Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2019 July 18

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July 18

I am wondering . . . . .

I sent an inquiry through the talk page, I think. I do not frequent facebook, for a number of reasons, 1. I do not post comments on it, it seems frivolous and shallow. 2. Messages coming from people who I do not know and not responding in a timely fashion when I answer/ask a question that they have sent to me. The concept of wikipedia seems to be an ultra intelligent type of facebook. Granted I use wikipedia, 100's of times more than facebook, of course facebook is not a fact finding venue.

So the reason I am posting? or asking? this question is: was my first comment about Andrew Wakefield, only read by Wiki Staff or was it on an open talk forum? Were all the responses to my comment from Wiki Staff or from users also? How do I determine who is staff and who is a user? Is the talk forum exclusive to the Andrew Wakefield page or is it in some cyber universe forum where it floats around to be seen by the millions of people who might type in a key word such as autism, Wakefield, MMR Vaccine?

I do appreciate the quick response to my comments.

Also, it seems there may be a symbol or flag for conflict and agree with the comment??

Do my posts contain my name??? I do not care, that is the username I chose, so I do not hide behind numbers or symbols.

In conclusion, I hope the four thingees I am putting in are the correct way to sign this question?

Thanks again.

Dan Baroni (talk) 00:38, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Dan Baroni (talk) 00:38, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

"Staff" and "Users" greatly overlap here. Basically all staff (Admins, etc.) are also users. Some users just read and post Q's, but anyone is allowed to edit articles, as well (except for some protected articles), so any user can become an editor simply by picking the Edit button on an article. And an editor is normally considered to be "Staff", in other publications. Of course, nearly all staff here are unpaid. SinisterLefty (talk) 00:44, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Dan Baroni—you say "So the reason I am posting? or asking? this question is: was my first comment about Andrew Wakefield, only read by Wiki Staff or was it on an open talk forum?" It is visible to all editors as well as all readers. Bus stop (talk) 01:14, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is more open than most websites, in that you don't even have to be a registered user to do editing. At least one reply in the previous section was posted by a non-registered user, i.e. an IP address. As to who might be "staff", you can get a pretty good indication by checking individuals' user pages to see what they have to say (or don't). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:52, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

This is the science reference desk, where questions/topics should usually be about science, answered by helping editors with links to relevant Wikipedia articles or other resources. There are noticeboards (WP:NOTICEBOARDS) that are more appropriate to address Wikipedia and content issues. Also helpful may be the WP:Teahouse or WP:Helpdesk. —PaleoNeonate – 03:15, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Maybe to clarify a couple of answers: Nearly all pages on Wikipedia are completely open for the public to read. All non-protected pages are in principle open for the public to change. In particular, everybody can normally "post" something on a talk page. Wikipedia does not have "staff" in the traditional sense. The Wikimedia foundation runs the web servers, but does not usually interfere with the contents. Wikipedia editors are unpaid volunteers (and everybody who has edited Wikipedia is included under that label). Some editors have been granted advanced privileges via a community process. The most frequent of these are "administrators". Again, these are unpaid volunteers, and they have no special role with respect to content. If you want to change a page, either change it, or convince someone else to change it. The best place to reach interested people is via the talk page of the article. Especially if the change may be controversial, it's a good idea to first read WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Where in the world has the highest average dew point?

And what is this number? What about average heat index? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 12:24, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I googled "highest average dew point world" and this is one item that came up.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:33, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

according to dew point

${\begin{aligned}T_{\mathrm {dp} }&\approx T-{\frac {100-\mathrm {RH} }{5}};\\[5pt]T_{\mathrm {dp} }&\approx T+{\frac {\mathrm {RH} }{5}}-{\frac {100}{5}};\end{aligned}}$

That would be a place at the highest pressure (ie at sea level; because lower pressure means easier evaporation, lower relative humidity) and highest average humidity (without a mountain screening wind and creating a Foehn wind, which would decrease humidity more than it would increase temperature), with as high temperature as possible, and the sea/ocean itself at as high as possible average temperature all year long. As mentioned in the ref found by Baseball Bugs, no place qualify more than Persian Gulf or Red Sea (well, I cannot think of one, at least; Dead Sea lacks humidity; places with Tropical rainforest climate, like Singapore, have high humidity yearlong, but their average temperature would be lower).

Gem fr (talk) 14:10, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

That dew point of 88 must have been unbearable. Here it starts feeling pretty bad about 73, and the highest I've seen it this summer has been 79. Right now it is 93 degrees, 56% humidity, dew point 75, heat index 104. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:15, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

26% relative humidity here in So Cal right now…*applies more hand lotion* --47.146.63.87 (talk) 21:17, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

See here: "In 2003, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, saw the highest heat index ever recorded at 81 °C (178 °F) with a temperature of 42 °C (108 °F) and a 35 °C (95 °F) dew point." Count Iblis (talk) 21:51, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

OP is not asking for record, but for highest average (yearlong, I guess). Although, according to its average quality (high temp and high relative humidity), the place of record surely qualify as a worthy competitor Gem fr (talk) 00:08, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Is it possible to grow a fruit from a seedless fruit?

If I have a seedless fruit, can I grow a plant and other fruits from this seedless fruit only without using seeds? Does fruits have DNA outside the seeds? 93.126.116.89 (talk) 16:44, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I would expect that parts of it have DNA, like the skin/rind/stem. But that's not sufficient to grow a plant. Fruit is highly specialized, and only the seeds are designed to start a new plant (although other parts of the fruit tree, like roots and stems, may also be able to grow new plants). Also note that some supposedly seedless fruit does have seeds, like "seedless" watermelon. They are just smaller and fewer, but still may be able to grow new watermelons. SinisterLefty (talk) 17:09, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Essentially any cell in the plant will have DNA. There are very few exceptions to this (mammalian red blood cells are one of the very few examples of cells not containing DNA). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:57, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

doi:10.1038/219329b0 is an interesting 1968 Nature note about some E. coli colonies in which many of the cells do not have DNA. No idea off-hand what has been discovered since then. DMacks (talk) 18:06, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

(Curious) What about cloning a plant from a cell or more from the fruit and making it make a fruit? Is that possible? Theoretically? Practically? Usedtobecool ^✉️ ✨ 17:35, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

cloning a plant from a cell is routinely done. Gem fr (talk) 11:43, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• Vegetative propagation

This is very commonly done for commercial fruit species. Not so much because they're seedless or can't be propagated from seeds, but because they are very highly specialised fruit varieties, and a non-seed reproduction of them will 'breed true', whereas using seeds might give a plant with different results. Sometimes those results are better, mostly they're not so good.

However you might need to grow from a tree (by taking cuttings, or whatever), rather than from a fruit. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:48, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

(ec)According to this,[2] you can't grow watermelons from the seeds of a "seedless" variety. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:49, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, for sure, a biologist could probably grow a plant out off a single living cell, but I guess this is no what you mean.

Also, it will somewhat depends on your definition of a fruit. With the strictest definition, a "seedless fruit" just doesn't exist. I guess you use a broader definition, which would include, say, banana and pineapple. You CAN grow a pineapple plant out of the "fruit" (using the top leaves, without seeds); you CANNOT do that out of a banana, AFAIK. So, again, it will depends on the plant.

Gem fr (talk) 17:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Gem fr, Actually, I'd argue that that's exactly what they meant: Does fruits have DNA outside the seeds? Usedtobecool ^✉️ ✨ 21:52, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

You may be right, but asking that require absolutely no idea what DNA, or even a cell, is. So everything is possible. Gem fr (talk) 11:36, 20 July 2019 (UTC)