to call it a hydrogen nucleus). If gravity were somehow removed from neutron-degenerate matter ("magically", as a previous question stated), there would be an enormous release of energy, and the system would no longer be bound. - Running On Brains (talk) 23:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The use of the term "proton" in describing the monatomic cation of hydrogen is 99% of the time used heuristicly; generating actual H1+ cations by simple chemical means is essentially impossible; it requires rather exotic conditions. Under aqueous systems, the ion known as H1+ actually physically exists as covalently bonded polyatomic ions containing various amounts of water molecules (see Hydronium and also Grotthuss mechanism for examples of several of these).  In gas phase, hydrogen ions form clusters with neutral hydrogen atoms and molecules as well, for example see the Dihydrogen cation and the Trihydrogen cation.  There just does not exist, in any meaningful amounts, any way to form H1+ cations chemically in all but the weirdest, most exotic, situations.  -- Jayron  32  02:01, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point. I was not aware it was so hard to ionize hydrogen (although I should have suspected). I suppose this is part of the reason why proton decay is so hard to observe (assuming it exists)? - Running On Brains (talk) 09:47, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Free neutrons are nuclei. They are nuclei of neutronium-1. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 10:09, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No they are not. As you see in that article, neutronium is a fictional substance, or a non-scientific word for neutron-degenerate matter, which does not exist except in very exotic high-gravity situations. Nuclei are bound absent of non-nuclear forces, neutron-degenerate matter is not.- Running On Brains (talk) 15:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * You're just stating the obvious here. True, a neutron star is bound by gravity, not the strong force, but its density is very similar to the density of nuclear matter and can be seen as one gigantic nucleus. Is it reeaaaaly a nucleus? That's a matter of semantics. Dauto (talk) 15:56, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I suppose it's just semantics, and I kind of got on a tangent there, but the point I was trying to make is that free neutrons are not nuclei. Medeis's reasoning below is better than mine. - Running On Brains (talk) 14:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

A free neutron is not a nucleus because nuclei are parts of atoms, and electrons do not orbit bare neutrons. But do not lose hope. Free neutrons have a 15 minute half life and Beta decay into a proton, an electron, and an anti-neutrino. μηδείς (talk) 16:20, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think what we're getting at here is, does the nuclear force have a significant effect on how a white dwarf behaves? Does it contribute significantly to holding it together as a whole, or does it affect what happens if something slams into the surface?  According to nuclear force it applies whether the nucleons are protons or neutrons, and as stated above the density is similar to a nucleus, so I'd think it would ... but I don't know this! Wnt (talk) 18:19, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not how I read the original question. But just in case anybody is still wondering, it is a well known fact that neutron stars are gravitationally bound objects. The strong force by itself wouldn't be able to hold the thing together. Dauto (talk) 19:04, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I suppose not - is that simply because the neutrons would decay, unless pulled down so hard that they would be forced to recombine? Let's put it this way: does the nuclear force reduce a neutron star's mass roughly as much as it reduces the mass of a nucleus? Wnt (talk) 18:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Human clone and voice
Would a human clone have the same voice pitch as the original?--178.180.6.38 (talk) 22:35, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * It would likely be quite close, barring a disease or injury which changed either one. However, people can choose to speak a bit lower or higher, and do so depending on cultural factors and personal preference, as well as current emotional state. StuRat (talk) 22:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I wonder how much the exposure to all too common endocrine disruptors such as phthalate, bisphenol A, PBDE etc. would have on voice development; maybe a cloned man from a cleaner society would have a deeper voice than the original. OTOH that might just be from all the anabolic steroids he was pumped up with to make him an almighty super soldier... Wnt (talk) 06:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Identical twins are (natural) clones. Roger (talk) 06:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Ew! That's unnatural!  μηδείς (talk) 20:57, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Blood drinking
Is it safe to drink everyone's blood regardless of blood type and Rh, as vampire tales tell? Would there be any complications?--178.180.10.50 (talk) 22:41, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * No. Easy way to catch HIV Pascal yuiop (talk) 22:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * No it isn't, otherwise you would also be at risk of getting HIV from oral sex. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 22:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * There is a non-zero risk of catching HIV from unprotected oral sex. (CDC Q&A) It is logical to then assume that drinking blood provides an equal, if not greater, risk. - Running On Brains (talk) 23:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Indeed this is of course noted at HIV and oral sex and I thought was common knowledge. Nil Einne (talk) 07:20, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I take it back. I'm not an expert - I was actually basing this on a legal case where a guy was stopped from doing a one man solo theatre show because his idea of gaining empathy from the audience was to splash them with his HIV-infected blood. Lawyers don't have the best grasp of medicine. Ignore me! Pascal yuiop (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * As noted above, you could contract diseases from contact with blood (not likely, but possible). However, you seemed to be asking about compatibility of blood types.  There's no concern there, that would only be a problem if you injected other people's blood into your bloodstream. StuRat (talk) 23:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Blood can be nasty stuff. Ingested blood might allow infection through mucous membranes or through open sores. There are lots of deadly blood-borne diseases, in addition to AIDS. Hepatitis B and C, and viral hemorrhagic fevers, for starters. Then lots of other nasty pathogens not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, such as syphilis, Malaria, Babesiosis, Brucellosis, Leptospirosis, Relapsing fever, Colorado tick fever, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. There's also Human T-lymphotropic virus type I I've even read of various fungi causing serious problems when they contaminated IV lines. Many other illnesses can be transmitted by blood, such as tuberculosis and Dengue fever. The shorter list might be infections which cannot be spread via contaminated blood. (Staph? MRSA? Strep? Pseudomonas? Anthrax? Pneumococcus? Neisseria meningitidis? Clostridium tetani?  Legionella? Chlamydia? Yersinia pestis? Mycobacterium leprae? Neisseria gonorrhoeae?) Edison (talk) 03:45, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course, vampires don't usually have much to fear about disease, because they're already dead. ;) Wnt (talk) 06:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The questioner asked "Is it safe to drink everyone's blood.." not "Is it safer for a vampire to drink everyone's blood." Vampire literature often depicts a vampire opening his own blood vessel and having a human drink from it, as well." I did not even add smallpox and rabies to the list of bloodborne pathogens, because it is not likely to be present in the blood of a random human, and the same might be true of many of the other rare pathogens, but various STDs are all too common in the modern human population. But depending on where the vamp wannabe is consuming blood, the donors just might be infected. The claim that pathogens cannot cause infections from oral administration is refuted by oral transmission of STDs, cholera and other diseases. Edison (talk) 14:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And it's only a risk if you have sores. Once the blood reaches the stomach, if it hasn't found any sores before then, any viruses are dead protein, fat, and RNA.  And besides, only a hundredth of a percent of the population actually has HIV, and they're likely to know this.  It is more likely that your wife will die in childbirth than that you will contract HIV from drinking blood.  Ditto for oral sex.  It's possible to catch HIV through either of these routes, but in either case the risk is too small to be worth worrying about. :) Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 09:59, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you sure about that? There are a number of food-borne viruses. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 11:23, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are. HIV is not one of them. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 13:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it was, I was taking issue with your assertion that "Once the blood reaches the stomach, if it hasn't found any sores before then, any viruses are dead protein, fat, and RNA", given that there are viruses which can survive the stomach. I realise I could have been clearer. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 13:59, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * By "viruses" I meant "HIV viruses." And I was talking about the extremely great smallness of the risk of contracting HIV through ingestion. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 15:04, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't mean to belittle Whoop, but you are overly-minimizing this risk: 30 million people have HIV, which would be about 1/2 of a percent of people (this isn't just Africa...there are over 1 million cases in the US). Even worse: 170 million people worldwide have Hepatitis C (about 2.5%) which is nasty in its own right. Additionally, even acid reflux (causing damage to the lower esophagus) and ulcers can offer a mechanism of infection beyond mouth sores. It's just not something you want to mess with.
 * But to answer what I assume is the gist of the original poster's question, yes, it is safe to drink blood that is known to have no diseases, but it will likely make you feel nauseated if you drink to much. If a reliable source is to be believed, you can drink up to a pint without feeling sick.- Running On Brains (talk) 15:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm also doubtful that many medical professionals would agree 'the risk is too small to be worth worrying about' when it comes to HIV transmission from oral sex. The risk is probably significantly lower then vaginal or anal intercourse but the general advice is use protection (there are of course a number of other STIs which are more commonly transmitted like herpes).
 * In fact our article I linked above suggests an '"best-guess estimate"' risk of 1 for 'Fellating a man' compared to a 'Pooled transmission probability estimate' risk of 10 for 'Receptive penile-vaginal intercourse'. This is complicated as    attest. Complicating factors in determing the risk include the fact the risk appears to be low, many people who engage in oral sex also engage in other sex acts which are riskier, and people may lie or forget about what acts they've performed for a variety of reasons; so the risk may very well be lower (or higher) then that. But I don't think it's surprising based on the evidence (and basic understanding of HIV) that does exist, medical professionals don't say 'the risk is too small to be worth worrying about'.
 * Of course, the fact that your partner may know about it is somewhat moot if they don't tell you (which may be illegal in many countries but it doesn't mean it won't happen). And the claim your wife is more likely to die in childbirth then you are to catch HIV from oral sex is completely silly without qualifications like 'on average'. If you're an unmarried woman street prostitute who performs unprotected fellatio and nothing else on many different men many times every day, your wife obviously isn't more likely to die during childbirth then you are to get HIV from oral sex. More to the point, it wouldn't surprise me even if you engage in unprotected insertive anal intercourse several times a year with different heterosexual partners who aren't prostitutes or IV drug users, but have similar behaviour to you, you're on average still far more likely to die in a car accident then get HIV. It doesn't mean it's a good idea or you shouldn't be concerned about your risk of getting HIV. BTW suggests more then 20% of people in the US with HIV (which means 200,000 people) don't know it.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 17:48, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note that the "best-guess estimate" "risk of 1" / "risk of 10" that Nil Einne is quoting from HIV is "Estimated infections per 10,000 exposures to an infected source", not a Scale of one to ten. -- 203.82.81.81 (talk) 00:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Whoop whoop pull up, you're off by a couple orders of magnitude. HIV prevalence worldwide is more like 0.8%, not 0.001%.  And HIV isn't just in Africa, either.  From your user page, you appear to be in the U.S., where HIV prevalence among adults aged 15-49 is about 0.6% (ibid).  Red Act (talk) 15:58, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The main reason red meat is bad for you is the mammalian hemoglobins. Imagine Reason (talk) 16:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there a source on that? I'm willing to believe it but still curious.  I mean, it's not like anyone injects rare steaks directly into their bloodstreams.  Several Times (talk) 19:02, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Nah, Imagine Reason is fairly certainly mistaken. As per Red meat, there’s been a little bit of looking into a hypothesis that it's red meat's hemoglobin and myoglobin that's responsible for the correlation between red meat consumption and colorectal cancer.  But there certainly isn't a consensus at this point that that hypothesis is correct.  And it's generally thought that it's red meat's saturated fat, trans fat,  and cholesterol content that's responsible for red meat increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.  Red Act (talk) 04:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Ignoring the pathogen problem for a second, it would be perfectly safe to consume cooked human blood just as it is to consume any cooked blood. There are lots of foods which are basically cooked blood as a main ingredient, Black pudding, blood soup, etc. As a foodstuff, blood is perfectly OK so long as you treat it like any other animal product (proper handling and cooking). -- Jayron  32  00:10, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * pathogenic problems aside, blood in sufficient quantities will act as an emetic. Beyond that, it has nothing to do with type and Rh factor:  For instance, a human can eat cow meat or even cow blood (many societies do it), but having it xeno-transfused into you would probably result in a massive allergic reaction that might well kill you. HominidMachinae (talk) 07:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)