1

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Could we eat wood?

« on: 02/10/2024 13:20:02 »

Wood has a nitrogen content of about 0.1% or less.
Proteins are about 14% nitrogen.
So wood is about 1% protein.
But, if the fungus "eats" the wood, oxidises the cellulose and lignin for energy and keeps hold of the nitrogen then it can accumulate enough nitrogen to make its proteins from.
And, in principle, we can eat that protein.
Mushrooms are about 3% protein.
That's not bad.
But by the simple expedient of feeding the mushrooms to pigs, we can get bacon (36% protein)
The question is how much effort is that compared to growing beans?
OK, in a nuclear winter, that's not easy.
But, if we still have a society, we can still burn oil, run the generators and run the grow lights.

We know how to do that so it might be the easy option.

How about taking teh wood, treating it with dilute acid, neutralising it with chalk and then fermenting it to alcohol and distilling that off.
The nitrogen is left behind.
Add slaked lime  and redistill it and you will get ammonia.
You can react that with acid and feed that "fixed nitrogen" to ruminants like cattle and sheep (which can probably digest sawdust- though I doubt they would be happy or healthy).
The best thing to do is not vote for people like Putin, or those who praise/ admire him.

It's all fun and games until the energy runs out. Everything else can be recycled.

2

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Is There Any Safe Amount Of Smoking?

« on: 19/09/2024 23:40:06 »

Is There Any Safe Amount Of Smoking?
No. (Unless you are already on your death-bed).
In principle a single molecule of some carcinogen like benz alpha pyrene can create a change in  a DNA strand which leads to a mutation which causes cancer and kills you.

But the odds on that are pretty thin.

It's also reasonable to say that, if you are already 100 years old when you take up smoking, you won't live long enough for it to give you cancer.

So it's a statistical thing. The slightest exposure is an increased risk- but it's not a big risk.

Have a look at this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

3

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: What would a Venusian webcam be made out of?

« on: 12/09/2024 12:55:50 »

No argument on pcb or pbb. Not all of these are equally bad, the determinant is whether there is an ortho halogen which prevents the biphenyl from being flat(can't remember if the flat or skewed version is the dangerous one). Unfortunately most of these were mixes of isomers so no way of there being a safe pcb(pbb). I came across a lot of these in old capacitors and transformers. 

The ones with an ortho halogen are non planar and thus unable to intercalate into DNA so they are less toxic. (But not "non toxic")
The word "intercalate" was used for such behaviour because, prior to being adopted by toxicologists, it didn't get out much. It was used for "putting February the 29th into the calendar". I think geologists might also use it.

4

New Theories / Re: Can one switch magnetic flux with a ferromagnetic material?

« on: 11/09/2024 11:33:43 »

Just for the record, the impossibility of breaking the conservation of energy is one of the few laws of nature that's not just experimentally true; it was mathematically proven about a hundred years ago, by Emmy Noether (who should be more famous).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem

So, in order to convince me of any "free energy" machine, you need to start by showing why the maths there is wrong.

5

New Theories / Re: Is Amino Acid a misnomer

« on: 11/09/2024 10:35:47 »

Here is a discussion I had with the Copilot AI regarding how "Amino Acid " is a misnomer. What do you think?

https://1drv.ms/w/s!AkkAzGDByUeBqJ8emzWrUNUoPOpQNA?e=HN2Kk2

I think you should stop wasting copilot's time with nonsense.
It has important things to do like helping students cheat on their homework and drawing bad pictures.

I also think you should learn some science.
Try the Khan academy.

6

New Theories / Re: what is temperature?

« on: 09/09/2024 11:34:13 »

They show that the concept of temperature is not as well defined as some of us might have thought.

That's a bit like saying that, because you can't divide by zero, we don't understand division.
We can't say what the temperature of a non thermal system is.
That doesn't mean we don't understand temperature.
It means that we understand that there are things to which it does not apply.

We can't tell you the thermodynamic temperature of the inside of a fluorescent light bulb when it's running.
We can't tell you the temperature of love or Thursday either.
That's not because we don't understand temperature.
It's because we understand it well enough to realise when it does not apply.

7

Physiology & Medicine / Re: What liquid solution is best for a portable commode?

« on: 07/09/2024 20:16:13 »

Splash.
You should use water.

8

New Theories / Re: what is temperature?

« on: 01/09/2024 15:29:24 »

Hi BC, I have repeatedly told him to forget these bots and pop-sci videos and obtain some good textbooks. Alas, this has been in vain and I predict confusion ad infinitum.

Bots are cheap, easy and "convincing".
The fact that they don't believe there are three Rs in strawberry is, apparently, less important.

https://www.inc.com/kit-eaton/how-many-rs-in-strawberry-this-ai-cant-tell-you.html

That's not a problem because anyone can just count them and laugh at the stupid bot.
But it's a massive problem if you are trying to find the answer to something where you don't already know.
It's not really a new problem. Google, Lycos, AskJeves etc all screwed up royally in their early days. They got better but they are still not perfect.

9

New Theories / Re: what is temperature?

« on: 01/09/2024 10:47:24 »

I asked ChatGPT again, Why Heat Capacity and Entropy Share the Same Units?

A real (educated) intelligence would tell you that you are mistaken.
They do not share the same units.

You should stop asking AI about stuff.

As an aside, I was chatting to a friend of mine who is doing a PhD in computer science and she pointed out that chat bots are not programmed to be accurate; they are programmed to "sound correct".
If you want your bots to pass a Turing test, you have to teach them to make the same dumb mistakes that people do.

Never rely on them for anything important.

10

Science Experiments / Re: A report: may be of use to someone?

« on: 19/08/2024 15:47:10 »

Sodium metabisulphite- often used in home brewing- also removes wine stains.
Which is convenient...

The classic choice is oxalic acid but that's rather toxic.

11

New Theories / Re: What's the unit of Torque?

« on: 09/08/2024 17:13:56 »

Thus, we can avoid confusion by...

Thus far, the list of people who are confused by this only seems to have one entry, and that's you.

12

COVID-19 / Re: Was the Covid Pandemic Panic justified?

« on: 26/07/2024 13:55:23 »

Gosh; My apologies to BC and you all as you correctly guessed I thought I was replying to the Environmental forum question of link between population expansion and global warming.  So sorry.
Anyhow, I agree with all the above comments but recommend charities major objective be family planning free aids, rather than food, health and medical care; particularly as with modern mechanisation a farmer with a tractor no longer needs a large family but as a responsible parent should ensure that his kids find a job to assist the community and a home to inherit in the future.

I deduce that you have never been starving through no fault of your own.

13

Question of the Week / Re: QotW - 24.07.26 - What can I smell when it rains and does it depend where I am?

« on: 19/07/2024 16:47:24 »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor

14

COVID-19 / Re: Was the Covid Pandemic Panic justified?

« on: 19/07/2024 15:40:43 »

The latest government report into the damage the covid pandemic did to people blames the government for being unprepared. Who can ever be??

The latest government report into the damage the covid pandemic did to people blames the government for being unprepared. Who can ever be??

A government that hadn't thrown out the previous preparations because they hadn't used them and they were expensive to maintain.
"One event in 2016 called Exercise Cygnus identified worryingly large gaps in the response and plans were put in place to update those by 2018.

But that did not happen, and by June 2020 just eight of the 22 recommendations made after that exercise had been completed."
from
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy9472qxk1vo

It turned out that the pandemic did not kill 20% of the world population as expected

Had anyone expected that?

To blame is WHO for not having advised everyone that this was just a new flu virus

At times, Covid was the single biggest cause of deaths in the UK.
It outpaced road deaths, cancer, heart failure etc.
Are you saying that, since they were killing fewer than what you falsely describe as "a new flu virus" we should stop taking action to reduce those deaths?

Essentially, you don't seem to understand the facts.

The UK government clearly had no plan to deal with an entirely controllable disease and preferred to ignore best advice,  play political games, and award massive contracts to Party donors and relatives. 

The British Isles are free of rabies because we impose absolute quarantine on incoming animals of other species, so why not do the same for humans who may be carrying a nasty transmissible disease with a short incubation period?

Why not indeed?
In the "post brexit" world where we had "take3n back control", we could have, at least restricted  or quarantined people coming from places where there were particularly virulent new strains.

Except that one such place was India, and Boris couldn't take those actions because it would cripple the negotiations of a trade deal with one of the few big markets that was still prepared to talk to us.

Of course that's not teh only problem with Boris.
How many other countries had a leader who bragged about going round a hospital shaking hands with patients?

15

New Theories / Re: How do we measure the energy of a photon?

« on: 16/07/2024 13:31:42 »

The fact that you can't measure a Photon directly seems to be a good indicator that there is something to my theory.

What can you measure "directly"?
For example, how do I measure an electric current "directly"?

16

Science Experiments / Re: How to build DIY lasers?

« on: 06/07/2024 15:43:10 »

Can it show destructive and constructive interference?

Yes.
Longitudinal Modes
https://www.experimental-engineering.co.uk/helium-neon-lasers/theory-modes-coherence/

17

Physiology & Medicine / Re: What isotope to commit murder undetectably?

« on: 16/06/2024 13:08:52 »

commit a crime!

...(possibly killing themself, I'm not sure)

Suicide isn't a crime.
Doing it undetectably in order to ensure you kin benefit from life insurance probably is, but it would be too late to prosecute.

A suicide that looks like an accident isn't that rare.

" He took to drugs and drink and died because of it" is a tragedy; but it would be hard to prove intent.

Incidentally, if anyone is looking at this for ideas, try these folks.

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/

18

New Theories / Re: Redefining Electrons

« on: 13/06/2024 16:02:35 »

Nonsense.
There's a stack of spectroscopy done with photons of lower energy than those of visible light

You are posting rubbish.

And you are avoiding the truth by waffling around. The fact is yes, some infra-red does get directly emitted by electrons but that is it, not microwaves certainly.

Bollocks.

Beacuse this exists.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_paramagnetic_resonance

19

New Theories / Re: Origin of magnetic force

« on: 09/06/2024 11:15:56 »

Here's the sketch of the experimental setup. I think this is so simple that anyone can replicate it.


In case it hasn't been obvious, the whole system should be electrically isolated from its environment. Including the ground below the cans.

A represents clamp Ampere meter in AC mode. V represents Voltmeter in DC millivolt mode.

If I actually set up this experiment, and show that there is no voltage, will you shut up about it?

if so, I'd like proper specifications, sizes currents, concentrations etc so you can't say I didn't do it right.

20

New Theories / Re: Origin of magnetic force

« on: 05/06/2024 09:09:53 »

Is there anything that is not clear yet?

(In the interests of completeness) you haven't said what the electrodes or containers are made from.