Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2012 October 10

= October 10 =

Awareness of the link between sex and reproduction
At what point in our evolution did humans become aware of the link between having sex and reproduction? Given the time interval between the two, it doesn't seem that the former would necessarily imply the latter. Do chimps know? Chris (talk) 10:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The females would probably have been aware some time before the males. Double sharp (talk) 11:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The ability to "be aware" or "be self aware" is not an easy thing to define, and it depends on how you work out your terms. Sentience and Sapience and Self-awareness and Theory of mind are all at least tangentally related to answering the question, and some directly required.  Even for chimps, there's a major problem with answering the question, which is you'd need to be able to ask them to get direct evidence of that level of knowledge.  The only way to infer without directly asking is to assert that a certain level of self-awareness and sapience is necessary to make that connection, and then we get into the thorny problem of defining those terms.  -- Jayron  32  12:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Assuming that chimps are sentient but also have very limited communication skills, the only way a chimp could know about this link is if she made the connection herself. This is less likely to happen for a chimp than for a person. (1) I wonder if there are case studies of pregnant young women who didn't know the connection. If so, that would suggest that maybe human individuals in general only know the connection because it is culturally learned (and originally culturally discovered); in that case, chimps without high-level language would not be able to have it as part of their culture. (2) I wonder what/when is the first mention of the link in recorded writing. If that first mention came long after the advent of writing about the human condition, that might suggest that humans didn't know it at first, until it was discovered and disseminated into the culture. That strikes me as a long shot, though -- I would guess that even if the knowledge is not innate in each human, still society would have discovered it before writing was invented.  Duoduoduo (talk) 15:10, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Regarding the second question, even the oldest recorded stories (e.g. Egyptian mythology, see Osiris myth) make that link, and I don't doubt it was known even in prehistory. - Lindert (talk) 16:13, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * The second paragraph at Trobriand_Islands contains an interesting snippet on this subject, although the source is not online to check. Perhaps we should have a List of fundamental misconceptions caused by vegetables? -  Ka renjc 17:54, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I read an article, which I'm struggling to find, which suggested that the connection likely came after the domestication of animals. It's a much clearer connection in say, a dog, which only comes into heat in certain times of year, rather than a human where we're fucking each other pretty constantly.  Here's an interesting reply, with at least some research.  It appears that aborigine Australians (who do not have domesticated animals until European contact) may have been unaware of the connection between sex and pregnancy.  It's hard to sort through how much they were "really" ignorant, but anyways, it suggests that it's not as obvious as some of us might think.  There's a couple other interesting resources linked on that page.  Anyways, we'll probably never know for sure when the connection was made, but there's been some speculation among scientists (and others). Buddy431 (talk) 19:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Here's the original column I read. Sadly unreferenced, but certainly plausible. Buddy431 (talk) 19:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, the problem here is that the knowledge was obviously gained prehistorically. Things such as the triple goddess cult, with king stag celebrations and so forth imply knowledge of the link between sex and reproduction.  One of the funniest criticisms I have ever heard of Christianity was a fellow student insisting to me that first-century Jews didn't know the link between sex and pregnancy, so the stories of the immaculate conception and Jesus's birth to the Virgin Mary had to be late middle-age forgeries!  As if the people of ancient and classical times were cavemen. μηδείς (talk) 20:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It was certainly prehistoric for some people, but evidently not for everyone (Australian aborigines, etc.) And just to be pedantic, the immaculate conception is a Catholic Dogma, and probably didn't really develop until the 7th century or so, and wasn't really officially sanctioned until the 15th century. Buddy431 (talk) 21:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * What? The Australian aborigines never developed writing.  All of their history prior to European colonialism is prehistory.  --140.180.242.9 (talk) 22:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And then Europeans came (so it was no longer prehistoric), and documented this belief into the early 20th century. The connection, at least if the sources I cite are to believed, is not due to the development of writing but of domestic animals. Buddy431 (talk) 23:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And not to be pedantic, but immaculate conception and the virgin birth of Jesus aren't the same thing (as is mentioned in the first few lines of the article you linked) Or does original sin have something to do with this?[The Ip directly above isn't me]Phoenixia1177 (talk) 22:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That's not even remotely pedantic. The VB is the dogma that Mary gave birth to Jesus but remained a virgin.  The IC is the dogma that Mary herself was born without original sin (which is supposed to be be why she was a suitable human mother for Jesus in the first place). The two events occurred at least 15 years apart.  But I've come across astounding confusion about these dogmas, even in the minds of polymaths like Barry Jones (whose birthday it happens to be today, Thursday 11th here.  Happy Birthday, Mr Jones) .  On page 495 of his Dictionary of World Biography (2nd ed. 1996), he states, in reference to Mary: The doctrine of her Perpetual Virginity (i.e. that she had no natural children) was adopted by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.  Her Immaculate Conception (i.e. that she was the subject of a virgin birth) was proclaimed in 1854 by Pope Pius IX ....   Both of his i.e.'s, which I've highlighted, are completely wrong.  He may have corrected these gross errors in later editions.  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  23:18, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The person who presented the argument and I were both raised Catholic, so yes, we knew the doctrines were separate, and that's why I mentioned them both. His point in all seriousness was that people didn't know that conception resulted from sex until the renaissance or so, so that the doctrines couldn't possibly date back to early Christianity.  The consensus in the class, including the history teacher, was that he was right that it was not known at the time of Jesus that sex was necessary for conception.  That's simply absurd, whether or not it is true (which i believe it is) that Mary's immaculate conception was a later doctrine.  Virgin birth myths predate Christianity.  They obviously require the knowledge that sex is necessary for conception, since there would otherwise be nothing remarkable about a virgin birth, would there?  Still makes me laugh to remember this.  It is very striking if you study classical history how modern the ancients were in their science, philosophy, and even political corruption.  Yet it is incredible how many people do think the ancients were basically cavemen in togas. μηδείς (talk) 02:08, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Goodness gracious: it's patently ridiculous to believe that people 2000 years ago living in the Levant didn't know that sex made babies. I mean, as long as people have been breeding animals it is plain that people have known that sex makes babies.  Anywhere with settled agriculture or animal herding should know that sex makes babies, and any claims that they didn't is so patently stupid as to deny the need to refute it further than that.  -- Jayron  32  02:18, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Why would the average person know whether the Levant domesticated animals 2000 years ago? Large parts of the world didn't, like much of Africa and all of the Americas.  The average person might know some ancient history, so they might know about Greece, Rome, Persia, Mesopotamia, China, the Indus valley, etc.  But Judah/Israel was an insignificant backwater for almost all of history, and it's not inconceivable to take an entire world history class without hearing anything about it.  --140.180.242.9 (talk) 02:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If the average legally competent Westerner doesn't know that they had domesticated animals in the Mid East at the time of Caesar and Christ it's time we shut down wikipedia as hopeless. All indications are that the Amerinds who colonized the New World and brought the dog with them would have been aware of the connection back in 13,000 BC, as would all the Neolithic peoples of the Old World, at least those that were pastoral nomads and kept dogs, and presumably the New Guinea highlanders who farmed at least 7,000 years ago if not much earlier.  μηδείς (talk) 03:13, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you're drastically overestimating the competence of the average Westerner. See the results of this survey from the NSF: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/c7/fig07-06.htm  --140.180.242.9 (talk) 03:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If such people are basing their understanding of the situation on the Bible, discussions of Pastoralism are rife throughout the bible. Heck, Christian symbolism (the lamb, the shephard, the use of the word "Pastor") is filled with references to sheep herding.  Sorry, it's just not feasible that someone can have read any meaningful part of the Bible and not have noticed that discussions of domesticated animals are all over it.  Which is not to say that you aren't correct about stupidity in certain people, but that those people exist doesn't mean we need to accept that level of ignorance as normative.  -- Jayron  32  03:42, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And just to prove that anyone with familiarity with the Bible should have also known that people living at the time the Bible describes understood the sex-baby connection, see Genesis 16:1-4 (from the New King James Version): "See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her." in v.2 and "So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived." in v. 4  Other translations use other euphemisms for sex here (the NIV uses "sleep with", as does the paraphrase "The Message"), but the Douay Rheims and all King James derivatives use "go in to her" as in enter her.  As in, they're talking about the nookie here.  So it is patently unacceptable that someone involved in religious education in any form of Christianity or Judaism could have thought that people living at the Birth of Jesus didn't know that sex made babies.  The Abraham story is one of the oldest in the Bible, both in terms of its setting and authorship: if it's that plain in there, I just don't know what else I would say to someone who claimed otherwise.  -- Jayron  32  04:56, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * There's also something in there about Adam "knowing" Eve and conceiving children. The ancients didn't know about the microscopic specifics, of course, but they understood from observation that it took both a male and female, and also that the probability of conception was related to the menstrual cycle. To the minds of the ancients, the male had to "plant a seed" in the female to make a baby sprout. Hence the terms "sperm" and "semen", Greek and Latin respectively, which both mean "seed". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And the Hebrew for seed זרע which is used for both semen and for offspring/descendants. - Lindert (talk) 12:45, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, the text in Genesis 4 is may be more explicit than "knowing", that's among the English language euphemisms used in some translations, but you can tell by comparing various translations that many consider the phrase to unambiguously refer to sex. Douay Rheims American: "And Adam knew Eve his wife: who conceived and brought forth Cain", Complete Jewish Bible: "The man had sexual relations with Havah his wife; she conceived", English Standard Version (a King James derivative): "Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain", New International Version: "Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain", Orthodox Jewish Bible, "And HaAdam knew Chavah (Eve) his isha; and she conceived, and bore Kayin (Cain),".  I even pulled up some non-English translations, this Spanish version says "El *hombre se unió a su mujer Eva, y ella concibió y dio a luz a Caín" using the "se unió a" or "unites himself with", a different sense entirely than "to know" or "to make love".  This French version says "L'homme s'unit à Eve, sa femme; elle devint enceinte et donna naissance à Caïn.", using the same phrase "s'unit à". If anyone reads Hebrew, I would be curious as to what the exact word was used here in the original text.  Many of these translations use euphemisms for sex which were most common at the time when the translation was fixed ("knew" in pre-20th century translation, "made love" in more modern ones) so I would be curious as to what the exact word was in Hebrew and what that word is translated to outside of this specific context.  -- Jayron  32  13:44, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I know a little bit of Hebrew, and the word used for intercourse in Genesis 4 does indeed literally mean 'to know'. For example, in Genesis 3, the snake says to Eve 'Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil' and likewise 'they knew that they were naked' etc. The same verb ידע is used in all these places. I don't think the euphemism arose in English actually, on the contrary, this manner of speaking was not common in English at the time, it was copied from Hebrew. The reason that many modern translations use 'make love' etc. is because they recognize that 'knowing' in this sense is not actually good English, while older translations like the KJV were much more concerned with translating word for word, and so ended up using expressions that were quite strange and uncommon in the English language. On the matter of it being explicit: it was certainly readily understood, just like 'sleeping with someone' does not literally mean what it infers, but that does not make it ambiguous. - Lindert (talk) 14:03, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting. So the euphemism exists in the original Hebrew.  Thank you for that insight!  What about Genesis 16:1-4 then?  Does the Hebrew there say "know" or does it say "go in to" as the translations seem to use?  -- Jayron  32  20:07, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The verb used in Genesis 16:2&4 is בוא (bo), and means literally to come/go in. Genesis 7:1 'come thou and all thy house into the ark' uses the same Hebrew construction (i.e. -בוא אל) as Genesis 16:4 'And he went in unto Hagar'. - Lindert (talk) 22:02, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It makes sense that the euphemism of 'know' for 'have sex' originated in Hebrew because the same euphemism exists in French and Spanish (and I assume other languages connected to historically Christian societies), viz. conocer and connaitre respectively This is sounding more like a question for the Humanities desk; didn't someone already ask this question a few months ago? 24.92.74.238 (talk) 02:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Isn't that what the Stones sang on Ed Sullivan, "Let's get to know each other..."? μηδείς (talk) 03:28, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is the original question if anyone is interested - it is not the same but many of the same points are hit: Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2012_January_624.92.74.238 (talk) 21:31, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

DNA transcription information doubt
Is it correct the below line?

Promoters are located near the genes they transcribe, on the same strand and upstream (towards the 5' region of the anti-sense strand).

How promoters could be located at upstream in anti-sense strand. Because it is the template strand for transcription. Trascription initiates from 3' end in anti-sense strand. So, promoter should be at 3' (towards downstream region) site of the gene in anti-sense strand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.212.219.234 (talk) 11:25, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The wording is clumsy. Promoters are 5' to the gene, with "5'" and "3'" defined by the strand encoding the gene.  -- Scray (talk) 13:10, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Defining which strand it's on seems kind of pointless to me. The promoter is as much on the sense strand as it is on the antisense strand. But there is simply not a simple way to describe a promoter. Promoter elements can be located far upstream from the gene start site, or even downstream, inside other genes, and promoters can overlap one another. One of my professor's from college loved to ask at the beginning of every genetics class he taught, "what is a promoter" (or alternatively, "what is a gene"). Someguy1221 (talk) 23:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Promoters can include enhancer elements that can be distant and not upstream, but the core+proximal promoter is 5' of the coding region, near the transcription start site on the sense strand. "Typical" always has exceptions, but this description is quite consistent.  -- Scray (talk) 05:27, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The classic exception would be with RNA polymerase III; but usually when people start talking about genes and promoters they're thinking about RNA polymerase II, which handles a huge variety of the "interesting" genes. In any case, there just about has to be something recognizable about some sequence not extremely far from the start of transcription, or else how does it know where to start?  At least, I can't really think of a good counterexample offhand, though specific elements like TATA can be absent. Wnt (talk) 01:16, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

baseball hat
is there any way to tell if a baseball hat has a cardboard or plastic bill before you wash it and have it fall apart? --Wrk678 (talk) 18:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Even if you can't, you may find this Google search useful for your purposes. -- Jayron  32  18:34, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * You could try sticking a pin through the bill. Plastic presumably will offer more resistance to penetration than cardboard.  However, what is your plan if you can't wash it ?  Then you have a dirty, unwashable hat.  You really need to make this determination before you buy it, to avoid this dilemma later. StuRat (talk) 19:24, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Dry cleaning would be an option. A quick test with a piece of cardboard shows no immediate problems. Not that that proves anything... Ssscienccce (talk) 08:19, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You might also check the tag inside the cap and see if it has any washing instructions. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:47, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

First environmental science program(me)(s)
I was wondering which college or university established the first environmental science degree program. Googling, I can find a few programs claiming to "one of the first," but no definitive answer. With several ways to define the question, I'd be interested in (1) the first undergraduate program; (2) the first graduate program; (3) the first program in the US; and (4) the first program outside of the US. --BDD (talk) 19:27, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Note that there were sanitary engineering (sewage treatment), waste management (garbage collection), and water resources engineering/water treatment programs well before the environmental movement was named, as such. However, those areas have done a great deal to protect the environment and extend lifespans, by preventing the spread of infectious diseases. StuRat (talk) 19:37, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It should be noted, however, that much of sanitary engineering originated as an overt attempt to make people's environment more livable. The entire justification for building the London sewerage system was to improve London's environment; to make it more livable.  Of course, most people don't start caring about the Environment until they realize that their environment is becoming harmful to them, but selfish preservation is still one of the primary motivating factors in human action.  -- Jayron  32  16:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Most mainstream environmental movements are still about making life better for humans, although there are a few bizarre movements that call for people to go extinct in order to preserve "Mother Earth". StuRat (talk) 21:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Note also that "environmental science" means different things to different people. Two important branches are (1) the study of how man's actvities affect the environment, and (2) what things man has to do to cope with what the environment provides.  Item (1) has attracted much attention in recent years, but item (2) has been studied for much longer, probably at least 100 years or so.  For example, Murdoch University in Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murdoch_University has always had (since the University was established in 1975) courses and research in what they call "environmental science" - these have included such things such as novel types of air-conditioning and energy-efficient buildings.  Wickwack124.178.43.122 (talk) 00:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Earth-Moon Recession
I understood that our Moon is receding from Earth about 38 mm/year due to tidal effects. However I was curious to compare this result with metric expansion of space by assuming it applies to Earth Moon system as well. When applying Hubble's law, I found this would give about 29 mm/year. Can this be just an incident?--Almuhammedi (talk) 19:32, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Presumably you mean to ask if it's a coincidence ? StuRat (talk) 19:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Forgive me for poor English ;). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Almuhammedi (talk • contribs) 19:37, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The metric expansion of space only applies to objects that are not bound to each other by gravity. The earth-moon system is bound by gravity, so it is not affected.  -- Jayron  32  19:42, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It is just a coincidence, and the metric expansion of space is not applicable within gravitationally-bound systems; it only applies well above the scale of galaxies. By way of evidence, consider that the magnitude of Earth-Moon tidal acceleration is impacted by the nature of Earth's oceans, which can play no role whatsoever in Hubble's law. &mdash; Lomn 19:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * What Jayron said. μηδείς (talk) 20:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The metric expansion of space does not "expand" bound systems. But I always wondered: It shows up as the cosmological constant in Einsteins equations. Shouldn't it also show up in Newtons equations (as an extremely small modification, of course)? In other words, shouldn't the attraction between two bodies be ever so slightly smaller thanks to it than it would be without it? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:25, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is an effect, see here. Count Iblis (talk) 15:32, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, that makes sense, because we say that "gravitationally bound systems aren't expanding away from each other", but that's a tautology: what it really means is that systems whose force of gravity is strong enough to overcome the metric expansion of space don't recede from each other. Neither the metric expansion of space nor gravity every stops working, its just that they counteract each other so if gravity is strong enough, the net effect is that the objects don't move away from each other.  But gravity doesn't have any extinction; it decreases in strength via the Inverse-square law, but it should never drop to zero for any finite (but arbitrarily large) distance.  Thus, everything in the universe is subject to "metric expansion", but  you only see objects moving away from each other if the objects are sufficiently far apart already as to be under such a weak influence of each other's gravity that the metric expansion becomes the greater effect.  -- Jayron  32  15:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Your comment is confusing some things. By the "metric expansion of space" you really mean changes in the cosmological scale factor.  The evolution of that scale factor is driven by three processes, inertia, gravity, and dark energy.  Most of the expansion we talk about is really the Hubble flow which is a purely inertial process.  Specifically, galaxies expand from each other because at the moment of the big bang the primordial universe was imparted with momentum that is still resulting in expansion today.  It is like watching the debris from a bomb going off.  At the moment of the explosion, a large impulse is imparted to everything, but afterwards the debris continues flying apart without the need for any additional forces.  If we could magically turn off gravity and dark energy, the universe would continue to expand.  The second process governing the scale factor is gravity.  On cosmological scales the sole effect of gravity is to slow the expansion of the scale factor.  In a universe with sufficient mass, gravity would eventually win and the expansion would reverse itself leading to a contraction and eventually a big crunch.  We do not appear to live in such a universe.  However, in the absence of dark energy all you need to consider is gravity and the initial momentum in order to understand the evolution of everything.  In order for a system to become gravitationally bound, it must have already shed whatever momentum existed that would have initially had its constituent parts tending to fly apart.  Gravitationally bound systems aren't affected by Hubble flow, simply because they have already overcome it in order to form in the first place.  In the pure Hubble flow regime there is no any additional force creating expansion, hence gravitationally bound systems would be completely unaffected by Hubble flow.  Dark energy is the third wrinkle to the story.  On cosmological scales it imparts a force that tends to increase the scale factor.  If we assume dark energy takes the form of a cosmological constant, then it can be modeled in the classical limit as a force directly proportional to distance, i.e. $$F_{dark}(r) = G_{dark}\,m\,r$$, where the proportionality constant is $$G_{dark} \approx 9.8 \times 10^{-37} { \text{N} \over \text{kg m} }$$.  For some concrete numbers, the force of the Sun on the Earth is 3.5 N, compared to the dark energy "force" between the Sun and Earth of 0.8 N.  In the classical limit, dark energy is always exerting a force, but the magnitude of that force is trivial until you get to cosmologically large distances.  Unlike the Hubble flow, which is a passive inertial process baked in at the Big Bang, dark energy is an active process associated with a new force law and one which can create additional expansion.  Dragons flight (talk) 20:56, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was trying to refer to the positive outward pressure exerted by so-called "dark energy" which is real and active, and as you note insignificant in all but the biggest cases, and not the passive "Hubble flow" which is just the residual momentum of the initial Big Bang. -- Jayron  32  21:41, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm more like my mother than my father
Through nondisjunction, it should be possible, perhaps inevitable, that some child will inherit two copies of some chromosome from one parent, and zero copies of the same from the other parent. Are there any documented cases of such a thing? Thanks. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:28, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Amazingly, we have an article about that: Uniparental disomy. Looie496 (talk) 23:36, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Also, don't forget Mitochondrial DNA. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 84.21.143.150 (talk) 12:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Genetically modified organisms
Hello, I have a small project for a class where I have to find an example of a genetically modified organism, investigate its basis, and give it's pros and cons. However, "the example must be a viable organism, not a plasmid, vector etc". I am limited to GMOs dealing with viral gene therapy.

However, my understanding of viral gene therapy is that genes are inserted into the virus, which is allowed to replicate in other organism to it's benefit (e.g. cancer killing proteins). Doesn't this therefore qualify the virus as a vector (but equally a GMO)? And thus, is not allowed to be chosen as a topic? Many thanks 93.186.23.80 (talk) 00:40, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * A virus is not usually considered to be an organism; see our organism article. Looie496 (talk) 00:55, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * See the first sentence here. Viral vectors (e.g. retroviruses) can be used to create stable recombinants, a process sometimes called "pharming".  The product, not the vector, is a GMO.  -- Scray (talk) 01:28, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Here's some fun for you:    (Roundup Ready). Wnt (talk) 03:25, 12 October 2012 (UTC)


 * excluding genetically engineered plasmids and vectors (which are produced by the truckload on a daily basis in research labs) "viable organisms" are not restricted to just viral gene therapy. Many crops are now genetically engineered (e.g. see golden rice) The links at the very bottom of that page may also help you. Many genetically engineered animals are used to study the effects of various diseases, drugs and developmental processes. Good luck and have fun.Staticd (talk) 06:07, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Morphine in World War 2
In WW2, US soldiers and flyers carried a "syrette" with a metal tube like that for toothpaste containing 0.5 grain of morphine tartrate, connected to a hypodermic needle for administering the drug subcutaneously to a wounded soldier, with no additional dose to be given for 2 hours. 1)(A question for better understanding of historical medical practice, not a request for medical advice:) Is that equivalent to a modern dose of 32.4 milligrams of morphine? drugs.com says that a typical subcutaneous dose for an adult would be only "2.5 to 20 mg every 3 to 4 hours as needed " 2)In the 1977 movie "The Deep," divers find the wreck of "The Goliath," a ship  which sank while carrying medical supplies to Europe in WW2, (based on some historical WW2 ship called the Constellation) and the presence of thousands of little glass ampules of liquid morphine excites the interest of criminals. Did Europeans (Brits, French and other non-Axis forces) inject their wounded from single-doseglass ampules (or perhaps at aid stations from multi-dose vials) with separate syringes,   or were they supplied by 1940 with syrettes like US forces? (Or were they just expected to tough it out with a stiff upper lip and no morphine?) Thanks! Edison (talk) 03:11, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) that's the correct equivalency; that's a big dose. -- Scray (talk) 04:42, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * So big, in fact, that a second such dose would have been rapidly fatal (as the GIs themselves used to say, "One for pain and two for eternity"). Which is why the medics would put a big "M" on the wounded man's forehead after giving him morphine (as seen in war movies like Pearl Harbor, Saving Private Ryan, etc.) to make sure nobody else gave him a second dose by mistake. 24.23.196.85 (talk) 06:39, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * So when it says "0.5 grain," that is the effective dose of morphine, and whether it is in a "tartrate" of a "sulphate" compound is irrelevant? This website says the tartrate is only 87% as potent per mass:  . This table has some conversion tables, but when someone gets "morphine" from a doctor or paramedic today, what chemical form is it likely to be? On the web, some sites say that the dose from these same syrettes is only 16 milligrams: ]http://armymedical.tpub.com/md0913/md09130102.htm]. Is that just plain wrong? Question 3)Finally, were these military syrettes stolen or diverted and sold by criminals to civilian drug addicts in WW2 as an alternative to heroin, or would they have been converted to heroin or "cut" with something before being sold to addicts by criminals? Thanks. Edison (talk) 15:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Tartrate ion has molecular mass of 148.07 daltons, sulfate ion has a mass of 96.06 daltons, and morphine has a molecular mass of 285.34 in neutral form. I think that one hydrogen ion is added to the alkaloid nitrogen in the morpholinium salt (286.35), which means that half a sulfate or tartrate should be needed per morpholinium to balance the charge.  That gets us 334.38 for the sulfate (half the molecular weight) and 360.39  for the tartrate for the same amount of morphine.  However, as listed in the table in the morphine article, the actual drugs are hydrates.  (This is an example of why Wikipedia shouldn't be taken as medical advice - I very nearly answered according to the non-hydrated weight, which would, at least hopefully, be technically accurate but quite irrelevant to your historical scenario.  Not to mention the stupid mistakes I made in the math trying to calculate per morpholinium rather than per molecular weight, which, in retrospect, was probably not the best way to avoid errors! )  The sulfate gets 5 H20 (5 x 18.01528 = 90.0764) (half that per morpholinium) and the tartrate gets 3 H20 (54.04584) making the final weights per morpholinium 379.42 (sulfate) and 387.42  (tartrate).  Our article lists them as equal to 0.75 (sulfate) and 0.74 (tartrate) the free base weight of morphine (285.34), which agrees within the level of error in the table. (0.7520, 0.7365). Wnt (talk) 17:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * There are some errors in that table, it has Morphine phosphate (7 H2O) and Morphine phosphate (1/2 H2O) listed with the same freebase conversion factor. I'm not sure if the 0.5 grain would include the hydrate part. I've looked at pictures of the box these came in and it doesn't mention the hydrate. Don't know what the practice was then, but nowadays the dosage applies to the ingredient as it is written. Like 60 mg pseudo-ephedrine HCl, but dexedrine 5mg dextro-amphetamine (without the H2SO4) Ssscienccce (talk) 23:08, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I found Medical Services of the Royal Australian Navy who presumably followed Royal Navy practice. "...the question of morphia administration was of great importance . Methods used before the war consisted of individual injections by the medical officers or possibly senior sick-berth ratings, using either tablets of morphine sulphate or hydrochloride in bulk solution from rubber-capped bottles. In addition, Wildey's syringe which enabled four or five doses to be given by the one full syringe was available in some ships. Obviously, however, it would be of considerable advantage in a ship, with its numerous isolated compartments, to have a foolproof syringe which would enable anyone, if the need arose, to give a correct dose to himself or to another. Hence the appearance of a self-giving syringe known as " tubunic " ampoule or syrette. Supplies of this article were very difficult to obtain but finally became available. Three types were used in the R.A.N.: the first from the United Kingdom, the second from the United States, and the third made in Australia . They were not extensively used and on the whole they proved a disappointment, by reason of the frequent collapse of the soft metal container or the blockage or breakage of the needle. The American article appeared to be the best." (p.25) So the US version seems to have been ahead of the game, but not available to Commonwealth forces until late in the war. I found a reference in The British Army 1939-45 (3): The Far East, By Martin Brayley about the Chindit columns that operated in the Burmese jungle behind Japanese lines; "Although it was never spoken of, it is clear that the helpless were often given a merciful overdose of morphine before being abandoned." (p.34) Alansplodge (talk) 17:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * A further reference that partly answers your question about British use in 1940 is in 56th Infantry Brigade and D-Day: An Independent Infantry Brigade, By Andrew Holborn, which includes the account of one soldier in France in January 1940; "Shrapnel (from a Stuka's bomb) hit me and I had a big red "X" on my forehead because I had been given morphine." (p.13) Alansplodge (talk) 18:07, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Sounds like various allied forces were well supplied with morphine either in large vials for medical officers to administer or with syrettes. I could not find general US or Brit book on field hospital practice in WW2, but did find some brief booklets for frontline medics. Question 4)Any suggestions as to a WW2 vintage handbook for British military surgeons or physicians which would identify other drugs they used in hospital or aid stations in the combat zone which would have had a ready market for pushers to sell to addicts or other illicit civilian users? Edison (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * "During World War II, the American, British, German, and Japanese armed forces similarly issued amphetamines to their men to counteract fatigue, elevate mood, and heighten endurance.". Alansplodge (talk) 01:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)