21

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How are physical units defined?

« on: 07/08/2022 09:22:03 »

You have to be very patient when making fundamental physical measurements...

The UK National Physical Laboratory used to budget 20 person-years per decimal point. Turned out to be a remarkably good estimate as my team spent almost exactly that amount of time reducing the uncertainty in radiation dose measurement from 1% to 0.1%.

Pedant mode: Heisenberg described the inherent indeterminacy of a phenomenon, not the uncertainty of its measurement. Lots of people use the mistranslation because many textbooks use a hypothertical  "reflected photon" measurement to derive the equation.

22

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why has no Warp Speed Pill been invented to Stop Periods?

« on: 06/08/2022 19:15:35 »

50 Years ago has no relevance. Different World.

Same world, with morons changing the rules.

Off topic, but as an example we now have two people trying to get themselves elected as prime minister by sucking up to 80,000 members of the Conservative Party.  One says we need tax cuts to make the economy better, the other says tax cuts will ruin the economy. So there is a 50% probability that whoever gets elected, will do exactly the wrong thing. At your expense. And you have no say in the matter.   

23

Radio Show & Podcast Feedback / Re: Food waste, from The Naked Scientists 2 August 2022

« on: 06/08/2022 12:21:05 »

Things stored for months, unless unavailable later, are often more expensive that just buying at the current price and eating it fresh.

It sometimes makes sense to buy  tinned or frozen stuff rather than what is on the open shelves. Green veg like spinach, peas and Brussels sprouts, are cleaned and frozen within hours of harvest (time is money, as are sugar and water content) so retain their vitamins and flavor and can be cooked without wasting outer leaves, shells etc (which were all composted or fed to pigs as close to the farm as possible) or inefficient hand washing.

If the freezer is full, the cost of running it is very low as you are really only chilling the stuff in contact with the walls.   

That said, if you are going to boil the bejasus out of your vegetables anyway, the cheapies make very good sense. I often pick up wilted asparagus at way less than half price and make a gallon of soup with some ancient potatoes and whatever onions are hiding in the corner of the cupboard. It's as good as the "gourmet" product in a plastic jar at 10 times the price.

24

New Theories / Re: An essay in futility, too long to read :)

« on: 06/08/2022 10:05:34 »

scientists-stunned-by-rare-arctic-lightning-storms-north-alaska-2021-07-16/

Sun shines, cumulus clouds form. Cold front moves over warm ground, cumulus clouds form. What sort of "scientist"  is "stunned" by this?

25

New Theories / Re: An essay in futility, too long to read :)

« on: 06/08/2022 10:01:27 »

" Although the Mediterranean only counts for one percent of Earth's ocean surface area, it contains nearly 20 percent of all known marine species. "

Typical sensationalist journalism. Try "Over 80% of marine species are not present in the Mediterranean"

26

New Theories / Re: An essay in futility, too long to read :)

« on: 06/08/2022 09:58:14 »

This can be problematic as pyrocumulonimbus clouds can produce a lot of wind, which can result in unpredictable fire behavior underneath the cloud and even cause new fires from lightning strikes.

Er, no. The fire produces the wind, due to simple physics. When the fire is extinguished, the clouds dissipate.Likewise cloud-to-ground lightning strikes are caused by the VandeGraaff effect of rapidly rising air. Internal and cloud-to-cloud lightning is indeed produced by circulation within the clouds themselves, but they don't cause ground fires.   

The problem with real science is that it doesn't make headlines, unlike climate "science".

27

New Theories / Re: An essay in futility, too long to read :)

« on: 06/08/2022 09:52:04 »

Sanatamaria hummingbird:good news presented as bad. Typical Grauniad reporting.

28

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why has no Warp Speed Pill been invented to Stop Periods?

« on: 06/08/2022 09:49:03 »

I have not advocated murder. People sometimes throw themselves down stairs whist resisting arrest. Ask any policeman.

Around 50 years ago I saw an excellent interview with a village copper who was about to retire, having spent his entire working life on the same beat. Extraordinarily, he had never been promoted, and no crimes had been reported within his patch. Asked how he achieved this, he said "I know all the kids. When the lads start mucking about, around the age of eleven, I smack them and tell their mums."

It works for all other mammals. What's wrong with humans?

29

General Science / Re: Why can't radio waves pass through the ionosphere, but a spaceship can?

« on: 05/08/2022 20:02:37 »

The clue is in the name - ionosphere. Ionised air is an electrical  conductor and acts to some extent as a "short circuit" to electromagnetic radiation, but to a solid object it is just "thin air".

Obviously most em radiation does pass through the ionosphere (hence sunlight, radiotelescopes, and communication with spacecraft) but at some frequencies and angles of incidence it acts like a mirror.

30

New Theories / Re: An essay in futility, too long to read :)

« on: 05/08/2022 17:33:53 »

Another 'positive twist', we've seen headlines like those before and they will pop up again, more questionable for each heatwave, reefs dying, to then 'recover'.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/04/record-coral-cover-on-parts-of-great-barrier-reef-at-risk-from-global-heating-scientists-warn

Having your cake and eating it is ridiculous, but having your cake and complaining about it is called climate "science".  another.

31

New Theories / Re: An essay in futility, too long to read :)

« on: 05/08/2022 17:29:27 »

You don't have farmers anymore, you have crop factories, running under the management of multi nationals and the conveyor belt principle.

It's called efficient farming. Anticipate demand, negotiate a supply contract, manage your land to meet it, with economies of scale, cooperation and subcontracting where possible.

Jimmy Doherty, local-ish farmer and TV presenter, made a telling remark from a market in Uganda. Similar terrain and rainfall, marginally warmer, but "85% of the Ugandan population work on the land and the country is starving. Less than 5% of the UK population work on the land, and the shops are full. It's not what they are doing wrong, but what we are doing right."

I also recall being shown around the hangars at a local farm-cum-airfield. Lots of historic planes being restored and displayed, then we were invited to see "the machine that really won the war" - a 1938 Fordson tractor.

Don't knock modern farming!

32

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why has no Warp Speed Pill been invented to Stop Periods?

« on: 05/08/2022 08:57:58 »

Medical treatment for raging hormones?

No. A parental smack round the head for assuming a right to assault another human being. And for those who don't learn, maybe falling downstairs whilst resisting arrest.

33

Just Chat! / Re: How was Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri betrayed

« on: 04/08/2022 21:32:59 »

It is enough to buy your own bunch of fanatics for a while. Remember every member of Al Quaeda is just another politician, so like all other slime, hates everyone else and is only interested in money and climbing the greasy pole. A week is a long time in politics, and you can get very drunk and catch some interesting diseases with $25M. Who cares anyway?

34

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why has no Warp Speed Pill been invented to Stop Periods?

« on: 04/08/2022 21:24:32 »

A very few men are  so sexually insecure and socially inadequate that they feel a need or even a right to assault women. These are the people who need medical treatment, not all women.

35

Just Chat! / Re: Do British pubs typically serve restaurant quality food?

« on: 04/08/2022 17:56:01 »

There has been a massive change in my lifetime, following tighter drink-driving legislation. In my youth, pub food was a grudging addition to encourage lunchtime drinking. With decreasing consumption of alcohol, and increasing competition from supermarkets, the majority of pubs have at least increased the scale and variety of their offerings and a good many are now really restaurants with decent draught beer and a dartboard. My chef son produces Michelin-star food in pubs.

36

New Theories / Re: An essay in futility, too long to read :)

« on: 04/08/2022 17:49:25 »

The price of anything in a free market is whatever people are prepared to pay for it. In the case of motor fuel, gas and electricity, there is no competition : all your mains gas and electricity comes from  two pipes and if you moved to a different supplier, he would just increase his prices to match the one you left. In the case of motor fuel, the price creeps up every week because if garage A adds 1p per liter, there's little incentive to drive to garage B, and garage B then follows suit because the  next one is 20 miles away.

Similarly with bread and potatoes.  If supermarket X keeps the price of wine constant, adding 10% to the price of potatoes won't alter your shopping habits much in the short term, so Y down the road also jacks up the price of potatoes....

The great thing about COVID or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is you can blame the price rise on some irrelevant external factor.

37

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why has no Warp Speed Pill been invented to Stop Periods?

« on: 04/08/2022 17:36:12 »

Anyone with a brain would be in favor of reducing the population. The means to do so safely and cheaply has been around since 1960. As BC says, how you use it is a matter of choice, unless you subscribe to some bizarre superstition that allows dirty old men to determine your sex life and reproduction.

38

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why does nobody seem to care that covid can cause erectile dysfunction?

« on: 03/08/2022 22:47:43 »

A very strong bias, surely. If you turned up at the appointed time for a free vaccination, along with practically everyone else you know, went home and carried on your life without getting ill, would you really waste another moment telling the world that nothing interesting happened?

39

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How are physical units defined?

« on: 03/08/2022 20:44:56 »

So it's about the interpretation of "round the coastline". The continuous smooth ovoid that just encloses Great Britain is almost certainly shorter than the high tide contour.

40

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How are physical units defined?

« on: 03/08/2022 18:06:30 »

Typicaly the scale of man is 1 m (the "who").

That is where the French revolutionaries got it wrong. The Romans had sensible natural scales, that still persist in the last backward country - the USA.

Thumb - inch
Foot - foot (12 inches)
Arm - yard (36 inches thumb to nose)
Adult humans are mostly between 5 and 6 feet tall (1.5 - 1.8m)
Mile - milia passuum - 1000 paces (a Roman pace being together, left, right, together - like a proper dance script) - 1760 yards for the average soldier, who covered 4 - 6 miles per hour on a road (the Romans made the roads, and invented standard shoe sizes to keep the army marching efficiently on them)
Pound - 2 day's bread ration
Gallon - 10 pounds (2 days ration) of water

though the Yanks have screwed up the system by having a US pint equal a pound, and keeping 8 pints to the US gallon.

Defining  the meter as a fraction of the earth's polar circumference  through Paris was all very well politically, but not directly measurable. Navigators generally use the sexagesimal system  with a nautical mile equalling one minute of latitude (directly measurable) and being adequately close to 1000 fathoms (hand-to-hand span when pulling up your sounding weight).