Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2016 December 1

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December 1

if you are are more biologically matured for your age does that mean you will have a shortened life span?

if you are more matured for your age does that mean you have a shortened life span?60.229.210.17 (talk) 06:56, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Maybe. There's a well documented trend for faster-maturing vertebrates to live shorter lifespans on average [1], though things get quite fuzzy when you look at many individuals within a given species, with age of maturity only being slightly correlated with an individual's lifespan [2]. Specifically within humans, age of sexual maturity is associated with certain specific types of death. For instance, there is a small but very well documented increase in breast cancer risk with age of menarche [3]. Essentially, human or any vertebrate lifespan is largely dominated by lifestyle, some random uncontrollable factors, and rare but potentially significant mutations. Age of sexual maturity is going to impart a small statistical effect on the average lifespan of a group of people, but it is not individually predictive. Long story short, a group of people who mature very young probably lives a little shorter on average than a group of people who mature very late (but are otherwise all normal), but the individuals within each group will still be all over the place. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:07, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Agree. There is some evidence that the age of sexual maturity has a small impact on lifespan, such that in the aggregate women who sexually mature later tend to have somewhat longer lives. [4] Dragons flight (talk) 08:18, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

• I can say this, all the kids I went to school with who went through puberty in elementary school ended up as the shortest kids at graduation. See late maturers are taller than early maturers. μηδείς (talk) 04:20, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

• My Dad knew a set of male twins (not sure if they were identical) where one matured early, aged rapidly and died early and the other matured and aged quite slowly and lived a long time. The would have made an interesting case for genetics studies. StuRat (talk) 13:52, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Reliable evaluation of a popular science magazine

I recently learned of the magazine called Scientia [5], an imprint of "Science Diffusion" . Some of my colleagues seem to think this magazine is fine--even good. It is simply an open-access way to disseminate publicly funded science to the public around the world (see their info page, testimonials, etc at link above).

Others seem to think Scientia is along the lines of a predatory/scam journal. This guy [6] comments that it looks like an advertising agency for scientists, but admits it is outside his field of exposing predatory journals (search for 'scientia' on that page to find comment). I have searched online and found very little in the way of reliable information. Can anyone help out with assessments? One specific question: are they registered anywhere as a non-profit in good standing? Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 18:09, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I've never heard of the journal, but the publisher does not seem to be on Beall's list, which is a good sign. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:43, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

• In their website, I cannot find the words "peer-reviewed" or "refereed". Thus it is anyone's guess what the quality of a specific article is. One "testimonial" refers to "go[ing] beyond the normal routes of scientific publishing"--in other words, avoiding the annoying process of peer review. Loraof (talk) 18:53, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Something like this is obviously not a "scientific paper"; assuming the rest are like it (I looked at three) this initially seems in the Science News class of publications about science rather than publications of science. Such publications are often more insightful than, say, newspapers, but they are not really a very direct source. The lack of extensive inline citations is obviously crippling. However, there is a big distinction from Science News in that, so far as I know, the writers for that publication are not explicitly hired by the researchers. An article of this type appearing in Science News would need to be marked "advertisement", because it's not strictly the call of an impartial news team initiating contacts about what they find interesting. So really, something like this is better compared to a press release like you might find on Eurekalert, except that unlike those which are typically written by university PR people, these are written by Scientia's PR people. That said, the press releases are ultimately accountable to the client, who is the researcher, and we usually welcome researchers explaining their work whether directly or via intermediary. I like Eurekalert (though it was badly dimmed after the hack - I haven't looked in a while to see if they started getting better stuff again), and often cited their press releases on Wikipedia side by side with the news articles (which are usually just slightly reworked from them) and primary publications (which do have to pass peer review, for what that's worth). Wnt (talk) 19:02, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

• To be very clear: We all know this is not a peer-reviewed journal, nor does it claim to be. It does not present original research, nor any traditional "journal articles" or "research papers" or anything of the sort.

It is, as Wnt says, about science. I think it is best classed as a popular science magazine, perhaps along the lines of Popular Science or Discover or Scientific American, but I'm not sure. Like them, it does cite primary research that it reports on, usually several "real" journal articles referenced at the end. My question is more about whether this publication has esteem and reputation comparable to something like Scientific American, or if it is closer to a vanity press. I understand this is a somewhat subjective call, which is why I'm hoping to find third party comments. Yes, the scientists in question seem to pay a fee to cover publication costs in Scientia, but keep in mind that every single article we find at PLoS Biology has also had publication costs paid by the researchers, and that is not seen as a discredit to PLoS Bio, which is probably the most competitive and esteemed open-access journal. (As a side note, many funding agencies are now requiring open-access publication, and very esteemed traditional closed-access journals are now charging upwards of US$4k, paid by the researchers, to provide said access and comply with agency requirements).

Anyway, I'm still interested in other thoughts and references, just trying to clarify and avoid trips down the wrong paths, thanks. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

You say it does not present original research, but the abstracts look like they are about a particular research group's research. And the testimonials (see Menu#Testimonials) say things like "the information from **our research** has now been made more publicly available" and " it has been a great dissemination of **my research**". One testimonial says the article appeared "in a recent journal edition"--note the intent implied by the use of "journal" rather than magazine.

I would say that this is less refereed than say Scientific American or Discover magazine: these publish things which the editors sought out based on what's in the literature, whereas Scientia seems to publish a particular research group's work based on the researchers asking them to. Loraof (talk) 22:47, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. I have just received a request from them to publish on my research (hence my looking into their valididty :). I don't know what their editorial process would be (how much and how they review it), and I don't know if they send blanket invitations to all funded projects around the world (perhaps not, as I've not see one before), and to be honest they didn't mention money in their request (fishy?), but I thought I'd put in that it was them contacted me. Drevicko (talk) 11:09, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Right, they report on research that is published elsewhere in traditional peer-reviewed journals. The research being reported on is not original when it appears in Scientia, it is the topic of journalistic or press release type coverage. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:27, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

• It looks like an article in Scientia is essentially a sort of fancy press release. In more detail, Science Diffusion is a publicity agency -- they are hired by scientists or their institutions, and then they in turn hire writers to write articles about the work done by the scientists. This is not predatory or a scam, it is simply paid editing. But clearly the results would not be usable as a source in Wikipedia. Looie496 (talk) 15:00, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Looie, that seems fair and accurate. User:Loraof, if you're curious, while I cannot say with any certainty that Scientia will not consider solicitations from researchers, I can say from firsthand experience that their editorial board does indeed seek out research groups to profile, which I why I asked the question. I think they must have been scanning the big grant agencies funded grant announcements to find my group. Thanks all for your input, very helpful sanity check. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:35, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

@SemanticMantis: If they sought you out in order to write an article about you on your own, that's news. If they sought you out to talk about you becoming a client, that's advertising. Did you get to the point where you found out which they were doing? Wnt (talk) 12:47, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

The magazine allows experts and members of the public to submit articles. It does not say whether it charges them, but I assume it does, and it provides no fact-checking or peer review, although it helps with writing. As such it comes under [[WP:SPS}"Self-published sources."]] They are reliable sources only where the author is an acknowledged expert in the field. Even then, care must be taken. Sometimes scholars use these media to pre-publish. This allows them to receive feedback and their articles are eventually published in peer-reviewed journals. It also allows them to bring new research to public attention faster, by avoiding a lengthy peer-review process. Some open access journals republish articles so that they get a wider view. In that case, reliability should be determined based on the original journal. However, the publisher is listed as a predatory publisher, which means that it is unlikely that any of its articles would meet rs. TFD (talk) 21:41, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

No, it isn't listed as a predatory publisher. Or if it is, can you show me where? All we have is that Beall personally doesn't think it's a good idea. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:50, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I doubt any self respecting scientist would put a pre-print here. It claims and from what I can tell, functions, as a magazine focused on public awareness of science. This is quite different to pre-prints such as ArXiV. Drevicko (talk) 11:09, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

If a skyscraper's designed for weak Cat 4 hurricanes but not earthquakes?

What tornado speed is it proof for with no earthquake? What Richter scale value is it proof for with no wind? (structural damage, hurting people or snapping like a twig, not just cosmetics like a little crack or plaster chip). What's the Richter limit if an earthquake happens during that tornado or hurricane? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:42, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

The main problem with this question is "not being built for earthquakes" is not a defined "standard". A concrete bunker could be built "not for earthquakes" but might survive a nuclear blast, just because it's a concrete box. You could "hurricane proof" a tall building by putting extra concrete pillars, and this might ALSO confer quite a bit of earthquake resistance, OR you could "hurricane proof" a building by tying everything (walls and roof) down with extra strapping and fixings (screws, nails, stirrups, etc) which might not confer much earth quake "proofness" at all. This would entirely depend on too many factors to have any meaningful answer. Vespine (talk) 22:07, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

See FEMA's website about earthquake-resistant building codes and a report about Design and Structural Concerns for Hurricane Resistant Residences. There is not much overlap between the recommended measures. Blooteuth (talk) 15:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The issue is that the mechanism of motion and force is entirely different; high winds are acting directly on the above-ground body of the building, while earthquake forces are applied directly to the foundation. So as Blooteuth notes, the engineering responses to those differing dynamic challenges are entirely different. For example, in earthquake country, buildings are often built in a way which allows them to move independently of their foundation — this is called base isolation — which decouples and insulates the structure from ground motion. However, under high winds, a base-isolated building might hypothetically be blown entirely off its foundation precisely because the building is not firmly coupled to the ground. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:27, 3 December 2016 (UTC)