John Cuthber

They are the same as reindeer (note the spelling, btw). Caribou have been semi domesticated for a long time. Not sure there's much advantage over a horse.

I love the advert for the stuff at the end of that page- particularly this bit "and it has a myriad of applications."

I realise it's a year or so late but... That distinction is almost certainly meaningless. There isn't some magical cause and effect relation between an adverse event and depression. Some people become depressed after, for example, losing their job. But many don't. On the other hand, no matter what the chemistry in your brain might be doing, you will experience negative events in your life. So, if you are predisposed to depression, there will always be an event which might (on its own , or in combination with others) be the "causative event.". I think the reality is that the actual cause will be a combination of those two. But I have to say that it's only my opinion because I don't think it would be possible to find out. What test or experiment would you use to distinguish? How could you ensure that the chemical / neurological effect was there but no external cause ? How would you ensure that the external cause was there but without any chemical imbalance? At the risk of incurring Swansont's wrath by prolonging the inclusion of theism/atheism, that statement is factually incorrect. There are "plenty of" depressed atheists. (Obviously, there are far too many, but there are "plenty" to prove that Michael does not know what he is talking about) Sorry; I didn't think it should be allowed to stand uncorrected.

To the enormous relief of everyone named "Faith", the same fate has befallen this

I have seen an argument for a drop to 10,000 or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck#Humans but even that is controversial. However, at some stage in history, there were zero humans, there are now many. This implies that at some time in between, there must have been exactly one human. And that "species" survived so the minimum viable population is 1 (together with a phenomenal amount of luck).

"NASA has calculated that the dam only slows the rotation by 0.06 microseconds" Watch me not care. The effects of harvesting wind power will be comparably small.

Well, while we are talking about anecdotes, perhaps this one answers the question of "why not take it?".

Amen to that. It seems all the Abrahamic religions pray in Hebrew.

If 100% of the people were vaccinated the virus would still cause some infections- no vaccine is perfect. And you could then publish scaremongering stats that say "everybody in hospital with covid was vaccinated". And you could even try to imply that the vaccine makes people more susceptible. Bu that would be a lie, wouldn't it? In Israel the vaccination level is pretty close to 100% so anyone with any sense would realise that many or most of the cases were going to be among people who were vaccinated (especially since the elderly tend to be more susceptible and more likely to be vaccinated. So that graph doesn't show any problem with the vaccine. It should be considered in context. The contexts is that the other trials of ivermectin did not show it to work. The trials (and lived experience of people protected by) the vaccine shows it to be quite effective. If you only have money for one, go for the vaccine. If that is not available, buy a mask; it's not very good, but it's better than horse wormer.

Just a quick note for the selfish idiots out there who don't think we should pay to vaccinate people in other countries. Where do you think the new variants will come from?

Everyone makes mistakes. You were honest enough to admit it. That makes you one of the good guys.

And look at how much more effort has to go into looking after them. It's obviously possible to farm bullrushes. I'm less sure it's worthwhile.

That's right; we can harvest it , take the roots, make them into flour and then next year... No plant actually needs our "help".* They were all doing fine before we arrived. But, if you want sustained yields of the sort that make things commercially viable, you need fertilisers and crop protection. *There's a suggestion that avocados wouldn't survive without us

Did you measure the difference or are we going to have to take your word for it? You could ask the Royal Society about that. But I will assume you are right; there is a difference. As you say, the guitar maker made "small adjustments" to the guitar and that changed the sound. That's certainly a reasonable idea. Now, if we know that small adjustments to the design will give a change in the sound the trouble with the experiment is that we don't have a violin which is identical to the Strad in the shapes and sizes of the bits, but different in the way in which the wood has been treated. Until we make one, we can't do a proper test.. As Enthalpy says Well, so are all the others. There's another wrinkle too. Consider one bit of the instrument- say the bridge. Does the density of it make a difference to the sound? I presume it does. So, when we make our "copy" of the Strad do we choose a piece of timber with the same density as the master? For the sake of discussion, let's say it was a bit denser than most of the wood he used. How do we know if he achieved that sound by choice of dense a piece of wood, or by some sort of treatment or particular choice of varnish? Did he just use thicker varnish? If he did, was it because he wanted the instrument to sound really good a few hundred years after he died rather than "now", when he was selling it to a customer? Because he will have realised that the timber and the timbre will change with time...

The way in which I expressed my point was light-hearted. However, that is no reason to ignore it. Th electrons near the nuclei of atoms are in very large fields and experience huge accelerations- much bigger than those in an accelerator. So, if you think that electrons in an accelerator should emit light due to the effects of gravity, why don't those accelerated in, for example, a sandwich?

It is well documented that people hear what they "expect" to hear, so that "experiment" doesn't tell us anything much. And https://integratedlistening.com/blog/2015/09/24/what-you-see-is-what-you-hear-the-mcgurk-effect2/ There's another problem; I'm not very musical, but even I can tell the difference between, say, a banjo and a ukulele. That's because they are slightly different instruments. A better ear than mine would be able to discern much smaller differences in construction. And, as you have pointed out, there are differences in manufacture between an ancient and modern violin. " The string materials have changed. Huge difference, stronger than between two instruments. The bridge's curvature was increased. To avoid collisions between the bow and the soundbox, bridges rose, and their stronger push relies on thicker bass bars now. This raised some resonances." So we would expect them to sound different. So the question is how much of the difference is due to whatever mystical treatments Antonio Stradivari gave the timber, and what is down to the fact that it's a differently engineered instrument? You are not comparing like with like.

OK I presume you can provide evidence for that. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like a link to it. "Stradivari violin tonal qualities due to....chemicals?" Yes. It's possible that the only chemicals concerned are in the brain of the listener, but chemicals are certainly involved.

I presume he's rehashing this tripe.

Ditto Irish- so I understand. So you get exchanges like "Are you going for lunch?" "I am". This stuff about language may be the most useful bit of the thread.

Did we need more?

UV will not kill microbes which are hidden in dirt, because the dirt is opaque. So you would need to start by washing things.

What's wrong with using soap? I realise it's rather old fashioned- Roman technology- but it works and it's cheap.

Yes it is. It's generally a better cleaning agent than the bicarbonate. And it's cheaper.

The idea of a "surfactant" is interesting. One of the oldest is soap. And that's the sodium salts of fatty acids. But part of the residue left on clothing is a mixture of fatty acids- the lower molecular weight ones are responsible for part of the bad odour. So adding dirty clothes to a weak alkali like bicarbonate will generate a very small amount of soap. And it will also remove some of the material that's responsible for the smell of stale sweat. Hypothetically, the stuff will also hydrolyse fats but that reaction is very slow. To make soap, you normally use a fairly concentrated solution of sodium hydroxide and heat it to nearly boiling so it's about a hundred million times more alkaline and also hotter. Fundamentally, washing soda is cheaper and more alkaline. Hence the name... Drying kills most bacteria. If they didn't kill you when you wore the shirt, they probably won't kill you after they got washed off and then dried. One valuable reason to add glycerine to soap is that it absorbs water- which is marvelously cheap. Also, if you make soap, the by-product is glycerine. So you can save yourself the trouble of removing it by leaving it in the soap, and calling it an ingredient. It's very soluble in water so it will rinse off at least as easily as the soap. There won't be any left on your skin. The water you wash it off with is actually quite good at hydrating; glycerine, on the other hand, is a dehydrating agent.

Climate change; it seems we avoid it like the plague.