Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2016 July 6 Heavy

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July 6

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Robin mother won't feed chicks

We have a American robin nesting in a hanging plant on our patio. She laid 3 eggs and all three hatched. But she doesn't seem to be feeding them and they are all quite lethargic. It's been several days now. There is a male nearby, presumably the father, and I understand that the males are rather standoffish, as is this one. I am considering putting some bait worms and berries in the nest so hopefully the chicks will eat, regain their strength, and start chirping for more, triggering the mother robin's instinct to feed them. What do you think of this plan ? StuRat (talk) 00:27, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

UPDATE: We left berries out on the patio, and they disappeared. That doesn't necessarily mean the robins ate them, as we have other critters around, but the chicks are doing better now, and we see the chicks' beaks wide open and begging for food. StuRat (talk) 00:55, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Heavy Duty Desk Video

Does cannibalism cause insanity?

According to Kuru (disease), a prion found in humans could cause insanity. However, do all humans have this prion? If the brain is not eaten, or the meat is thoroughly cooked, would cannibalism be healthy?--Hofhof (talk) 13:45, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Humans don't all have the prion. The natural incidence of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease is quite low, and I have read claims it is less transmissible by eating than vCJD or kuru. The existence of multiple types of misfolded PrP is truly one of the weirdest things in biology - it's almost like a genetic system coded in the misfolding of a protein, which is utterly mysterious. That said, the incidence of diagnosed CJD will inevitably be lower than the incidence of some prions loose in the brain of someone simply thought to be a little old and a little slow by the time of death. Even supposing there is some kind of collective social memory of these risks, I've never understood how great armies, in times when there has been little reluctance to commit atrocities or suffer casualties, would risk starvation or at least degradation of combat readiness while camped in the middle of so much freshly slaughtered meat. Wnt (talk) 17:37, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

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Point at which pressure converts solid into liquid

Is there a term for the collection of points at which pressure causes a solid to become a liquid? For example, "At -17°, ice becomes water at [pressure 1], as it does at -5° at a pressure of [pressure 2]. These points, together with other points manifesting the same phenomena, are known as the [term that I'm looking for]". Nyttend (talk) 16:28, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Phase diagram Wnt (talk) 17:30, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

It could be termed a phase boundary, but this is more likely the term for the physical surface of the ice water interface. Phase diagram boundary is a bit more descriptive. Diagrams can be multidimensional if you add some other aspect, such as a range of compositions, eg salinity, isotope composition, size of container, that can vary the melting point. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:28, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Solidus - defines a line in pressure temperature space - see also liquidus (not just varying with temperature as that article says, but other variables including pressure, as Graeme mentions above) where you get 100% liquid. Mikenorton (talk) 09:18, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Although that's only for a two or more component system, which is what I think of when hear the term phase diagram, so that wouldn't be appropriate for water. For a single component they're called "phase lines" as in the "solid/liquid phase line" here. Mikenorton (talk)

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Heavy duty breakers

I often see heavy duty breakers being used for road works to dig up the road. They are very loud and I'm assuming cause a lot of vibrations. Can they not damage or causes cracks in nearby houses and other structures especially if they're old and weak for example old brick and timber houses? Clover345 (talk) 16:41, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

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