Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2017 June 1

= June 1 =

Gas mask training
What is the gas used for this training? The gas, and the training itself, sounds extremely dangerous. I'd like read up on how they picked this irritating and yet non-lethal gas. Scala Cats (talk) 04:56, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * My wife has done similar training as part of her law enforcement certification, she had to be exposed to tear gas. There are any number of types of non-lethal tear gases, so there's no telling which they used in that exercise.  -- Jayron 32 05:16, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * The video describes training in South Korea. Amnesty International was trying to stop them from sending 1.9 million grenades like the one shown to Turkey for use by the Erdogan regime ; apparently they sent at least 3.1 million .  The second source links a large manufacturer, which has a list of products.   The first one I looked at was CS gas, and I'm skeptical there are other gasses mixed in when I look at that list, but I don't know.  I also don't know if "CS gas" is truly a uniform standard or if there are secret sauces in something like that. Wnt (talk) 11:39, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * CS Gas training. I did it twice a year for six years. It isn't a big deal. The instructors do it multiple times a day every day for months. Yes, it is irritating. The point of the training is to show that it is irritating, but you survive just fine. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 12:55, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * A requirement that police officers be exposed to non-lethal weapons each time they use them on a suspect might stop their overuse. Same comment for lethal weapons, but only when they use them improperly. :-) StuRat (talk) 15:44, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

This is about a gene named "cerebum", right?
. Why was the gene so confusingly named? It looks like a typo for cerebrum, has something to do with central nervous systems(?) and isn't Latin or anything else on Wiktionary. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:25, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * The mutant appears only in this one 1997 paper. Consider the context of a freer era and one with escalating research spending when people did not have an omnipresent sense of being unwanted and unnecessary nor worry some careless indulgence of creativity would be a danger to them, so there were a lot of really kooky gene names being introduced.  To take a wild guess, the idea may be bum cerebrum.  The mutant phenotype was mapped carefully and could be recovered in another mutagenesis screen, but no further work was done with it - perhaps people assumed that reverse genetics would identify it in short order. Wnt (talk) 11:30, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Gecko's foothold
Those who are familiar with them, must have observed that how easy it's for them to climb over the finest surfaces of glass etc. But now and then I have seen that if they somehow fall into the (dry and empty) bathtub in our toilet, then climbing out of it is simply not possible for them  no matter how hard they try ! Can someone please explain this mystery.210.56.126.61 (talk) 13:45, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Geckos can stick to even smooth glass, so smoothness is not the issue. |This scholarly paper says "On dusty or exfoliating surfaces, attachment to a well-anchored substrate will not be possible for every seta." Here is a National Geographic article describing what geckos have trouble sticking to, it mentions dust but also oils. It also mentions water, but you say your tub is dry. It seems a parsimonious answer is that some combination of dust or oils is keeping them from sticking. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:13, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia article Gecko feet gives some information but not a clear answer. This report notes that Geckos lose sticking power with wet feet. If the OP has a Hard water supply and uses ordinary Soap, the dry bathtub walls may have a powdery precipitate of Soap scum that spoils the Gecko's adhesion. Blooteuth (talk) 15:21, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * As stated in the article Gecko feet, Teflon and surfaces coated with it are an exception. Some plants like the familie of Pitcher plants also use such surfaces, in that case with waxy surface coating, to catch Insects and according to some sources even frogs and geckos. Alike working are multiple newer coatings invented by and used in the Industry. Your bathtub is likely a newer one with exactly one of these newer "Non-stick surface"-coatings. --Kharon (talk) 22:55, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Animal species: Recently and unintentionally introduced and now protected/endangered
Can anyone come up with any animal species that recently (say the past 150 years) came to a new region as either an invasive or introduced species and have since become a protected species? Of course excluding the deliberate re-introduction of protected species for the purpose of conservation, such as wolves in Yellowstone Park or the red kite Great Britain. I guess one example would be the mustangs and others covered in the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, but I gather that most of their ancestors became feral (were introduced) over several centuries ago, and I'm also (or even more) interested in non-feral examples. ---Sluzzelin talk  19:14, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Can go back further. The invasive 1% of Palefaces into North American,  they have made themselves now into a protective species- Hell, they don't even have to pay taxes equal to what we have to. The current president has made himself seem like the nice guy by forgoing his presidential salary of some $400,000 but is signing in even more tax breaks that will make him $400 million richer. Aspro (talk) 19:48, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * "Palefaces" are the same species as the native Americans. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:12, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * See The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. I don't know if they are a protected species by law yet, but you can bet that if a government plan was devised to kill them all, it would be defeated.  The combo of being cute, having a book and movie about them, and living in liberal San Francisco, makes them pretty well protected.  See Telegraph_Hill, San Francisco.  Even an ordinance to prevent feeding them in public spaces was controversial.  StuRat (talk) 21:28, 1 June 2017 (UTC)