Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2010 February 22

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February 22

Minimum Temperature For Human Survival

What is the smallest temperature that a human can survive in indefinitely? Which is to say, suppose a human (with no clothes or shelter) is provided enough food and water to live, and that he/she is in a container of air at some constant temperature and with no wind. Further assume that the amount of air present is such that oxygen is not a concern and the temperature of the air is not influenced by the radiated heat from the person. What is the minimum temperature that would let that person survive for as long as the food and water lasts? Certainly, if the air were about 98 Farenheit, the person would be able to maintain appropriate body temperature forever. But there must exist some temperature where the loss of energy to the surrounding air exceeds the creation of energy by metabolism (or rather, the rate of conversion of food into thermal energy) such that the person is unable to sustain an internal temperature sufficient to survive. Does this temperature depend on the amount of calories provided per unit time, or is there some maximal level of calories per time that the human body can process? Assume that the food and water are provided at the outside temperature -- i.e. no heated food or water is provided. Also, would the provision of clothes and/or shelter decrease this minimum temperature, or simply prolong the period of time before hypothermia sets in? 71.70.143.134 (talk)

The article for thermoregulation states that "In experiments on cats performed by Sutherland Simpson and Percy T. Herring, the animals were unable to survive when rectal temperature fell below 16°C [~60 Farenheit]." This is not necessarily the answer to my question in that humans are exothermic, and so can maintain an internal temperature greater than the exterior given enough calories/time.

I suspect the temperature is surprisingly high. Clearly a person running in circles could maintain a sufficiently warm core temperature in very low air temperature, but the problem is sleep. Eventually that person is going to have to lay down, cease moving (save for shivering I suppose), and go to sleep - at which point their body temperature will plunge. I have no references, so I shall offer no predictions. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It depends partly on whether the person has lived in the cold for a while. I've read news accounts of people in Russia taking cold showers and fishermen who use bare hands to catch fish from ice holes in -50 degree weather. Imagine Reason (talk) 03:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The OP asked about the minimum environmental temperature for long term survival of a naked human with adequate food and water. This is not a situation that would frequently occur outside medical experiments or torture, since humans have been smart enough to wear clothing in cold environments for tens of thousands of years. Death would be attributed to "exposure." Wind would be a very important variable in determining the drop of core body temperature. Core body temperature likely determine survival of the individual, but temperature of fingers and toes would determine loss of digits from frostbite. A recent TV show had some "Survivor man" replicating the experience of people who nearly died when stranded during a snowstorm, In an experiment, he sat in a cold room, perhaps 23 degrees Fahrenheit (-5C), and the temperature of his core and his fingers was monitored. His awareness and manual dexterity decreased until the experiment was stopped when he seemed to be failing physiologically. Turning on fans to increase "wind" was devastating. In any realistic scenario, the person's clothing, however thin, would act as a windbreak and provide as insulation a dead air layer next to the body. Experimental data I read once (years ago, no reference citation possible) said that when an Australian aborigine and a European were asked to lie down at night on cold ground with minimal clothing, the European's body tried to maintain normal temperature in all body parts and he shivered miserable, with a severe and steady drop in core temperature, while the aborigine's body let the peripheral parts drop in temperature and defended core temperature, letting him sleep peacefully if not comfortably, implying greatly improved survival prospects under the specified conditions (which were likely too warm for frostbite). There is probably some research from military research departments on survival in cold temperatures, but it is not so likely they assumed no clothing, which would be more like some of the torture interrogation methods used by the Bush administration for suspected terrorists. In the U.S., I know of an incident wherein some young Girl Scouts survived overnight with clothing and sleeping bags under windy conditions when it got down to 13 degrees Fahrenheit (-10.5 C). Inadequate clothing is a more likely condition to be experienced. With plenty of food, shivering would exercise muscles and help maintain core temperature in the OP's scenario, but falling asleep would eventually occur and that is when the "death from exposure" would likely occur. (I recall a joke from an early TV show wherein someone tells of an unfortunate photographer who got locked in his darkroom in a building where the heat failed during a cold snap, and who ultimately died of exposure). Edison (talk) 04:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It's unclear what relevance any of this has to my question. Certainly the question is hypothetical and I'm not pushing for the creation of experiments to test any offered hypotheses. Instead, I'm asking if there are any arguments from first principles which might allow one to state x temperature is such that the rate of heat loss is greater than the rate of heat creation by metabolism. Further, frostbite seems to be extraneous to the question, since it can only occur at less than freezing, and the minimal survival temperature is certainly greater than that. I understand why clothing allows us to survive extremely low temperatures, but again, I'm less interested in feats of extreme survival than in feats of prolonged survival.

This is not a direct answer but we are talking about Hypothermia, so the article Hypothermia is a good place to start. --220.101.28.25 (talk) 09:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

And I have just noticed that you have already looked at that article (sorry!) this is not an easy question to answer! 220.101.28.25 (talk) 11:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Is wearing a layer of your food considered cheating? I suspect lard might be used for insulation. Googlemeister (talk) 16:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I think I figured out an answer. This claims that the basal metabolic rate for a human is 100 watts (although it's based on a dead link). So we can lose up to 100 watts to the surrounding environment, and we can calculate the two main ways to loose heat: through radiation and conduction. Radiation is governed by the Stefan-Boltzmann law, $P=\sigma \cdot A\cdot T^{4}$, where σ is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant and A is the radiating surface area. Since the surrounding air is also radiating heat into the person, we end up with $P=\sigma \cdot A\cdot (T_{h}^{4}-T_{a}^{4})$, where T_h is the temperature of the human, and T_a is the temperature of the surrounding air. Conduction is governed by Fourier's law, $P=-kA{\frac {\Delta T}{\Delta x}}$ where A is the surface area, k is the thermal conductivity of the material (.025 for air), $\Delta T$ is the temperature difference, and $\Delta x$ is the distance. I'll pick 5 cm as about the width of the layer of warm air sitting on the skin. So the total energy loss is simply the sum of these two: $P=\sigma \cdot A\cdot (T_{h}^{4}-T_{a}^{4})+-kA{\frac {\Delta T}{\Delta x}}$. Solving this for P = 100 watts, the smallest temperature we can survive indefinitely is about 302 kelvin, or about 84 fahrenheit. This seems very high, but I suppose we did evolve on the savannah. The question is, can someone raise his or her basal metabolic rate while sleeping? Certainly someone can keep warm by aerobic exercise, but I don't know if shivering while asleep has a significant impact. 71.70.143.134 (talk)

Your $T_{h}$ isn't the standard 37 °C; in a cold environment, the skin temperature will be significantly lower even when the core temperature is maintained. Also, you can reduce the effective A by folding the body (basically, go for the fetal position). But you also lose heat through the ground (we haven't said what it's made of) and via convection (which serves to reduce the $\Delta x$; I don't know if your 5 cm is a good guess including that effect or not). Finally, that 100 W is for comfortable humans; though I don't know by how much, shivering and other mechanisms will certainly raise that power when it's needed. --Tardis (talk) 19:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The convection/conduction loss is dominated by the radiative loss, so although the skin temperature might be lower than 37 C, that would not have much of an effect, and neither would decreasing the $\Delta x$ (although, decrease it far enough and we can only survive in an arbitrarily small range around 37 C). I don't know enough about how radiative heat loss works to know if the important factor there is the temperature of the skin or the peak internal temperature, but that term involves the temperature to the 4th power so small changes can have large impacts. If anyone has any idea on what the lowest possible sustainable skin temperature is, I'd be very curious -- although I suspect this might depend strongly on amounts of subcutaneous fat. At any rate, your point about the fetal position is well taken. Assuming a new surface area of 1 square meter (this is potentially low -- imagine trying to cover yourself in a square blanket one meter to a side), the smallest temperature is about 294 kelvin, or 70 fahrenheit, which is more in line with my intuition but also demonstrates the extreme dependence of my (over-simplified) model on a couple of parameters. 71.70.143.134 (talk)

Radiative loss is determined by the skin temperature just about as much as conductive loss is; skin's opacity (optics) to IR is pretty high. (Its emissivity is also pretty near 1, which is why you can just use $P=\sigma T^{4}$.) I don't know what the lower (safe) limit on skin temperature is, but the 100 W temperature is basically linear in the skin temperature (in the plausible range of skin temperatures): it drops about 1.2 times as fast (for $A=1{\text{ m}}^{2}$, neglecting conduction altogether). --Tardis (talk) 15:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

My own (non-expert) answer to the OP's original question is: 10 C (50 F) for a naked person outside, but clothes and/or shelter could lower the minimum survival temp to as low as -90 C. FWiW 24.23.197.43 (talk) 04:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

How can we conclude that some arbitrary (unpowered) shelter can't let you survive below -90 °C? What if the shelter is a space blanket inside a four-season sleeping bag inside a tent inside another tent inside an oil tanker filled with aerogel, with silver foil layers inserted at various places to reduce radiative loss? --Tardis (talk) 15:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure you can design a shelter that will allow survival below -90 C; the reason I said -90 C is that it's the lowest temperature yet recorded in the coldest parts of the Earth, so that's the lowest temperature proven to be survivable through use of shelter. Of course shelters could be designed that would allow survival even on Pluto -- it's just that there hasn't been any need for that yet. 146.74.231.55 (talk) 23:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah — I thought the lowest recorded temperature might have something to do with it. --Tardis (talk) 03:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Speed skating

I'm watching the Winter Olympics, and the speed skaters don't run but sway from side to side. I've never skated, so I don't know the mechanics. Doesn't the side-to-side movements make the skates cut through ice that much harder? Thanks. Imagine Reason (talk) 00:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

To push yourself forward on ice skates you have to turn one skate sideways and push against it, you then lift that skate up, move it forwards, put it down and turn the other skate sideways and repeat. That is pretty much the only way to propel yourself (at any significant speed, anyway). A running motion wouldn't work since the skates would just slide on the ice and you would go nowhere (unless you put spikes of some kind on the toes that can dig in, which you do see on some skates, but it's not a very effective method for going quickly). --Tango (talk) 00:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe figure skates have a pick at the front which is similar to a spike. Dismas|^(talk) 02:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

That is not how I would describe it. Speed skaters do not move their feet forward to backwards very much or angle the blade "side ways", except for the very first few steps off the start line. Most of the power is driven from moving the legs from the inside to the outside in a sideways motion. Admittedly the blade is angled, but I would not call it "side ways," it is still very much acute to the direction of travel. This is what creates the long and powerful "power stroke" rather then if you move your legs forward and backwards with the blades sideways. Vespine (talk) 01:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The key is that skates will slide frictionlessly along the line of the blades. So a straight walking or running motion, like you would do on dry land, would only produce a cartoonish running in place effect until you eventually fell on your butt a few seconds later. Just about everyone does this their first time on ice skates. APL (talk) 04:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear isomers

What exactly is a nuclear isomer? The article is way too technical for me to understand, as are most of the articles linked in the intro. I'm going to guess that it's (1) the most stable isotope of an element, or (2) the isotope of an element with the longest half-life, or (3) perhaps most stable = longest half-life, and therefore both 1 and 2. Nyttend (talk) 02:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Neither of those. More like you know how you can expose glow-in-the-dark toys to light and then they give off a low glow for hours. Metastable compounds are charged with gamma rays and reradiate them slowly. By definition if a frequency of gamma radiation reradiates quickly it isn't "metastable". Absorbing or emiting a gamma ray changes the energy in an atom but doesn't change the isotope - gamma rays are pure energy unlike alpha and beta radiation. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Just to be sure no-one gets the wrong idea here, let's be clear that the reference to glow-in-the-dark toys is an analogy. They actually work by luminescence or phosphorescence, which involve transitions between electron energy states, not nuclear energy states. Glow-in-the-dark toys do not involve nuclear isomers and do not absorb or emit gamma rays ! Gandalf61 (talk) 09:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is a very vulgar attempt at popularization, which others are encouraged to improve on and/or correct. The nucleus of an atom contains a certain amount of energy in it just holding it together, like a coiled spring. In most atoms this is the minimum amount of energy required to do so. A nuclear isomer is an atom whose nucleus contains more than the minimum amount of energy. In shifting from this more energetic state to the minimum state, it can radiate a gamma ray or an electron. This does not change its overall proton or neutron count, so it remains the same element, and the same isotope, despite having undergone a form of radioactive decay.

Now, the question of what we mean by the energy that holds a nucleus together (binding energy), and how it can be that some nuclei have different energy than others, and so forth, I think this requires a somewhat deeper quantum mechanical account to make sense of, but if you think of it as just "energy" and don't worry about where it comes from, it is much simpler for these purposes.

It probably should not be confused with different isotopes of an element (same element, different mass, often radioactive and unstable), which is what seems to have thrown you off. ^180m
₇₃Ta
and ¹⁸⁰
₇₃Ta
are the same isotopes of the same element, but they have different energies in their nuclei (the metastable, m one has more), and are thus isomers. --Mr.98 (talk) 04:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

One thing to add is that m represents a discrete amount of energy. If an atom absorbs x amount of energy it enters a metastable (somewhat, relatively stable) state which we designate as m. If it absorbs a different amount, say 1/2x or 2x, it decays almost instantly (not even slightly stable!) For some isotopes there will be a large amount of energy y which yield a different somewhat stable stable which we call m2 with a different half-life than m. The amount of energy represented by x and y and the ratio of x/y are all dependent on the particular isotope. Rmhermen (talk) 17:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

So different isomers have different amounts of binding energy, and I can always count on atoms of the same isomer to have about the same amount of binding energy? I like the "don't worry about where it comes from" idea — I already knew that there was such a thing, but I don't know anything more than it exists and basically what it does, and I really don't care about it other than that :-) Finally, do I understand you rightly to say that different isotopes would have different isomers, since you'd need different amounts of binding energy to hold together different numbers of neutrons? Nyttend (talk) 21:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Let me have a go at it: consider each nucleon (proton and neutron) has a specific energy associated with it, which contributes to the total nuclear energy. Something like vibrating or rotating in place. The most stable state for a nucleus is to have each one at its lowest energy (the "ground state") possible for that nucleus (bound collection of nucleons). A nuclear isomer has a nucleon at a higher energy state than normal in that nucleus. DMacks (talk) 21:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know much about nuclear isomers, but I think they are the nuclear counterpart of chemical isomers—that is, different metastable spatial arrangements of the nucleons, not simply excited states. Nucleons are fermions, so they don't just stack on top of each other; the nucleus has a shell structure (about which I know nothing). (Quasi)classically, to turn one chemical or nuclear isomer into another you need to pull it apart (which costs energy) then put it back together (which gives you roughly the same amount of energy back). Quantum mechanically, higher-mass isomers can decay spontaneously to lower-mass isomers by tunneling, but the half-life is exponential in the size of the energy barrier, hence the long lifetime of some of these isomers (potentially long enough that they might as well be considered stable). Ordinary excited states, in contrast, decay quickly because there's no classical energy barrier. -- BenRG (talk) 05:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

We have a Nuclear shell model article:) I don't know the exact "shapes" of them (vs the standard density-plots of electron orbitals) though. I just used "Something like vibrating or rotating in place" (emphasis added) to simplify that mess, but it's definitely not true that that's what's really happening. But it's definitely not like chemical isomers either...it's the nuclear counterpart to electronic transitions and excitation rather than a change of structural organization. The article that started this discussion states "In an excited state, one or more of the protons or neutrons in a nucleus occupy a nuclear orbital of higher energy than an available nuclear orbital of lower energy." Somewhere^† there's an article talking about the actual physical (sort-of:) shape of a nucleus; this is not that. DMacks (talk) 16:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

^†Found it, it's in the nuclear-isomer article itself, described as distinctly a different issue from the "normal" spin/orbit energetics of nuclear energy states. DMacks (talk) 17:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Birthday

Is there any statistical bias towards a particular day or month of a year when most of the people are born? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amrahs (talk • contribs) 04:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Footnotes 2 and 3 of the Birthday problem article argue that the answer in both cases are "yes" (months depend on seasons when people conceive, days depends on hospital schedules), but they are not terribly well-sourced (there is a link to this page which has some graphs of the month distribution for 1978-1987, but that's it). Perhaps if people dig up better sources on this they can fix up that citation... --Mr.98 (talk) 04:28, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There used to be a claim that more people are born in August/September due to the holiday season. While that may have been the case 50+ years ago, it hasn't been so in recent times. The reason that I've heard is simple birth control. People can have all the holiday sex they like and not increase births 9 months later. -- kainaw™ 18:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no empirical data to back this up (please introduce some if you have any), but I would think that contraception simply reduces births uniformly by month. That is to say, there are two classes of people: those who won't use contraception and those who will -- if the second class is having sex at the same rate per month as the first, there's no reason to suppose that the distribution of births per month changes shape. The only reason it would change is if contraception was more/less effective in certain months and/or people in one class were more/less likely to have sex in certain months than people in the other class. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.70.143.134 (talk) 01:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(EC with above) I can believe that the variation has decreased but I'm having trouble imagining it has been eliminated. AFAIK, in most developed temperate countries, people still tend to spend more time indoors in the winter months, and more outdoors in the summer months which affect the opportunities for sex (there is of course the confounding factor that people having sex while outdoors might be more likely to fail to properly use birth control). And birth control is not 100% effective, (although the pill + proper use of condoms comes close) and plenty of pregnancies remain relatively unplanned.

And even if a pregnancy is planned, they don't generally happen overnight and so the number of times you're having sex is going to affect the chance of getting pregnant and there's likely to be some variation even when a couple is trying of the sex rates. Furthermore, it's easily possible people would be more likely to plan a pregnancy when they're stuck in doors in the winter months.

In any case, I'm sceptical there is a universal trend for August/September being the highest even if we only consider temperate Western countries, southern hemisphere countries for example would likely have different trends.

But anyway this sounds the sort of thing that should be easy to verify, in fact I'm pretty sure there's been some discussion on the RD before and in any case I don't like to make unreferenced claims. [1] [2] both include statistics from the 80-90s or so (okay the second one is Saudi Arabia so perhaps not the example we were thinking of). [3] [4] both of which require subscription includes stats for the parts of Europe, Japan and US+Canada and the second link Switzerland; for the 80-90s or so. They also provide some details of the changes (see later). [5] is from 1996 I think and says the trend exists although doesn't provide any figures for recent years. [6] [7] [8] [9] provide statistics for Italy (last one, requires subscription) and the US for the 2000s (the third one requires subscription).

All of these support the continued existance of seasonal or monthly variation. The two I mentioned that describe the changes (others may as well, I didn't always read them that carefully) are of particular interest.

The general one goes into depth about theories and also mentions how the the seasonal variation in Europe has changed to match the US variation. One proposal they mention is because there used to be a difference in how much time people spend away from home for work in US vs Europe but this isn't so much the case now which highlights another social factor. And when it comes to festivals, people who are semi-seperated may get back together for the festivals with pregnancy resulting (a rather unfortunate thing IMHO fit the couple remains unhappy or break up). It has some other interesting stuff, e.g. it isn't just social factors but temperature likely plays a role in fertility (not really that surprising) in tropical countries the cooler months and in temperate countries the warmer months because an ideal monthly average may be around 20°C. Temperate countries with particularly warm summer months have associated dips. And air conditioning may have reduced the effect of temperature.

Oh and yes, southern hemisphere countries have peaks in different months.

The Switzerland one shows yes the variation has decreased in Switzerland (although interesting enough it also increased from the 19th century until about the mid 20th century). Note that both of these make comments on the different relationships resulting in pregnancy as well.

Incidentally [10] may be interesting to those who want to learn more about the seasonal variation in fertility (this one concerns semen quality).

Nil Einne (talk) 01:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Salt in the Great Lakes

If all of the Great Lakes are connected to the the ocean, then why don't they have a massive amount of salt in them? JackSlice^Talk _Adds 05:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

They are all fresh water lakes, significantly above sea level. All are fed by freshwater rivers/streams. They are drained via Lake Ontario by the St. Lawrence River.-- Flyguy649 ^talk 05:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much. JackSlice^Talk _Adds 05:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Great Salt Lake and other terminal lakes accumulate salts because they have no outlet streams (their water leaves mainly through evaporation leaving behind their dissolved mineral load.) Rmhermen (talk) 17:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The bottom of the channel between Lake Ontario, the closest to the ocean, and the St. Lawrence river is about 40 metres above sea level so the salt doesn't get across. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

When the water and other fluids in comets evaporate, do they become hollow asteroids?

Friends and I were trying to understand the implications of Comet#Debate over comet composition and the question came up about whether a comet with a near-sun orbit would eventually gas out entirely and become the rock and dust crust alone. Would it then be a hollow asteroid?

Are partially evaporated comets likely to be partially hollow?

Googling on "hollow asteroid" and "hollow comet" are almost entirely science fiction and space game hits. Thank you! 99.191.75.124 (talk) 06:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Far as I've understood the literature, we think of comets as "dirty snowballs". That is, a mix of ice and rock. So from that the comets would become loose piles of rubble rather than hollow asteroids. Remember that for the rock in the comet to fuse into an compact asteroid with holes, you'd need a certain temperature. That heat would presumable cause the ice to melt away.

That said, I think that what evaporates from the "dirty snowball" is dirty water. In which case the comet gets smaller and smaller and evaporates completely, perhaps with the loose rubble disintegrating. Googling melting or disintegrating comets might turn up some good sources. EverGreg (talk) 08:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Comet tail has a nice illustration of the fact that the evaporated water and the dust form separate tails (either in front or behind the comet) - so it's pretty clear that the dust is being transported from the surface as well as the ice. The answer probably comes down to whether the comet is made up of large rocks or very small pieces - but I think it's clear that the answer is always either a loose rubble pile or there is nothing whatever left at the end. SteveBaker (talk) 13:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, Deep Impact (space mission)#Results states, "The only models of cometary structure astronomers could positively rule out were the very porous models which had comets as loose aggregates of material." That probe and others have shown comets as having a rocky crust with craters (unlikely to persist in loose gravel or dusty snowballs undergoing melting and refreezing), outflowing jets of water and dust -- perhaps from heated fluid pressure internal to the rocky crust expelling the material like a geyser? -- and there is evidence that their "rock dust closely resembles material from bodies called chondritic meteorites from asteroids in the asteroid belt," which all imply the possibility of a much more solid rocky crust than small pieces of rubble. See also Extinct comet. The huge blast but lack of a substantial crater from the Tunguska event may be explained by the impact of a large but hollow object. Is there any evidence that comets and some asteroids are not composed of rocky shell crusts with hollow interiors? 99.191.75.124 (talk) 19:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Hollow suggests something with large empty spaces. If you take a mixture of water and rock (such as an aquifer), and then remove the water, what you usually end up with is porous rock, i.e. rock with tons of microscopic empty spaces. I would assume that if you remove the ice from a comet, that you are more likely to see something similar, with tons of microscopic voids but very few large openings. If a comet starts with a roughly uniform mixture of ice and rock, there is no obvious reason to assume the outer layers would have greater structural integrity than the interior. Hence there is no reason to assume that the rocks in the interior are more likely to collapse together to leave a void than the outer hull would be to collapse inward and fill that void. Dragons flight (talk) 19:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Why aren't we excavating more comets to find out? 99.191.75.124 (talk) 13:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Insulin secretion in healthy adults per 24 hours

How much insulin, in international units (IU), is secreted during a 24 hour period in healty (non diabetic, non insulin resistant) adults?
(And how do one measure it?)
--Seren-dipper (talk) 06:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Insulin dosage for a type 1 diabetic is roughly 1 IU/kilogram body weight/day. It varies between individuals and for the same individual between different days due to physical activity, infections etc. but it gives an indication of the body's need for insulin and hence insulin production.Sjö (talk) 12:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That was useful, thank you! (Do you have a reference. So I can back up the allegation?)
Hmm, an indication maybe yes, but then again maybe not. I can imagine that, to some degree, a kind of insulin resistance might be present in all diabetics. Thus, the total, per 24 hour, insulin secreted could be significantly less for a healthy non-insulin-dependent, non-diabetic, compared to the 24 hour need for a diabetic.
So my question still stands.
--Seren-dipper (talk) 20:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The secretion of insulin is a response mechanism, largely (though not solely) dependent on blood-glucose levels. As blood-glucose levels are largely dependent on what a person has (or hasn't) eaten, insulin production will vary fairly widely from hour to hour and day to day. See [here] for more information. A carbohydrate-rich diet will cause fairly high levels of insulin production in a non-diabetic, for example. Bielle (talk) 20:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

A little googling found me this link. If you look under Treatment Strategies you will find that it gives a figure of 0.5 to 1.0 unit per kg per day, so I was off a little. Since insulin production also depends on how much carbohydrates you eat, and most diabetics hold back somewhat on the carbohydrates, a healthy person might need a little more than that. As far as I know there is no insulin resistance in most type 1 diabetics because the primary cause is the lack of insulin production, not insulin resistance. Sjö (talk) 08:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Than you! (Both Bielle and Sjö). The links you gave me are very helpful. :-)
I have not looked at your answers before today, but a late ‘thank you’ is much better than none at all, so again: Thank you!
--Seren-dipper (talk) 17:46, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Uranus change in Orbit

How would the strucuture of Uranus change if it migrated into the habitable zone and stayed there for a couple hundred million years? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 09:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That would depend largely on whether the inner planets are still there or not. If they are, the interactions with them would be highly significant. Ignoring that, the increased temperature and solar wind would strip the planet's atmosphere of some of its hydrogen and helium (I'm not sure how much of it) and the weather would probably get more violent (since there is more energy available). I'm not sure what else would change. --Tango (talk) 16:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess more what I'm asking is would water form on it's surface? Does it have the necessary components for life but it's just too cold to work for the moment? You can assume the other planets don't interact with it. TheFutureAwaits (talk) 17:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Did you look at Uranus? From the article: "water clouds are hypothesised to lie in the pressure range of 50 to 100 bar (5 to 10 MPa)". Also from the article: "The abundances of less volatile compounds such as ammonia, water and hydrogen sulfide in the deep atmosphere are poorly known. However they are probably also higher than solar values." Also also from the article: "The abundance ratio of water is around 7 × 10–9." -- kainaw™ 18:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Only Uranus' outer atmosphere is cold, its "surface" is frozen due to pressure rather than cold. If enough of the atmosphere is stripped off the pressure might get low enough for liquid water to form, I don't really know. --Tango (talk) 18:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Human Survival to Exposure

How long could a person survive (with and without injury) to a sudden exposure to each of the planets' surfaces? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 09:35, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Some planets don't necessarily have what you'd call a "surface", just a gradient of gradually thicker and thicker gases. You'd have to define surface for those. Certainly, for the bigger gas giants, any human would be instantly crushed by the pressure if they were deep enough to be on a solid surface. I don't think Uranus or Neptune have such a surface, though I'm not certain. Vimescarrot (talk) 10:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Assuming you mean "exposure without any sort of environment suit or breathing apparatus", then

• Mercury - instant death due to heat (light side) or cold (dark side). Pick just the right intermediate spot near the terminator and it may be survivable for, say, 30 seconds before the near-vacuum kills you.
• Venus - instant death due to heat (hotter than Mercury) and pressure (>90 atmospheres).
• Mars - maybe survivable for a minute or two (but don't try this at home, folks !).
• Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune - as per Vimescarrot, depends on how you define "surface" for a gas giant, but probably instant death due to pressure/heat.
• Pluto (let's call it a planet for the purposes of this question) - instant death due to cold - max surface temperature colder than liquid nitrogen. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

So if I wanted to impress my friends on Mars I could hop out of the airlock, run around for 30 seconds, come back in and have a good laugh? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 11:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

No, you would likely stagger out of the airlock, being careful not to hold your breath to avoid rupturing your lungs, collapse in agony due to decompression sickness, lose conciousness in 10-20 seconds, and hope that someone drags you back inside and repressurises the airlock before you finally die from hypoxia - see our article on space exposure. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Impress them with your silliness perhaps! The pressure gradient is not all that high, but I wonder if Decompression sickness might still be possible? Pressure_suit#Exposure_to_space_without_a_spacesuit may be of interest, as it suggests that very tight fitting 'clothing' makes a big difference. See also Space_activity_suit--220.101.28.25 (talk) 12:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(EC) You included pluto but forgot the third planet from the sun??? Nil Einne (talk) 12:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

A sudden exposure to the surface of this planet - depending on the height you'd been dropped from - would result in more or less instant death!--TammyMoet (talk) 12:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Depending on where you arrived, a sudden exposure to the surface of this planet could easily result in death by drowning (in minutes or hours depending on how well you swim) or hypothermia (also in minutes or hours, but depending more on the place). In other places you might die by dehydration (in a few days) or possibly by starvation (in a few weeks) or being eaten (after a variable length of time). --Anonymous, edited 20:23 UTC, February 22, 2010.

Hmm, so are there ANY feats of daring do I could complete on Mars to impress the crowds?TheFutureAwaits (talk) 12:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Just getting there would impress the heck out of me! SteveBaker (talk) 13:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Obligatory xkcd link. Land on Deimos instead, then use a bike and a ramp to launch yourself to Mars. (I get the feeling this wouldn't work, but I've no idea why not...) Vimescarrot (talk) 14:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You could get yourself clear of Deimos, but Deimos is pretty solidly in Mars orbit. You'd have a hard time getting enough of a velocity change to leave Mars orbit (instead, you'd just orbit roughly in parallel with Deimos). — Lomn 15:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Deimos's average orbital speed is 1.35 km/s - I can't see a bike getting up to those speeds. You would just gradually drift away from Deimos while staying in roughly the same orbit. --Tango (talk) 16:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry, that's wrong. Consider that manned space missions leaving Earth orbit to return to the surface don't use retrorockets big enough to cancel 18,000 mph (um, 8 km/s) of orbital velocity -- they just use ones big enough dip the orbital perigee into the atmosphere, and aerobraking does the rest. Mars has much less atmosphere than Earth, but there is enough for aerobraking. However, I don't know how low you'd need to make the perigee for it to work with Mars, so I don't know what the true speed you'd need to launch from Deimos is. I am sure it's beyond bicycling range, though! And without that critical speed, you would indeed just end up in similar orbit to Deimos. --Anonymous, edited 22:38 UTC, February 22, 2010.

Could you survive on Mars if you had a breathing apparatus (Say like a diving mask) on a warmer Mars day? I think it does sometimes get up to 20C in places. Googlemeister (talk) 19:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

No. The air pressure is far too low. The air you're breathing has to be roughly the same pressure as the air pressing on the outside of your body. (Otherwise you won't be strong enough to exhale and besides you run the risk of puncturing your lungs when you inhale.) APL (talk) 19:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

How is it different then a diver at 10m below the surface? Googlemeister (talk) 21:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Our Pressure article has the line "Scuba divers often use a manometric rule of thumb: the pressure exerted by ten meters depth of water is approximately equal to one atmosphere." So 10 metres would be presumably double the pressure, two atmospheres. The surface of Mars is a lot less than half the pressure. Plus, it's lower pressure, rather than higher pressure, which would presumably be different. That said, I don't actually know the answer. Vimescarrot (talk) 22:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Good point, probably be closer to breathing air out of a car tire. Seen that done in movies, but never heard about the feasibility of doing that in reality. Googlemeister (talk) 22:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Myth busted. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The issue isn't the pressure, but the difference in pressure. Scuba divers breath air at a pressure equal to the pressure of the water (that is why deep divers need to breath different air mixtures - there are more molecules of air per breath than usual). You can't do that on Mars because even at 100% oxygen the air pressure is far too low to have enough molecules of oxygen in it. That means you would need to breath pressurised air, which is very difficult - your lungs would basically explode. You would need a full pressure suit - not necessarily inflated, the pressure could be provided by some skin tight elastic material a bit like a wet suit (although probably made out of different material). During the day on the equator the temperature would probably be such that we could survive without any kind of heating or cooling, although we might be a little uncomfortable. The lack of air means there would be very little conduction of heat, so keeping warm wouldn't be too hard. Astronauts in space suits usually have more difficulty keeping cool than warm when in Earth orbit or on the Moon, and that wouldn't be too hard on Mars (since it is further from the Sun). --Tango (talk) 22:35, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that "Instant Death from cold" is the right answer for Pluto or the Dark Side of Mercury. It may be unbearably cold, but in total vacuum and wearing good shoes, there'd be nothing to conduct your body heat away. I think you'd get your full thirty seconds of agonizing depressurization death. APL (talk) 19:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

As I learned from answering my question above, the amount of thermal energy we lose via radiation vastly outstrips how much we lose via conduction -- at room temperature it's about 10 times higher (for someone who is naked and fully erect (no, the other erect)), and this would only get larger as the temperature differential increases. You'd be losing about 1Kw on Pluto, but I don't know how to convert that into how long it takes for you to die.

Yes, but the point is that the 0.3 Pa atmospheric pressure on Pluto is ~300 time less dense than here on Earth - it's a pretty good vacuum. So there is no practical difference between the heat you'd lose on Pluto versus what you'd lose in deep space...and we can be 100% sure that the vacuum will kill you long before the heat loss. But good shoes would certainly be an essential accessory for any putative unprotected sightseers who wish to avoid the misery of cold tootsies while gasping their last breath. SteveBaker (talk) 14:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Atmospheric pressure on Earch is about 100 kilo-pascals, which means that Earth has about 300,000 times the atmospheric pressure as Pluto (not merely 300). Mars, on the other hand, has an atmosphere of about 1 kPa, which means we're used to "only" 100 times the pressure as we'd find on Mars. To a human, both Mars and Pluto are essentially vacuums, even though the pressures between the two differ by three orders of magnitude. Buddy431 (talk) 22:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I cite the scientific source, Total Recall, in stating that survival on Mars is possible for a short period, but ultimately, jelly face syndrome sets in and kills you, unless you're fortunate enough that someone has set in process an ancient alien technology that restores atmosphere. Then, the jelly face syndrome is stopped and reversed. --Dweller (talk) 12:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Pipes

What is the difference between schedule 40 and schedule80 pipes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rohanpradhan21 (talk • contribs) 11:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Nominal Pipe Size has a table showing the differences - but essentially, the higher the schedule number, the thicker the walls of the pipe. Hence, for example, for a 2" (DN 50mm) pipe the schedule 40 has 0.154 in (3.912 mm) thick walls while the schedule 80 has 0.218 in (5.537 mm). This allows schedule 80 to support higher pressures and to generally be more robust. SteveBaker (talk) 13:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Chemical differences between E150a, E150b, E150c, and E150d.

Why do they have different E numbers please? 84.13.16.216 (talk) 12:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Because there are differences in the way they are prepared - and hence in chemical composition. SteveBaker (talk) 13:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

See Caramel color#Classification for more detail. hydnjo (talk) 15:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It was that article that prompted the question! Do they have a different chemical formula? Are there different chemicals mixed in with them as a result of how they are made? 89.243.87.3 (talk) 19:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately caramelization yields a large number of different chemical compounds - here is an overview. Icek (talk) 00:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

L-DOPA is less water-soluble than dopamine?

OK, why does adding a charged group like a COOH group on a water-soluble compound like dopamine end up reducing the solubility? I understand the whole molecule might become zwitterionic, but they carry two formal positive charges which would seem to increase the water solubility. Is it solvent effects and things like water-cage effects? I mean surely the extra charge would make it less soluble in things like ether. John Riemann Soong (talk) 17:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The solubility of L-DOPA is not in our article...got a value (with cite) for it? I can't visualize a +2 zwitterionic form for that compound...what are you actually talking about? DMacks (talk) 16:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It's commonly known that L-DOPA will pass through the blood-brain barrier but dopamine will not. Hence, L-DOPA is prescribed for the treatment of Parkinson's and not dopamine. I should also have said "two formal charges", e.g. +/-. John Riemann Soong (talk) 22:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

So you are saying it's confusing that "because L-DOPA has more charges (even though they are balanced, for net zero charge), it appears to become less soluble (what solvent?) as seen from its inability to pass through the blood-brain barrier."? Each parenthetical is something you should consider, and also read what properties make something able to cross that barrier. There is at least one fundamental and fatal flaw in your reasoning. DMacks (talk) 22:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't the additional polar group make it even more difficult for it to pass from a water layer to a lipid layer? Or is the RCOO- group able to bind to the RNH3+ via a five-membered ring and therefore increase its overall fat solubility?

So it makes me think it's a question of structure. if the RCOO- group were somewhere else and it could not directly bind the RNH3+ group via an intramolecular ring, would it risk in fact, making it even harder to pass through the blood-brain barrier? John Riemann Soong (talk) 01:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why DMacks is being a dick; L-dopa passes the BBB because it can utilise a amino acid transporter complex (4F2hc/LAT1) [11], where as dopamine doesn't have a transporter. I believe it is a similar scenario with L-tryptophan and 5-hydroxytryptophan vs. serotonin. --Mark PEA (talk) 14:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Human Survival to Exposure (on Earth)

Induced by the question above I would like to ask a question that troubles my mind every now and then: how did ice age people survive? Could we nowadays average people at least survive the cold? 95.112.177.38 (talk) 18:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Ice age people survived by use of clothing, Shelter and fire. Dauto (talk) 18:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

People didn't live on top of glaciers, and the globe was not covered by ice. You might want to start with Paleolithic#Paleogeography_and_climate. BrainyBabe (talk) 18:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The ice age Earth was only 3 C (5 F) colder than today on average, and that was primarily due to changes at high latitudes. If one lived in the tropics it would be little different than today and you'd still worry about surviving the heat rather than the cold. Dragons flight (talk) 18:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Right. It's worth remembering that Ardipithecus Ramidus and their descendents (who eventually became Homo sapiens, perhaps elsewhere) lived in a small region of Ethiopia near Aramis for a couple MILLION years ... I suspect there were a few ice ages in the interim. 63.17.79.127 (talk) 03:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the map in the Inuit article, this culture increased their habitation of Greenland to cover most of the coast between AD 1300 and AD 1500. Presumably they had something resembling Stone Age technology, and presumably they were not "physically" different form people in sedentary cultures like modern-day Western countries. It follows that they survived in the same way as modern people do - by technology and adaption. That said, mortality in the Ice Age in the cold climates (and elsewhere) is likely to have been much, much higher than today, so for parts of the population, the answer to your question is "they didn't". Jørgen (talk) 20:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That picture from the temperature record article seems to indicate a temperature difference of a about 8 C. Dauto (talk) 20:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Both those records are local temperature changes at those specific high-latitude locations. Dragons flight (talk) 02:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Nuh-uh. The ice cores contain information about the temperature at the place where the water evaporated which ca be thousands of miles away from those places. Dauto (talk) 04:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually it is both, water is mass fractionated during evaporation, during transport, and again during condensation to form the snow, which is why temperature reconstructions often use both the deuterium and heavy oxygen isotopic systems to deconvolve the temperature variation at the source region from temperature variation at the precipitation region. Not to mention that the bulk isotopic composition of the ocean changes independent of temperature during the ice ages. These points aside, the temperatures reported in those records are calculated to isolate quasi-local variations, reflecting the precipitation site rather than the source region. That's part of the point. Given that both sea level and circulation pattern changes can effect the location of the source region, you want to isolate the precipitation site effects as best you can as those are more likely to be a useful history of climate change. Sometimes people also try to report the apparent temperature change at the source regions. Anyway, the details aren't relevant to the original poster, but those records are definitely quasi-local / semi-regional and not global. Dragons flight (talk) 05:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I thought they did exactly the oposite and tryed to isolate the variation due to the source and that way get information from a wider area. Dauto (talk) 05:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Consider that people today can live in rather frigid conditions—the Inuit, for one extreme case, and those who live in the Russian tundra for another. Humans can certainly adapt to such a temperature drop. It is not pleasant and probably supports certain social arrangements better than others, but it is possible, just as there are humans who manage to adapt to living in desert conditions as well. It does not mean that if the existing world changed to one or the other, that there wouldn't be massive problems with growing food and other such things. Rapid change is extremely dangerous for any species. --Mr.98 (talk) 04:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Some of those Russian tundra dwellers you mention are Inuit. Rmhermen (talk) 14:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Did they move there recently? There's no history of Inuit people living in the Russian tundra - are you thinking of the Yupik? Warofdreams talk 16:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thai (?) translation request

Hi Refdeskers, I got this t-shirt at a thrift store and am wondering what the logo says. I assume it's in Thai, but my ignorance in this area is both deep and broad. Thanks. --Sean 19:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid you forgot to post a link to the logo. I'd also recommend you post this to the Language Desk instead of the Science Desk, unless the Thai logo appears to be a chemical or nuclear decay formula. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a perfectly logical reason that I posted my request with the various characteristics you note: I am stupid. Trying again over here. --Sean 16:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Egg Whites

Egg Whites

I've been trying to find out about the protein that contains egg whites in it, i did a research and came to find out that by consuming to many raw egg whites can lead to Biotin Deficiency. Egg whites from what a read here at Wikipedia contains high leves of AVIDIN, a protein that binds the vitamin biotin strongly. Now if we cook the egg whites by normal boiling in water, does the protein in the egg whites has the same effects in the human body campare as when consumed raw?71.52.59.50 (talk) 21:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

See Egg white, avidin, and Denaturation (biochemistry). In short, boiling the egg in water denatures the avidin protein, thus avoiding the biotin-sequestering effects of eating the raw egg white. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 00:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Supervised and Unsupervised Learning

Sorry to post this here. I posted it at the computing reference desk, but it's been ignored. We should relabel the computing reference desk as the "My internet and/or home computer isn't working problem desk". I was reading the supervised learning article. At the end of the overview section it says that the Gaussian Mixture Model is one of the most commonly used classifiers. But the Gaussian Mixture Model article says that a mixture model can be regarded as a type of unsupervised learning. Can something be regarded as both supervised and unsupervised learning (as these links seem to show), or are they mutually exclusive (as I was beginning to believe)? •• Fly by Night (talk) 21:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You should try being more patient and less rude. The Computing Desk is filled with some really smart dudes & dudettes. Duration before receiving an answer to your question depends largely on difficulty x GMT time it was asked. 61.189.63.173 (talk) 21:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If in a hurry, ask at midnight for instant response. 71.70.143.134 (talk)

In any case, expect more than an hour for a good response if it is a specialized question. In this case, it seems to have taken a mere 2 hours for someone to give a fairly informed-looking response. Which is pretty incredible if you think about it — how many people out there can give a good response of something like this, how many of them are on the ref desk, how many of them happen to be looking at your question during the 2 hour window you have given them before getting frustrating. But if you complain about people not marching in to do work for you (for free), don't be surprised if people aren't eager to do it for you in the future. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Easy questions can be answered by almost anyone - so you get your answer back quickly if you ask questions that boil down to "Reinstall windows and reboot - or install Linux" - but difficult questions (which this one undoubtedly is) require both the services of that rare expert who can understand your question (I know a lot about computers - and I can't answer it) and who has the time to research it - and it also takes that respondant more time to come up with an answer. So for tough questions you may well have to wait one or even several days. It says as much at the top of each of the reference desk pages:

When will I get an answer?

• It may take several days. Come back later and check this page for responses. Later posts may add more information. Please, post your question on only one section of the reference desk.

Anyway, it looks like the good people at the Computing ref desk (specifically: User:87.102.67.84) came through with a reasonable answer in pretty amazingly good time - I think you should thank them and apologize. SteveBaker (talk) 14:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)