Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2022 September 4

= September 4 =

Empathy as a finite resource
Is there scientific evidence that the empathy we can feel with other life forms is finite and being used up? 2A02:908:424:9D60:0:0:0:4A03 (talk) 10:06, 4 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Can You Run Out of Empathy?
 * Journal of Patient Experience - Empathy
 * Alansplodge (talk) 11:12, 4 September 2022 (UTC)


 * In Empathy§Neuroscientific basis of empathy we read that empathy is both affective and cognitive. An example is shown here.--Askedonty (talk) 11:40, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Skull anatomy
I remember reading or hearing some time ago that the Australian aboriginal populations had sutures of the cranial bones different in number (one more or less) from the rest of the world population. However, do I not find this detail anywhere. Is there something like this? --37.162.33.97 (talk) 13:39, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The following journal study analyzes cranial morphology of Aboriginal Australians; the abstract doesn't mention a distinction in the number of cranial sutures; however, further reading might reveal otherwise.
 * --136.56.52.157 (talk) 19:19, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It does mention suture abnormalities, specifically premature suture closure, possibly related to mastication. --Lambiam 05:47, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I wonder what's the highest single-season mastur to mastic ratio by a human in history. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:01, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The best to know is to tune in. The best are naturally vintage Bakelite, azn. Artificial cranial prototypes, in a sense. --Askedonty (talk) 13:35, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sagittarian Milky Way, Askedonty: I tried to make sense of your comments, but unfortunately failed. @Sagittarian Milky Way: What exactly are you referring to by "single-season mastur to mastic ratio" here? @Askedonty: Why are you talking about plastic radios in the context of a question regarding craniology? Seriously, I'm at a real loss, and hope you can enlighten me on the actual meaning of these posts. (Please be so kind as to ping me if you like to reply. Thanks in advance.) Best, Hildeoc (talk) 13:40, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Hildeoc I'm afraid Sagittarian Milky Way (who is absolutely welcome to confirm that opinion) may be uttering his apparent nonsense because he is making of the subject the same interpretation than you. I'm taking 136.56.52.157's wording but "cranial morphology" is only wrongly evocative of  craniology, considering that word as relating to pseudo-science Phrenology. --Askedonty (talk) 14:33, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Hildeoc, you may not be aware that there is a long-standing tradition on the Ref desks of using small type for jokes and other side-track material not germane to the main discussion. Apologies if you knew this and were merely seeking to understand the jokes above as jokes (which I think involve puns on mastication, mastic as a glue or plastic component, and the results of another word starting with 'mast-'). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.73.43 (talk) 22:36, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I apologize if someone felt their time wasted trying to find wit that didn't exist in a puerile comment (though I wouldn't have truncated any words if I wasn't almost given my first ban a good chunk of a decade ago for a clump of risqueness in a possibly excessive long-term average. If someone said something like "maybe tone it down, we're a little higher-brow than YouTube comments" or "what if a female's first RD impression is this and she doesn't like it" then this confusion wouldn't have happened. Or if I had enough foresight to realize a level and random risqueness distribution and my non-influence of what others ask doesn't excuse an unusually risque week then whoever tried to get me banned probably wouldn't have). Explanation: In US sports (and maybe other countries too, I don't know) sometimes we say things like Tom Brady has the highest single-season touchdown to interception ratio of all time. About 100 billion humans have ever been born so out of the 1XX billion (if lots of infant mortality) to several trillion (if not) calendar years of human life (let's say Greenwich Mean Time proleptic Gregorian calendar) one of them has the highest ratio of seconds spent masturbating to seconds spent masticating. I was wondering how high that ratio was. Maybe infinite for someone fed though a tube or IV with a destroyed jaw? The world may never know. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:55, 6 September 2022 (UTC)