Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2014 April 4

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April 4

Weird looking Costa's (?) Hummingbird

I saw this bird in Fullerton, California. I'm fairly sure it's a Costa's Hummingbird due to its "sideburns" and the purplish sheen on its head. But in this photo its sideburns appear golden. I can find no other image showing a hummingbird, Costa's or otherwise, with such odd iridescence. So what's up with this one? 68.123.239.72 (talk) 02:21, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Two thoughts: the very definition of iridescence is the "property of certain surfaces that appear to change colour as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes." -- Also the quality and spectrum of incoming light matters. So, it may just be that, due to differences in daylight, angles, camera, etc, the sideburns just "look" golden in your photo, and more purplish in other photos. Another possibility is that this hummingbird might be able to appear in multiple Color_phases. Given the steep angle in your photo, I'm inclined to think that feather iridescence is enough to explain the difference in photos - see section "structural color" here [1]. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:40, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Metabolic Question 2

Well, after your replay I believe i could rephrase the question for the last time - and now for the best: Why would some people experience Anaerobic respiration FASTER than others? (assuming that it does happening) what could be the reasons? thanks again!!! 79.176.81.154 (talk) 04:07, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I've added a title to your question to separate it from the one above. And for reference, the questioner is referring to an earlier question (s)he asked yesterday. Rojomoke (talk) 04:53, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Why? Simply because we are physiologically unique individuals. Take Bruce_Fordyce and Usain_Bolt. Both are runners but their muscle fiber types and composition are quite different. See Skeletal_striated_muscle for some insight. 196.214.78.114 (talk) 06:37, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Surly we are, but could you name some known factors which mediates the "arrival" of Anaerobic Respiration? (for example, some that could be more prevalent in leaner organisms with more Anaerobic Respiration than common). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.176.81.154 (talk) 09:12, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Poppyseed question

When one eats a poppyseed bagel (or roll, or whatever), or when one has to take morphine or codeine for pain relief (for surgery, after surviving a plane crash, after stepping on a landmine, etc.), how can one be sure that the revenue from the poppyseeds or from the opiate drug doesn't go toward supporting Al-Qaida? 24.5.122.13 (talk) 09:03, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Poppyseeds used in food come from registered farms in Tasmania, Australia, and a few other places in the Western World. These farms also supply all the needs of drug companies making dental anaesthetic and other drugs in Australia, the US of A, and other countries. You need have no worries about funding Al-Qaida. 120.145.97.4 (talk) 10:18, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Poppy seed#World production lists numerous producers, but not Tasmania.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:50, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

And not Australia either. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:57, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Those are the secret poppy-seed farms! Shhh! All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 13:33, 4 April 2014 (UTC).
13:33, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

That article, like so many in Wikipedia, is in serious need of amendment. Poppy cultivation in Tasmania Australia is quite large scale, and obviously well beyond the small needs of Australia. In fact Tasmania, as the following site says, supplies half the world's legit medicinal market. Production is about 63,000 tonnes/year, quite a bit higher than any country listed in the article. See government website http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/poppy/the_industry/poppy_production_in_tasmania or Google [poppy production australia]120.145.97.4 (talk) 16:10, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

• Unless you are overpaying for your poppy seeds, even if buying them from someone who says he is affiliated with al qaeda, you are not making a donation to alqaeda, just participating in the man's gainful, legitimate employment. Unless you want to boycott all business with muslims and other possible supporters of al qaeda based on a profile, there is no reason to think that dealing with legitimate poppy growers is of any especial risk for supporting terrorism. Instead look at things like Middle Eastern oil money which is subsidized by western military support, while western nations artificially limit their own production with regulation and licensing limits not found in countries we support militarily. In that case we are overpaying them for their oil, and they can redirect the surplus to whatever ideological ends they wish. μηδείς (talk) 16:28, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone! So, based on the info provided here (in particular, Shantivira's comment), unless I use illegal opiates to get high (which I don't), my money will go to Australian or Czech farmers and not to Afghan terrorists -- is that correct? 24.5.122.13 (talk) 00:38, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

No, there's no guarantee of that at all. But if your money goes to terrorists, it will go to them for honest work, unless you overpay for some reason. There's no way to stop any person who does honest work from donating his profit to an evul cause. So you may as well stop worrying. μηδείς (talk) 03:24, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Whether it goes to terrorists "for honest work" or not is NOT the issue here -- if terrorists get the money, NO MATTER HOW THEY COME BY IT, they will use it to blow up our buildings and murder our people. And it can be safely assumed that ALL Afghan poppy farmers EXCEPT ones licensed by the government are supporters of the Taliban (which is Al-Qaida by another name) -- after all, the opium trade IS their biggest source of income (or the second biggest after Saudi oil, depending how you count). THAT is the issue here, and THAT is what I'm worried about! 24.5.122.13 (talk) 06:05, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Far from me to defend our mad hatter μηδείς's soapboxing (which as always, doesn't need to be hatted when they are the one posting) but your statement doesn't make much sense. Beyond the fact that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are distinct entities, the vast majority of poppy farmers most likely are just trying to earn a living and don't really support anyone. In fact many of them probably dislike them all to some degree (Taliban, Al-Qaeda, the Afghani government, whatever warlords in their area, may be even the US).

More to the point, the reason why they are growing poppy is because it's a great cash crop, not because it's the only thing that grows in Afghanistan. And the reason why it's a good cash crop is because they're putting it on the black market and the conditions there make this fairly easy. (So unlike what Wnt suggested below, there's little need for a 'cover'.) Of course even on the black market what the farmers get is only a tiny percentage of those higher up in the food chain gets (in fact in terms of percentage I wonder if it's worse even if in absolute terms it's a fair bit better) but I digress.

Why on earth do you think they're going to sell it to be used for spices/flavouring? Who's even going to want their high morphine poppy strains for such purposes? (To be clear, per our articles, most poppy strains used for the spice/flavouring have relatively high morphine and as Wnt says below, morphine isn't generally extracted from the ripe seeds anyway. But I'm fairly sure these would be low morphine in comparison to the strains grown in Afghanistan although couldn't find a ref for whats the norm there. And there's a fair chance these's don't even taste so good since in the push for high morphine, it's unlikely they cared about such things.)

Even what they can make off the legal drug market is going to be small in comparison to the black market one [2] [3]. And you can be sure those already in the legal drug market are not going to make it easy (somewhat attested by the sources).

This doesn't mean absolute zero ends up in the legal drug market or the flavouring industry, but it's going to be a small percentage. Note that when it does end up in those markets, it's unlikely the Taliban is much involved.

And if you're going to worry about that, consider your other fruits and nuts like (per Economy of Afghanistan) "pomegranates, apricots, grapes, melons, mulberries" and pistachios, as well as wheat and other cereals and evidentally potatoes. And from the sound of it, you should always start to worry about your electronics or really anything that uses copper, iron and rare earths (i.e. a lot of things) soon.

P.S. Per the sources and Opium, 90% of US legal opium actually comes from Turkey and India, a legacy of efforts to limit black market production there. (See also Opium licencing.)

Nil Einne (talk) 13:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Opium is harvested mostly by scoring unripe poppy seed pods, though apparently some is extracted from the ripe seed pod at the end. Trying to figure this out I noticed poppy seed actually makes this point already, though there I'm also not clear how 100% it is. In any case, the moral argument seems specious: you're clearly not actually furthering terrorism by eating a crop which might be used as a byproduct (or more likely cover for) opium production which might be done by terrorists. For all you know, the grow operation you conceal might be in California, providing native opium that directly competes with the terrorists. Or you might simply benefit an honest farm in opium country that makes much less money on the crop, but allows one person as a matter of taste to stay out of the drug trade. You might as well not ever fly because the flight you help pay to maintain might someday be hijacked into a building. If you want to take on the problem directly, then speak out widely in favor of drug legalization, the only means by which this market will ever stop killing people, whether by terrorists or criminals or infection or disease or neglect. Wnt (talk) 12:35, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I was going to make a related point but cut it due a lack of refs and it's even more soapboxing than anything else I wrote. But what the heck. Why are you (24) so sure the poppy strains used for legal narcotic purposes (i.e. not the ones used for spices/flavouring/bagels/rolls) are free and clear?

The Taliban may not be involved. But whether our banned Perth friend (120) with many names who can't stay away from us perhaps because of their free translation needs is correct or not and it's Australian(*) or something else there's a fair chance at least some of it ends up the black market. And some of these people supplying the legal market have some willing involvement in this (often probably more willing than some in Afghanistan and definitely with less need).

They may not be involved with the Taliban let alone Al Qaeda (although considering the connections here there's probably some linkages) but whatever you're views on the war on drugs and whatever blame you may place on the governments, it's difficult to not also place some blame for all the atrocities committed in gang wars and whatever else, on those high level drug barons who are profiting from this. So yes, when you use morphine you can probably assume a small percentage of the money made from morphine goes to people who are concurrently willingly working with nasty people who will themselves or their associates directly hurt many.

In other words, you don't even have to support drug legalisation to recognise it's pointless to get all frothy in the mouth over a tiny percentage of your money going to farmers who also deal with the Taliban when another perhaps larger percentage is going to farmers who willing deal with other nasty characters (or at least their extreme underlings). Unless you only care about rich Americans who aren't affected so much by the violence etc.

(*)Australia is a producer but I don't know how big. In particular since the OP mentioned morphine it sounds like they may also be moving to being morphine free producing thebaine oripavine and other opiates [4] [5] although this may include codeine which the OP also mentioned [6] [7]. From what I read, these strains are unsurprisingly also not necessarily suited for food purposes.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:24, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

This is only marginally relevant, but I think it's interesting that the ancients made use of other strains of poppies that didn't contain opioids. There is still a holdover of this in sales of the cough medicine noscapine, but in ancient times they used the non-opium poppies for other kinds of topical pain relief. I wonder how many of these applications have been missed because, well, they weren't good for repeat business. Wnt (talk) 17:33, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

According to Opium production in Afghanistan

In July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. The Taliban enforced a ban on poppy farming via threats, forced eradication, and public punishment of transgressors. The result was a 99% reduction in the area of opium poppy farming in Taliban-controlled areas, roughly three quarters of the world's supply of heroin at the time.

Therefore it seems unlikely that poppy farmers in Afghanistan would want the Taliban back.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 23:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC).

Nice try, but it doesn't work that way. The Taliban seem to grok the concept of indulgences by now, or at least, they don't say no to tax money. Their biggest problem is actually overproduction that can drive down prices. [8] Never forget that the single solitary objective of all drug prohibition is to maximize revenue. Even in the U.S., things that could cut into the revenue stream, like people selling fake drugs on the street corners instead of the real thing, are equally illegal but more reliably punishable, in order to avoid disrupting the market. Wnt (talk) 20:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The Northern Alliance, it seems, were both our friends (or our enemies' enemies) and the most prolific poppy farmers in Afghanistan. Perhaps the worst thing to happen to us in Afghanistan happened early on, when the Northern Alliance's leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by suicide attackers two days before the September 11th, 2001 attacks. Killing the "Lion of Panjshir" benefitted the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency - so we can't really say that drug farming benefits just Al-Qaeda, or that the Taliban are our good friends because they, like "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, have a thing against opiates. Sooner or later, the War on Drugs has to be recognized as the most destructive war America continues to fight. loupgarous (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Supplementary question

Given this amount of production, how many poppy seeds does the world produce every year? All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 23:22, 5 April 2014 (UTC).

Raw Vegetables

Are there are vegetables that are good to just chop up and eat? I'm very lazy and I want to increase the vegetables that I eat. Bell peppers seem fine but they're more of a fruit. Not sure If I'd trust a raw veganism site though for my information on the topic. Also, sorry that you'vebeen flooded with healthy eating questions! 217.207.239.18 (talk) 12:03, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Most veggies would seem to qualify. Those "veggies" that do require cooking typically aren't really vegetables. For example, potatoes are tubers, and corn/maize is a grain. Onions can be eaten raw, but are a bit strong that way for some. Many cruciferous vegetables; like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, can be eaten raw, say with a nice hummus as a dip, but beware that they will give you gas. Tomatoes are certainly good raw, but of course are also technically a fruit. I much prefer spinach raw, as it turns slimy when you cook it.

Be careful to clean your veggies thoroughly though, when eating them raw, as you can no longer count on cooking to kill any nasties. Especially true of mushrooms.

But think of a salad as a good start, as those usually have all uncooked veggies. Note that some ingredients, like carrots, do need to be shredded, as they are rather hard otherwise, when uncooked.

And on the subject of laziness, I'm lazy, but I don't mind cooking, as long as I don't have to stand there and watch or stir. I have a nice steamer, and plop my veggies in there to steam for hours, without any help from me. Just make sure it won't burn everything if the water runs out, as can happen if you try to boil them (also many of the nutrients are lost to the water, so it's only healthiest if making veggie soup, where you consume the water, too). StuRat (talk) 12:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Good lord, why would you steam vegetables for hours? A few minutes of steam bath will soften them up and heat them. Corn is perfectly fine raw; the only reason to heat the cobs up is that cold corn won't melt butter. Also, I don't believe there's a scientific group of "real vegetables" as you suggest; it just comes down to culinary habits and personal taste. Matt Deres (talk) 17:27, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Some veggies, like large carrots, seem to need hours to soften up. I could cut them up and steam them less, but that's more work, and I'd risk cutting myself. I try to add veggies that need less steaming later in the process. StuRat (talk) 18:02, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes: Celery#Nutrition, Cauliflower#Nutrition, Cucumber#Varieties, Brussels sprout#Nutritional and medicinal value, Lettuce#Nutrition and health, Broccoli#Nutrition, Carrot#Nutrition, and arguably also Tomato#Consumption. The links all give nutritional information. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 12:27, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

And see also Crudités. Deor (talk) 17:18, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

For "finger food" one can carry to work in a bag I like celery, sliced radishes, and raw carrot sticks or baby carrots as a morning snack along with some fruit, such as orange or apple. Raw cabbage makes a delicious salad dressed with oil and vinegar, perhaps with some sliced almonds and uncooked ramen noodles. Edison (talk) 01:37, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I like uncooked broccoli. Instead of steaming vegetables, try blasting them in a microwave oven, in a sealed plastic pot. Much less effort. Alansplodge (talk) 15:34, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

1) Is the object to sterilize it or cook it ?

2) I'd use glass instead of plastic, to prevent leaching of plasticizers into the food at high temps.

3) This is a form of steaming, as water in the broccoli becomes steam and is trapped in by the sealed container. Adding more water may make it more effective. Depending on the cooking time, it may still be essentially raw. StuRat (talk) 14:06, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

If the universe were 6,000 years old, how many stars would I see in the sky?

Or to put it another way, how many stars are within 6 thousand light-years from Earth? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:36, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, the Stellar density 'near' our solar system is about "0.004 stars per cubic light year". The volume of a sphere with a radius of 6000 light years (ly) is V = (4/3)*π*(6000 ly)³ = 9.05 x10¹¹ cubic light years. Multiplying by 0.004 we get an estimate of 3.6 x10⁹ or 3.6 billion stars within 6000 light years of our position. - Lindert (talk) 13:21, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Shouldn't you discard part of that because the disk near us is less than a third as thick as that sphere? —Tamfang (talk) 05:24, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, I failed to consider that, so the actual number should be lower, but still hundreds of millions of stars. - Lindert (talk) 10:50, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

One could perhaps try to calculate this - according to List of nearest stars there are 9 stars visible within 16.3 light years. Without accounting for the fact that these are in the comparatively sparse Local Bubble which is in turn within the comparatively dense 3,500 LY across Orion Arm - and ignoring occulting objects like dust clouds -we can do some quick maths to get the approximate number in a 6,000 LY radius sphere. [(6000/16.3)³*9] Unfortunately we now need to discount this large number by the distance at which their luminosity puts them below visible brightness - which is tricky.

I suspect a better answer would be 9096, the number of visible non-nova stars mentioned at List of brightest stars, I doubt if any, certainly not more than a few of these are over 6000 LY distant.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 13:30, 4 April 2014 (UTC).

Bottom line: the sky would not look very different to someone without a telescope if all stars over 6000 light years away vanished tomorrow. Of course, ordinarily visible stars form an extremely tiny fraction of all stars in the universe. - Lindert (talk) 13:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, the Milky Way would be less bright. —Tamfang (talk) 05:24, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

s/vanished tomorrow/vanished 6000 years ago/ 81.159.39.141 (talk)

The two versions of the question are not equivalent. No realistic model of the universe would predict that there would be any stars 6000 years after the Big Bang. And if you consider a divine creation, then there is no reason why God could not have created an infinite universe 6000 years ago. Count Iblis (talk) 13:55, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Count Iblis. Besides, if your worldview discards observational evidence, and you're content with that worldview, then why should you believe the observational methods that are used to determine range to stars? None of these measurements are direct observation of distance. Even observable astronomical parallax is predicated on a lot of pretty abstract mathematics and physics. More distant stars are ranged by even more abstract mathematical physics, using techniques like fitting the red shift of the star's chemical emissions spectrum to our models of the expanding universe. If anyone is willing to cherry-pick out certain pieces of theory out of the entire corpus of known physics, chemistry, and astronomy, then there's no way to decide which techniques for determining stellar distance are valid. Nimur (talk) 14:10, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The OP may want to consider Cosmological horizon for more details on the observable universe. By the way, the OP writes on his/her profile that he/she is an atheist. Though, that tells nothing about his/her beliefs on creationism. It is certainly plausible for an atheist to believe in creationism implicitly, as if creationism is just the byproduct of his/her culture. I do not doubt that a self-identified atheist may believe that Nuwa or Pangu as the creators of the universe, but treat the belief as more of a cultural belief, perpetuated in traditional myths. The error comes when that person treats the myth as historical fact. 140.254.227.76 (talk) 14:24, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Nimur, you are confused. Measuring distances to nearby stars via parallax of the earth orbit (I read in Nature that one such measurement came up with the result of 26 light years) is a DIRECT method, based on elementary geometry known probably to ancient Greeks. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 01:57, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Distances of the nearest stars from 20,000 years ago until 80,000 years in the future

Counts of nearest Stars to Earth

The OP proposes a counter-factual abrupt start of a Universe ready-made with all stellar motions and emissions in progress at the -6000 year point on the diagram at left which shows distances of the nearest stars. Wikipedia has an ordered List of nearest known stars to 16.3 light-years and there is a Wikipedia book: The Nearest Stars which takes us as far as this star whose distance is measured no more accurately than 22.6^+4.3
_−3.1 light-years. You may like to extend the trend in the diagram to the right to count the number of stars within 6000 light-years but you would only ever see a small proportion of them. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 14:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Strange that the trend line is linear rather than quadratic. —Tamfang (talk) 05:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

That is a very good point. The number of stars at a certain distance should be in a spherical shell proportional to the square of the radius. Tracking back the image, it was posted by someone with one contribution, only to Commons. The data link he provides is a 404. Looking at the article that uses it Nearby Stars Database it seems like the database only had 2633 stars, so why is the curve so smooth? Looking at the figure as a whole, it is a triangle to 80 ly (which is around the 25 parsec limit of the data) and just over 60 stars, which gives just over 4800/2 = 2400 - i.e. the raw counts should be in stars per integer lightyear distance. The good news is that because that number sounds about right, it probably isn't just a random figure of cars passing a tollbooth on the interstate someone uploaded, but we still have a mystery. I would ask whether the database toward the end might have been dominated by surveying of a particular slice of sky rather than in all directions equally? But I am still confused. Wnt (talk) 13:34, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Neurological basis for avoiding said-bookisms

Currently, the prescription for good writing is that said-bookisms are redundant. The claim is that the word "said" can be easily glossed over, while words like "retorted", "returned", "argued", or any word other than "said" make the writing too redundant and therefore poor-quality. What I am interested in is the claim that the word "said" can easily be glossed over. Often, this is unsourced in Internet writing guides, but still, it makes a falsifiable claim. I know that people generally take shorter time to process shorter words than longer words, yet writers also claim that, while they are reading, they "become blind" to the actual words, but the ideas/concepts are more important. In that case, why would anyone care about said-bookisms in the first place? Or is writing more or less subjective and qualitative that empirical evidence cannot and should not be used to support prescriptive claims (in language, in literature, in religion, in ethics)? 140.254.227.76 (talk) 15:17, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I think things like that could be objectively tested, say if you set up an experiment where you had students read a passage, with various synonyms for "said" plugged in, and "said" itself, and after they read it asked them to repeat it. However, I suspect scientists have more important things to do than such an experiment, so don't look for it anytime soon. StuRat (talk) 16:21, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

It would win the Ig Nobel Award. 140.254.227.76 (talk) 16:42, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I thought the argument against using said-bookisms was that if the writing is effective then the reader should be able to discern the speaker's attitude through the speaker's words or actions; if the writer has to resort to said-bookisms then that means that the rest of the writing is ineffective. If "said" is easily glossed over, it is probably because of the repetition of use (consistently in lieu of a said-bookism) rather than because of its length.--Dreamahighway (talk) 21:53, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I think that it's easy as a novice writer to try to start using a different word for the purpose every single time, which calls too much attention to one of the least interesting parts of the story. The same happens if you try to do constrained writing where you avoid using "the" more than once. What I'm not so clear about is whether some variant of Zipf's Law should apply. Though it would have to use a different power for conventional modern prose, because I think "said" is expected much more than any other. Wnt (talk) 13:16, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I suppose this is the result of experience rather than scientific study. It's hard to be conscious of the rule because pretty much every published writer follows it. But if you read things written by beginners or bad writers you'll come across lots that haven't figured it out yet, and the awkwardness of it will manifest itself to you. See our Tom Swifty article for an example. Looie496 (talk) 14:39, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

That said, I think that whenever you tell writers to avoid one convention by slavishly following another, to the point where no one breaks it, the result is again out of balance. Tom Swift is, well, not a redlink. I think there is a time, hopefully soon, when writers break out of their cage and take back the past, feeling free to use a wide range of words and styles that have been dismissed as archaic. There are also innovations the future badly needs - for example, in this case, the use of color to mark off blocks of text by different speakers conveniently, together with a conventional and therefore unobtrusive way to label which is which. Also a specification of multiple sex-independent pronouns that can be used independently of one another to refer to people in different roles in a story simultaneously. Wnt (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Fog vs. wind

I often hear weathermen say "the wind will come in and blow the fog away". This doesn't seem technically correct to me, as the fog has to blow to someplace else, and presumably fog from someplace else would blow into here. However, it does indeed seem to be the case that you rarely have fog and high winds together. So, why is this ? My theory: Wind causes the small droplets in fog to join into larger droplets and fall out as rain or as dew against trees, buildings, etc. Is this correct ? StuRat (talk) 16:27, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Although it tends to feel colder to humans, the arrival of wind is often associated with an increase in temperature. HiLo48 (talk) 16:48, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense in that warmer air would have a higher dew point, and the water droplets would go back into clear water vapor. However, aren't some winds associated with cold fronts ? StuRat (talk) 18:08, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Fog is rapidly dispersed by wind. Fog forms by moisture evaporating from relatively warm land or sea and immediately condensing back out again as it rises into cold air. Fog formation requires a very gentle breeze to continuously replace the saturated air at the air-substrate boundary (otherwise all you get is a low-lying mist at best, or more likely just dew on the grass) but anything stronger prevents a heavy bank of fog from building up. SpinningSpark 18:03, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

"Dispersed" to where ? StuRat (talk) 18:06, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I think "dispersed" by evaporation to water vapour in a much larger volume of air, but perhaps a meteorologist can confirm this? Dbfirs 18:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why you find this so hard to grasp. If I said my bunch of balloons were dispersed in the wind when I let go of them you probably wouldn't have a problem with that. Once the wind is strong enough to completely seperate the moist air from the boundary layer where it formed it then occupies a greater volume as Dbfirs says. More importantly, because the moisture content of the air has become "diluted" the humidity decreases, evaporation of the droplets is promoted and condensation is inhibited. Here is a book. SpinningSpark 18:42, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

If there were balloons everywhere, then wind wouldn't disperse them either, just blow some away and blow others in. If a wide area has fog, then I'd expect the same thing. However, perhaps it's mixing the moist air with dryer air up above ? StuRat (talk) 18:47, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Even if there were aerostatic balloons "everywhere", they would not remain uniformly distributed for long. You could still get dense pockets, which would then be dispersed by wind. Anyway, yes, there is some mixing with higher layers, but also mixing with all air surrounding a given volume of fog. See also Fog#Types for some different ways it can form. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:26, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The premise here seems to be the popular wisdom that fog is a cloud on the ground. But if fog is formed by cold ground touching warm air, it is not like a cloud and can be dispersed by separating them frequently. Whether wind can disperse fog in a cloud forest, that is more interesting. Wnt (talk) 16:30, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Sage advice ?

I had a large bowl (flat bottom, circular from the top) soaking in the sink. All it had in it was water and sage powder, left over from the soup I had cooked. When I went back, after soaking, to wash it, I found all the sage had deposited itself in a neat little pile right at the bottom, center. I may have left the water rotating about the center after I filled it to soak. So, what caused the sage to all gather in the center ? Since it sank, it must be heavier than water. Therefore, the rotational force of the water should have moved it away from the center, right ? Maybe it was lighter than water, and therefore floated to the center, then became water-logged and sank, later ? StuRat (talk) 18:57, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I'd guess that the water was warmer than the environment, and the heat loss through the sidewalls makes the water close to the sidewalls cooler and denser, which causes it to sink, creating a convection cycle of water rising in the middle and sinking at the sidewalls. That creates a center-directed current at the bottom, where the sage is. Icek (talk) 19:41, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Guess what, we have an article, Tea leaf paradox, with a diagram of a current cycle (which could be supplemented or even created by convection as Icek pointed out) and guess who the sage is that solved the paradox. :-) Albert Einstein, and the article explains it better than I could, but essentially water accumulating at the rim due to faster rotation near the surface forces water downward along the sides and toward the center and back up. -Modocc (talk) 21:05, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Wow, Wikipedia does have an article on everything ! StuRat (talk) 23:04, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I've gotten so used to Wikipedia having an article on everything that my reaction was not so much "Wow, Wikipedia has an article on everything!" as it was "Wow, Albert Einstein has a solution for everything!" —SeekingAnswers (reply) 14:30, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I hope his work on the tea leaf paradox didn't distract him, preventing him from formulating a theory of everything. :-) StuRat (talk) 14:38, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

Analgesic

Do things with an analgesic effect reduce/block the pain from drowning? Money is tight (talk) 23:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean by "a pain from drowning?" If you drowned it is too late to experience any pain. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 00:50, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I meant if you take analgesic and you fall into the water, will it reduce the pain/discomfort of drowning? I know this is a weird question, was just wondering if the pain when someone is drowning is the same form of pain as e.g. arms break off. Money is tight (talk) 01:10, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

See drowning. As far as I'm aware drowning causes physical distress but that is a different thing from physical pain which I've not heard survivors talking about much though I guess there is some. However there are some similarities in how feelings like that are handled and different analgesics act on different pathways, so I guess it is possible some analgesics also reduce this type of distress. See analgesic. Also different people can react quite differently to even common analgesics like paracetamol and aspirin. You might also be interested in instinctive drowning response which is the final stage. I can't see an ethics committee thinking there is much to gain from research on the effect of drugs on this! 10:00, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• If "pain" here means "suffering", then the answer is that it depends on the analgesic. Aspirin, for example, would not have any effect. However, opiates such as heroin or morphine reduce virtually all types of suffering, so they probably would reduce the distress associated with drowning. Looie496 (talk) 03:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)