Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2020 February 11

= February 11 =

Ayn Rand, Radium girls
What impact did the horrible situation of the Radium girls have on Ayn Rand’s opinions. Did Rand ever comment on it, or did anyone else discuss how it impacted the Objectivist philosophy?Rich (talk) 00:50, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not aware of any such commentary. The refdesk regular most likely to know would have been, of blessed memory. --Trovatore (talk) 01:49, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * She was literally jealous of serial killers' selfishness so empathy wasn't her strong suit. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:39, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Should I have put this on Humanities or Miscellaneous desk instead?Rich (talk) 11:25, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Slightly off topic but... To say it wasn't her "strong suit" is a reference to games with trump cards. In a strong suit in your hand, you'd have many, or top scoring cards in that suit... Jealousy of people who are selfish would seem to suggest that her empathy suit was stronger than she could cope with. I don't think that she has come out of the blue and declared that empathy is too commonplace in the world, but that in her position, or disposition, empathy is more abundant than is useful. The grass is always greener on the other side, but if you get stuck there... you might wonder what it was about the original side you liked, is what I think she was saying. ~ R.T.G 12:58, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, WP:RD/H would be a better fit, unless you have questions about radioactivity and its health effects.
 * If you want useful answers I suggest to cut the emotional appeal ("horrible situation") and focus on the history of philosophy aspect. If you want a debate about Ayn Rand, get lost. Tigraan Click here to contact me 13:51, 11 February 2020 (UTC)p
 * Get lost? Please don’t pick a fight with me. I asked for any comments Ayn Rand or others made about the Radium girls and how it affected Objectivism. But actually anything she or her close followers said about Radium girls would interest me too, whether or not it affected Objectivism. The word horrible doesn’t matter for that. Now I absentmindedly put this question on the Science Desk, can one of you computer whizzes move it to Humanities or Miscellaneous? ThanksRich (talk) 20:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Rand didn't write anything about industrial accidents or malfeasance of any kind, nor DDT, thalidomide, or even the dustbowl. The reason she avoided those topics is because they didn't comport with her preconceptions; there's not a lot more to it than that. One of her minor sympathetic characters, Ken Danagger, started as a coal miner at age twelve before working his way up to becoming a captain of industry. EllenCT (talk) 22:19, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Turning to stone? (medicine)
Hello, many of you may have seen this image of four winners of a 1922 beauty contest before. I found another image of the lady on the far right in the black suit with the umbrella, wearing the same suit at a bathing contest, so I searched up to see if she had been doing a circuit of beach contests. She wore it to a few, but then I found this newspaper clipping from 15 years later...

"Stone Girl Happy" Mrs. Lola Swinnerton of Chicago celebrates after 10 years in hospital... She is slowly turning to stone after taking anti-typhoid medication...

I searched but I don't find the explanation. The only mention of "stone" on the typhoid article is something to do with Maidstone. I'm sure it might be common knowledge what exactly it means... Has anyone here ever heard of typhoid sufferers "turning to stone" as a result of medication? ~ R.T.G 11:50, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * The disease is probably fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. It is now known to be a genetic disorder, but was previously thought to be caused by muscular inflammation. The newspaper clipping does not suggest it was triggered by typhoid fever, but rather by anti-typhoid medication. I don't know what that could have been almost a century ago; antibiotics were still unknown. --Lambiam 13:05, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Modern antibiotics were unknown, but treatments for infections involving some rather nasty stuff, like arsenic and mercury compounds, were used in the early 20th century. Some examples include Salvarsan and calomel and stuff like that.  -- Jayron 32 14:38, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * FWIW, Typhoid Mary was treated (unsuccessfully) with hexamethylenamin/Urotropin, laxatives, and brewer’s yeast. - Nunh-huh 13:30, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The two links provided by are the same. They both provide the same image. Is there supposed to be a link to a "newspaper clipping from 15 years later"? Bus stop (talk) 14:26, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * A related category. Bus stop (talk) 15:17, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Oops! Sorry about that, wasn't on search but still in history. Here is the clipping I was looking at. Maybe it is that bone growth disease, but turning to stone? Never heard of it in describing reality. If it was published today I'd put it down to "Weekly World News" reports or something like that... ~ R.T.G 03:54, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 403 NOT FOUND. Uses of "turning to stone":, , – where the last one is not about fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva but scleroderma.  --Lambiam 07:25, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It's still working for me. Shorpy is an American foundation for preserving photography. It's not on a search of their site. You'll have to click the link if you want to see it. ~ R.T.G 08:09, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * This shows the clipping. Bus stop (talk) 12:55, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Not to me. --Lambiam 14:56, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The publisher and author is not given and the clipping doesn't have an information page on the site. It says only... "Mrs. Lola Swinnerton, 33, of Chicago, is shown celebrating the New Year out of the hospital for the first time in ten years. Mrs Swinnerton has been gradually turning to stone since receiving anti-typhoid injections in Florida. Despite her affliction, she greets 1937 with a great big smile." ~ R.T.G 13:55, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Definition of an airborne virus
There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding what constitutes an airborne virus. I, at least, am confused and haven't found a comprehensive explanation. Different sources and articles are contradictory and/or vague. This question has become relevant to the public again recently because of COVID-19/ 2019-nCoV / SARS-CoV-2. All seems to agree it is spread via respiratory droplets, while some also say aerosols and airborne others insist it is certainly not airborne. Adding to the confusion, at today's WHO press conference about COVID-19 they at one time said the virus was airborne, then made a correction saying it wasn't and only spread via droplet transmission, and that airborne was the military terminology. The transmission article doesn't really help clarify this, it lists similar viruses under both airborne and droplet. From a physics point of view, droplets in air would be aerosols by definition, and all viruses spread via respiratory droplets could reasonably be called airborne. If someone could help clarify what the precise definition is, I, and I think many others, would be grateful. The transmission article list other coronaviruses, the common cold and influenza in the airborne category. It would be nice if someone could also say whether it is correct to call 2019-nCoV SARS-CoV-2 an airborne virus, (why/why not)? People who care for Ebola patients wear respirators, yet Ebola is said to not be airborne, is that just a precaution? --78.82.231.51 (talk) 18:00, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You can read Airborne disease. Ruslik_ Zero 18:40, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I have, but like the transmission article it doesn't really clarify the issue. --78.82.231.51 (talk) 18:48, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * For a disease to be considered an airborne disease, airborne transmission has to play a major role in its transmission. Avian influenza is believed to also have spread through airborne transmission, but this is thought not to have been a major pathway for the outbreaks; hence, it is not classified as an airborne disease. If our article Airborne disease is confusing, it may be because an anonymous editor changed the phrase "may be spread in aerosols of dust or liquids" to "may be spread in aerosols, dust or liquids", making it look like these are three alternatives on an equal footing, instead of two forms of aerosol. Whether (liquid) droplets or (solid) dust particles, these have to be pretty small to behave like a suspension and remain airborne for extended periods, and only then are they called an aerosol. For infective pathogens that affect the respiratory system, the aerosol carrying the pathogen to the next host will generally consist of tiny liquid droplets. That also holds for pathogens that cause diarrhea, particularly but not only where flush toilets are common. Another pathogen that can be transmitted in tiny droplets are the bacteria causing Legionnaires' disease – but now the aerosol is produced mechanically, like by an air conditioning unit. For airborne diseases transmitted by aerosols formed by solid particles, the particles can just be the pathogen itself, likes the spores of anthrax. Or microbes and viruses may hitch a ride and travel on dust particles. --Lambiam 20:48, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * What constitutes a "major role in its transmission", who decides that, is there a precise definition? The Airborne disease article just says "An airborne disease is any disease that is caused by pathogens that can be transmitted through the air." As the aerosol article says "The liquid or solid particles have diameters typically <1 μm; larger particles with a significant settling speed make the mixture a suspension, but the distinction is not clear-cut", i.e. there's no precise droplet size/settling time defining an aerosol. (Small dust particles/solids will be covered by moisture as well unless the air is perfectly dry). When you sneeze you definitely create an aerosol. Would any disease where sneezing is thought to have a major role in its transmission be considered airborne? What did the WHO mean by military airborne terminology? Is there an authoritative list of airborne diseases? --78.82.231.51 (talk) 21:55, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I expect that there is no precise definition for any of these concepts. That is a common situation: there is also no precise criterion for what is an infectious disease – and for the criteria that are used, there may be no practical way to apply them in concrete situations. There is also a subjective component in assessing when cognitive impairment becomes severe. The speed at which a droplet of a given size evaporates depends very much on the local temperature and humidity. And yes, a disease where sneezing has a major role in its transmission will be considered airborne. I have not heard or read what precisely was said at the WHO press conference, and I have no idea what they may have meant. In various documents WHO recommends implementing "airborne precautions" (which means: precautions against airborne transmission), and they have been doing that since at least 25 January. This implies that they believe or suspect that airborne transmission is a significant pathway in spreading the disease. --Lambiam 07:14, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * These links may be of interest [//eportal.mountsinai.ca/Microbiology/faq/transmission.shtml] [//www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/basics/transmission-based-precautions.html] [//www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/2425ea004fe339d1977bb703541ce8ed/Infection-control-management-of-infectious-diseases-v2.7-201912.pdf] [//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31135389] [//bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-019-3707-y]. The first 3 establish how airborne transmission and droplet transmission are generally handled different and why. The last 2 point out (and they're both from before this outbreak) that in truth we don't really know how significant the airborne route is even for more established respiratory diseases like H1N1. I don't know if I'd agree that the WHO recommending airborne precautions means they believe or suspect it's a significant pathway. This [//www.reliasmedia.com/articles/118763-cdc-adds-respirators-clarifies-confusing-issue-of-droplet-aerosol-and-airborne-transmission] relating to the more extreme case of Ebola does IMO in part emphasise why it an be complicated.  More significantly, the precautionary principle can apply, especially given that we don't even know that well for established respiratory diseases, let alone a new one like H1N1. And that the spread in healthcare settings can cause significant problems such as an increased strain from a loss of healthcare workers (whether from temporary illness, an unwillingness to work, or unfortunately in some cases, death), and also may make patients reluctant to seek treatment. For largely different reasons, Ebola was an extreme example of this.  So although airborne precautions to pose an additional burden as the earlier sources point out, they may still be considered worth it even if it's not believed to be a significant route.  Nil Einne (talk) 10:00, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that made it a lot clearer, especially the last link [//bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-019-3707-y]. --78.82.231.51 (talk) 16:42, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

External signs of abnormal mutations.
A male child was born a year ago, the product of pregnancy complicated by severe flu infection. He has what is considered a groove on his foot soles and abnormally thick phalanges of the first fingers. I wonder if there exist a list of such and similar physical features with interpretations, but that would be an icing on the cake. Thanks AboutFace 22 (talk) 19:21, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * If the condition was caused in utero by an external agent (exposure to a harmful chemical or an infectious disease), it is congenital, but does not qualify to be called a mutation. There is no reason to think the condition may be inherited by offspring of the affected individual. --Lambiam 21:09, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Epigenetic mutations they are. AboutFace 22 (talk) 21:51, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Do you just believe this, or do you have specific evidence for this assertion? --Lambiam 07:16, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * AIUI (I'm no biologist) "epigenetic" is barely usable as a word. Its meaning has been 'skunked' by so many variations in its meaning that it can no longer be expected to convey any unambiguous meaning, without being further hedged around by qualifiers. It now has a current meaning in medicine that's fashionable (i.e. fundable!) and stable, but that only goes back a few decades. So it's still widely used outside that scope, old books could mean anything, even older doctors can interpret it differently. When you go back to the Victorians, Haeckel's name crops up, and we know how whacky and now-discarded some of his ideas have become.
 * A core part is it being a "stably heritable phenotype" (but then, what's "heritable"?). Also it's fundamental that the encoding of the DNA is not changed, but the expression of the genome is, see DNA methylation.
 * So it's extremely relevant here, and in many cases of in utero environmental influences from chemical exposure to Rubella. But even just adding 'mutations' makes the term contentious. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:30, 12 February 2020 (UTC)