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Hyperlynx posted:I heard the other day that it might be okay to eliminate the specific mosquitoes that bite us (and cause malaria) because they pretty much evolved alongside us and aren't supporting ecosystems with their presence. And that there are plenty of other species of mosquito that don't bite humans, which mosquito-eating animals can eat. I think it's specifically a. aegypti, which iirc is not the only one that bites us, but is the only one that carries malaria, yellow fever, and dengue, all of which cause untold misery far beyond annoying bites. The talk I've heard is of eradicating that one and that other skeeters would take their place even where they are common, but not transmit disease. Idk how true it all is I'm just remembering what I read same as you
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May 1, 2024 00:18
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Atahualpa posted:On a related note, I remember an article making the rounds a few years back making the case that we could basically eliminate wasps with no major downsides to the overall ecosystem. I've always been skeptical of the claim, but is there anything to it? IIRC they said fig trees would suffer, but nothing else depends on the wasps or figs to a significant enough degree for their absence to cause much disruption. Whoever wrote that article has no idea what they're talking about. In addition to what Dilden said about their role in herbivore control* they are way more important as pollinators than people like to think. It would absolutely be disastrous. * To add: it isn't just the parasitoid species that do this. Wasp larvae are carnivores. Even the yellowjackets that feed on only sugar their whole adult lives are still bringing grubs back to the young to eat. Hyperlynx posted:I heard the other day that it might be okay to eliminate the specific mosquitoes that bite us (and cause malaria) because they pretty much evolved alongside us and aren't supporting ecosystems with their presence. And that there are plenty of other species of mosquito that don't bite humans, which mosquito-eating animals can eat. It isn't so much "eliminate human-biting mosquitoes" as it is "eliminate disease-carrying mosquitoes." I'd imagine that's a much smaller number of species. Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 01:11 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 00:56
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Earwicker posted:people i know in colombo sri lanka claim that mosquitos (or at least the type that carry dengue fever) have been eliminated locally, and when i was there ten years ago it did seem like i only got bit when i travelled outside the city. but thats probably a lot easier than a planet wide destruction of the species The city I live in has a lake that was a major breeding ground for mosquitos. They set up a massive release of sterile males about 16 years ago and kept it up for two years. Before, every summer I'd have dozens of mosquitos parked on the ceiling above any lamp I'd have on. After, gently caress all mosquitos. There's still birds and fish in that lake, so I judge that program a complete success.
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May 1, 2024 01:50
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People with O- blood can be universal donors because they don't have the A, B, or whatever the + blood proteins are. But do those proteins provide any benefit for those who do have them in their blood?
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May 1, 2024 08:37
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I think they help maintain cellular structure of the blood cells, which prevents anemia, as well as having some functionality regarding gas exchange and pH control but I don't think there's really a significant measured difference in the health of people with or without it.
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May 1, 2024 11:40
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regulargonzalez posted:People with O- blood can be universal donors because they don't have the A, B, or whatever the + blood proteins are. But do those proteins provide any benefit for those who do have them in their blood? Apparently this is an area of active research. scientists recently (as of 2000) learned that the Rh proteins (the thing you can be positive or negative for. Im O+ so I have Rh proteins on my red blood cells) help with ammonium transport. https://www.science.org/content/article/blood-rh-factors-job-described This was actually a pretty good read about the history of blood types. As you can imagine, there’s lots of silly race science in there. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3595629/ The types themselves are apparently the result of mutations over time in isolated groups and don’t seem to serve any biological purpose*. There are also like, dozens of rare groups in addition to the popular ABO types. * this ecosystem talk goes for lots of biological systems too. Our bodily systems are extremely complex and we don’t know nearly as much about them as we think we do, just like ecosystems. Like a few years ago we learned that mono causes MS. Who knows what possible protective or deleterious effect a B type blood group has?
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May 1, 2024 11:58
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So, how horribly do you die if you get the wrong blood?
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May 1, 2024 14:47
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Leave posted:So, how horribly do you die if you get the wrong blood? It can be a bad time of clots and allergic reactions that can kill you, especially if you get lots. But I guess sometimes it’s no big deal! quote:Of 36 patients who received more than 50 mL of incompatible blood, 23 (64%) manifested signs or symptoms related to the incompatible transfusion, and 6 (17)% died. Only 3 (25%) of 12 patients who received 50 mL or less of incompatible blood had associated signs or symptoms, and none died. Hypotension, hemoglobinuria, and/or hemoglobinemia were the most frequent findings in survivors and patients who died.ABO-incompatible RBC transfusion does not inevitably mean death or even occurrence of symptoms. Given our current public health approach, I’d be surprised if they don’t soon do a cost/benefit analysis and just stop labeling the blood bags. After all, we don’t have a randomized control trial proving that giving people the wrong blood is bad! You’re also likely very unwell already if you’re receiving a transfusion so I bet the outcomes are all over the place. I did learn that transfusions are routine for some types of anemia but every other reason seems to be a matter of emergency care.
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May 1, 2024 15:33
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When nations send each other foreign aid, how does that work in a practical sense? Do they both have state bank accounts and they just simply wire transfer millions of dollars between them?
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May 1, 2024 17:54
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two fish posted:When nations send each other foreign aid, how does that work in a practical sense? Do they both have state bank accounts and they just simply wire transfer millions of dollars between them? Exchanges between nations either are in the form of goods, or access to international markets. Like, if you live in the US and I give you a bunch of Japanese Yen, that doesn't really help you unless you want to import stuff from Japan. On the flipside, if the US is wrecked by some horrible disaster, me giving you US Dollars may be worse, because the local markets have been wrecked. In other words, it's not like countries have accounts at some international bank and that's how they give each other money. Well OK, they may well do that too...but it's more likely to be stuff like "we'll send you $10 million worth of our goods you need" or "we'll give you a favorable loan for $10 million so you can buy what you need on our markets."
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May 1, 2024 18:14
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two fish posted:When nations send each other foreign aid, how does that work in a practical sense? Do they both have state bank accounts and they just simply wire transfer millions of dollars between them? National banks are banks and they have the same access to financial instruments that all other market participants do. That doesn't mean that any particular aid is a wire transfer, but it is an option.
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May 1, 2024 18:29
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Not really related to foreign aid, but I did work for a few years at the Danish Agency of Finance or whatever it's called in English, where we basically managed the state's money, especially as they related to IT systems. The long and short is that yes, basically the state has one (1) big bank account at the national bank with all the money in it. Then there's a weird deal with a normal bank which basically handles all outgoing transactions on one hand and then withdraws or deposits the balance every night at the national bank account. So yeah, in theory the Danish state can just do a wire transfer (through the intermediary bank for reasons that are not related to this being highly profitable for the bank at all) to whoever. All the internal balances and budgets between agencies and ministries and so forth are essentially managed elsewhere in a few IT systems, not unlike departments of large corporations. Also some of those systems are really fun, like the national payroll system which is just one system that essentially pays out very large amounts of money every month. We did also have the literal state coffer over in the ministry, which is an actual box where you can store gold coins. It's empty though, and has been for ages. Also one time when it was in use, a guy managed to take the box and run off to Sweden with it.
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May 1, 2024 19:20
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It has been literally decades since I bought a personal computer/laptop. Can someone give some guidance on what would work for me, please? I just want something that's not super slow (but not overperforming) and just doesn't run like rear end. My last rig was a Surface for grad school. Please and thank you.
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May 1, 2024 20:42
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The Sean posted:It has been literally decades since I bought a personal computer/laptop. Can someone give some guidance on what would work for me, please? What do you do with it? Generally people recommend a midspec MacBook Air (choose the middle options in the Apple Store website, or the best that Costco sells) as a very high quality laptop with lots of longevity. There is a laptop recommendation thread in SH/SC as well that focuses on non-Apple computers.
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May 1, 2024 20:51
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tuyop posted:What do you do with it? I don't like mac stuff (I don't video edit hardcore) so just mostly day to day stuff, but I'll take my question over there to not drag down this thread. thank you.
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May 1, 2024 21:02
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Earwicker posted:who is the "someone that is banned" at the top who is ignored by like two thousand more people than the next person on the list? Flipperwaldt posted:I think it's a collection of people that can't be separated out anymore due to radium. I asked the best possible resource for this, fishmech: the original version of vBulletin that SA was based on would set any banned user's userID to 0, as they were no longer considered worth storing their user details in the database, so "Someone who is banned" is the renamed entry for null/undefined user to make it clear it was an amalgamation of all banned users prior to the modern system which maintains your userID.
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May 1, 2024 22:14
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The Sean posted:I don't like mac stuff (I don't video edit hardcore) so just mostly day to day stuff, These are all varying degrees of good. MacBooks are still top of the heap. But if you don't like Macs then that's that.
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May 2, 2024 03:02
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I'm looking for a particular cookie. It's from Germany or some northern European country. It's circular with a chocolate coating over a red filling (strawberry or cherry) attached to shortbread. Does anyone know what that is?
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May 2, 2024 08:14
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A Linzer is what these are often called (assuming you aren't referring to Jammy Dodgers)
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May 2, 2024 08:20
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NonzeroCircle posted:A Linzer is what these are often called That's not it. It's got chocolate. What I'm talking about might also be a particular brand (like an oreo) because I got it in a package from a European grocery store.
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May 2, 2024 08:47
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Might be this? edit: Or could be these, they're pretty similar: 
Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 09:50 on May 2, 2024 |
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May 2, 2024 09:38
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Ah sorry missed the bit about chocolate!
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May 2, 2024 09:49
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Sway Grunt posted:Might be this? Well huh, now I've learned that there's a strawberry version of a Jaffa cake.
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May 2, 2024 10:37
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Top one is raspberry even
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May 2, 2024 11:30
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Do different birds have different limits to how high they can fly or can they all go about the same height?
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May 2, 2024 13:29
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Killingyouguy! posted:Do different birds have different limits to how high they can fly or can they all go about the same height? Most birds stay relatively close to the ground. Those that get up high require aerodynamic and physiological adaptions. The highest fly above Mt Everest when migrating
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May 2, 2024 13:38
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How high do they go above ground level, though?
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May 2, 2024 13:58
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Hyperlynx posted:How high do they go above ground level, though? Okay, poor choice of wording. Most birds you're probably familiar with stay at relatively low density altitudes (or, altitude above mean sea level) that don't require significant specialized adaptations to living in low oxygen altitudes, and flying in low-density air. dupersaurus fucked around with this message at 14:14 on May 2, 2024 |
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May 2, 2024 14:11
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I just got a new phone (it's been a while) and when I went to use my old charging cable it said "slow charging: use a new cable or undamaged cable". It then indicated that it was going to take about 8 hours to charge from about 50% to 100%. All my old cables are standard USB to USB-C. I get to work with my phone at about 85% where the cable is straight up USB-C to USB-C, and it's going to charge 100% in about 30 minutes. Without going into electrical engineering answers I absolutely won't understand, why the huge difference? I know that USB-C allows for data/power transfer faster than standard USB, I get that. But why does my old phone seem to charge at the same rate between USB and USB-C? I don't believe that my new phone battery capacity is exponentially larger than my old phone. I don't think I'm filling a kiddie pool with a garden hose vs an in ground pool with the same hose.
CzarChasm fucked around with this message at 14:26 on May 2, 2024 |
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May 2, 2024 14:24
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CzarChasm posted:I just got a new phone (it's been a while) and when I went to use my old charging cable it said "slow charging: use a new cable or undamaged cable". It then indicated that it was going to take about 8 hours to charge from about 50% to 100%. All my old cables are standard USB to USB-C. I get to work with my phone at about 85% where the cable is straight up USB-C to USB-C, and it's going to charge 100% in about 30 minutes. Without going into electrical engineering answers I absolutely won't understand, why the huge difference? I know that USB-C allows for data/power transfer faster than standard USB, I get that. But why does my old phone seem to charge at the same rate between USB and USB-C? I don't believe that my new phone battery capacity is exponentially larger than my old phone. I don't think I'm filling a kiddie pool with a garden hose vs an in ground pool with the same hose. Quite literally USB-C is just allowed to pass more electrons/second than USB-A. More electrons/second = faster charging.
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May 2, 2024 14:41
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CzarChasm posted:I just got a new phone (it's been a while) and when I went to use my old charging cable it said "slow charging: use a new cable or undamaged cable". It then indicated that it was going to take about 8 hours to charge from about 50% to 100%. All my old cables are standard USB to USB-C. I get to work with my phone at about 85% where the cable is straight up USB-C to USB-C, and it's going to charge 100% in about 30 minutes. Without going into electrical engineering answers I absolutely won't understand, why the huge difference? I know that USB-C allows for data/power transfer faster than standard USB, I get that. But why does my old phone seem to charge at the same rate between USB and USB-C? I don't believe that my new phone battery capacity is exponentially larger than my old phone. I don't think I'm filling a kiddie pool with a garden hose vs an in ground pool with the same hose. There’s a part of your phone that tells the charger (the part that goes into the wall) how much electricity to send to your phone. For this to work, the cable and charger have to speak the same language as the phone. Most modern phones only really “talk” over USB-C to USB-C cables to USB-C chargers. If they don’t see that configuration, they only accept the lowest possible amount of power to prevent damage. If you want fast charging (which is usually undesirable, it causes increased wear and tear on your phone battery), you need to upgrade your cables and/or chargers.
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May 2, 2024 14:44
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There are charging standards in play as well, look for USB Power Delivery and Programmable Power Supply here. Supposedly PPS is meant to be better for the battery but I'll believe it when I see it (and I currently have a PPS phone now).
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May 2, 2024 14:50
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Hyperlynx posted:How high do they go above ground level, though? When it comes to flying, your altitude above the ground is only relevant for a) not crashing, and b) if you're worried about / interested in the ground effect, which requires flying at very low altitudes (above the ground). Ground effect isn't generally used in human-made aircraft because we want to go fast, and maintaining a consistent altitude above ground at high speeds isn't exactly trivial. But the Caspian Sea Monster (a.k.a. the KM) was a Soviet attempt to make an oceangoing ground-effect craft. Outside of that, altitude is measured relative to sea level, because that is the primary thing that affects air pressure, which is a major factor in how flight works. Lower air pressure means that you get less lift, so in order to fly, you need higher speed and/or bigger wings. Both allow you to interact with more air, and thus generate more lift, to stay airborne. On a related note, you might enjoy reading Randall Munroe's article on Flying a Cessna on different planets.
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May 2, 2024 14:57
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The Sean posted:I don't like mac stuff (I don't video edit hardcore) so just mostly day to day stuff, Fwiw, Lenovo T-series are rock solid. Spill resistant, drop tested to 2 feet, just well built machines. Ignore the prices on Lenovo's site, use a combination of their listed coupons and coupons on RetailMeNot to get a much better deal. If you're not doing anything more intense than web browsing, light Excel, and things of that nature, any CPU, video chip, and storage drive are fine. I'd suggest 16 GB of RAM or more but that's really the only limiting factor.
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May 2, 2024 16:11
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regulargonzalez posted:Fwiw, Lenovo T-series are rock solid. Spill resistant, drop tested to 2 feet, just well built machines. Ignore the prices on Lenovo's site, use a combination of their listed coupons and coupons on RetailMeNot to get a much better deal. Oh caveat here. Don’t buy a computer with a spinning hard drive in 2024. It should advertise something other than an “HDD”. Like SATA SSD or NVMe or something to that effect.
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May 2, 2024 16:27
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tuyop posted:Oh caveat here. Don’t buy a computer with a spinning hard drive in 2024. It should advertise something other than an “HDD”. Like SATA SSD or NVMe or something to that effect. For laptops the ones with garbage 1366 x 768 screens are pretty much gone, and the lower tier cpus have gotten a lot better. So honestly for basic needs pretty much any laptop you buy is going to be fine in 2024. If you want it to last another 10 years and don't want to have to replace any parts ideally just try to get a decent sized ssd and at least 16gb of ram (8gb is ok for basic use now but it will probably be rough in another couple years). mystes fucked around with this message at 16:48 on May 2, 2024 |
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May 2, 2024 16:42
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Thanks, everyone, for your feedback/help.
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May 2, 2024 17:12
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Sway Grunt posted:Might be this? I'm pretty sure it's that bottom one. Thanks.
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May 2, 2024 19:39
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Is there a regulatory reason that almost every sedan is a fastback now or is it just a design trend?
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May 2, 2024 20:20
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I'm looking to take advantage of both a student discount and a credit card intro bonus to sign up for annual subscriptions to a whole bunch of magazines. Used to love reading them back in the day and I want to get back into it. Basically I just want anything that has long articles for a broad range of topics. Like the New Yorker. What else is out there currently that doesn't suck?
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May 2, 2024 21:19
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