1

Complementary Medicine / Re: The Benefits of Air Baths...

« on: 29/11/2023 17:43:25 »

I have been away a long while and have noticed  the element of fun missing from forum, and the chat area, where we normally go to get to know other members as well as non serious, or fun questions for a laugh, and subsequently, I have noticed a huge lack of members posting at any given time... and thus I would like to see the forum pick up in membership and get to know members better as well as helping others feel more comfortable exploring their very real science questions. I hope that many may come in here feeling less intimidated and more free to pose and reply to questions, as well, as asking them of the poster and other more knowledgeable folks in here.  Sometimes that little bit of humor that others offer more than I do.. really make it less intimidating for those who come here with maybe less science knowledge wanting to learn in a friendly fun environment.

What Sublime thoughts put across such Eloquently.

ps - Excellent!

2

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Can Animals Appreciate Beauty ?

« on: 15/11/2023 21:15:28 »

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

3

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Can Animals Appreciate Beauty ?

« on: 15/11/2023 20:34:20 »

Humans are very visually-oriented.

Other animals rely more on other senses.

I can imagine a dog appreciating a beautiful scent that would be lost on a human.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Can Animals Appreciate Beauty ?

« on: 15/11/2023 19:54:41 »

We really need to address the more fundamental question of what characteristics make a scene visually appealing to us, then ask how these might map onto the experiences, sensory spectrum and aspirations of another species.

I think a lot depends on experience and aspiration (which is to a large extent determined by experience). I recall a woman who had grown up in landscapes dominated by sand and camels, being appalled by the English midlands: "It's all too green!" but on the other hand  when I described Essex to a colleague from Sierra Leone as "flat, dry, sunny, and too cold for mosquitoes"  he said "It sounds like heaven."

5

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Can Animals Appreciate Beauty ?

« on: 14/11/2023 13:28:06 »

I can appreciate a scenic landscape, a waterfall, a flower etc etc


Do you think it possible that animals, or certain animals, can do too ?

6

Just Chat! / Re: Anyone sing/sang to their babies when putting them to bed?

« on: 10/07/2023 18:10:17 »

I thought singing lullabies to children was pretty much universal.
Hi Karen; long time no see. Nice to see you here.

7

New Theories / Re: Could the Covid 19 virus be used as a type of germ warfare?

« on: 16/04/2020 15:06:56 »

it's all incredibly  scary and so devastating..... So many people dead all over the world...it's horrible. I can't stand Trump he scares the wits out of me......and now all this be other crude feels like it's all part of his agenda!

Life ends too soon for us all. Easy to forget. We are not here long. We are a vapor, morning dew and by late morning we're gone. I remember standing on our porch shouting to some kids asking as they rode by on their bikes, who they had for their teacher next year in fourth grade, thinking, "Man, I'm growing up fast. Fourth Grade Baby!" The next dimension is going to be so cool, words can't describe it. Forever and forever.

8

The Environment / Re: What causes double rainbows?

« on: 26/05/2019 02:01:16 »

On occasion, you may have seen two rainbows at once. The lower rainbow is the primary rainbow and the higher, fainter, colored arc is the secondary rainbow. The color sequence of the secondary rainbow is opposite to the primary; red is on the inside of the arc and violet on the outside.

When sunlight passes through a triangular glass prism, it separates into the colors of the rainbow. This separation happens because different colors bend, or refract, by different amounts. The shortest (blue and violet) wavelengths refract the most; red light refracts the least.

The separation of colors is referred to as dispersion. Not only prisms but also water drops and ice crystals can cause dispersion. To form a rainbow you need large drops of water, the sun at your back and at the correct angle.

Raindrops act as prisms, bending and reflecting the sunlight that falls on them, just like a crystal hung in a sunny window.

As light enters water, the path it takes changes. How much the direction changes is a function of the color of the light.
You probably noticed that a smooth water surface can act like a mirror and reflect light. If the light beam entering the raindrop reaches the back of the drop at a certain angle, it undergoes a reflection and heads back toward the sun. As the light exits the raindrop and re-enters the air, its path bends an amount that again depends on the color. This bending of the light as it enters and leaves the drop disperses the light of the sun into its spectrum of colors that form the rainbow.
Sometimes the light reflects twice off the back of the raindrop

9

Just Chat! / Re: Do women actually have "Women's intuition"?

« on: 02/12/2018 00:45:31 »

The women selected were linguists, mathematicians, and crossword experts, some held degrees in mathematics, physics and engineering and their logical and lateral thinking was highly valued. Instinct had nothing to do with it. Don’t believe what you see in the films.

I don't doubt this at all. I don't see any gender superiority when it comes to logic and rational thinking.

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Just Chat! / Re: Do women actually have "Women's intuition"?

« on: 01/12/2018 09:02:19 »

We see this with young chimps when they're given toy cars and dolls to play with.

A similar test was shown in a TV programme. Researchers put toys on the ground below a troupe of monkeys, the females selected the dolls, the males were interested in the  mechanical toys eg moving wheels. However, these were adults so it was difficult to decide whether this was learnt behaviour, but there is some evidence that maternal is an instinct in monkeys, but might not be in humans - psychologists refer to drives in humans rather than instincts,  because a drive can be over-ridden.

.i have come to the belief that intuition is primarily a defense that women use as an excape from their inability to utilize logic. altho men may have the intuitive ability, men prefer to use logic to solve problems.

this is a weakness that unfortunately women are unable to overcome, since it serves their interest well; given the desire of men to supress women's unhidden abilities of logical reasoning.

this just my opinion...others might disagree.

Researchers would disagree.
Research and testing consistently show that women are as good as men at logic and are just as intelligent.
One major study at the University of Edinburgh with 500,000 enrollees of which a subset of 2750 women and 2466 men underwent brain scans using MRI, found that women tended to have significantly thicker cortices than men. Thicker cortices have been associated with higher scores on a variety of cognitive and general intelligence tests. Cortical thickness between men tended to vary much more than they did between women, but on average, when tested, there were no significant differences between male and female intelligence; this lines up with previous work looking at sex and IQ tests.

Clearly there are males who need the emotional crutch of believing that women are mentally inferior, but research does not back this up. It is likely that these individuals are more susceptible to confirmation bias and may well choose a less intelligent partner to reinforce their false beliefs.

It is also important to understand what @David Cooper says

intuition comes from practice, and the kinds of things you work on to acquire skills are driven by interests driven partly by genetics.

Intuition is not born of some mindless, inbuilt ability, but is gained by observation, logical deduction and practice. It is an intelligent, learnt response.

One study, which involved imaging the brains of nearly 1,000 adolescents, found that male brains had more connections within hemispheres, whereas female brains were more connected between hemispheres. The results suggest that male brains may be optimized for motor skills (mainly front to back connections), and female brains may be optimized for combining analytical and intuitive thinking - greater cross-brain connections give access to a greater range of data/experience and the ability to interconnect that data/experiences.

11

Just Chat! / Re: Will Trump be re-elected?

« on: 27/11/2018 21:57:18 »

Trump's also not what he was.
The cracks are showing as people realise he's not "drained the swamp" or "made America great again".
He can't make good on any of his promises like those.
It may not need a good Democratic  candidate to defeat him.
The irony is amusing there.
He won because he claimed he would change politics, and people wanted change.
If they still want change, and they should, then anyone should beat him.

12

Just Chat! / Children's view of the Ocean

« on: 28/10/2018 22:31:07 »

Children writing about the ocean.
The next time you take an oceanography course, you will be totally prepared!
1) An octopus has eight testicles. (Kelly, age 6)
2) Oysters' balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)
3) If you are surrounded by the ocean, you are an island. If you don't have an ocean all round you, you are incontinent. (Mike, age 7)
4) Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson. She's not my friend any more. (Kylie, age 6)
5) A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head. (Billy, age
6) My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a  woman and comes back with crabs. (Millie, age 6)
7) When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn't blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been better off eating beans. (William, age 7)
Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really?  (Helen, age 6)
9) I'm not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is always crying,  my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant,  so I can't think what to write. (Amy, age 6)
10) Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They live in caves under the sea where they plug themselves in to chargers. (Christopher, age 7)
11) When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin, age 6)
12) Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Divers can't go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky, age
13) On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass. (Julie, age 7)
14) The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don't drown I don't know. (Bobby, age 6)
15) My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn't know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom. (James, age 7)

13

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Does grapefruit juice affect beta blockers?

« on: 05/07/2018 14:53:09 »

For clarity, amlodipine is a calcium channel blocker, rather than a beta-blocker...

14

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Does grapefruit juice affect beta blockers?

« on: 05/07/2018 11:08:42 »

Grapefruit juice can interfere with drug-delivery ...



https://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm292276.htm

15

Physiology & Medicine / Re: How are transcatheter aortic valve replacement - TAVR - procedures carried out?

« on: 11/06/2018 07:59:21 »

When you feel better and able, do please tell us about the procedure, what happened and what it was like. It would be really interesting to hear about it and how they do the procedure.

16

Just Chat! / Re: Now that ISIS is defeated, perhaps migrants can return to their homes?

« on: 07/07/2017 21:45:45 »

Indeed; I think that we should be committing significant resources to helping these places to rebuild and resettle people. We should also commit to keeping them safe while things recover, otherwise no one will want to stay, let alone return.

17

Just Chat! / Now that ISIS is defeated, perhaps migrants can return to their homes?

« on: 07/07/2017 17:04:30 »

Now that ISIS has been defeated, perhaps the migrants who fled in droves, with rebuilding supports, can return to their homes. Or perhaps after Syria has become stable.

18

Just Chat! / Re: Your aged care nurse?

« on: 01/07/2017 11:59:52 »

I want kind, caring and able to listen, along with patience, ability to have meaningful conversation no matter how long or how much you ramble on, and most importantly of all without any qualms about changing adult nappies, me drooling and burping all over.

She works down the road at the frail care that looked after Mom when she was terminal.

19

Just Chat! / Re: ‘inhumane treatment’ of pain patients

« on: 30/06/2017 20:03:35 »

If anybody would like to read a story which will break your heart then I recommend reading the following:

The Other Victims of the Opioid Epidemic June 1, 2017, Glod S.A. N Engl J Med 2017; 376:2101-2102
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp1702188

20

Just Chat! / Re: ‘inhumane treatment’ of pain patients

« on: 30/06/2017 19:36:24 »

If you want to talk about inhumane treatment of pain patients:

My friend, having been diagnosed as having Weigners disease, was told she had 2 years to live.

16 years later, having been inadvertently infected with Hep C 10 years earlier by the hospital conducting her care for all those years, and having been prescribed a steadily increasing dose of opiates for the pain associated with her crumbling facial bones and neck vertebrae - guess what?
NHS brings in a zero tolerance policy regarding long term opiate prescription and during a hospitalization for a minor fall decided to put their Hep C patient into forced opiate withdrawal.

For those of you who are not familiar, a forced opiate withdrawal is life threatening for a Hep C patient.  Withdrawal exacerbates the Hep C.  The exacerbated Hep C causes damage to the liver, and my friend 'the Weigners patient' that was requiring the pain killer was left unable to ingest opiates.

I've never been so angry in all my life.  I printed the Hep C info off the net and gave it to the doctor responsible for the decision who couldn't find enough nurses to put between us before he slunk off.  I daresay he hadn't bothered to read my friends file that had built up over 16 years to require a trolley of it's own...
...but why would a trained doctor put a regular Hep C patient into forced withdrawal from a 16 year opiate prescription anyway?
Based on the fact that a forced withdrawal will exacerbate Hep C and destroy the liver, what benefit could there be in forcing an opiate withdrawal on a Hep C patient?

Never assume that a doctor is intelligent merely because they're a doctor. I know that from an experience with a doctor I once had. She had the audacity to compare what I was taking for chronic pain with her experience taking a low dose Percocet.  My last exchange with a physicians assistant pissed me off big time because she claimed my dose was way too high, even though I've been on and off opiates for 12 years now. Dumb woman!!!