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  4. Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
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Why are there so few paleo entomologist?

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Offline Bored chemist

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #20 on: 31/07/2021 15:44:45 »
Quote from: Colin2B on 31/07/2021 15:33:41
Quote from: Just thinking on 31/07/2021 15:28:29
Quote from: Colin2B on 31/07/2021 15:21:21
Don’t know what you mean by 90%,
BC mentioned that honey is 80% sugar which I never knew anyway so if it is halved with added sugar that is a total of 90% sugar.
ah, I had assumed that half the sugar content had been replaced so as to retain 80%.
You couldn't use the stuff we normally call "sugar" to make fake honey; it's sucrose and honey is largely glucose and fructose.

But you could use golden syrup- which is a partially inverted sugar (and thus is much more similar to honey).
It's also typically sold as a roughly 80% solution (for the same reason- to avoid fermentation)
So fake honey is likely to be a mixture of real honey- about 80% sugars and syrup- also about 80% sugars
So it will be about 80% sugars.

Testing for fakes is interesting enough as a piece of analytical chemistry, but more than a little off topic.

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Offline Just thinking

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #21 on: 31/07/2021 15:45:29 »
Quote from: Colin2B on 31/07/2021 15:33:41
ah, I had assumed that half the sugar content had been replaced so as to retain 80%.
I'm not quite sure what it all means but it's very sneaky practice and I'm glad that they got court out. They will be injecting water into watermelons next.
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Offline alancalverd

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #22 on: 31/07/2021 15:46:12 »
Quote from: Colin2B on 31/07/2021 15:03:03
a rock musician knows 3 chords
Famous TV interview between Alan Whicker and Francis Rossi:

Whicker: "So you have made a lot of money from three chords."

Rossi: "Three???"
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Offline Bored chemist

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #23 on: 31/07/2021 15:52:42 »
Quote from: alancalverd on 31/07/2021 15:46:12
Quote from: Colin2B on 31/07/2021 15:03:03
a rock musician knows 3 chords
Famous TV interview between Alan Whicker and Francis Rossi:

Whicker: "So you have made a lot of money from three chords."

Rossi: "Three???"
He has a point.
I gather that "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" has 5
"Whatever You Want" has 9
"Rocking all over the world" has a dozen.

But they are a blues band, not rock.
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Offline alancalverd

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #24 on: 31/07/2021 15:53:26 »
Quote from: Colin2B on 31/07/2021 08:42:12
My daughter is a professional musician and hears music in her head when looking at a score.
An excellent classical pianist once explained to me that a composer hears all the notes in one place, but has to compromise because real instruments take up space so the sound varies depending on where you sit in the auditorium. Edison came to the rescue and made all the sound come out of one hole, so you heard what the composer intended. Then some idiot invented stereo and ruined the illusion. 
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Offline chiralSPO

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #25 on: 31/07/2021 17:53:16 »
An acquaintance of mine at one point was a paleobotanist whose research (as I understood it) involved analyzing fossilized pollen, and using that as a rough stand-in for tree census (given various assumptions about pollen/tree ratios for each species etc.)

What I remember most is that she used obscene amounts of hydrofluoric acid (from my perspective as a chemist—I work with a lot of extremely hazardous compounds, but I find HF is among the scariest). She used it to etch silicate minerals away from her fossils.
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Offline Iwonda (OP)

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #26 on: 31/07/2021 20:25:51 »
Quote from: Bored chemist on 31/07/2021 15:37:24
Then, at Google's suggestion, I took the space out of it.
That led me to a wiki redirect page which took me here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_insects
Cool thanks, that's a lot more than I could find. I've stumbled onto something really strange, something I'm told a paleo entomologist should be able to shed some light on. If someone discovers a new species, do they get to name it?
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Offline Colin2B

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #27 on: 31/07/2021 22:37:36 »
Quote from: Iwonda on 31/07/2021 20:25:51
If someone discovers a new species, do they get to name it?
There are a lot of rules and hoops to jump through. See https://slate.com/technology/2016/01/how-newly-discovered-species-get-names-from-taxonomists.html

By the way, I think your paleo entomologists are hidden. Most just call themselves entomologists or palaeontologists, or as @chiralSPO says paleobiologists. Might be worth talking to your local Natural History Museum.
« Last Edit: 31/07/2021 23:54:17 by evan_au »
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Offline Colin2B

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #28 on: 31/07/2021 23:02:27 »
Quote from: Bored chemist on 31/07/2021 15:44:45
You couldn't use the stuff we normally call "sugar" to make fake honey; it's sucrose and honey is largely glucose and fructose.
Depends how it’s done. When there is a poor nectar flow - we are about to enter one - beekeepers feed sucrose solution to tide the bees over. The bees will invert the sucrose, but you end up with a diluted flavour so you can’t (or rather shouldn’t) extract it for sale.
We also use an invert syrup with same glucose/fructose mix as honey so the bees don’t waste energy converting it, but same problem of saleability. Unscrupulous people could add the invert directly and I think this has been detected in imported honey.

Quote from: Bored chemist on 31/07/2021 15:44:45
But you could use golden syrup- which is a partially inverted sugar (and thus is much more similar to honey).
Honey police will get you  :o
Golden syrup contains high amount of 5-hydroxy methyl furfural (HMF). Honey is tested for HMF as it is a sign that the honey has been overheated in processing and adding golden syrup would push it above the legal limit.
Most amateur beekeepers don’t heat their honey in order to keep it as natural as possible.

Quote from: Bored chemist on 31/07/2021 15:44:45
Testing for fakes is interesting enough as a piece of analytical chemistry, but more than a little off topic.
That would be a very interesting topic. Particularly if you know a simple test to identify sucrose in honey.
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Offline Iwonda (OP)

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #29 on: 09/08/2021 05:15:04 »
Quote from: Colin2B on 31/07/2021 22:37:36
There are a lot of rules and hoops to jump through
You are so right, there are just way too many hoops for someone like me to deal with. I don't think anyone will be naming this specimen anytime soon, no one knows what it is so I would think that they would have to at the very least ID it first and I haven't come a scientist that can say what this thing truly is, nor can they explain how nature mummified this thing.....Thanks for the info, helps a lot.
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Offline Bored chemist

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Re: Why are there so few paleo entomologist?
« Reply #30 on: 09/08/2021 08:40:57 »
Quote from: Colin2B on 31/07/2021 23:02:27
Honey police will get you 
Golden syrup contains high amount of 5-hydroxy methyl furfural (HMF). Honey is tested for HMF as it is a sign that the honey has been overheated in processing and adding golden syrup would push it above the legal limit.
As I said.
Quote from: Bored chemist on 31/07/2021 15:44:45
Testing for fakes is interesting enough as a piece of analytical chemistry, but more than a little off topic.
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