coffeesippin

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

Note that viruses do not "breed" as bacteria. They require host cells to multiply. 

Thanks for the reminder, Charon Y.  Clarity helps, as I'm not a health scientist, but my asthma and respiratory allergies cause me to focus sharply on environments leading to stress on airways.  As well, I have a 20 year old granddaughter left with a limp after a bout of either AFM or something very similar 10 years ago in which her legs were paralyzed, black mould on her bathroom ceiling located next to her bedroom is what I believe caused her illness.  Moulds have been mentioned in AFM literature.  What I wrote as endovius is actually enterovirus.  

1 hour ago, Strange said:

Do you have any data to support your air con hypothesis?

U.S. Centre for Disease Control graphs show the disease spiking almost out of nowhere in August, then higher in September.  That is the pattern in the Northern Hemisphere, and follows AC diseases like Legionnaires, which hospitalizes between 8,000 and 18,000 a year in the U.S.   With AFM a strongly suspected Enterovirus found in a majority of cases (but not all) has a two week incubation .. meaning cases contracted in the last two weeks of July during which air conditioning can be near its peak use will mostly show up in August, cases contracted in the last two weeks of August will show up in September, and September is of course the month children are packed together in the confined air spaces of school buses.  The lower per capita rate in the U.S. can be accounted for by Canadian children confined in our colder climate's closed window restricted air circulation environments earlier than the U.S., and also by Canadian homes'  forced air heating systems sending bacteria and moulds into the homes from dirty filters and ducts when the furnace comes on often in early September, we have a sudden drop in temperatures after the Labour Day weekend.  I would be interested to know the statistics for home heating systems in AFM cases, whether central AC is in the home, etc.  Most often the children are 10 and under affected, no children older than 18, no difference between girls and boys.  My main concern is the tightly closed air space of the rear seats of automobiles, in which the youngest, and most affected children, normally sit for crash safety purposes.   The CDC said siblings are not often affected so even though they were welcoming, they at first they discounted my auto ac idea, but I pointed out that older children have vastly different environments, seated in front seats of vehicles, being outside playing much more than young children, not being in crowded day cares, etc., and they became more appreciative.  As this is a science forum, I am hoping scientific curiosity can bring more information.    

I want to discuss ways and means this epidemic originates and spreads .. to discuss ways to save children's lives.  I've been talking with the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and they're happy to get any information that might help them stop this disease.  I wrote the letter, emailed it to many agencies and newspapers, and posted it here in a slightly modified form but I forgot to removed the Dear Editor.

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

I can't picture why air conditioning should be a factor in a virus infection. Legionnaires is bacterial, and breeds in cooling towers. It's not spread in car AC. 

It could be a rare complication from a flu-like virus, or even a midge carrying a virus or similar. Lucky it's rare, it sounds nasty. 

An endovirus is found in a large majority of cases.  Yes Legionnaires is bacterial, but bacteria are not the only agents that breed in AC, especially in filters loaded with damp organics.  "... the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has since pointed out that poorly maintained heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems — especially those in apartment buildings — may support the growth of bacteria and viruses that cause those symptoms. Indeed, in 2016, scientists reported in *The Washington Post* that the cases of Legionella in the U.S. had quadrupled in the past 15 years, likely because HVAC systems in apartment buildings were getting older."                        Moulds are another instigator or respiratory illness .. and often associated with AC.

2 minutes ago, Reg Prescott said:

 No, a fact is either a state of affairs that obtains in reality (fact1), or a statement of such (fact2). Truth, as I've been defining it

          Aha.  As you've been defining it works for you.    

(the correspondence theory), is the relation of correspondence that holds between certain propositions, on the one hand, and states of affairs in the world, on the other. In other words, a relationship that holds between facts2 and facts1.

A fact is not a relationship. Truth is.

      This is too philosophical for me.  I'm more a 'black is not white' kind of guy.

Exactly right. (Except "true fact" is a pleonasm).

      "the use of more words than are necessary to convey meaning (e.g., see with one's eyes ), either as a fault of style or for emphasis."           I can't agree that it's a pleonasm in this case but thanks for the new word.  It's more a spiritual philosophical statement fitting in your         definition of truth as a relationship.   

 Not till you stop shouting.                                                                                                                                                                                          ha ha.  I suspect you saw I couldn't get the font down, and are 'jesting.'    And I'll have to find what more you have to say on          tomorrow .. as I'm tired, it's almost 11 p.m. right now as I set these words down here, and that is a true fact.

 

Dear Editor,

      Family vehicle Air Conditioning systems harbouring moulds, viruses and bacteria may account for 150 U.S. children per year, and 45 Canadian children per year potentially affected by lifelong paralysis through the new but already epidemic polio-like disease Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM), the Canadian rate being 1/155,000 in the affected 17 and under age group, not the 1/1,000,000 reported in some news articles. The U.S. rate is 1/490,000, that epidemic beginning in 2014, while AFM seems new in Canada.

      The disease pattern is: upper respiratory infection with high fever then sudden paralysis through spinal infection. Cases spike in August, then higher in September, decreasing rapidly to near zero in following months. Infected AC causes several deadly diseases including Legionnaires which accounts for 8,000 to 18,000 U.S. hospitalizations per year. While AC is used in July, an Enterovirus D68 candidate in AFM has a two week incubation, pushing many cases into August.

      September's spike can be accounted for by that same two week incubation, along with contagious children in tightly packed school buses. Children 10 and under are most affected, and it is mostly they who sit in the restricted back seat air space in family vehicles with AC on and windows tightly up preventing pathogen dispersal.  U.S. Centre for Disease Control suggests siblings are not affected, but older siblings spend time in far more 'airy' environments than younger children, the older playing outdoors more for instance, the younger crammed together with young children in days cares is another example.  

16 minutes ago, Reg Prescott said:

 

The state of affairs that you are breathing is a fact (fact1 -- as defined previously). It is neither true nor false.

"You are breathing" (note inverted commas) is a true statement, thus a fact (fact2 - as defined previously).

 

So knowledge is always knowledge... until it is no longer knowledge?

Sigh! Bartender!!!! Make it a large one!

17 minutes ago, Reg Prescott said:

Well, this is redolent of certain dubious claims made around here to the effect that knowledge is not always knowledge of that which is true, and that a "scientific truth" may be superseded by a new scientific truth.

Now, "scientific truth" construed as a true proposition pertaining to scientific subject matter is entirely unobjectionable.

On the other hand, the suggestion that some scientific truths may not be true is just plain silly.

 

Edit P.S. - Beware of the ambiguity in the word "fact".

1. a state of affairs that obtains in reality

2. a statement of fact

 

The former is extra-linguistic, thus not truth-evaluable (i.e., the predicates true and false do not apply).

The latter is a linguistic entity. And if it is indeed a statement of fact, then it is true by definition. There are no untrue facts.

At the time I write this I am breathing.  That is a fact .. and true, not false.  But I appreciate your appreciation of the nature of words. hardly necessary to say it, there are those perceived as facts and sworn to be facts which are not or may not be facts.  

11 minutes ago, Janus said:

Even if we use the fastest estimated rotation rate and the longest estimated length, you only get the equivalent of ~4/1,000,000 of a g at the ends.

 

 

And if that's all those beings need?  We have to stop thinking of ourselves as what is acceptable.

11 hours ago, Strange said:

FTFY: There is speculation that it is artificial and would, in that case, be less than a millimetre thick. 

But there is no evidence nor measurement of this.

It's nice to be in a place than can add to my reading and writing skills.

3 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

It doesn't matter. What matters is that they are useful today. Scientific theories are not about truth, they are about usefulness.

An honest reply .. more the mind of an economist than a normal scientist, but I guess economy is a science too.  A big problem in accepting usefulness and putting it into practical work is Consensus .. if the consensus says the theory is not useful, it prevents time and talent and money going into a theory .. and then someone outside that power structure comes along, perhaps a someone in another nation, proves the theory to be useful after all, and there nation gains supremacy over the other nation.    

26 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

It doesn't matter. What matters is that they are useful today. Scientific theories are not about truth, they are about usefulness. Todays facts may not be as useful in the future because they have subsequently found facts that are even more useful. What it usually means is that modern facts cover/explain  a wider range of situations. For example, Newtons gravity has been supplanted by General Relativity but it will still get you to the Moon. What GR offers is greater usefulness on top of being able to get to the Moon.

As was pointed out to me, a fact that is not a fact is not a fact.  Our perception of something as a fact may make that perception useful to us, or not, but it does not make it a fact.  If it is a fact, it won't change if worded carefully enough .. 'at this time and date the earth is so many miles from the sun.'   That distance might not be the fact next week.  Also, I don't work for NASA in calculating trajectories for spacecraft, so I don't know if GR supplants Newton's gravity for those things.  The English language, I find more and more, consists of definitions of the same words which do not complement each other.  Does GR replace Newton, or add to Newton?  Just venting my frustration.  

12 hours ago, DrP said:

So did most people go to church in those days - the human race knew no better explanation at the time other than what was in the bible, which we now know to be factually wrong.

 

 

 

Your statement is too sweeping to have value . . it is in the bible that Jesus Christ was born, the science of history is said to prove he was born.  The bible says, "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."  If you can say the earth hangs on something you're welcome to.  There are many examples. 

A fact is thought to be a fact until another fact which is thought to be a fact proves the first fact to be an unfact.

On 11/3/2018 at 2:52 AM, Eise said:

So if I change the charge of one plate, somebody can measure an instantaneous change at the other plate. Wouldn't that be a violation of special relativity?

@Menan

You show that you do not understand entanglement. 

Let's go one step at a time. First a classical example. I have a bag of balls, they are all red or green. Without looking I pick two balls, and I put them in separate boxes. I keep one, and send the other far away. Then I open my box, and see it is a green ball. What can I conclude about the colour of the ball in the remote box? Right, nothing. And why? Because there was nothing special with my picks. It could have been two reds, two greens, or one red and green.

Now I pick, looking of course, one red and one green, and put them in two separate boxes. So what I did here is 'entangle' the balls. Now I shuffle the two boxes, so that I do not know which one is which. If I open one, and see that it is red, I immediately know that the ball in the other box is green. And of course, this is independent on the distance. If I send the second box lightyears away, and only then open my box, I still know immediately what some alien sees when he opens his box. I know it because the observations are correlated. And the correlation already happened at the moment of my picks. That is the moment of entanglement. It is not when the boxes are opened.

Now in quantum physics, there are processes where two particles pop out, which have e.g in one aspect always opposite values. Say the direction of spin. So if I measure the spin e.g. in a vertical direction, say it is 'up', then I immediately know that the other one will measure spin 'down', when also measured in the vertical direction. But as with the balls, the 'moment of entanglement' is when these particles popped into existence. But in quantum physics a few things are different: first, it is impossible to say which particle has which spin without measuring (it is as if I created the green and red balls, including their boxes, without knowing which ball is in which box). But as the two particles are entangled, if I measure both, the measurements will always be correlated. And there is nothing special with correlation: if I send one particle far away, and then measure my particle in the vertical direction, and the alien measures his particle in the same direction, I will always know what he measures: the opposite of my measurement. 

The 'spooky' aspect comes in when we do not know from each other in which direction we measure the spin. It can be vertical, horizontal, 30^o, 45^o, 55.3977^o. What we find is that the correlation is stronger than one would expect if we would assume that the particles already had a definite spin from the beginning. But it still is correlation, not causation. As with the red and green balls, there is no direct causal relationship between my and the alien's observation. The causal relationship goes back to the moment of 'entanglement'. Everything afterwards is just correlation, and therefore cannot be used to transfer information. And because there is no causal relationship between my measurement of the spin of my particle, and the alien's measurement, I cannot use entanglement for sending information. 

And all this is very well understood by all quantum physicists, and is no secret at all.

You made good illustrations .. but in the end you fail where most science fails in thinking you are at the end of the answer instead of the beginning of further understanding.  One quote on this forum concerns facts as if they are facts .. but facts are facts only until new facts make the old facts unfacts, and thousands of years of science are full of examples.  Modern science says, 'Those old sciences were not sciences at all.'  What will future science say of today's science?  

10 hours ago, Strange said:

FTFY: There is speculation that it is artificial and would, in that case, be less than a millimetre thick. 

But there is no evidence nor measurement of this.

The speculation that Oumuamua is less than a mm thick comes from the fact that it was accelerating away from the sun as if it may be a 'light sail.'  However, what if it is NOT a light sail but is self powered, or gathers power from Dark Matter or Dark Energy?  Regarding the tumbing .. how much artificial gravity in the form of centrifugal force would be created at the ends where perhaps some small beings might be housed?  Some people want to discount 'imagination,' but without it science would still be in the dark ages.

On 11/11/2018 at 8:17 PM, Janus said:

There is no measurement or observation that indicates that it is that thin.  While that would be a requirement for the solar sail hypothesis to valid, this does not mean that it actually is that that thin.   There nothing about the measurements we have made of it that indicates that it is made from so thin a material.    You got the argument backwards.   It is "IF the probe were a light sail then it would need to be very thin", not "It is very thin, so it could be a light sail".

Yup you're right and thanks for correcting me.     I've had another thought about the acceleration and tumble, that if Oumuamua is artificial and under power (dark energy dark matter perhaps collected on the way) how much artificial gravity in the form of centrifugal force would be created in the ends by the tumble.  If beings are housed in the ends the 'gravity' might be created to make them more comfortable.   What if Omuamua slowed down radically to observe Earth in passing, and is speeding up to speeds we can't account for that would make interstellar travel for living beings possible?  

Asteroid Bennu for example .. if it has ice, will it have ice worms.  Japanese experiments show UV light causing ice to act as a liquid.  "researchers say that these same reactions could also be responsible for creating just the right environment for organic molecules to form, the very first building blocks needed for life to start." https://www.google.ca/search?q=uv+causing+ice+to+act+as+liquid&rlz=1C1GGRV_enCA803CA812&oq=uv+causing+ice+to+act+as+liquid&aqs=chrome..69i57.11605j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 
 

On 11/21/2017 at 10:58 AM, Outrider said:

The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii has discovered a visitor from afar. Pan-STARRS primary mission is to detect near earth objects that pose an impact threat but sometimes they get to do fun science like this.

The asteroid seems to come from the constellation Lyra, but the exact origin is still unknown. It has been named Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “a messenger from afar arriving first” and they think it has traveled millions of years to visit us.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/20/16679890/interstellar-asteroid-oumuamua-pan-starrs-solar-system

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1737/

From the second link:

 

There is speculation that the object is artificial because it was less than a milimetre thick, and accelerating for unknown reason after it rounded the sun.  If, as some are saying,  it was sent by a civilization as a probe is possible that the speed at which it was travelling through our solar system could be far less than what it had been travelling between the stars, perhaps it slowed down from a fantastic speed to look at us.  A NASA simulation shows it curving around the sun in time to look closely at earth.  Reports say there were no 'signals' from Oumuamua, but would earth science recognize those signals anyway?  Earth's space probes store data and then send them out at an opportune time, perhaps Oumuamua did the same?  Our scientists need to expand the way they think to include all possibilities, not just the known.  I've noticed this deficit in thought processes on many topics, we find it next to impossible to think beyond our own experience.  Another thought, while 1 milimetre is very thin to us, it might be very thick to another intelligent life form.     

On 1/7/2018 at 1:19 PM, Outrider said:

We may now have an orgin for Oumuamua and its not as far away as first thought. Postdoctoral fellow Fabo Feng of the University of Hertfordshire claims that Oumuamua comes from a loose Stellar Association  known as the Local Association which is part of Pleiades. 

https://theconversation.com/how-i-discovered-the-origins-of-the-cigar-shaped-alien-asteroid-oumuamua-89577

Also consensus has been building that Oumuamua is a comet with a cosmic ray baked on shell of hard rock with an icy core.

 

If Oumuamua is, as even some scientists are speculating because of its -1mm thickness, a probe sent by an intelligent civilization the 'aging' of the surface might not be a factor.   Ocean going vessels on earth have hull surfaces protected from natural aging like rust and barnacles by special coatings.  On earth the metal aluminum is said to heal itself of scratches by migrations of atoms.  Surely an advanced intelligence would anticipate the process of aging, even of damage from small particles, and found ways to for the material to heal itself as our skin does.  In fact, we seem to have it now on earth.  http://taberextrusions.com/self-healing-aluminum-coatings-now-a-reality/