Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/December 2008

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a monthly archive index. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 1

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 1

1. radiant barrier
2. Taste of Food Additives
3. Nova and Supernova
4. Motorcycle Dynamics
5. Time and causality
6. Strain Gauges
7. Herpes research
8. Less known cell line resources
9. Timespeed is increasing overtime

December 2

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 2

1. If the universe is constantly expanding....
2. Physics
3. Can we harness the power of tectonic plate movements?
4. Big Bang in the USA
5. Solving Britain's housing crisis
6. Acids taste sour...
7. Limit to the number of discovered elements
8. Caffeine in potatos?
9. Brita water filter
10. Bomb into Lake
11. Question about volume of helium in a balloon
12. arguments against vaccinating babies

December 3

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 3

1. Game Over
2. Do we have the engineering capability to dig a hole all the way thru the Earth?
3. chemical reaction of copper with limestone
4. Making metal
5. Escaping a black hole
6. Coffee
7. Protein Structure
8. Looking back in time through space
9. Smelling your own B.O.
10. Measurement of the speed of light
11. Rare as hen's teeth
12. Mercury's extra day
13. Will wind farms, solar power,and ocean wave power destroy the Earth?
14. Parrot - how cold is too cold for her?

December 4

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 4

1. Kinetic energy weapons or using "flying crowbars" to kill tanks
2. Losing weight by cold weather?
3. Knee arthroscopy
4. Drug making
5. Creating a new page
6. Decline in LED light output after several weeks of use
7. Another LED question
8. The Universal Expansion Paradox
9. Fox killing 13 penguins
10. Double cross product of angular velocity

December 5

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 5

1. Einstein's Theory Of Relativity
2. Designing difficultiy
3. Speed though time
4. Carbon monoxide poisoning
5. Is this a legitimate scientific study?
6. Energy
7. LED Grow Lights
8. Is it possible to smell your own breath?
9. Apparent contradiction in information about tumours

December 6

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 6

1. Lysosomes in plants
2. Stabilised Pool Products
3. Partial and total derivatives
4. Strange phenomenom
5. Inverse relationship between length of work shift and task performance, employee health
6. Magically clean acrylic yarn
7. Diamonds
8. Irradiated currency
9. Bush vs. Obama
10. Diffusive Systems
11. Radioactive Decay

December 7

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 7

1. Electric Tooth Brush
2. Rare meat
3. Natural orbitational phenomenon
4. nepeta
5. Why do CFL bulbs take a while to reach full brightness?
6. What puts the fluorescence in fluorescent lights?
7. making Part II
8. Asking the gods of science for some help.
9. Common descent
10. Displaying carbon and hydrogens in Symyx/ISIS draw
11. A California earthquake causing an associated blackout and causing people to see the Milky Way
12. Rhizobium
13. Long train journey
14. Citrus identification

December 8

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 8

1. Carbs from Vegetables
2. Mushroom Substrate
3. Compressing Water
4. UK DNA taken from criminals
5. Human body voltage
6. Longevity
7. Island of Stability
8. Wikipedia, Censorship and Child Pornography
9. Post-docs
10. Continuously-cooling device?
11. Traction for tires.

December 9

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 9

1. Coconut water as an IV
2. Extracting oxygen from ferrous oxide (FeO)
3. Time Travel
4. Containing a super-volcano?
5. Stellar Classification
6. Energy crisis
7. Speed and mass
8. Sequence line-ups
9. Why does light refract upward at cold temps?
10. Cheese and intestinal blockage.
11. Road salt
12. How do you use microwaves to find out if there's foil inside butter tubs?
13. cosmic string
14. Native Americans and Atlantis
15. Does lemon juice damage your teeth?

December 10

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 10

1. Tea and diabetics
2. Fleeting bad memories
3. Jets flying over populated areas
4. Reducing fat
5. Clockwork Toy (Homemade)
6. LPG
7. Test your microwave with a mobile phone?
8. paper mache external fuel tank
9. Diamonds Part 2
10. Travis Pastrana
11. Washing up
12. Lonely inventor builds working cyborg girlfriend in own home - malarkey or effective way?

December 11

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 11

1. Yerba mate
2. plants
3. Laser cooling
4. Crystallisation esp. seen in ice... what is the magic of the hexagon?
5. Inhabitable planets larger than the Earth?
6. Erection
7. 1 calorie
8. Spinal injury
9. Duck question
10. Energy generating floors
11. Vanadium foil is used in cladding titanium to steel

December 12

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 12

1. cactus
2. Detecting bullets and Improvised Explosive Devices
3. Water waste
4. Question about Recursion
5. Pump type
6. travertine

December 13

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 13

1. Calc-sinter ???
2. Small children and names
3. What's the cause of an inability to distinguish an actor from a character?
4. Schrödinger's Particle Accelerator
5. Faster means lower pressure?
6. Determining the sex of a seagull?
7. Pills
8. Ocean floor water temperature
9. ESPVR curve shift
10. TOOLS/HARDWARE IE:Europian style "cup hinges".
11. Freezing hot water
12. Chemical depilatory
13. Temporal Fenestra

December 14

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 14

1. Tuberculosis
2. Effect of various pH levels on pepsin hydrolysis
3. cacti
4. Use of prions in anti viral combat
5. Bond Strengths and Electronegativities
6. are all cactus edible?
7. Why is bacon so delicious?
8. telegraph network structure
9. Nuclear Re-breather?
10. Children
11. BLAST not working?
12. foods changing color
13. Colourblindness
14. Driverless cars as means against IEDs
15. Human consciousness
16. Andromeda collision
17. Speed of sound in SF6

December 15

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 15

1. Awesome memory of conductors
2. PRIVATELY FUNDED CANCER RESEARCH FACILITIES IN THE U.K.?
3. Hippocampal dysplasia.
4. Density

December 16

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 16

1. Density (follow on from the above)
2. A critical dictionary of psychology?
3. the method to reduce alcohol or menthol scent
4. Flat screen moving volumetric display with full vertical and horizontal parallax?
5. Most powerful force on earth

December 17

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 17

1. The Vagina and an imperforate hymen
2. Does human hair change color while decomposing in water?
3. Liquid light
4. speed of sound
5. plants
6. Indian apple
7. Hiroshima Peace Memorial
8. What is the difference between a male seed and a female seed?
9. Researching Invention for child's project
10. Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation Question
11. Helium latex Balloon Questions
12. "Good" Chemical
13. Evolution of the liver
14. Copurification, Pull-down assays, and co-immunoprecipitation

December 18

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 18

1. Brazilian copperfish
2. cheap lead testing
3. Could high energy alcohol be used as a jet fuel?
4. fluorimeter/turbimieter
5. Exoplanet detections in next decade
6. Expansion of the Universe and Perpetual Motion.

December 19

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 19

1. Getting a Shine On
2. The sky is falling! Positive or negative feedback mechanism?
3. how to reduce alcohol or menthol smell but keep the cool function
4. IMMUNOLOGY
5. Conjoined twins longevity question
6. Demineralised water
7. beta sisteral
8. Symbol for Litre: uppercase or lowercase?
9. Burt Rutan comments on V-22 Osprey and 1960's tiltrotor prototype
10. optics
11. How the heck does a car move?
12. Mysterious Music Box Malfunction

December 20

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 20

1. Eye Layers
2. Question on Perception
3. Milk
4. Why do young women giggle all the time?
5. Artificially recreating the earth's magnetic field
6. Flash point of fission in atmosphere
7. Why do some children have the concept of growing down after one grows up?
8. Why does chronic stress sometimes lead to stroke
9. is it possible to produce a novel algorithm USING THE POWER OF THE MIND ALONE? (no other tools of any kind)
10. What does the "LIO" prefix mean in the scientific name of "Pocket Mice"?

December 21

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 21

1. Hey, have they ever expanded on that life creating experiment thing?
2. Lipid Layer
3. Identifying an unknown mammal
4. Skua vs. Great Black-backed Gull - who would win?
5. Whats so special about Half-Integer spin? 59.93.92.192 (talk) 13:23, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
6. Mystery flower
7. Overcooked vs. burnt food
8. Wood-burning stoves, creosote and soup cans
9. Esclorophile Bush?
10. Paranoid park (spoiler warning)
11. Metal detectors for non-magnetic metals

December 22

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 22

1. Generator
2. Planet destroying energy
3. Gravity hole
4. Speed of light in another universe
5. Particle-wave separation/fusion
6. Storing solar lights
7. Earth's rotation
8. the nearest galaxy
9. Acceleration of particles in a secluded system
10. Tech Bump
11. Secondary minerals?

December 23

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 23

1. Material with highest melting point?
2. TASTE BUDS
3. Science/Humanities question on Egypt's buried tombs
4. Why is the static between channels loud?
5. Ion slowing down in plasma
6. What happens to sexual desire after penectomy?
7. nutrition facts
8. Genetic Misogyny and sex war?
9. Not so bright question...
10. A tool for measuring cubic volume
11. Non-lethal weapon against gangs
12. AeroGarden gizmo.
13. Sail all wet?
14. Red Panda, Giant Panda thumb.

December 24

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 24

1. Happy Holidays!
2. Test for fullerenes
3. material science
4. Hardware design
5. on chemistry
6. A scientist today?

December 25

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 25

1. Swimming in Purified Water
2. Testing for lead
3. electric fuse
4. Lead test kit
5. determination of muscle mass
6. Chemical reaction (was "test for fullerenes")
7. Band Planet

December 26

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 26

1. Ashes in the garden
2. Electrical Charges
3. Proactive Competitor
4. Racing Pigeons
5. Amateur genetic engineering

December 27

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 27

1. Paramedic Milk?
2. Cockatiel and budgerigar utterances
3. Strange weather seen on radar. Small scale "lake effect" perhaps?
4. Binomial authority
5. Color of hydrocarbons
6. Foreclosure
7. Cigarette v. Cigar Second Hand Smoke
8. transistor feed back network
9. Disodium Edta
10. Methylchloroisothiazolinone
11. Are there any scientists out there that dont swear?

December 28

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 28

1. What is the minimum amount of heat it takes to burn you?
2. "Ba humbugi"
3. Freesat, free satellite, DVB-T, DVB-S and satellite dish mounting
4. Psychoactive drugs and human survival
5. chemical reactions
6. Can I have some more Sun Conure advice, please?
7. You people look all the same to me!!
8. Methane clathrates, global warming, and such
9. Do photons lose energy?

December 29

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 29

1. consuption of electricity by refrigrator
2. female virginity question
3. Differnece in growth of Neem tree and Banana tree
4. What logical fallacy is this?
5. Multiple near-death experiences and emotions
6. chances developing same affliction
7. antibiotics
8. Genome: Both good and original, but...
9. Putting milk in coffee
10. Ni-MH Battery Behavior (Nikon EN-4 knockoff for D1 camera)
11. Optimal Eyepiece Diameter
12. What is this??????

December 30

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 30

1. salt vs. freshwater evaporation rates
2. Collisions in an ideal gas
3. Why did this atom get together with that atom?
4. PROOF
5. imortal
6. Velocity of an Object under Gravitational Influence
7. Motion of an aircraft
8. helium
9. Passive solar building design
10. Waiting for the water to turn hot
11. Depth and water pressure

December 31

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2008 December 31

1. Best exercise for endorphins
2. Pressure reducing devices in city water mains
3. Laser based short sight correction-what is the downside?
4. Reactivity of Salt
5. Time