Morning Folks!! Would this synthetic gas ethidene dichloride be this gas 1,1-Dichloroethane. There is a link/content there stating it was an inhalational anesthetic and I would assume it was, but I'm no chemist. I did a search and it linked the two. It's for the Joseph Lister article. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 06:27, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, ethidene is an obsolete term for ethylidene, and ethylidene dichloride is the same as 1,1-dichloroethane.  ‑‑Lambiam 07:31, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Morning @Lambiam: Thats grand. Thank You!! scope_creep^Talk 09:11, 14 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While reading on the topic of this substance as an an(a)esthetic, I found dichloromethane was already in use at the time ethidine was being tested (see PMC 2263151). DMacks (talk) 07:02, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A friend from Ukraine told me that Ukrainians enjoy danger. There's a lot of cats there. This may seem silly or farfetched, but I would appreciate a serious and thoughtful answer with research. Thanks. Rich (talk) 12:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is true that Ukraine has a higher than average feral cat population. It is also true that some studies have found increased rates of toxoplasmosis infections in some populations such as the feral cat population and wild boars in Ukraine. I found no studies or surveys on human infections. It is also true that toxoplasmosis infections in humans has been correlated with higher risk-taking behavior. What you have is a loose correlation. It will take a lot more than sample surveys to make a claim that cats are causing risky behavior in humans. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think your first question should be 'Is there any evidence they enjoy danger more than other people?". On a quick Google search I was unable to find any corroboration of them enjoying any kind of danger, not even thrill rides. I did find https://www.rbth.com/sport/2017/05/31/extreme-thrills-why-rope-jumping-is-very-popular-in-russia_773962 which said bungee jumping was invented in America and is now very popular in Russia - do they both have large feral cat or boar populations? NadVolum (talk) 17:23, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My American friend who resided in Ukraine for several years prior to the invasion provided several convincing anecdotes and was sure that Ukrainians liked danger.Rich (talk) 14:37, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

More generally, studies have suggested that T. gondii infection can affect humans on a societal level (e.g.: Effects of Latent Toxoplasmosis on Political Beliefs and Values & Socioeconomic vulnerability associated to Toxoplasma gondii exposure in southern Brazil); so, your implied correlation is plausible. --136.56.165.118 (talk) 19:29, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also: A 2015 study found a high seroprevalence rate of 81.3% for T. gondii among Ukrainian women of reproductive age, indicating a significant presence of the parasite in the population.^[1] --136.56.165.118 (talk) 19:44, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disclaimer from Perplexity AI: While these studies demonstrate a link between toxoplasmosis and risk-taking behavior in various contexts, it's important to note that none of them specifically focus on Ukraine. Further research would be needed to determine if similar patterns exist in the Ukrainian population.

I've noticed that with numerous tornadoes, including Parkersburg 2008, El Reno 2011 and Moore 2013, they almost always occlude (pre-dissipation turn) to the north, but no other direction. Why is this? It really isn't a well-studied topic, and seems weird that every time a tornado occludes (or fails to) it's always in a north or northeastern direction. — E_F⁵ 19:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tornadoes generally follow the storms they are in. Storms in the United States tend to follow the prevailing wind pattern, which is Southwest to Northeast. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 20:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tornadoes have angular momentum with respect to both their own axis and the Earth's axis. As they move poleward, the conservation of terrestrial angular momentum requires an increase in their eastward velocity. This combination often results in a northeastern path in the Northern Hemisphere. ^[2] --136.56.165.118 (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the Coriolis force can affect mesocyclone dynamics, especially in the Northern Hemisphere where it deflects motion to the right.^[3] --136.56.165.118 (talk) 19:08, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why test charge is positive 58.181.100.114 (talk) 11:44, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Then the force on it will be in the same direction as the electric field. If it was negative the force would go in the opposite direction. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For various reasons, mainly due to genetics, I grew up essentially without any friends my age, and certainly not any friends of the opposite sex. Although female friendship and intimacy has been a very strong desire since early childhood, I never experienced anything like that until my late 20s or early 30s (and even then, very, very little of it).

However, at some point in my late 20s, there was a period of a week or so in which I did get some physical contact with women my age. Although this was restricted to hugs, it caused huge emotional and physiological effects on me. On the physiological side, I noticed almost constant excessive excretion of Cowper's fluid, to the extent that I needed to change clothes every hour (and each hour could see large amounts of this substance in the clothes), throughout the day. (Even when I was alone, I was obviously thinking about this new kind of physical contact.)

Now, within a day or two, I started experiencing mild pain in the inguinal region on the right side.

I have always believed this to be a consequence of the sudden hyperactivity of my right bulbourethral gland, but I have never researched it properly.

Is this a reasonable hypothesis? I notice that the Wikipedia article on the gland doesn't mention anything about this.

(Please note that I am not seeking medical advice; I'm merely being curious.)

--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:32, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You should ask a urologist. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:53, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That would be ideal, yes, but I don't know any urologist. And it wouldn't make any sense for me to see a urologist as a patient, since this is merely me being curious in general; I don't experience any clinically significant problem. In fact I very much doubt I would even be allowed to see a urologist if I did go to the vårdcentral, since the Swedish health care system does not have enough resources to see patients just because they want to discuss biology. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:27, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where does your health care system get its resources? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:23, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tax money Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:53, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And do you pay taxes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:06, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course.

But to the best of my knowledge, the Swedish health care system has not much spare capacity. (Situationen är ansträngd.)

I believe there is a shortage of specialist staff, and too often patients have to wait to see a specialist or perform some examination or medical intervention. Sometimes even suspected cancer patients have to wait a bit longer than medically optimal (and certainly longer than they'd prefer themselves). So if I would insist to see a urologist just to satisfy my curiosity about the possible physiological mechanisms that can make bulbourethral hypersecretion to cause nociception, then I'd take up resources that could have been used for prostate cancer patients.

You don't want to do that. And I am note really that interested, either. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:43, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Their shortage of staff is not your fault. If I were in your shoes, I would find a urologist and schedule an appointment. It might be next week, it might be six months. But unless the doc thinks you've got a real problem, it shouldn't take up too much of his/her time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:07, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are asking other people to give opinions on whether your theory about a medical condition you have is correct. In most people's book, that's asking for WP:MEDICAL advice, which you will not get a response to. Bazza 7 (talk) 16:50, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I respectfully disagree. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:16, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of assuming that help won't be forthcoming, the OP anywhere in Sweden can telephone 1177 to contact his commune's family advice service that offers interviews with variously qualified relationship psychologists and sexologists. Website www1177.se describes the service in individual communes. Also, without me presuming anything about the OP's situation, Sweden offers a very sympathetic and confidential counselling service to young adults, details of booking and cost at https://familjeradgivningen.com/samtal-for-unga-vuxna/ . Philvoids (talk) 15:22, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid you misunderstood my question. My question is strictly about biology. A relationship psychologist is unlikely to know very much about the ways nociceptors can be triggered by a sudden and prolonged production and excretion from the bulbourethral glands in human males. Sexologists may have some knowledge, but likely not much at the cellular level (if any). I'm also afraid your second comment is even more off-topic. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 15:34, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I most deliberately deny you a biological answer. That's my response because some lucky psychologist adviser or sexologist whom you prejudge as unqualified can look forward either to learning from your self analysis of your unique and medically educational case, or to saving everyone's time by posing questions or tests that you may not have thought of. Philvoids (talk) 17:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the "Science" Reference desk of Wikipedia was supposed to be a place where you can ask questions about human physiology. But maybe I was wrong. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read our article on blue balls?  ​‑‑Lambiam 17:37, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reply. I don't think I have ever heard of epididymal hypertension (I have been a medical student myself, so it's possible I have heard of it but forgotten it). This condition indeed seems highly related to my observations. But I'm not convinced this is it. The sensation was clearly located on the right side and quite far from the scrotum, but referred pain could maybe account for that. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 15:41, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on Pre-ejaculate cites this study, which includes reports of similar excessive secretion in other young sexually-inactive men. JMCHutchinson (talk) 18:57, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your input. Although this doesn't say anything about the mechanisms by which bulbourethral hyperactivity can cause mild nociception, it certainly adds some additional evidence that the bulbourethral glands are indeed at the centre of the phenomenon. If I have to guess, I'd suspect that the hyperactivity causes a mechanical (enlargement, swelling) or chemical (waste products, pH etc.) alteration in the vicinity of the gland, triggering some mechanical or chemical nociceptors. Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 23:47, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Our internal energy article sez:

It excludes the kinetic energy of motion of the system as a whole and the potential energy of position of the system as a whole, with respect to its surroundings and external force fields. It includes the thermal energy, i.e., the constituent particles' kinetic energies of motion relative to the motion of the system as a whole.

But what about bulk rotational kinetic energy? Taken literally that seems to be included in the second sentence. But it doesn't seem thermodynamic at all. If you accelerate an object (without heating it) you don't increase its internal energy, and I would think the same should apply to rotational acceleration (say, of a flywheel). --Trovatore (talk) 00:05, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you rotate a flywheel (or any other object) fast enough, it will fly apart. That seems to me to suggest that some internal energies might have been generated by the externally applied force. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.123.129 (talk) 12:56, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Whether an object gets heated or not with respect to time is not relevant. Classically, at any moment in time there is a rotating reference frame for which a system's bulk rotational kinetic energy is simply zero. Then note that its total internal energy, which includes thermal energy and stresses, are equivalent to its total invariant mass. Unlike fictitious forces, its mass is not fictitious, hence its bulk rotational kinetic energy is not part of its internal energy, but thermal energy is, of course. Modocc (talk) 14:51, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But a rotating frame is not an inertial frame. I wouldn't think that would count? In any inertial frame, the bulk rotational kinetic energy is the sum of the particles' kinetic energy (at least, the part based on the rotation) with respect to the center of mass of the system. --Trovatore (talk) 18:20, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Often, the literature does not respect the universe's absolute rotation and neither does GR's localized frames. When people head west their internal energies increase (eg. onboard clocks), and only if rotation is absent for which local curvature is zero everywhere does one really have something worth talking about as I see things. That said, in the classical setting (v<<c), the KE of non-inertial frames are still worth consideration. Modocc (talk) 19:02, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I think this discussion is not going to get to the point I'm interested in, so let me show the rest of my hand. The question arises from a very old claim, in a fortunately obscure page, that systems at absolute zero have to be "still". I think that's nonsense; an example would be a fast flywheel, which, notwithstanding its high rotational kinetic energy, can still be cooled arbitrarily close to absolute zero. The reason, I think, is that the kinetic energy isn't random and therefore not thermal (this raises interesting questions about the foundations of statistical mechanics which I have still not fully understood, and have not really seen much discussed).

A discussant at that talk page did raise an interesting point that if the object is actually at absolute zero, then you would be in an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian, therefore time invariant, which I suppose in the case of the flywheel means you would need to lose all information about the angular position of the flywheel.

There are lots of places we could go from here. I think coherent vibration is also not thermal, though it would thermalize eventually (except maybe in a superfluid or something?) whereas the flywheel's rotation would not.

Anyway, can anyone clarify these issues? --Trovatore (talk) 19:14, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Maxwellian energy distribution" is a term for kinetic randomness. Following up on what I said before, a gyroscopic instrument with two counter-rotating parts comes to mind with respect to an object that has additional invariant internal energy (and whether it is considered thermal energy depends on ones definition(s)) with respect to any reference frame. Our article on absolute zero states "In the quantum-mechanical description, matter at absolute zero is in its ground state, the point of lowest internal energy." In other words, its energy is not zero. Maybe that helps, maybe not. Modocc (talk) 21:35, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can also not emphasize enough that internal energy is simply mass per Invariant mass: "The invariant mass, rest mass, intrinsic mass, proper mass, or in the case of bound systems simply mass, is the portion of the total mass of an object or system of objects that is independent of the overall motion of the system". Thus I am confident you are correct that the systems' velocities are not a factor. But what is unclear to me is what is considered to be "the point of lowest internal energy". Modocc (talk) 02:15, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think it's true that internal energy is the same as mass. Internal energy is a specifically thermodynamic concept, and I'm fairly sure only the "random" part counts, whatever that means. A big part of the point of this question is trying to figure out just what it does mean.

Our internal energy article says that it's determined only up to an additive constant; only changes in the internal energy are well-defined, not the exact value. That wouldn't be true if it were the same as invariant mass. --Trovatore (talk) 18:15, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The well-defined changes are time-dependent, however the invariant mass is determined by the system's proper rest frame, for which all KE is zero, for any event. Our article on Thermal energy gives a brief description of internal energy as "the energy contained within a body of matter or radiation..." and note there are other concepts for thermal energy. Modocc (talk) 19:49, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we aren't talking about invariant mass. We're talking about internal energy. I am not persuaded that they are the same thing. (Note in passing that invariant mass definitely includes the bulk rotational KE, though that's not the point I'm primarily interested in here.) --Trovatore (talk) 20:49, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article states "...the portion of the total mass of an object or system of objects that is independent of the overall motion of the system." Bulk rotation is an overall motion and I took a look at Rotational energy, but it is silent on the matter. Anyway, the angular velocity of macro-systems is arbitrary and gets more complex at the atomic level. In practice, such as for the Earth's spin contribution to its KE (and not mass), is perhaps ignored, but can be calculated via a classical approximation which I used above in my first reply. Consider curve balls that are thrown different curvatures, k, at different moments in time and ignoring external events there exists local proper reference frames such that the ball's KE scalar, including its spin, is zero. If someone asked me what the ball's intrinsic mass is I would not include its rotational KE for any of its rotational energy when thrown in my calculation. It's not ignored, it's just computed separately. Recently I purchased Schwartz's Quantum Field Theory and the Standard Model. The Zero-point energy article touches upon QFT and Thermodynamic temperature has a section on internal energy and absolute zero that touches upon your query. P.S. AI's take.... Modocc (talk) 22:53, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on Thermodynamic temperature has more details and it refers to Zero-point energy and I've not read it yet. Modocc (talk) 03:26, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disclaimer: not a physicist so take with grain of salt: (also this could stand to be moved to the Science desk if one wants more attention; I will refrain from doing so myself) (edit: ignore I am a dum-dum and can't read)

As I understand it, thermodynamics-wise, temperature is fundamentally defined in terms of entropy. The lower a system's temperature, the less total entropy, and vice versa. Entropy is "randomness": it can be thought of as the total number of possible ways a system's internal state can be arranged, which all produce the same observables. A periodic system, like a flywheel or pendulum, has highly regular, organized, predictable motion—so, that periodic motion contributes little net entropy to the system. Real systems can't truly reach absolute zero, but they can get arbitrarily close.

Going from there into some connected topics: quantum field theory models space as containing various fields, which at every point in space are modeled by quantum harmonic oscillators. QFT models all particles as excited states of these oscillators. If we consider the textbook toy model of the particle in a box, the particle behaves as a periodic oscillator, with various vibrational modes it can have, each representing a different energy level the particle can have. Even in the ground state, the lowest-energy state the system can have, it still has internal energy distributed across its degrees of freedom, which simply can't be "gotten rid of" somehow ever (besides altering the system so it changes into a different system), any more than you can make 2 apples fill you up more than 5 identical apples if you can just somehow "try hard enough".

It helps to understand that the foundational Big Idea of quantum mechanics, is that various natural properties can only inherently have distinct discrete (countable) values or quantities, quanta: they are quantized. This is in direct contradiction to "old-school" classical mechanics, which assumes natural properties are continuous: capable of taking on an infinitely-divisible, smooth and continuous range of possible values, like the real numbers. That applies for instance to our particle in a box: its fundamental degrees of freedom can only have various distinct, countable values. If they all were at their lowest-energy values and the system were in its ground state, they simply have "nowhere else to go but up"; the system can't somehow do a limit break and awaken its latent hidden powers and smash through to achieve the "even lower than ground state" somehow. --Slowking Man (talk) 08:49, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]