Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2015 April 1

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April 1

Can lithium batteries and oxygen be used to make an impovised explosive device to blow up a cockpit door?

I'm in a plane right now, the pilot is locked out of the cockpit, he is desperately trying to get into the cockpit to prevent a plane crash. Would it be possible to make a powerful enough explosive using materials that are allowed on board such as lithium batteries and perhaps using oxygen from the on board oxygen tanks to make a powerful enough bomb to blow the cockpit door open? Count Iblis (talk) 01:15, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Your post is in poor taste. While the question itself may have merit, in light of recent events like the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash, the way that you have chosen to phrase your question does not meet the standards of encyclopedic tone that we expect at Wikipedia. Even on April 1. Nimur (talk) 14:35, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Piffle. It's a reasonable thing to wonder, though the effort seems forlorn. Wnt (talk) 03:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

• Imagine that the paragraph begins with "Suppose". Any better? —Tamfang (talk) 04:52, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Or grab the fire extinguisher and start bashing at the lock mechanism. --Jayron32 01:17, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Getting that door open before the copilot can crash the plane seems to be an impossible task. I think putting a bathroom in the cockpit is a better solution, so they never have to leave the cockpit in the first place. StuRat (talk) 01:44, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

crushed soda cans+O2=thermic lance. It'd take while to put togetherGreglocock (talk) 05:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

As was pointed out on the evening news yesterday, a year or two ago a pilot went nuts while away from the cockpit. He was then locked out, and it's a good thing he couldn't get back in. It's a no-win situation - but one that only rarely comes up. The airline has now all but admitted negligence in regard to the recent crash. He was sending signs to everyone and they weren't listening. Kind of like when kids shoot up a school, and then the experts discover he was telegraphing his intentions ahead of time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The real weakness is in the locking "logic", if you want to call it that.

To enter the cockpit, you need to enter a PIN on a keypad, but there is a lock switch inside the cockpit which can even disable that and keep the door locked. If it was a 2-part switch where you have to press two buttons at the same time, and so far apart that one person can't press both, that would have been much safer. The failure case would then have been reduced to a terrorist getting the PIN (already extremely unlikely), and only one man left in the cockpit. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 07:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Except when terrorists capture the captain and force him to enter the pin or be killed (or watch flight attendants be killed) and the co-pilot can't lock it. Ywo people in the cockpit makes sense. difficult lock mechanism doesn't. --DHeyward (talk) 11:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I partly agree with you, but there is a question of timing and luck. From what I've read, most planes are only single doored [1] [2] [3] [4]. If someone can wait until the co-pilot or pilot leaves the cabin and capture them then, how much more difficult would it be for them to rush the co-/pilot when the door is open and stop them closing it in time? I think a number of sources question whether the current protocols are even necessary or whether the risk is so small that there are better ways to handle a scenario of someone taking over the cockpit. (Of course we also have to consider how much having another pilot would help against a suicidal pilot i.e. whether they might be likely to still manage to crash the plane with one, and whether the presence of one will discourage them from trying. Similarly for a second non pilot in the cockpit.) See also my comment below. Nil Einne (talk) 17:51, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Either you aren't in the U.S. or haven't paid attention. Magically, a drink cart and flight attendant appear in front of the cockpit door if they need to open it during flight. And no, flying isn't by majority rule. Last year, that mechanism was used to keep a looney pilot out of the cockpit. He ran up and down the aisle screaming they were all going to die and the co-pilot locked him out. The answer is really two people in the cockpit since we've decided access is an issue and uparmored the doors. There are, of course, many ways to destroy a plane if that is the goal both from the outside and the inside. Jetliners don't recover from spins and if the co-pilot really wanted to, he could have just put it into an unrecoverable attitude and they would crash no matter what the door did and it would happen even if there were no locks. Pennsylvania crash on 9/11 wasn't because the they couldn't get the terrorists out of the cockpit, it was because the plane was in an unrecoverable attitude. The November 2001 crash in New York also reiterated that the rudder (the main piece needed to recover) will be ripped off if used during departure and cruise speeds. Even busy U.S. airports have a VFR corridor that usually has small, unknown, private planes flying about 2000 feet over the departure end of the runway and no plane waiting for takeoff could avoid it if they tried something. Or the terminal where the airliners are all parked and fueled. Safety (especially TSA's view of passengers being the problem) is an illusion to placate the masses and it's why we still have incident like Malaysia flight disappearance and Germanwings. For some reason we treat "death by plane" as much more serious than any other death as it plays on very primitive fears (check out the wrongful death payout). --DHeyward (talk) 01:51, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I think you're mostly proving my point. It's not really clear whether preventing access is really necessary. (Would the insane pilot really have gained access before anyone subdued him?) And even if it is, it's not really clear how much a 2 person rule really achieves in most cases since the suicidal pilot could still achieve their goal (as they potentially have before when there were 2 pilots). Perhaps it will help in the lone pilot hijacker scenario, on the other hand could such a pilot take out the 2nd person and proceed anyway? Yes Federal Express Flight 705 didn't work very well, but on the other hand, he may have been more insane in an unhelpful way than a dedicate hijacker may be. Nil Einne (talk) 02:03, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I was thinking more like JetBlue Airways Flight 191. When crazy captain left, co-pilot change the code and locked him out. They had an off-duty pilot enter when psycho pilot was restrained. But psycho pilot was not getting back in. --DHeyward (talk) 05:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Why not have a voice recognition mechanism? It would recognize the pilot's voice and unlock the door. That is even better than having a fingerprint or eyeball recognition system, as that could easily be used when the pilot is dead. Also, he would have to speak calmly, which is difficult when you are in serious danger (e.g. terrorist holding a plastic knife or semi-plausible-to-count-as-food tray in your face). Or, if this is too expensive, give him a damn key! KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 11:38, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Ignoring the likelihood that such a 'calm voice system' would have a high rate of both posiive and negative failure, when it does work properly you may still not be able to get in if you realise the co-pilot is trying to crash the plane when you went to the toilet, but when is that ever likely to happen? Oh wait.... Nil Einne (talk) 13:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Give the passengers an electronic voting system. If 80% agree that the door should be unlocked then then the protocol is overridden. Power would then be in the hands of the many and not the few. --Aspro (talk) 13:14, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Or the few who are able to intimidate the many enough in to doing something which may be a little silly. Nil Einne (talk) 13:36, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Whilst the 'many' can be seduced over time (though propaganda, threats etc.), 80% though, can't be intimidated instantly. Human.. nay-animal-instincts wake up in times of immediate danger. An industrial psychologist would probably need to ascertain the right ratio of votes. It has to be better than the present protocols. Or are you saying we should abandon democracy?--Aspro (talk) 13:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Who said anything about instantly? Of course there's also the question of how you actually stop vote stacking when hostile parties are in sufficient control of the plane that them forcing the way in to the cockpit eventually is a concern (which is the only real reason for current protocols). Nil Einne (talk) 17:30, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The OP did. Any situation that happens in a 12 minute period or less doesn't (psychologically) give time for reflection. So that is an instant situation. Richard Branson (say) could ask the manufactures of the in-flight entertainment system to add a big yellow 'do not panic button' or Press to report a serous security event. Passengers near to the door or in sight of some one trying to light a fuze to his shoe 2001 shoe bomb plot can press it. If several buttons get pressed, the software can send back a information wave to the rest of the passengers. For instance. Their in-flight video can be interrupted by live video from that part of the plane. If the agent tries to spray over the cameras he will not be able to decommission the audio. The tone and timber of other passengers voices will alert passengers throughout the rest of the aircraft that something serous is happening. Some airline bosses may say “Oh No. We don't want to introduce anything that may cause panic on board” To that I say... Well think about it -your on a plane heading for a mountain or a World Trade Center or something. In that situation, passengers are no more than sheep being lead to the slaughter unless the can quickly know what is happening. An aircraft carries a lot of people and amongst that cohort will be people that can and are willing to react if they are aware of the seriousness. And Oh Boy. There is no better motivation for action than when life depends upon one acting. Even if it is altruistically – it is hard-wired into us. This was shown time and time again during the blitz in war time Britain. --Aspro (talk) 19:06, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be completely missing my point. The issue is whether democractisation actually achieves anything that simply relaxing existing protocols, such that it's always possible for the air crew to access the cockpit door, would also achieve. The reason the current systems allow a pilot in the cockpit to stop the door being opened is primarily to stop anyone being able to force the air crew (or a pilot on the other side) to allow them in. In most cases hijackers would have some degree of time on their side, so the democratisation really achieves nothing since if you can force the aircrew, you can force the passengers to allow you access. (In fact in many circumstances it's probably easier to force the passengers. The main disadvantage is at least with the aircrew you can try and do it steathily to avoid the possibility of a United Airlines Flight 93. Often though that won't be easy. Notably if multiple aircrew have access, you'd need to either steathily take them all out which also implies knowing who they are or getting very lucky or taking most of the aircrew out without anyone noticing in time. In fact, even the attackers do that, if the passengers can find the satellite phone quickly they can still surely gain access to the cockpit without taking much longer than under the democratisation proposal.) Or just hack the in flight entertainment system.... So it's far simpler to simpler relax the current protocols, that would give you more than enough time to enter without inventing needlessly complicated "democratisation" systems while giving similar levels of risk of unwanted parties gaining access to the cockpit. (There is also the open question over whether most pilots would really obey the protocols when the passengers and crew are under active threat unless they're really convince a 9/11 style hijacking is planned. And whether you could often either fool the pilots, or force someone on the aircrew without the pilots being aware.) P.S. Also any solution with introduces panic has to weigh the risks of extra deaths due to this panic, including in the perhaps 99% of cases where there was no benefit the passengers could bring. Nil Einne (talk) 01:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

• This XKCD is relevant [5] - Laptop batteries have tons of stored energy, here [6] it is claimed that the energy is comparable to that of a hand grenade. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:30, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Which is to say, I think the answer to your actual question is "yes" but you can check the math and methodologies yourself. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I say the answer is no. Whilst lithium from batteries can be made be made to react violently, there is a problems with this. It would take time to create a device with enough power to breach the security door – and if one did this, the force would breach the integrity of the pressure cabin. The solution is democratizing the protocol. In-flight entertainment systems makes this a feasible proposition.--Aspro (talk) 14:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Except when you happen to be a budget carrier with limited in flight entertainment systems like Germanwings perhaps [7]. Nil Einne (talk) 17:30, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Then fly your family by a different carrier or wait until a better protocol is legislated for all airlines.--Aspro (talk) 19:40, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Seems irrelevant to my point (i.e. that your proposal wouldn't have even worked in the very case which obviously brought about this question). Nil Einne (talk) 01:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I actually suspect the answer it mostly no. While people sometimes talk about lithium ion battery explosions, they actual explosion is limited. See these examples [8] [9] [10]. There's a reason the more common technical term for these is "vent with flames". They can be fairly nasty in airplanes for a number of reasons but they aren't actually great explosives.

Comparing energy to hand grenades bluntly seems a little meaningless. If the figures in [11] and Energy density are correct and my calculations are not off, 20 g of petrol or even fat has more energy than a hand grenade. While your chance of managing to destroy the door with a lithium ion battery may be slim (particularly if your time is short), I think we can all agree gathering 4 or whatever of those small tubs of butter they may have would give you even less chance.

Lithium batteries may be a little better, but lithium metal still isn't the best explosive and finding enough lithium batteries of sufficient power is likely to be difficult.

I also agree with Aspro on one point. Even if you could generate an explosive force sufficient to break down the armoured door, the chance you'll do it and not compromise the plane is probably limited. I guess if you're desperate perhaps it's worth trying but you shouldn't really expect must chance of success.

Realisticly your best bet is to either hope a 2 person rule is sufficient or accept some small risk of the cabin being breached by hostile parties. Of course your two person requirement could also mean the pilots never leave the cockpit. [12] [13] [14].

Nil Einne (talk) 17:30, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

The problem with the 2 person rule is it still leave the protocol open to conspiracy.--Aspro (talk) 19:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Well there's clearly always going to be some risk. If you manage to get both pilots on side than other suggestions are likely pointless in most cases since whatever they're up to would likely be over by the time anyone realises, remembering unless you get lucky you won't just have to get inside the cockpit but contact someone who can guide you on what to do (for an eventual Talk down aircraft landing). A conspiracy involving air crew and a single pilot would require either a bad protocol (ability to control over who will be the one to go in front), or dumb luck. Of course it also depends how desperate and dedicated the conspirators are anyway. If it is a conspiracy they may be more desperate than in a lone wolf situation. If they were, they would potentially take down the non compliant pilot without alerting anyone, again until it's too late. (See comments above about Federal Express Flight 705.) Nil Einne (talk) 01:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Good point on the energy density of butter. I guess we need to think of time derivatives, explosion vs. conflagration, and that kind of thing. I suspect if anyone has seriously described how to make IED out of laptop batteries, it would be in some sort of modern analog to the Anarchist's Cookbook. OP may do well to trawl the shadier sides of the internet/darknet/freenet for that kind of thing. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally while researching lithium ion batteries and planes for unrelated reasons, I notice [15] from the TSA actually says they aren't considered an explosive risk although I'm pretty sure it's mostly referring to unintentional damage or fault. Nil Einne (talk) 01:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

One final point before I leave this discussion for good, the lithium ion vs fat comparison seemed a little weird to me, even if the hand grenade example does illustrate the problem with simply comparing the amount of energy. I think I realise now why. The energy for a battery from XKCD was solely the energy release during discharge of the battery until the safe point. In reality the chemical energy in the battery that will be released during a venting with flames incident is likely to be fair amount higher. Partly why even in terms of a forced fire, 5 packs of 5g of butter (I said 4 packs earlier but butter has some water so 5 is probably a better number even if 4 may still be enough given the higher density) is not likely to be anywhere as impression as a lithium ion battery. Also I didn't mean to imply a single hand grenade is likely to take down the cockpit door. Nil Einne (talk) 03:07, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

N.B. OP wasn't asking "what else might be done in this situation", OP asked "Can lithium batteries ... make an impovised explosive device?") SemanticMantis (talk) 18:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Then the answer is - for this application- the answer is no!--Aspro (talk) 19:21, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

• My guess would be the main problem is that the cockpit door is indeed designed to be pretty tough, and improvised bombs are notoriously unreliable. Even something that can send out chunks of lethal shrapnel may not actually provide enough of a shock wave to reliably break a nearby lock. I think that lithium and whatever is basically a deflagration that will not have a serious impact on the locking mechanism. It would be more feasible to use something like thermite - there was just a flap of news about security paranoia regarding it on a plane. But even though you could probably find some aluminum and some iron to file away at somewhere on board (everybody pool your nail files!) you'll never make it in time, unless maybe your pilot is on a trip to the South Pole (if it's indeed the pilot and not a Boeing Uninterruptible Autopilot in charge of your Malaysian Airlines flight) - your only real chance is that luckily there's a terrorist already on board with the stuff and he whips it out so that the pilot doesn't steal his 72 virgins!) Honestly, all things considered, I think your best hope physically breaching the door is that you and fellow passengers can improvise a good heavy battering ram. But as for me, the idea that came to mind was to run up to that intercom and start talking, telling the pilot that he can't stop the message from being recorded on the black box, try to get sympathy from any future listeners and then beg them earnestly, "anyone who ever hears this", to hunt down the suicidal idiot's children/wife/family/whatever and burn them almost to death, hang them by their guts, call the medical authorities to make sure it takes months to die &c. because "pilots do this all the time, kill their passengers as part of a suicide, and that's the only thing that's ever going to stop it." While it wouldn't be very likely to work, there's at least some chance the homicidal copilot would be so freaked out knowing that this earnest appeal is out there for anyone in the world to follow through on that he'd be shocked out of his idea. Wnt (talk) 03:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

What is real the difference between VF and IVF?

What is the difference between ventricular fibrillation (VF) to Idiopathic ventricular fibrillation (IVF)? 192.117.186.252 (talk) 01:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Have you looked at our article for Ventricular fibrillation? I'm not any expert, but it seems to me that IVF is simply a subset of VF where no discernable cause can be found. Vespine (talk) 01:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Per Vespine, the word "idiopathic" or "idiopathy" is medical jargon for "we have no idea". See idiopathy. --Jayron32 01:51, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Sir. B.t.w I know what is ventricular fibrillation but I don't understand if idiopathic VF can be for example for a moment without knowing of the person about that (I knew the etymology of the word "idiopathic" but actually it didn't real help me to understand what is IVF). It's not clear for me (even I read our article -about VF- on wiki).192.117.186.252 (talk) 02:07, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Ventricular fibrillation is when your heart goes all whoopsie-doopsie and starts beating weirdly. Idiopathic ventricular fibrillation is the same thing. The "idiopathic" bit just means "we don't know why it happened." But otherwise the expression of the symptom (heart beating all wrong) is the same. --Jayron32 02:20, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

To be pedantic, "idiopathic" means that it doesn't fall into any of the categories of known causes. For example, it is possible to cause fibrillation by electrically shocking the heart in a certain way -- that sort of fibrillation is not idiopathic, even if nobody knows that the fibrillation was caused by a shock. Looie496 (talk) 14:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

True, idiopathic means "unknown" in the sense of "even under perfect diagnostics, we still don't know what could have caused this", not merely "we don't know what could have caused this because we're not good at our job" or "we missed something" or something like that. Idiopathy has a sense of unknowability rather than merely unknown because of incomplete information. --Jayron32 01:16, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I was going to say - "idiopathic" isn't so much "we don't know" as "we checked it out and we still don't know". - Nunh-huh 01:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Many years ago, my graduate advisor said "idiopathic" meant the doctors were idiots for not knowing what caused it. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:20, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Verily Short Brigade Harvester Boris Many a true word is spoken in jest. --Aspro (talk) 20:47, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I once transcribed a discharge report that contained this brilliant passage: "it could possibly be idiopathic but [...] most likely his [symptom] has unclear etiology." —Tamfang (talk) 04:56, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Sallie Gardner at a Gallop

In Sallie Gardner at a Gallop:

He was interested in improving the performance of his horses of both types and in the scientific questions of their gait action.

Now I have studied my horse's movements and I learned much about his weaknesses. How do I instruct my horse not to kick his hind legs too high and put more weight on his front left leg? -- Toytoy (talk) 02:31, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Just my guess, but I would think some kind of gear could be attached to the horse during training that would feel annoying when he kicked his rear legs too high, and that this would eventually condition him not to do that. No ideas on the other part. StuRat (talk) 03:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps an editor will be able to provide a general, referenced description of common horse training practices used to correct gait, but in the meantime, someone may wish to help improve Sallie Gardner at a Gallop#Development: The photographs were taken in succession at one thousandth of a second. This is presumable a reference to a shutter speed of 1/1000 s, not a 1000 fps frame rate as it sounds (unless horses really do gallop at 400 Hz). I am unable to access the references. -- ToE 14:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I actually believe the listed exposure-time is a dubious piece of data. As I recall, (and as published in Stanford Magazine in 2001), Muybridge used a home-made camera shutter. There is no reliable way to verify the effective exposure duration. Nowadays we could just check the EXIF data, but in 1878, it would not be practical to determine exposure speed, even if you had a whole laboratory full of equipment! Nimur (talk) 21:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I've clarified the article's sentence based on Edward Armitage's 1883 Thematic Divisions of Images, pg. 176, "The word "instantaneously" does not at all represent the rapidity with which the negatives were taken. It was calculated that the time for each operation was under 1/2000 th part of a second. The interval between the production of the negatives was one twenty-fifty of a second, which if multiplied by twelve, will give about half a second for the completion of the series." -- ToE 14:15, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I think for this specific of a question, you'll have to ask actual horse experts, perhaps at a horse forum. Here are a few that look decent [16] [17]. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:50, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Drosophila melanogaster

Does the community agree that the Drosophila melanogaster entry would be enriched by the following link? http://www.flyfacility.ls.manchester.ac.uk/forthepublic/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by PoppiUK62 (talk • contribs) 08:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Sounds good to me! Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 09:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

• Token reminder: The best place for such a question is Talk:Drosophila melanogaster. —Tamfang (talk) 07:05, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Research reports

Does writing a detailed methodology in a technical report prove you have adopted a good scientific research approach? Or should you have a separate section which describes who you worked with, where the labs you worked on were located etc? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.192.121.201 (talk) 13:44, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

A detailed methodology doesn't prove that you used a good approach, but it allows the reader to decide whether you did. Regarding what level of detail you should include, the basic principle is that you should include any information that a reasonable person might think could have affected the results. Ideally you should also include any information necessary for another person to replicate your experiment. If information doesn't fall into those two categories, you probably don't need to include it. Looie496 (talk) 14:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

There's no one right answer, it really depends on the venue. E.g. Nature papers seldom have a level of detail on methods that would allow reproduction of the experiment. Student reports often have much more detail about things like how a flask was washed. White papers and internal reports will vary by institution. As for who you worked with, they should probably be either co-authors or in the acknowledgements. Occasionally a journal article will cite "personal communication" [18] with a given person to provide reference for a claim, but some journals no longer allow this. Where the labs are should only be mentioned if it is an important influence on the findings. If you're counting ants or birds or something, location is important. Anyway, if you tell us what type of "technical report" you are interested in, we can probably give you better answers. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

It's a difficult one as my technical report is very multidisciplinary involving multiple areas of science. All the colleagues I'm working with therefore have different ideas of report structure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.192.121.201 (talk) 14:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

That's fine. I myself have the same problem sometimes. But can you tell us if this is for a peer-reviewed journal article, and internal report, or something else? I think that's the most important split. The actual fields are probably less important, but if you could tell us even broad field names, like "computer science, biology, and physics" that would also help. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:52, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

It's an internal materials science report. The research director has his own standard format for internal reports but very often people don't follow them because he has no idea what's going on in individual research teams and there's much disagreement over his standard format. 90.192.121.201 (talk) 15:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

One thing to bear in mind is whether the same reasons which allow others to ignore the research director's standard format apply to you. For example, is it possible he is unlikely to see most reports but may see yours because it's very multidisciplinary? Are they high up enough that it's easy for them to ignore the research director but not for you? Nil Einne (talk) 17:01, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

It's unclear if your supervisor will care about what people on WP think. From what I can tell, you should definitely identify the people involved in the research. If not by authorship or personally, at least name the group/lab that contributed. I can't see why location would be important for purely scientific purposes, but of course the goals here are not necessarily purely scientific (e.g. an internal report might have a goal of identifying which labs can do the work faster or at lower cost). Here's a guide to methods writing from NCBI [19] that might be helpful. If you search for things like /methods writing science/ you'll find lots of similar guides from other colleges and institutes, but again, none of that really matters if your supervisor wants it done his way. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:26, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

There's no actual requirement to write about research project management but some people suggest that it's Necessary to fulfil the requirement that the approach taken for the research is scientifically rigorous. I kind of disagree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.132.246.244 (talk) 13:46, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Are there any studies as to what happens if you extract an embryo and inject it into someones blood stream?

I was wondering if any research has been done into what would happen if someone was injected with an early stage human embryo before the primitive streak stage of development. [20]

I've been reading about transplanting cancer; where genetic similarity is needed or else the immune system just suppresses it; Dr. Cornelius Rhoads tried transplanting cancer from unrelated people and apparently the immune system just suppressed it; it seems cancer can be transplanted in close relatives however. Would this be a more effective means of giving someone cancer, would the immune system just suppress it and nothing would happen, or would it be an effective embryonic stem cell transplant; or is there a 4th option? [21] Bullets and Bracelets (talk) 18:08, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

As for cancer transmission, see Clonally_transmissible_cancer. Devil_facial_tumour_disease is an example that is of particular concern. Despite reading your links, I don't understand why you might think injecting a human embryo into a human blood stream might give somebody cancer. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:20, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

• Under normal circumstances (unless it was your own clone) the mbryo would engender an immune response and be devoured by white cells. It might also form a clot. The womb is not filled with flowing blood, so there is no immune response before it implants. Once it does implant, the placenta helps to form a barrier to prevent the blood mixing directly. See Rh blood group system for possible lethal consequences of blood mixture.

μηδείς (talk) 18:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

• Why on God's green earth would anyone inject an embryo into the blood stream? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:28, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Think the OP is asking about Embryonic stem cells not complete embryos.--Aspro (talk) 20:41, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

But then why specifically link to primitive streak, which refers to a stage of the blastula? SemanticMantis (talk) 20:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

This sounds like the type of "medical experiment" the Nazis did. I think there's a small possibility of an ectopic pregnancy, which might kill the host, say if in the brain. StuRat (talk) 20:48, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Think you have fallen foul of Godwin's law. The OP just did not phrase his question very well - that's all. --Aspro (talk) 20:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

"I think there's a small possibility of an ectopic pregnancy, which might kill the host, say if in the brain."

For the umpteenth-millionth time, Stu, can we please avoid wild speculation here? There has never been a recorded case of an ectopic pregnancy in that anatomical region -- nor anywhere near it, nor anywhere outside of a small handful of locations. It may make seem like a reasonable leap to you that it could maybe occur under these extraordinary conditions, but that is nothing but a wild guess and we are here to offer direction towards actual sources on the established understanding of the topic at hand, not amateur prognosis based on pure synthesis -- especially when such speculation can easily be mistaken by an OP or other party as reflecting actual consensus science when you use such wording as "there's a small possibility of". Please save this manner of conjecture for reddit or some other space where non-expert, non-sourced speculation is welcome; this is not such a forum. Snow ^{let's rap} 22:28, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Obviously there has never been an example of this, because an embryo has presumably never been injected into the blood stream. There have been examples of ectopic pregnancies in various other unusual places though. StuRat (talk) 00:25, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

None of which supports in the least your assertion that there would be "small possibility" (nor any realistic possibility) of such an ectopic pregnancy in the context you suggest. Look I, and presumably others here, could provide scores of physiological reasons why such a development is highly unlikely, but the problem is that, in doing so, we would also have to engage in original research in order to do so. It might be based in a deeper understanding of the histology involved than you seem to have, but original research it would still be. And that's rather the point: discussions of this nature -- which comments such as yours above invite (and sometimes necessitate for correction) -- are clear violations of WP:NOTAFORUM. I repeat: we are not here to speculate; this is a reference desk, not a forum. If you don't know for a fact that a piece of information/speculation that you are forwarding can be sourced, please just don't offer it up. This doesn't strike me as a particularly onerous condition upon participation here, anymore than it is so for any other area of Wikipedia, and most every other regular here conforms themselves to it for the most part. Snow ^{let's rap} 01:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Calm down, getting upset over trivialities isn't good for your blood pressure (oops, medical advice !). :-) StuRat (talk) 02:55, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Clearly you have no more qualms about speculating over my state of mind than you do about any other subject in this space which you rush to provide an answer to without taking due time to consider whether you are qualified or if your answer provides any empirically valid insight. I'm perfectly calm about all of this -- this is not a personal matter and is no different than any other routine procedural discussion I might comment upon on this project, aside from the facet that I (and others) have had to raise the issue with you so many times -- so I don't appreciate that sentiment. I just want you to follow policy in your contributions here, and I don't regard such matters as "trivialities", at least not in-so-far as Wikipedia is concerned. Let me be clear, we all step over the line with regard to WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:OR here on occasion; it's just a consequence of the nature of this space, and I'm no exception. But with no other user has it been such a consistent and ongoing problem over such a long period of time. I like you, Stu, but seriously, you are going to have to internalize these standards eventually, or we're all likely to end up operating under more restrictive rules that require us to source everything we discuss here. I'd rather have some self-restraint on the part of all of our regular contributors here than new overt policies because we couldn't exercise that restraint. Snow ^{let's rap} 04:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Snow Rise: re @StuRat: I think the dubious Wikipedia policy claims belong elsewhere (if anywhere); if you want to correct his answer here, then correct it. I should note that cancer, including teratoma, is a potential consequence of embryonic stem cell therapy [22]. I wouldn't expect a ground-up embryo to produce a perfectly formed fetus (though you never know till you try), but a teratoma can have a disturbing degree of organization. I don't want to give this idea too much credibility since cancer is a rare side-effect of a therapy that still has not been tried enough to really know even its ordinary effects with any confidence, but the brain, being an immunologically privileged site, in theory would be a relatively plausible location. Wnt (talk) 11:25, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

A) How are those claims dubious? Those policies are pretty straight forward and I'm aware of no exemptions made by the community at large for this area of the project. B) I thought about taking this to the talk page (as I have the last four dozen times), but the last thing we need right now is another divisive policy/behavioural discussion brought on by a contributor who has a highly specific, but persistent, issue in their approach to the boards (sound familiar?). If I took the issue to the talk page, everyone would feel compelled to comment at length and I hoped (hope) that by addressing it here, Stu (who, to his credit, doesn't get worked up over these things or take them personally, in circumstances where some other editors might feel "attacked") might take it seriously and we could avoid the kind of protracted, non-productive, argumentative navel-gazing that has come to typify discussion on our talk page over the last year or so. If you want to take the matter there, I'll participate, but there's nothing inappropriate with raising the issue here, in the discussion in which it has occurred. C) I already explained above exactly why I chose not to correct his speculation in more detail. Aside from the fact that I'm tired of doing such, in order to do so I would have to engage in synthesis of my own. Nevermind the fact that my (or anyone else's) correction may be based in a deeper understanding of the relevant physiology and more likely to be factually accurate -- it would still require unsourced speculation and thus would be just as inappropriate as his original guesswork. What you are suggesting in that regard is not a reasonable response to a violation of policy, it's a continuation of it.

But I've said my piece on the matter (I'd have posted this most recent message on your talk page with a link here to the discussion, but I wasn't sure it would be welcome there -- I can still do that and delete this post here if you're receptive) and I'll just hope that Stu takes the observation to heart. If you want a formal talk page discussion on this matter, I'll participate, but I think we'll once again be opening a can of worms and wasting countless editor man-hours over an issue that is mostly confined (at least in its most extreme form) to one regular. Snow ^{let's rap} 20:26, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

• @Bullets and Bracelets: I am not aware of any study that injected a blastocyst into the bloodstream instead of the uterus as is done in IVF treatment, although I wouldn't be surprised if such experiments have been performed in animals (as an aside, unless I see strong references saying otherwise, I would estimate the chances of such a transfer resulting an ectopic pregnancy in the brain to be roughly the same as the chances of a swallowed apple seed growing into a tree in ones stomach). However, you may be interested in reading up on the phenomenon of Fetomaternal microchimerism, in which some fetal cells naturally migrate to, and integrate with, the mother's body (including in the bloodstream and the brain). Abecedare (talk) 23:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

• The notion that an embryo could enter the bloodstream naturally or that it could travel to the brain demonstrates a lack of understanding of physiology. Topologically, the Uterus and fallopian tubes are outside the body. They are invaginations of the outer body wall. Otherwise the sperm could not enter or fertilize the egg, and the bay would have to rupture the abdominal wall to be born. There is no tissue separating the womb from the outside.

Rather, it is like the skin of the nose and throat, well vascularized, but not an internal organ like the brain or liver. Ectopic pregnancies occur when either the eggs do not exit the fallopian tubes, or in more rare cases, when they enter the abdominal coelom. This is not a solid mass or organs with blood vessels, but essentially hollow space filled with coelomic fluid in which the organs float. At no point does an embryo ever cross the walls of blood vessels, let alone cross the blood-brain barrier.

μηδείς (talk) 02:41, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Nobody said it would enter the bloodstream naturally. You seem to have missed a key word in the Q: "injected". This means the embryo would be extracted, placed into a syringe, then injected into the bloodstream. There's nothing natural about that process, and nothing good would come of it. StuRat (talk) 02:47, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I took "I think there's a small possibility of an ectopic pregnancy, which might kill the host, say if in the brain" as meaning a belief that this sort of thing happens. μηδείς (talk) 17:00, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Not that it happens naturally, no. Ectopic pregnancies happen naturally, of course, but there the embryo hasn't been injected into the bloodstream. StuRat (talk) 17:03, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

• I would anticipate that the effect of injecting an embryo would be somewhat similar to injection embryonic stem cells, since many (though not all) of the embryo's cells have a relatively similar state of cellular differentiation. (Exception: trophoblast cells. The inner cell mass is what is stem cell like.) I wouldn't jump to conclusions about rejection, since during normal pregnancies some fetal cells become established in the maternal bloodstream; in many mothers Y chromosomal DNA can be detected years afterward. There are concerns with ES cells about graft versus host disease or cancer; personally I'm not convinced the treatments have been given enough of a chance for us to really know how serious such problems are. Beyond this, biology is a strictly empirical science, and any sort of extrapolation - even from an ES cell line to an embryo - is really just guesswork. Until someone does this exact experiment, we really don't know. Wnt (talk) 03:19, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

• Since the OP asked about the possibility of cancer, a link to Molar pregnancy and Gestational choriocarcinoma is relevant. These are conditions in which fetal cells cause disease and cancer. The cells do, however, have gross chromosomal abnormalities (at least in humans), containing two sets of paternal chromosomes (duplication or two sperm fertilizing an anucleate ovum), or one set of maternal chromosomes and two sets of paternal chromosomes. They derive from the trophoblast, which is the fetal side of the interface between maternal and fetal tissue. A fetus with its supporting tissue (placenta, amniotic sac) consists of foreign tissue which under other circumstances would be promptly rejected by the immune system. The trophoblast therefore has the capacity to suppress the immune response against foreign cells. Injecting trophoblast cells in humans sounds like an exceptionally bad idea to me. The experiment of transplanting (murine) embryonic cells into other mice has been performed: "Teratomas (synonym. 'embryomas') can be produced from transplants of embryos ranging in developmental age from zygotes and two-celled eggs to preterm viable fetuses.", see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2032436/pdf/amjpathol00449-0245.pdf . The mouse strain that was used, was said to be particularly susceptible to such tumors. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 11:19, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@NorwegianBlue: This is by far the best answer; thanks! But I should caveat for the uninitiated that the paper you cite refers to inbred mice. No human population, not even in the line of the Pharaohs, has ever been so genetically homogeneous as this, and so one would expect the risk might be smaller due to the potential for rejection. Wnt (talk) 12:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

True. But human choriocarcinomas occur in women who are genetically unrelated to their partners, and were usually fatal until the advent of modern chemotherapy. This implies, in my opinion, that the immunosuppressive capacity of trophoblast cells is so strong that genetic differences between the host (mother) and the graft (fetus or fetally derived malignancy) are of little importance in determining whether the graft (fetus/tumor) will be rejected. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 00:45, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, the women are always related to their fetuses, which isn't required in the OP's scenario. Also, the trophoblastic tumors are not, so far as I know, just plain trophoblast cells, but have presumably undergone multiple rounds of mutation and aneuploidy. I don't know if normal trophoblast cells can survive long enough to undergo these mutations if they land just anywhere in the body (though this is ignorance on my part, not refutation!) Wnt (talk) 02:15, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

They are not related in the case I mentioned above, when the tumor contains a double set of paternal chromosomes and no maternal chromosomes. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 11:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Yikes! I should have read the article, since I had a misconception about how it gets started. Wnt (talk) 13:24, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Wow, there's some very interesting articles to read here; this has been extremely insightful. Thank you very much to everyone who posted. Bullets and Bracelets (talk) 15:11, 3 April 2015 (UTC)