Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2017 August 27

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August 27

Dumper railway cars in Hungary

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Does anyone know, how these railway cars are called and what their exact function is? The photos are from Hungary, 1970.--Cameron Kay (talk) 11:15, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

" Fuel and building material Trade Company No. 11 plant, quarry terminal, Polish sweeping machine. Fortepan"

I don't think they are "dumper cars". They look more like typical European general use steel-body railway wagons, with central side doors and a flat floor. The yellow machine is an unloader for them, with conveyors either side. Presumably it has some shovelling mechanism in the middle that empties the wagons, rather than doing it by hand. Neat idea, as it saves building special wagons or facilities for them to unload at.

I'm guessing the load is brown lignite coal? The sort of thing that might well be bunkered in simple piles like this. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:25, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The title of these images machine translates to "Budapest XVIII., Plant and Building Material Trade Company No. 11, Pebble Mine Terminal, Polish Screeding Machine."

The rolling stock resembles the "Czech (ČD) twin-axled open wagon of UIC Type 2", shown in our Open wagon#UIC standard goods wagons. At first glance, the second photo might seem to show the lids of a wagon with opening roof, but those are actually the paddles of the screeding machine, which pushes the goods toward the doors and onto the conveyors. -- ToE 12:36, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

So to address Andy Dingley's question, from the appearence of the aggregate material (smaller, more similarly sized pieces than likely for coal) and the translated caption (...Pebble Mine Terminal . . .), this is likely stone ballast being stockpiled for use on the railway network. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.2130.195} 90.204.180.96 (talk) 16:22, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible to speak chimpanzee if one is raised by a chimpanzee or a group of chimpanzees?

I know there were attempts at trying to raise chimpanzee babies as humans, which failed. What about the reverse? Has anybody tried letting a human baby be raised by chimpanzees and see whether the child will speak chimpanzee better than human language? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 20:12, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Research into possible Great ape languages didn't really start until well after we stopped using babies for bizarre and ethically "questionable" experiments. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:16, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

A human child wouldn't survive - they are just not born with the same survival skills as a baby chimpanzee, and do not develop quickly enough. For example, they wouldn't know how to cling to the mother while she runs. Wymspen (talk) 21:17, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Note that all indications are that chimp language is rather limited. They're not going to be able to say "I saw 28 gorillas at the mountain pass three days ago", for example. Adult humans are capable of learning the limited language chimps do have, when they say things like "I'm angry !". StuRat (talk) 21:30, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Supposing a group of chimps would even allow a non-chimp into their group, trying to do so deliberately would be a gross violation of human rights, and probably illegal most anywhere. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:38, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

They will make chattering noises apparently, but that is not really a language.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:00, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Also of note is that most if not all of those stories are legends, those children were usually raised by human parents then abandoned (including for developmental issues, but otherwise, the isolation and/or mistreatment imposed by the parents often results in life-long developmental problems). —PaleoNeonate – 08:23, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

See Feral child. 92.8.219.206 (talk) 13:20, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Virus surveillance

I know that there is ongoing surveillance for new viruses, and can find general overviews like [1]. But I'm not sure how to apply it for a specific scenario. With recent news I find myself wondering, ever more seriously, whether a country like North Korea or simple bad luck might have released a virus that causes insanity, some kind of generalized, slow, progressive brain damage that leads people to act like ... the protesters and counter-protesters and politicians we have today. Any suggestions how would I go about trying to find out whether it is known what new viruses out there that have no obvious ill effects but are gradually working their way through the population, and whether there is any evidence they might linger at low levels in the central nervous system? Wnt (talk) 21:06, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Toxoplasmosis is one vector candidate. According to our article: "Up to half of the world's population is infected by toxoplasmosis but have no symptoms". See "Crazy cat lady syndrome". See Toxoplasmosis#Rodents for some of the behavioral changes they cause there. The concern is that humans may also be susceptible to these type of changes. See Toxoplasmosis#Research for some of the mental effects on humans. The disease itself doesn't appear to be new, but perhaps some strains of it are (which conceivably could be the ones that affect human behavior the most). StuRat (talk) 21:15, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

It is curious to note that Toxoplasma discriminates by blood type; there was a postwar outbreak in Japan where blood type personality theory has been at times embraced, though I'm not sure the details line up. Wnt (talk) 18:14, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

While not disagreeing with the theoretical possibility of what Wnt proposes, my readings of accounts of politics and society in Ancient Rome and Greece (for example), suggests that "the protesters and counter-protesters and politicians we have today" are behaving no differently than such people did 2 millennia ago, or in the intervening centuries since. {The poster formerly known as 87.81,230.915) 90.204.180.96 (talk) 17:46, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. A reading of the two greatest history books of all time, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Macaulay's The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, should thoroughly cure one of such illusions. Looie496 (talk) 18:54, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Potentially, this might not be the first time such an outbreak has occurred... Wnt (talk) 18:14, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Borna disease virus (BDV) is one virus that may fit your criteria, it seems psychiatric patients have a higher incidence of anti-BDV antibodies perhaps suggesting a link. Eppstein-Barr virus may contribute to some cases of Parkinsonism and Lewy body dementia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4713712/ lists several others. None of these would be regularly screened for in the general public. Generally a nucleic acid test (NAT) or antigen specific antibody test is used to detect the presence of a viral infection. Latent viral infections are difficult to detect, even more so for viral infections in the CNS. The CDC's emerging disease page is probably your best bet for finding out about new viruses https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/. As for your grand theory, it's undeniable that viral infections of the brain exist and go unnoticed while causing behavioral changes. That said I strongly suspect that the vast majority of the behavior you have characterized is completely unrelated to viruses. The modern world is highly ordered and probably less violent and insane than any time in human history.204.28.125.102 (talk) 00:18, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

This is by far the most interesting answer, though the increased incidence seems uncertain. The work with these viruses seems recent enough that I still lack confidence about what is being missed... Wnt (talk) 18:14, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

If North Korea starts a mass immunization program then we should start to worry. I've suggested here, that the main threat from a bioweapon deployed by North Korea is probably not going to be a newly designed virus, rather a large number of different pandemic flu viruses. There have been such viruses created in the lab starting from a viruses that lack the capability to spread from person to person. So, this is proven technology not science fiction, so nothing would stop North Korea from developing a cocktail of a large number of such viruses. We can deal with a single SARS epidemic, a single Swine flu epidemic, etc. etc. but we probably cannot deal with hundreds of such epidemics at the same time. Count Iblis (talk) 02:04, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

@Count Iblis: North Korea already does mandatory vaccinations. I doubt its inhabitants ask many questions about what might be in those. I would hope (but doubt) that countries like the U.S. might collect sera from North Korean defectors and see what they light up, just to get an idea of what might be coming.

The flu is sort of a digression, but one of my old ideas from the 90s was the Doomsday Duck. Basically, V(D)J recombination, with flu alleles in place of immunoglobulin domains, in context of some sialylation or glycosylation-deficient bird, activated in differentiating enterocytes; maybe toss in some RTase, a primer, homologous recombination to keep things interesting. Back then this would have been difficult to make. However, by now I've seen at least three different well-thought out ideas for broad-specificity flu vaccination, so I'm reasonably hopeful by now that it could all be vaccinated against if the bureaucrats were ever blasted out of the way, though the ecological impact would still be devastating. Wnt (talk) 18:14, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Slow virus diseases of the central nervous system looks relevant. Googling "slow virus disease" turns up similar things. Virus latency is worth a mention as well. Zombie apocalypse?--Wikimedes (talk) 02:40, 1 September 2017 (UTC)