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jnui8j

askphysics_test

[Computational Physics] Should I upgrade my system? Hello to everyone, I'm a physics undergraduate in Italy and I've just started my first course of computational physics. Since it's a subject that I really like I plan to continue exploring it in the next years, mainly regarding particle physics and fluid dynamics. Currently my PC is a laptop with a i7-6700HQ (quad core), GTX 950M 2GB and 16G of ddr4 RAM and, for the few things I've done it held up pretty well. Do you think it is worth it to upgrade my system (I was thinking about a ~900€ desktop) or, for the level at which computational physics are done at university, this system will work?

gb4vqih

gb4hs9w

You absolutely need a monster graphics card, mechanical keyboard, widescreen curved monitor and a shit load of LEDs in your tower to do good computational physics. It's integral the the process.

What everyone else has said is true for research. For classes, your university might not give you access to serious workstations. But (i) the assignments are reasonable in terms of computing power if you're expected to run them at home (ii) 900€ isn't going to buy you a serious 2020 workstation anyway. Plus there's little point in buying new hardware if you're not using yours to its full capacity. Unless you're already writing parallelized code and you're pushing all your cores to their limit, or you're doing a *ton* of CUDA and machine learning on your own time, dropping 900€ to get a 0.3 GHz increase in CPU clock speed to get your stuff to run 10% faster is a total waste of money. You have enough already to run small simulations for classes at a decent speed.

tvsbdk

askphysics_test

How much harder do physics get in undergrad than high school? I wonder why many people take physics as hardest subject in my class. Physics in high school is just finding upon what the required variable is proportional upon and adding a experimental constant to satisfy the equation and then few calculus and concept. And whole chapter we will be playing with that equation. I am really conflicted which major should i choose in undergrad. Low salary as a physicist here in my country is pushing me away from physics and towards CE.Money is not a problem for me but for my family i need to think of that as well :( I wanted to how harder does physics get in high level. Sometimes I think mixing up CE and physics as a dual degree.

i3b90d8

i3b75sp

Everyone here is right that it does get much harder in college, but there are a couple things that helps make it much more manageable than the harder material would make it appear. First, you build the basics with easier material, but you're learning that earlier material with less knowledge about the subject. You build your understanding and toolkit as you learn more, so while the material you learn in college may get much, much more complicated and challenging, you will be far better prepared to learn it than you were when you first started. You build up to harder and harder material one step at a time. Second, there's much more focus in college. In high school I was taking something like eight different classes concurrently. In college it was usually just three, and a large portion of the classes you take in college are in your major. So instead of like eight completely different classes to all be learning in and splitting your focus, in college, you're just taking a couple classes often all in the same field. It's much easier to direct more of your energy and thought towards physics in college if you're a physics major than it is in high school if it's just one of your classes. Lastly, pretty much anything in the sciences (and many majors outside the sciences, too) are labors of love first and foremost. Science is very useful, but if you choose to do it, it's because you love it. If you want to make a ton of money, there are more lucrative and easier paths. This isn't to say that science majors don't have job prospects (they have *tons*. We have a shortage of people in most of the sciences, and you can apply the skills learned in getting a degree in science to all kinds of non-science things), but that you're doing something you actually love with most of your time in college. And when you get to the really hard upper level classes, pretty much everyone else in them does, too. It's a very different and much more supportive environment than high school classes usually are. In other words, yeah, it gets *way* harder, but don't let that scare you. If you're deeply interested in physics and are persistent, you absolutely have what it takes to be successful as a physics major.

I mean if you’re already okay with calculus based physics then you probably won’t have that hard of a time at least in introductory physics. Once you get to waves/heat and electromagnetism, things will get significantly more challenging, but that’s just how it goes. That at least covers roughly the first half of your degree, but of course that’s not including more math like differential equations, linear algebra etc.

rl3mfw

askphysics_test

I don't want to be an engineer, I like physics. Hi there, im currently in high school and have some financial problems in the family, my parents are not satisfied with me doing physics (i mean get a degree and pursue higher studies in) as im also considering doing engineering as it has become a need. But i don't want to leave physics, i love atomic physics and cosmology so much. I want to ask here, can i continue my passion for physics while I'm doing engineering (IT) , will there be time for my passion. Or else is there any scope to follow my passion and take out my family of this?

hpdi7xb

hpdo802

Physics is a hard way to make money. I have an undergrad degree in Physics, and in the long run I’m doing just fine financially, but it took a long time to get there. Physics undergrad degrees aren’t great financial investments. Even if you intend to get a PHD, that can still be a poor financial investment. So you’ll always have that to consider. Perhaps an undergrad Physics degree plus a masters in Education would be a good route for you? Ultimately you gotta follow your heart. If you go through with college Physics you will be a better critical thinker than 98% of everybody. It’s great training for your mind and teaches you to really know whether you know something. But you should keep a focus on how you are going to monetize it, if you don’t have great financial security

Another route to consider would be some kind of optical engineering/photonics track. This uses lots of physics really interesting but is really marketable. Many universities don't have designated optics/photonics departments but do have many professors doing the same work in physics or electrical engineering departments. A physics degree with decent optics experience is probably more marketable than most.

eny88s

askphysics_test

Do you ever wonder how your studying/researching physics actually helps make the world a better place? I hope this is the right place to post this. I ask this of anyone and everyone who's in physics. I'm a physics undergrad student. My interest during my undergrad years has been mainly in particle physics. Up until a few days ago, I was pretty sure that I would keep studying and researching particle physics through a PhD. These past few days I've been having this thought: how is becoming a particle physicist actually going to help people? Even though I want to go into this field of physics that aims to understand the most fundamental particles in the universe, which in and of itself is important to society, how does this actually *help* society? How will it make the world a better place? I had a friend say to me a few months ago, "Particle physics is cool, but it's not going to solve global warming, cure diseases, etc.". I've been thinking more and more about this. It's made me start looking into branches like biophysics, even though I've never even taken a biology class, simply because it uses physics to help us understand ourselves as biological systems. To me, this seems like it would help people more than particle physics. I've been passive-aggressively telling myself things like, "Well, omgphysics, why don't you become a doctor instead if you want to help people so badly?", but I love particle physics and I don't want to stop studying and researching it just because of this dilemma I've found myself in. Do you ever feel this way?

fe6dumi

fe6g4rd

Physics is the next step in just about every field. Most fields are waiting on better physics for their breakthroughs. I really want to do my grad school in physics but other physics phds told me not to so im going to make it my side focus in my research.

“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.” -Richard P. Feynman

ipgr34

askphysics_test

Why are ashes white after the fire has died down, but then black when I poor water on them?

g4korie

g4jv3zq

Calcium carbonate or calcium oxide is the white. When you knock it off/wash it away the black carbon is what remains. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_ash

This is my best guess but I think it’s maybe better than nothing: Ash is mostly powder or agglomerates of powder. If the powder particles are of various enough sizes, they’ll scatter light of all wavelengths, giving it a white colour. When wet, *something* happens that makes the powder absorb the light instead of reflecting it. It might be thin layer interference, that makes it absorb mostly visible light, or simple total internal reflection, or the water smoothing out the surface of the powder particles or clumping them together, making the initial scattering effect moot. Maybe.

8wdya1

askphysics_test

For those that went for their PhD in physics, were you able to support yourself financially through grad school? Without the help of parents? Did you make enough to live comfortably? (I’m in USA) Also, did you work somewhere after your undergraduate before entering grad school? If so, what kind of job and why did you choose to work before grad school?

e1usjqs

e1usji8

Yes, my school paid a reasonable stipend that allowed for an OK standard of living in the city I was in, no parents required. My PhD was in Trieste, Italy.

I know this isn't what you asked for, but if you know some French (or willing to learn), maybe try to apply for a Ph.D. in France, the compensation usually is enough on its own and you won't need any financial help. May I ask what field are going for?

h9r2ii

askphysics_test

What does an "average" theoretical physicist do? Hi - non-scientist who is really into physics. Sorry if this is a dumb question but I was listening to a podcast about Paul Dirac and some physicists were talking about how his abilities and insight were so far beyond everyone else. And it got be wondering, most physicists aren't making big breakthroughs/aren't once in a generation geniuses. Every profession has people of average ability and it is not hard to imagine an average doctor, plumber, etc. But if your job is thinking about stuff, what do you do all day if you're just "ok" at it?

fuyhuay

fuygctl

Hello, theoretical physics PhD student here! I think this is a common misconception that there's a lot of sitting around thinking for theoretical physics, because we're not actually physically fiddling with experimental equipment and what not. While, yes, a lot of thought has to go into what we're doing, you're right, we're not all having miraculous break throughs all the time (as much as we like to think we are!) As for the day to day, it really depends on what area of physics you work in. One way it can work, is that someone will do an experiment, and there'll be some unexpected thing happening, or a result they can't explain. Along comes your friendly neighbourhood theoretical physicist, armed with a bunch of equations that we know *should* describe the system. We can then combine extra effects and try to derive an equation to explain what's being seen in the experiments. Other times it works slightly differently. Maybe you want to know what parameters are actually useful to look at in an experiment. For example, I work in quantum transport, and one of my jobs is to look at an electron, look at all of the ways that electron in a certain system can interact with that system, and then figure out a model that the experimentalists can use to figure out what the best parameters are for their design. Other people do a lot more numerical simulations, and their day to day will look a lot more like sitting down at a computer, and coding up ways to visualise physics that we otherwise wouldn't be able to study, or, again, modelling experiments to help test and explore the physics. Usually a lot of this is combined. You derive an equation, based on what we know, (this is where a lot of the traditional image of physicist at chalk board probably comes in, although we do that for all areas of physics) , you make some approximations (physicists love approximations), so that you can have a version of your equation that you can look at and go "OK, if I make that number bigger, that number gets smaller, that means that this, this and this happens," so it's a quick way to see physical behaviour. Then, you can code up your full version and check to see how closely your approximations match, to make sure they're actually useful/find out where they stop working etc. I hope that answer wasn't too long winded and was actually helpful! Like I said, it's very subject dependent. This is my experience of theoretical physics so far (final year PhD student), but this might well differ for others! Edit: some wording for clarity

This is like asking "how can you be a professional baseball player if you aren't Barry Bonds if Barry Bonds was that much better than everybody else?" Well, there are 750 roster slots, so 749 non-Barry-Bonds have to fill it. Discovering the Dirac equation wasn't the only thing to do in physics for the past 100 years. Things as "unimportant" as mentoring undergraduates still has to happen.

tiuqri

askphysics_test

why do light atomic nuclei release energy when they fuse and why do heavier atomic nuclei release energy when they fission? ​ why do light atomic nuclei release energy when they fuse and why do heavier atomic nuclei release energy when they fission? This graph to explain: https://imgur.com/9SU7XPA I know that the amount of energy released during fusion and fission is based on the difference in mass. I also know that the cores at the top of the graph have the highest average binding energy per nuclei. I'm guessing the lighter nuclei need to fuse and heavier need to fission to move up the graph but I don't know why. My very best guess here is that the nuclear forces' range doesn't reach the outer parts of the nuclei so their average binding energy is a bit lower, and the reason light nuclei release less is because the radius of the nuclear force isn't completely filled yet. but I don't think this answers the question even if it is correct which I'm not even sure of.

i1go5ft

i1gtka9

If two particles join and become bound, there is energy released (or absorbed) equal to the difference in binding energy. So, two deuterons, which are weakly bound, join to make a He4 which is much more tightly bound. This reaction releases an energetic gamma ray. The peak or most bound nucleus is iron. If one splits something heavier than iron into fragments, the fragments will tend to be more bound than what you start with. So energy is released.

The effect is because the strong nuclear force is very short range, compared to the electrostatic force. The electrostatic force follows an inverse-square law and makes all the protons in a nucleus repel each other quite strongly. The nuclear binding force between nucleons is a van-der-Waals type perturbation force and varies as a high inverse power of radius, times a decaying exponential in radius. For small nuclei (think helium or beryllium) the electrostatic force is totally overwhelmed by the strong force. As you add more protons to the nucleus, it becomes larger and the repulsive force on each new proton is proportionally more important than it was for the last one. That effect shifts the balance of neutrons and protons for optimal binding: the strong force works best with equal numbers of protons and neutrons (think helium) but the protons repel one another while neutrons don't. For small nuclei, the two effects (electrostatic and strong nuclear) are pretty close in effect, but the electrostatic repulsion grows faster. Eventually (at 26 protons, iron) the electrostatic repulsion begins to overwhelm the strong nuclear force, so subsequent protons and neutrons aren't bound as tightly. That means iron is just about the ideal condition for a nucleus, optimally balancing electrostatics and strong binding. Anything much lighter can fuse to be more like iron; and anything much heavier can break apart to be more like iron.

tsv3l4

askphysics_test

Are there any branches of math that aren't used in physics? From what little I know, it seems practically any type of math I've encountered has some applications in physics, e.g abstract algebra, set theory, topology, even number theory. What math is so pure it literally doesn't have physics applications?

i2tvmd8

i2tzib1

As you can probably already see from the comments so far, it's pretty hard to find a branch of mathematics that some physicist hasn't tried to make *some* use of. I guess maybe if you get specific enough -- for example, I don't think there's any physics applications for tropical algebra, although obviously there are tons of applications for abstract algebra more generally.

Have you tried also asking this question at r/math? It's kind of problematic to ask it in either place. There are likely to be areas of math that physicists aren't familiar with, and haven't (yet?) applied to physics, that you might learn about there and not here. On the other hand, if you ask there, you will find a lot of mathematicians who are simply oblivious to whether or not their work has physical applications. Maybe you could get a list of candidates from them, and then come here to have people note which already have applications in physics. There are mathematicians for whom doing work that has no application is a point of pride.

oeba3i

askphysics_test

Why do we use circularly polarized light in laser cooling? I am studying the principles of magneto-optical traps for an exam, and can't really understand why circularly polarized light is necessary for laser cooling to work.

h45njz1

h45mb4d

Circularly polarized light is light in an eigenstate of angular momentum. For left polarization, angular momentum is +1, while for right circular polarization it's -1. Because of conservation of angular momentum, when the atom transitions from the ground state (m=0) to the state m=+1 (m=-1) it must do so by absorbing a left (right) handed photon. You can use that to make sure atoms on the +**x** (-**x**) side only absorb photons moving left (right), pushing them back to **x**=0. If you look at this diagram you can see that the laser is resonant in two places (left and right side). If you throw unpolarized light, then the atoms will absorb both beams at the two resonant points, which means many will gain momentum (increasing temperature and moving away from the trap). By using circularly polarized light you can guarantee this won't happen and the atoms will absorb the right photon on each side.

You need atoms with for example a 0,+1 and -1 state and an outer magnetic field that rises linearly through the x-direction of the trap, so that the Zeeman effect splits the energy levels depending on the position of the atoms. Now you want the atoms that move for example to the right to only interact with the laser that is coming from the right, so that the photon absorption gives them a little kick to left, towards the trap. The reason for the polarization of the laser is this detail, that the atoms have to only interact with one laser. So the atoms moving to the right will see resonant laser light for their (for example) 0 -> +1 transition, which is only resonant for lets say right cirularization. And the atoms moving to the left will be resonant for the 0 -> -1 transition, which is only resonant with the, lets say left circularization. So if you switch the polarizations of the two lasers, then the wrong transitions are resonant and the atoms get pushed outwards instead of towards the center. And if you use linearly polarized light, the atoms wont see any net force, because they are always resonant to both lasers from both directions. There are a lot of details at play here, I cant put everything in one comment, but thats the reason for the different polarizations. Did that help? (Also in which direction the atoms are resonant with which polarization obviously depends on the exact setup) Edit: This is a nice picture. Here atoms that go to right become resonant for their -1 transition and interact only with the sigma\_minus light from the right (but not with the sigma\_plus light from the left) and vice versa for the other side. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-mechanism-of-a-magneto-optical-trap-for-an-atom-with-a-J-0-to-J-1-transition\_fig1\_268352730

otnl8e

askphysics_test

My teen is interested in learning about physics! First time posting here, not sure if this is the right place to post? I want to encourage them to learn more; not necessarily as a career path but more to feed his curiosity in the subject. We just talked about the Schrödinger's cat theory and my mind is blown! Where can I get books or educational materials for a teenager?

h6wk9pw

h6wko14

What age and level of education? Teenage can be everything from 13 to 19. A 19 year old might be ready to actually read the Griffith QM book. A 13 year old will find a wide variety of popsci written for him. Are there any topics of physics he's particularly interested in?

Brian Greene’s book The Elegant Universe was what moved me from “physics is somewhat interesting” to “oh damn, I didn’t know what I don’t know and now I want to understand it all”

mmtkph

askphysics_test

Questions to ask a particle physicist? My high-school physics teacher is a particle physicist who has worked at both nuclear fission and fusion reactors. He offered us to gather some questions to discuss whatever we are interested in regarding this topic. What are questions that could start an interesting discussion? I appreciate any help you can provide. :)

gtttmwm

gttpwwr

Ask what kind of particle a moron is

Ask him about this possible new fifth force of nature that has been observed with regards to the muons.

xjsj8c

askphysics_test

Why was I born into a 3 dimensional universe and not a 4th dimensional or 500th dimensional one?

ipa7p71

ipa7jle

Many of the structures that are stable in 3 spatial dimensions, like atoms and solar systems, are unstable if there are more (large) spatial dimensions. That is one possible explanation.

Just lucky, I guess. If you had been born in a 7 dimensional universe you wouldn't be you. You would be an entirely different creature who would be asking "Why was I born into a 7 dimensional universe and not a 3 dimensional or 500 dimensional one?" You might find this interesting.

rn0tic

askphysics_test

What's physically happening inside the Earth's liquid iron core that generates our magnetic field? I'm learning about magnetic field and wanted to see if I can understand the Earth's magnetic field better. I'm specifically interested in the relationship between Earth's magnetic field, movement of electron, and electric field(?). I've learned that movement of creates magnetic field. Does this mean that the liquid iron core has a unidirectional movement of electrons, which creates the Earth's magnetic field? Does the direction of these electrons follow the right hand rule? Also, is there an electric field that's associated (created by?) this movement of electrons? Since electric field follows positive charge, would the direction of the electric field be anti-parallel to that of the electron? I've drawn a graphical presentation here: link. This is something I've been fascinated by. It'd be great if you could explain it in a simple terms for me to understand!

hppj0k9

hppm20l

It is believed to be due to convective movement of liquid iron in the Earth's outer core, coupled with the Earth's rotation. It is known as the geodynamo. More information is in this Wikipedia article

This is one of the greatest not-quite-solved problems in geophysics. Turbulent convection currents in the liquid core bend and twist existing magnetic field lines in a way that amplifies them and creates a self-sustaining field similar to how a dynamo works. But it is nowhere near as simple as your diagram suggests. The field inside the core is believed to be incredibly complicated and asymmetrical -- in fact, there are proofs that the flow and field *must* be asymmetrical to create a self-sustaining dynamo. We are able to create numerical simulations of a self-sustaining planetary magnetic field, but we are not yet able to make them work with realistic Earth parameters, and (to my knowledge) nobody's given a simple explanation of exactly which parts of the complex interaction of field and flow are key to creating the field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_theory

uzj1cf

askphysics_test

Why, in the law of Universal Gravitation, are we adding one of the masses the other mass times? What's the logic behind it? If I had a 3kg mass a distance r from a 5kg mass, why is the force between them is ((3+3+3+3+3)*G)/r^2 ? Same goes to Coulomb's law, but with charges.

iaakvy3

iaal24i

"5 kg" has a unit, so you can't just treat it as repeated addition in that way. As for why the two masses are multiplied together in the force law, keep in mind that the force of the 3kg object exerts on the 5kg object has to be equal to the force the 5kg object exerts on the 3kg object. Multiplying the masses is one way to ensure that the force law is symmetric in this way. That form of the force law also ensures that adding forces and adding masses are equivalent (so the sum of the force from mass A and the force from mass B is the same as the force from the summed mass of A and B).

Note that it is only 3+3+3+3+3 due to your choice of units: In terms of grams, it would be a huge sum with 5000 terms (3000+3000+3000+...), and if you used units that don't evenly divide the kilogram, you wouldn't be able to write it down that way at all. So from that perspective, your whole premise is flawed. However, there actually is some insight to be gained: Conceptually, you can divide any single mass into multiple smaller masses, each getting attracted individually. Forces are vectors that add linearly, and the total force will just be the sum of the forces on the individual parts. As any piece of mass from one body will attract any piece of mass from the other body, the total force ends up being proportional to the product of the masses.

m9cjtn

askphysics_test

Which are the current important topics for research in physics?

grm49iw

grm5liy

There is research in every subfield and every subfield has probably a number of central / interesting questions at the moment.

You’ll need to be more specific to a sub field of physics you’re interested in (and even then it will be a difficult question to answer). It is comparable to asking “what are the best bands in music right now”, there are so many different genres and the answer will vary widely from person to person. If you are looking for some fun topics to learn about, try looking through this Wikipedia page to give you an idea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics

b4d08n

askphysics_test

Not a question normally asked, but: what's the best way to get new physics news without it being distorted by the "pop science" articles?

ej677mx

ej67taw

In addition to Physics Today and Physics World, you can keep an eye on reputable blogs run by professors in your field of interest. Of course, they all have different target audiences, so they range from suitable for "professional physicists with a different specialty" all the way down to the general public.

Stay away from phys.org

t6zn4n

askphysics_test

By the most accepted theories of the Big Bang, is there a (possibly empty) space beyond the universe? I was rewatching some episodes of Ben 10, and in an episode of Ultimate Alien, the characters go out of universe. The character who takes the others there calls the place the space beyond, and even points to our universe (which looks like a beige stain), and also points to the nearest universe, which was a blue stain with "strange laws of physics". I would like to know, please, how scientifically accurate this representation is.

hzejtif

hzekxrc

It's science fiction

Scientifically speaking, the universe can be divided into the observable universe and the unobservable universe; if we can observe a thing, that thing is in the observable universe; if we cannot observe a thing, that thing is in the unobservable universe. We cannot have any evidence of any thing that is not observable, so there is no scientific reason to distinguish “things that exist in the universe but are not observable” (for which we have no evidence) from “things that don’t exist in the universe but do exist” (for which we have no evidence)

js0oqa

askphysics_test

How to read and understand scientific papers? I've just finished my third year of physics at uni, and I've now just started a summer internship in the department. I've been given several papers that are meant to "get me up to speed" on the stuff I'll be doing, but I can barely understand what I'm reading. Is there an efficient way to comprehend what I need to know from these papers? Feeling very frustrated and slightly overwhelmed. Thanks.

gbx69ie

gbxc0o0

There are some suggestions to understand the evolution of the field, that's a good approach. What I'd say is make it an active or interactive reading by questioning the material you read. Like what it is, what are the keywords used, how is it they are doing the experiment, what is the conclusion, why this thing and not that, what are the limitations, what are the main ideas, can you explain it to yourself in a few sentences what they're trying to do in the paper (summarise) etc etc. but don't get too bogged down with the details, maintain both the holistic top level/big picture view as well as some level of details (unless you're trying to repeat/reproduce the paper in some way). Then connect it with the timeline evolution of the field, like X paper from 2002, Y paper from 1979, Z paper from 2019. Can you get a review paper up until certain point, say upto 2015, which explains major milestones in one place rather than you piecing it together?

My strategy is to read it quickly multiple times. Often skipping bits of it. Each time I will focus on a particular point I did not understood and look for more details on this point. It works well especially if you have a lot a material to read as you can jump from one to the other and let them give you different perspective on the subject you are studying.

gx6xj4

askphysics_test

Can one PROVE physics equations? So I've heard of proofs in math, but I was wondering if there were proofs in physics. I often have a hard time taking some equations that I learn "on faith". This means I want to know the intuition behind them; how they came to be, the logical thought process behind them, and the mathematical proofs behind them. For example, I was recently wondering about the derivations of the formula which calculates the gravitational potential energy between two objects(which I believe is -GMm/r). So, how does one prove stuff in physics, how do I train myself to do that, and are there any books or resources I can use to do this. Also I'm new to physics. Please keep the resources or answers as basic as possible. Maybe only ones that are calc based

fszg8w2

fszh2ty

I have a couple thoughts on this. I'm a 4th year grad student pursing a PhD in HEP experiment and I've had to teach many intro and upper level undergraduate physics courses. I **always** tell my students to avoid the use of the word proof, especially in lab reports. Proof is a concept that is reserved for logic and mathematics. In the world of physics, we use mathematics to describe the behavior of the world around us. However, there's no way to "prove" beyond a doubt that x will always lead to y; all we can do is show that x not leading to y has not been observed yet. One interesting example of this is the decay of the proton. There are some proposed extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics which indicate that the proton should eventually decay. However, we have yet to observe this happening so the model needs to be tuned in such a way that the lifetime of the proton is longer than the current lifetime of the universe. Much of the modern understanding of physics is shaped by observation. We observe that x leads to y, so we develop a mathematical model to describe this situation in a way that is consistent with all our past models. This is a bit of an art, but really shows that "proof" is beyond the scope of physics and the work of physicists. As a scientist I believe it is imperative to avoid the word "prove" or "proof" when reporting on findings because it is not a claim we can, or should make. ​ Edit: there are ways to show various relations in physics using mathematics. If you wish to become better at this my suggestion is practice practice practice. Find books which cover the material in detail and work through as much of the math oriented problems as possible, but **please** do not think of this as "proof."

Of course! Ok, here is the deal. In math, there are things called axioms or postulates. Axioms are statements assumed to be true with no justification. For example, the Peano axioms are the axioms that form the natural numbers and define what you know to be addition and multiplication. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms Maybe you find this intuitive, but they are axioms. You can easily create other mathematical systems that have different properties. In fact, mathematicians do this all the time! They can chose any set of axioms they want! Mathematicians don't prove axioms, they prove statements based on those axioms. You take your basic assumptions (axioms) and you put them together like Lego blocks to make a more complex statement that must be true given the assumptions. Ok, what's the point? Well, physics is a science, that means that we are slaves to empiricism. We do math, but we can't chose any axiom, we have to chose axioms that seem to mirror the real world. For example, the basic laws of Newtonian physics can be seen as axioms that creat a system. With these axioms, I can prove statements like projectiles travel in parabolas or Kepler's laws. However, it turns out those axioms are only approximately correct. So while those proven statements are useful and intuitively understandable, I haven't proven truth about the universe. I've proven truth about a mathematical system that closely resembles the universe in some situations. And so we discover new axioms/laws from more advanced experiments (e.g. realtivity) and thus can prove new, more accurate statements in that framework. So the answer is "yes, we can prove statements using physical laws as they do in math", but we can never prove that those statements are true in the universe.

y23ytd

askscience_test

Does the salinity of ocean water increase as depth increases? Or do currents/other factors make the difference negligible at best?

is1rcg3

is1r77a

Cooled water from the poles sinks as a result of both its salinity and temperature profile. Cooler water is denser than warmer water. Cooler water with high amounts of salt is even more dense. So it sinks and is replaced by less dense and less saline (fresher) water. So yes, the salinity of water increases with depth. See this.

As mentioned by /u/jellyfixh, most of the processes that modify the salinity of water (e.g. evaporation, precipitation, riverine inputs, and sea-ice formation) occur at the surface. As a result, to a reasonable approximation (ignoring the effects of mixing), you can assume the salinity of a water parcel is *roughly* constant once it leaves the surface of the ocean. In other words, understanding the salinity structure of the deep ocean is completely dependent on the three-dimensional circulation of the ocean interior, because the salinity of a deep water parcel is set by where that water parcel came from. A good example of this is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC (which is sometimes misleadingly called the thermohaline circulation). Simply put, intense cooling and salinification in the subpolar North Atlantic results in water becoming fairly cold and very salty, which then sinks to a depth of around 2km (we call this resulting water *North Atlantic Deep Water* (NADW)). This water then travels south, mixing a little on the way, but mostly being dragged up towards the surface (upwelling) in the Southern Ocean, around Antarctica. There, some of the water gets pushed towards the north by the winds, freshening due to precipitation, but eventually being forced down as it sinks below the warmer, lighter waters to the north, settling at intermediate depths of around 1km (called the *Antarctic Intermediate Water* (AAIW)). However, some of the water upwelling around Antarctica instead moves south, freshening somewhat, but cooling intensely and forming an extremely dense water mass that sinks to the bottom of the ocean (called *Antarctic Bottom Water* (AABW)). Have a look at this diagram, showing a cross-section of salinity in the Atlantic (North Atlantic on the right, South Atlantic on the left). Orange represents saltier water, blues represent fresher water. That big orange blob that goes from the surface to a depth of around 2km and moving southward is the NADW. The blue (fresh) tongue of water moving northwards and settling above the NADW is the AAIW. Finally, the blue(ish) (fresh(ish)) tongue of water sinking to the bottom of the ocean at the far left is AABW. In the Pacific, by contrast, no deep-water formation occurs (contrary to the Atlantic). As a result, the depth-structure of salinity in the Pacific is more-or-less set by the depth-structure of salinity of deep waters entering the Pacific from other ocean basins so, whilst salinity does vary in the (subsurface) Pacific in depth, the lateral variations are fairly small compared to the Atlantic.

7ct8q1

askscience_test

Let’s say a planet is 200 light years away. How do we know? Do we actually keep a telescope pointed in that area for 200 years to get a reading? If not, why is information traveling faster than the speed of light?

dpsl993

dpslodx

We know how far away things are by a series of overlapping rulers. For example, we know how far the sun is. As we orbit the sun, we can see shifts in the positions of closer stars. From the size of the shift we can figure how far away the star is. For farther away stars, we can compare how bright they are, and their color to stars that have a known distance, and then can extend the distance of known objects farther.

There's a couple different ways, but the 3 easiest to understand are brightness, parallax and redshift. **Brightness** is straightforward. Things further away are dimmer. You can tell how bright a star should be by how big it is, and you can tell how big a star is by how things move around it -- the strength of the star's gravity is related to its mass. If you measure the brightness carefully with a telescope, and you know how bright it should be based on the mass, you can get a decent estimate of how far away it is. **Parallax** is how things move relative to each other based on distance. So, for example, hold a thumb up in front of your face and look at it while winking with each eye. You'll see the thumb move left-right much more than the background. That's the parallax effect. Closer things move more than further-away things. So for stars, we take a picture of them at opposite points in Earth's orbit. For example, we might take pictures in summer and winter, or fall and spring. The pictures are similar to your eyes winking back and forth -- and some stars move more than others. So from that we can tell relative distances between the stars. If you know relative distances from this, and you know an absolute distance for one of the stars (say from a brightness measurement), now you know the distances of the other stars. Lastly, **redshift**. This is basically just the Doppler Effect for light. Doppler is what happens when a train or ambulance zips by -- you hear the high-pitched sound and as it zooms past it changes to a low sound. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEoooooooooooooo. The actual sound is the same the whole time, but what's happening is that as it comes toward you, the sound waves bunch up, so it gets higher-pitched. As it leaves, they get stretched out, so it's lower-pitched. The same thing happens to light at very high speeds. Stuff coming toward you really fast would look BLUER, and stuff moving away fast would look REDDER. Because of the Big Bang, everything is moving away from everything else. So starlight is redder than it should be. The redder it is, the faster it's moving away. And because of some interesting math with the Big Bang, the faster it's moving away, the further away it is.

1g9042

askscience_test

If we are all star dust and all of the atoms in my body are from supernovas then does that mean I have always existed and atoms that already existed were just clumped together during birth to make "me"? Further more, once I die my atoms will still exist, correct? So does that mean they could be clumped together again for me to be "born" again?

cai0kut

cai0gul

You are made of atoms like a painting is made of paint. Did the painting exist while the paint was in the tubes? You are not so much a lump of carbon and water as you are how these elements have been composed, much in the way a painting is not the sum of the colors, but how they are arranged. - Yes I know this isn't scientific, but the question is more philosophical "existence" than scientific "existence" so I think this answer is somewhat appropriate despite being in this sub.

You are committing an informal fallacy known as "composition" in your question. Just because something is true of all of the parts of a whole, does not make it true of the whole. All your atoms have always existed, but you have not always existed. You, the living person, exist now and will cease to exist when you die.

z3tlek

askscience_test

Everyone knows that sharks can smell blood in the water. But are there any air-breathing animals that can smell underwater? Or water-breathing animals that can smell in the air?

ixoam7q

ixoa16v

Anaconda and other snakes tongue flick underwater. Its a form of smelling since they use their jacobsons organ to pick up "smells" https://elementalscience.com/blogs/science-activities/how-do-snakes-smell-the-jacobson-organ#:~:text=Snakes%20have%20also%20developed%20a,roof%20of%20the%20snake's%20mouth.

Cadaver dogs are trained to smell decomposition, even in water. I've actually seen this done. They put the dog in the boat with them and he hangs his head over the side, sniffing like crazy. If he smells decomposition, he alerts. Usually done in lakes or other relatively still water.

q5m089

askscience_test

What are the physiological differences between the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha and Delta variants? Have they been identified? Genomic sequencing is done to determine what variant an individual has been infected with, so the consequential mutation(s) within the genome has/have obviously been identified. I would anticipate, then, that the physiological expression of the mutation(s) is/are also known, but I have been unable to find that information. I must admit I'm not the most adept at scrounging through scientific databases, though, so I'm hopeful someone here can help me out! Thanks!

hga2vrr

hgcpgwq

The major different spike protein substitutions are E484Q and L452R with quite a few minor mutations. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1413867021000751

There are multiple mutations, but these are the most important ones. L452R is a leucine (nonpolar) to arginine (polar, positive) mutation that slightly changes the physical shape of the spike protein so that it is harder to recognize by Alpha-derived antibodies. D614G is an aspartic acid (polar, negative) to glycine mutation that better binds to the ACE-2 receptor on a cell's outer membrane, making the virus better equipped to attach to the cell. P681R is a proline to arginine (polar, positive) mutation that assists the furin cleavage site and enhances fusion of the virus and cell membrane, making it easier for the virus to enter the cell once attached. Other variants have one or two of these mutations, but these three together are characteristic of the Delta variant (B.1.167.2).

4926vb

askscience_test

Does light that barely escapes the gravitational field of a black hole have decreased wave length meaning different color?

d0olzcy

d0omwhe

has the light been affected by the time shift of the black hole! Ie being so close, time has slowed down (for it) and upon leaving the vacinity of the black hole, still going at the same speed as far as it is concerned, but slower for the rest of us observing it?

It depends on where the light starts. Scenario 1: You are hovering near a black hole. You shine a yellow flashlight towards your friend, who is far from the black hole. Your friend reports that the light is reddish. Scenario 2: You and your friend are far apart, with a black hole near the midpoint between you. You shine your yellow flashlight towards your friend. Your friend reports that the light is yellow, just as it normally is. (However, another friend, who is hovering near the black hole, disagrees and says it's definitely bluish.) Warning: Do not try these experiments at home. It's not realistic to expect to hover that close to a black hole; and with the distances involved, your friends might have a very long wait. As the light approaches the black hole, it becomes blue-shifted (increased in frequency, i.e. decreased in wavelength) and then as it moves away again from the black hole after going past it, it becomes red-shifted (decreased frequency, increased wavelength). If the distances are the same, these two effects cancel out, leaving the light looking the way it did when it started. Edit: The light would also change direction as it passes the black hole, its path bent by the gravitational field, so it's best if the black hole is placed not midway between the friends but off to one side. You shine your flashlight in the general direction of the black hole, and some of the light bends around at just the angle needed to end up going towards your friend.

tz564t

askscience_test

Is there an electronic component that can change its resistance based on the current that flowed trough it? A bit like air ionization just more permanently. Basically satisfying the following equation: R(q) = C \* sum(q) where R is the resistance, C is an arbitrary constant and q is the charge that traveled trough the device with a negative and a positive direction.

i3x36nt

i3x8j0m

If you have two MOSFET transistors orientated properly one of them acts like a variable resistor. This is an image of a test I got back today: MOSFET The top transistor acts like a resistor that changes based on the output of the bottom one.

That’s basically the asymptotic trend for a capacitor, isn’t it? Uncharged it acts like a short circuit (0 resistance), fully charged it acts like an open circuit (infinite resistance). As current flows in it moves from one regime to the other.

9nh029

askscience_test

I’ve been perusing Wikipedia pages on hurricanes after Michael and have found detailed accounts of hurricane development for storms back in the late 1800s. How were these accounts recorded and/or constructed?

e7mpq4n

e7mdjwb

there's an amazing book called Isaac's Storm that is about the Galveston TX hurricane in the 1800s. It tells all about early weather forecasters and how they plotted and tracked storms. Great read, the book says that after that hurricane tore through the US and traveled back across the Atlantic, it still had enough force to knock a stone off of Stonehenge!! I've tried to verify the Stonehenge story on Google but have only found vague references but it still sounds cool.

If you don't get an answer here, you can try /r/askhistorians

1zfzqg

askscience_test

Do any other species have specific postmortem rituals? (Such as when humans bury/cremate the dead)

cfte1me

cftx2fk

Does anyone have any documentation of crow funerals? I think I've seen one, and heard plenty of stories, but couldn't find any references to prove it. For anyone not sure what I'm talking about, I'm referring to the practice of vast flocks of crows congregating around the place a crow died, sometimes for days at a time.

To say "only elephants" is simply untrue. Definitely the most well-known and well-documented example, but far from the only one. Many, many species grieve their fellows' deaths, but if you exclude the mourning process from "postmortem ritual," then only a specific few have documented, consistent rituals. Among these are many non-human apes, such as baboons and chimpanzees death vigils are quite common and well-recorded, as is their neurochemistry and altered behavior after a companion's death. 1 2 3 Corvids (particularly scrub jays and magpies) are also very well known for having rituals after finding one of their dead. 4 5](http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10325 ) Recent evidence even suggests that dolphins may sometimes perform postmortem rituals for their young. [6 Even ants bury their dead, though it's arguable whether that is a true "ritual." 7

2qdrzd

askscience_test

Which two are more genetically different... two randomly chosen humans alive today? Or a human alive today and a direct (paternal/maternal) ancestor from say 10,000 years ago? Bonus question: how far back would you have to go until the difference within a family through time is bigger than the difference between the people alive today?

cn59bbx

cn58xtg

I'm seeing a lot of attempts to answer this question by asking whether the most recent common ancestor of all humans was more or less than 10,000 years ago. Estimates based on genetic data vary widely, but anthropological evidence suggests the first major migrations out of our species' African birthplace were between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. That's not even a very direct way to answer this, actually, but I'll try to explain the intuitive idea behind it. Who are you more related to, your grandfather or your first cousin? Well, think about all the "hops" your genome has been through. Half your grandfather's genome hopped into your mother (we'll assume it's your maternal grandfather), and then half of that hopped into you. Two hops. Your *kinship coefficient*, the degree of relatedness between you (technically the probability that you have both inherited the same genetic material from the same origin - in this case your grandfather himself would be the origin) is 1/4. To get to your first cousin, you have to hop up twice to your grandparents, then hop down again twice to the cousin, so four hops. What's the kinship coefficient? Well, it's actually 1/8, not 1/16, because although there were four hops, there were two different paths (one through your grandfather and one through your grandmother, since you have them in common). So basically, one way of asking how related you are to any random human in the population is to ask how many generations ago your most recent common ancestor was. This number will vary widely; if you're both German, it's probably much more recent than if one of you is Korean and the other is from a tribe of !Kung San in the Kalahari desert, in which case you might have to trace your common origins all the way back to the first African humans. --- That said, it should still be very possible to estimate the average genetic distance between any two living humans, given all the data we've accumulated now. It could be trickier to model the hypothetical gene pool of humanity from 10,000 years ago, and I don't remember enough coalescent theory to do it myself, but I hope some pop-gen expert comes along soon because a lot of the answers in this thread are just naive math that's obviously wrong.

There are a few caveats about our genes that you have to consider before taking on this question fully. Humans have greater genetic variance in general than the races have genetic variance from one another. Racial differences are actually a very small portion of our overall genetics. For instance, skin color is a combination of a handful of genes, where a more complex process like digestion has genes numbering in the hundreds. However, of course races do have differing probabilities of having certain genes. Dairy consumption is a good example- among humans that are not northern European, lifelong lactase production to digest dairy is rare at about 2-5% of the population, but among northern Europeans it is highly common being more like 70-80% of the population. Although the entire human race circulates the genes for dairy digestion, that it is so common in northern Europeans is a racial difference. As you can see, the racial difference is not a gene that no one else has, it is merely commonality of a gene the other races have rarely. Every racial difference is this way. Also, large population groups maintain most of their genes, recirculating them, reducing evolutionary movement. Humans have had populations large enough to breed out almost all mutation for a very long time (if I remember correctly, the last time humans were nearly extinct was because of a volcano 80,000 years ago or so- it was at that time that the races "split," before then there was a more gradual change in traits as you changed location, instead of a few major obviously differentiated groups). Adaptations like the lighter skin and dairy digestion of northern Europeans, where calcium deficiency drove the change by killing off the group members with darker skin and inability to digest dairy, take up to 20,000 years. Although changes in gene commonality occur through selective pressure, mutations are rarely passed on more than a couple generations. As well, if there is no selective pressure creating a change in gene commonality, the population will maintain the same ratios its ancestors had. So, although decreased melamine and increased lactase production were selected for in northern Europeans, most other genes are practically identical in variance to African's. With a few genes, known to be racial differences, you can predict race by genetics extremely precisely, however if you choose random genes you can't tell just about anything. But, it's important to remember that just because half of your genes come from each parent, doesn't mean that some of their genes didn't match in the first place. As an obvious proof, racial differences are practically always passed on, because both parents share those genes, and thus there is realistically zero chance of the child not inheriting those traits. Your parent's preexisting genetic similarity means that you are slightly more than a half copy of each to the degree that they were slightly already copies of each-other (due to common ancestry). By this mechanism, a village of several thousand people with little immigration or emigration (as most of humankind has existed for most of the last 10,000 years) will simply pass around the genes it already had, changing in relation to each other very little no matter how much time passes (so long as environmental factors remain ineffective- go farming!?). Now to answer the question: the population of a little village like that in Norway would look very similar genetically to itself over thousands of years. However, that's comparing a population to a population. It will keep the same ratios of genes circulating, but individuals within the population will have random incidences of those genes, which like I noted earlier are far more numerous than racial marker genes, variance shared rather evenly across all humanity. Still, though, like the parents passing on their shared ancestry, because each has some identical genes, the little village will have kept that ancestral gene sequence for thousands of years, as northern Europe has kept the gene sequences for pale skin and milk-drinking for thousands of years. If you were Norwegian, comparing yourself to a 10,000 year old ancestor and a man from modern Zimbabwe, the odds are the longest gene sequences you'd have in common with either would be those "racial" differences. The rest of your genes would be a random, more generically human, scramble.

5n2mi2

askscience_test

Is there anything the human body has three of?

dc8gqka

dc8i1pc

I suppose you could go with three arteries supplying the thyroid. Two fairly identical supplies coming from the sides split into superior and inferior portions, with a midline third artery, the thyroid ima, which ascends superiorly. This is only present in about 1 in 20 people however

There are three cusps/leaflets to the tricuspid, pulmonary and aortic valves Slightly off topic but each kidney is created three times - the first two (pronephros and mesonephros) degenerate and the third (metanephros) becomes your kidney and urinary tract

9wtlfd

askscience_test

If there is an infinite amount of natural numbers, and one is chosen at random, mathematically the probability of choosing that number should be 0. Why can the number still be chosen? It seems fairly reasonable that the probability cannot be 0, as if you were to sum up all the probabilities, you have to get one as a result, while the sum 0 + 0 + 0 + ... + 0 + 0 (with an infinite amount of zeros) can never have any other value than 0. But, the probability of choosing a specific number should be 1/(amount of natural numbers), which is 0, since the amount of natural numbers is infinite. Is it something about how the limit of 1/x for x -> infinity works, or am I missing something else entirely?

e9nz4zf

e9o00yw

Your logic is flawed from the beginning, and it's relatively easy to see where you've contradicted yourself. You said "If the probability is always zero, why can a number still be chosen?". But from merely making the statement "choose a random natural number", the probability that we've *chosen* a value is always 1. The issue here is that you can't treat uniform distributions like this. uniform distributions have a finite area, equal to 1. You're taking a finite area, and trying to stretch it to be infinitely wide. It just can't be done. Uniform distributions, by definition, must be finitely bounded.

The answer is actually simpler than you might expect. It truly is not possible to select a random number from an infinite set. Whenever a person "randomly" thinks of a number, they actually follow a deterministic process which necessarily must involve reducing the infinite set down to a finite set. Even a computer is restricted in the "random" numbers it generates based on hardware constraints. Furthermore, most instances of what people perceive to be "random" are actually "psuedo-random". You can psuedo-randomly select numbers from a finite set easily. That's what people are actually doing when they "pick a random number".

pglvry

askscience_test

How do lungs heal after quitting smoking, especially with regards to timelines and partial-quit? Hi all, just trying to get a sense of something here. If I'm a smoker and I quit, the Internet tells me it takes 1 month for my lungs to start healing if I totally quit. I assume the lungs are healing bit by bit every day after quitting and it takes a month to rebuild lung health enough to categorize the lung as in-recovery. My question is, is my understanding correct? If that understanding is correct, if I reduce smoking to once a week will the cumulative effects of lung regeneration overcome smoke inhalation? To further explain my thought, let's assume I'm starting with 0% lung health. If I don't smoke, the next day maybe my lung health is at 1%. After a week, I'm at 7%. If I smoke on the last day, let's say I take an impact of 5%. Next day I'm starting at 2%, then by the end of the week I'm at 9%. Of course these numbers are made up nonsense, just trying to get a more concrete understanding (preferably gamified :)) . I'm actually not a smoker, but I'm just curious to how this whole process works. I assume it's akin to getting a wound, but maybe organ health works differently? I've never been very good at biology or chemistry, so I'm turning to you /r/askscience!

hbcrn7f

hbd9vu1

To put it briefly, as other posters have mentioned, there is a timeline for recovery. However, its important to know that if a former smoker’s lung function is tracked over time, they will see recovery, but it is impossible for the lungs to recover to the same functional level they were at prior to the onset of smoking.

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/336/7644/598/F1.large.jpg The above graph shows the effect of smoking on lung function over time. For lung function they use forced expiratory volume in 1 second I.e. the volume of air your lung can breathe out in 1 second when you push out hard. In the graph it shows 25yrs old as a peak age for FEV1 and as you get older that value gradually decreases. If you smoke the rate of decrease is significantly faster. If you stop smoking, the functionality doesn't recover, but the rate of function decline decreases to normal levels meaning that it'll be much sooner before you get symptoms such as Chronic Obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). So to answer the question: your lungs sadly don't recover from smoking but quitting smoking will still stop you from dying sooner. There are other elements but these arent really "healing" it's more mechanical things like clearing all the tar and other things that have built up over time. Removing that will make you feel better (and help you breathe better) but your actual function of your lungs won't improve.

27fd2z

askscience_test

We all know about trilobites, dinosaurs, pterodactyls and other animals that have gone extinct, but have we discovered any extinct plants with unique features not seen in plants today?

ci0lub0

ci0p91b

There were tree-like lycopods at some point, such as *Lepidodendron*, those have been lost for several hundred million years. Lycopods survive, but as small creepy carpet-making mossy things.

This isn't precisely what you asked, but since you're interested in extinct plants you may be interested in Encephalartos woodii, the last member of its species. It is a male cycad from South Africa that was collected from the wild in 1895 and grown in the Royal Botanical Gardens. No female has ever been found for it to mate with. That plant and cuttings of it are the only representatives we have and they very well may be the last trace left of the species. And you can go to a botanical garden and check one out!

104bj1

askscience_test

what lies beneath the sand of a desert?

c6aad6g

c6acm0j

If you're looking for a generic answer for a generic question: geologically speaking, "sand" is simply a loose mixture of minerals within a certain size range. These are typically largely silica based minerals, like quartz, but this will vary depending on geographic location. source1, source2 Now, at greater depths you have greater pressures and temperatures. The increased pressure causes the minerals to compact together, while increased temperatures cause minerals to fuse together physically, or "change" chemically, depending on the minerals. Going back to our generic example, since quartz has a very high melting point (bonus point, it's common to use in moulds for pouring molten metals), they tend to compact instead, leading to what we commonly refer to as sandstones and mudstones. Of course, as you go deeper it depends on the environment millions of years earlier, but I think you were only after the immediate base. tl;dr - sandstone

The canonical desert landscape is generally thought to be a sand dune, but this is a misconception. Even in the great Sahara desert only a fairly small portion is made up of sand dune expanses (ergs), most of it is hamada (bare stone and rock). Generally speaking, just about any rock can underlie a sand dune field, more so since sand dunes are slightly mobile.

yz8px1

askscience_test

Quote from an article on the Guardian news website, "a single bit of data stored on a mobile phone adds about 10 quectograms to its mass". Is this an accurate statement, and if so, how does data add mass? https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/18/earth-six-ronnagrams-new-prefixes-big-and-small

iwzju6o

iwz812j

I believe it is an inaccurate statement. They are misapplying the Landauer Limit which states the theoretical minimum entropy change (and thus energy required) to change a bit of information. Since energy equates to mass (e=mc\^2), you can frame this energy as mass. In fact, if you take the value from the wikipedia article (2.805 zeptoJoules) and run it through e=mc\^2, you wind up with 31 quectograms, which is I'm sure where they got the value in the article. However- this is a theoretical minimum amount of energy (which would be converted to heat) needed to change a bit of information in a perfectly efficient computer. So wrong for two reasons: 1) Your mobile phone is not nearly this efficient. By many, many orders of magnitude. 2) It does not change the mass of the computing device. The energy came in a low-entropy form from a battery, and converts to a high-entropy form as heat. The energy is neither created nor destroyed, the mass of the device does not change (until that heat is radiated away, which is a completely separate issue). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s\_principle

Bits on your phone are recorded as small electrical charges and that new SI prefix represents a mass so small it can be used to measure individual electrons. I don’t know if that exact number is accurate but that’s how data can change mass— it’s such an unfathomably tiny amount of mass that it’s basically zero for us humans up here in the normal world and not in the quantum realm with Ant-Man.

p5flnf

askscience_test

What is the specific advantage of a moon base over an orbital space station? Now that several nations have developed plans for permanent installations on the moon, what is the specific advantage of building such an installation over having an identical facility floating in space?

h96cdzg

h95mrh2

Mass. Every gram of everything that is needed has to be launched to an orbital space station. Structural members, radiation shielding, water, rocket fuel, ammonia, cooling system, oxygen, etc. On a planetary body, you can get some for free (bury the station for radiation shielding), or minimal processing. By sending up equipment to process the planetary resources, the total mass can be reduced, and you can build bigger / expandable stations.

Radiation. The only known worthwhile shield against solar proton events and galactic cosmic rays is matter. Every gram of orbital space station shield carted up from Earth's surface into orbit costs an obscene amount of money. So they tend to economize on the shield and the astronauts have a yearly limit on visits to the orbital station due to radiation exposure. On a moon base, radiation shielding is free. Just dig a hole in the ground deep enough and your base will be essentially perfectly shielded.

sx5ixb

askscience_test

What part of the brain controls the tail in primates, and does it do anything today in humans?

hxri4im

hxr73s6

Someone else has already answered that motor cortex representation is plastic, and so we don't have any region for tail. Another interesting consequence of this is phantom limb syndrome, which can happen when someone loses a limb that had motor and sensory cortex devoted to it. Essentially, other nearby regions start taking over the available real estate, because theres a fair amount of plasticity. So occasionally inputs can trigger the neurons that used to represent the arm to fire, causing the sensation of pain/itching/etc in an arm that is no longer there. This paper describes how monkey somatosensory cortexes remap. The brain functions on the 'use it or lose it' principle, synapses that fire often strengthen and are maintained, and those that don't are more likely to be pruned away.

On a related note, if something like Neuralink came to be, then by tapping into the motor cortex we might be able to create a digital controller that is like a virtual appendage. It seems that there is enough plasticity there to adapt to it, so eventually it would feel like you have a virtual "third arm" that you can use to operate digital devices without a controller.

fb40q7

askscience_test

Numerically there have been more deaths from the common flu than from the new Corona virus, but that is because it is still contained at the moment. Just how deadly is it compared to the established influenza strains? And SARS? And the swine flu? Can we estimate the fatality rate of COVID-19 well enough for comparisons, yet? (The initial rate was 2.3%, but it has evidently dropped some with better care.) And if so, how does it compare? Would it make flu season significantly more deadly if it isn't contained? Or is that even the best metric? Maybe the number of new people each person infects is just as important a factor?

fj2gq88

fj2gfjr

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation article covers it pretty well https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19 “There are two reasons that COVID-19 is such a threat. First, it can kill healthy adults in addition to elderly people with existing health problems. The data so far suggests that the virus has a case fatality risk around 1%; this rate would make it several times more severe than typical seasonal influenza and would put it somewhere between the 1957 influenza pandemic (0.6%) and the 1918 influenza pandemic (2%). Second, COVID-19 is transmitted quite efficiently. The average infected person spreads the disease to two or three others. That’s an exponential rate of increase. There is also strong evidence that it can be transmitted by people who are just mildly ill or not even showing symptoms yet. This means COVID-19 will be much harder to contain than Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which were only spread by those showing symptoms and were much less efficiently transmitted. In fact, COVID-19 has already caused 10 times as many cases as SARS in just a quarter of the time”

From here: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523 >Our cCFR estimates of 5.3% and 8.4% indicate that the severity of COVID-19 is not as high as that of other diseases caused by coronaviruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which had an estimated CFR of 17% in Hong Kong \[9,10,20\], and Middle East respiratory syndrome, which had an estimated CFR of 20% in South Korea \[21\]. Nonetheless, considering the overall magnitude of the ongoing epidemic, a 5%–8% risk of death is by no means insignificant. In addition to quantifying the overall risk of death, future research must identify groups at risk of death (e.g., the elderly and people with underlying comorbidities) \[22,23\]. Moreover, considering that about 9% of all infected individuals are ascertained and reported \[24\], the infection fatality risk (IFR), i.e., the risk of death among all infected individuals, would be on the order of 0.5% to 0.8%. Takeaways: - 5 - 8% mortality rate among those confirmed to be infected. - This mortality rate is only around 30 - 40% that of MERS and SARS. - Expected 9% of actual infections get reported, because many are mild. - **Actual mortality rate amongst all infected is 0.5 - 0.8%.** Comparable toral mortality rate for seasonal influenza is about **0.13%** based on CDC numbers. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html So, 4- 6 x worse than influenza based on just this study.

1cr0v6

askscience_test

Did Apollo-era NASA have an official policy on what to do if they encountered extra-terrestrial life on the Moon? Furthermore, do they have a general policy now? X-post from /r/NASA

c9jasek

c9jb3w5

Buzz, Neil, and Mike were all quarantined when they got back from the moon for 21 days to avoid any possible contamination. It was not till a month later that they got their ticker tape parade. Here is the wiki

Yes. The most basic thing is to keep any pobe and lander sterile so nothing from earth gets introduced to anything else anywhere accidentally. Some bacteria might be able to spread quick without a chance to remove them. This is also important to keep the instruments clean that can detect life. There is also a Group within NASA that developed a protocol to represent earth in a first contact scenario. The en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record with images and sounds on Voyager tells a lot about how NASA thinks about representing earth. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message is not very representative and keeps no secrets. There have been long quarantines after apollo missions just as a safety measure. All known previous landing sites are off limits for new missions. Even a closse flyby could blow up a lot of dust. Landing sites are conserved history and we can see long exposire to other environments on them. We dont go there anymore, theres nothing new to see there anyways.

pstg3d

asksciencefiction_test

[ATLA] Kind of a gross question I know, but when Hama was trapped in the Fire Nation prison, why couldn't she or the other benders use their urine to waterbend and break out? As we saw during the episode The Puppeteer, Hama and the other benders seemed to be mostly unbound during their captivity, only being bound when they where given water to drink. While it's probably likely that they were restained when they needed to relieve themselves, that wouldn't stop them from peeing while the guards weren't looking and using the urine to facilitate their escape.

hdrwya3

hdrwgy7

A few things would be working against them. First, every imprisoned waterbender is likely chronically dehydrated, reducing the amount of urine produced on any given day. Second, their cells are kept pretty sparse, leaving them nowhere to try and accumulate urine over time to build up a decent quantity. Finally, any action taken using urine is in as much of a danger of being detected as any other escape method. Bloodbending had a massive advantage over other escape methods because it's a *completely outside context problem* for the folks designing and running the prison; Hama essentially pulled the elemental magic equivalent of "in a cave with a box of scraps", and no one was ready for what she whipped out.

While we don't know how they were treated I suppose that they were given just enough water to survive and because of that had very dry and infrequent urine.

6iidsp

asksciencefiction_test

[Marvel / DC] I have made it my life goal to become a street level hero. What are the steps I should undertake? Try not to copy other street tier heroes, don't tell me to just get bitten by lots of radioactive spiders.

dj6ha49

dj6hpwq

Training and equipment. Training can come from different avenues, maybe you'll take a walk around the world and climb some mountains to train with monks. Maybe you'll find an old retired hero from your neighborhood and make him train you to take over the mantle of whatever he was. Maybe you simply build a ridiculous gym/lair and train yourself using google. As far as equipment, well...I hope you have a trust fund. You're gonna be going up against people who can summon lightning from the sky, you'll need some pretty state of the art armor, not to mention a signature weapon with which to dole out your justice. And after you've got the training, and the tools, you'll need a nemesis with whom you occasionally bump uglies (see catwoman, elektra, black cat) and a team with which you are loosely affiliated with, but arguably more famous for your work with than any of your solo adventures. That's the basic formula.

Episdode 1. You take a baseball bat and go outside on patrol. You see a guy running out of a store he just robbed. You go to conk him on the head. He grabs the bat. After a lengthy tug of war, you manage to get your bat back, and smack him in the shin for all you're worth, shattering it. He can no longer run from the cops. You do. He gets apprhended. Episode 2: same thing. Except this time you put a sock over the bat. This time the bad guy goes to grab the bat and only gets a handful of sock and you conk him over the head. Episode 3: everyone on the news is talking about the this new... BATMAN!

fmmivw

asksciencefiction_test

[General zombies] Why are so many zombies in such a good shape? Zombies don't strike me as a very considerate lot, so how come when they sink their claws and teeth into their prey they don't rip it to shreds? They mob people, killing them by savagely beating and biting them to death. Wouldn't every zombie be heavily injured due to bites and scratches they got when they were alive? Wouldn't most zombies be crawling, or missing a limb, or have their bones broken and organs exposed after such a violent attack?

fl500tn

fl4ze09

What you're seeing is the result of a classic "bodybuilder" technique: de-hydrating yourself. ( https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/7-scientific-steps-to-camera-ready-body.html ) The less water you have, the more "ripped" you look. The zombies can go without a solid meal for a while, and don't drink in general, so...

Zombies attack people to eat them. Also why do you think most zombies have bitten out chunks of exposed bone? Zombie attack, probably from one zombie that took a chunk out, got full and left them to undie.

yz3nlr

asksciencefiction_test

[Fallout] Why does everything look so shit? I mean seriously, literally every single place in Fallout is strewn with rubble, the walls have holes, there’s trash everywhere… New Vegas takes place in 2281, they literally had 200 years to clean up for themselves. Goodsprings, a town filled with seemingly normal people, presumably regularly inhabited, has dirty floors, holes in the walls, and crap everywhere. You’re telling me that in 200 years there were no people who had basic cleanliness and hygiene skills? I mean for god’s sake the US’s entire culture is based around the 50s, why is no one fucking cleaning? I get that there was a nuclear apocalypse, but it’s been 200 years, why is everything so shit?

iwy01nc

iwxwuq5

That's... that's just how things look when you don't have running water and consistent supply lines.

Not literally every place. The NCR Capital is pretty neat and tidy. So is Vault City.

we4077

asksciencefiction_test

[Marvel] What would it take to get J. Jonah Jameson to give up his crusade against Spider-Man?

iimiywy

iim3tis

I am behind on my Spider-Man comics but I believe he has actually given up and is an ally now. From what I understand JJJ father married Aunt May so he and Peter are step brothers in away now. Also he lost the Bugle I believe. He now has a podcast instead so Peter told him his secret identity and comes on as Spider-Man as a guest.

Which one? The Alex Jones one or the one with journalistic integrity.

tj97yn

asksciencefiction_test

[Spongebob] How hasn't Plankton been able to recreate the Krabby Patty formula by force? Just trying different ingredients until he gets the combination correct? According to friend or foe he should know all the ingredients they had access too. Karen was supposedly a security system and recorded the whole thing. So it should be possible with some brute forcing he'd come by the formula by sheer chance. Considering in one episode Mr Krabs says he's been trying to steal the formula for 20 years. In that time he could've made the same or even better formula. And at that point why has he been trying and failing to sell chum for 20+ years when it's made explicit that no one likes it? Try literally anything else. Hell if his ultimate goal is to take over the world (idk how burger recipe helps with that) why not sell random nick nacks that are actually robots that can take over every place at once after he activates them? his obsession with krabby patties seem counterproductive to any of his goals. Like burger king inevitably made it's own mac sauce and they didn't have to "steal the top secret formula"

i1jrubv

i1lvy7g

See, this is something I sort of wondered ever since I was a kid. If Plankton was able to pay a guy to eat at the Chum Bucket, a place nobody else would even think of going near, then surely he could pay a guy to just buy him a Krabby Patty, and then reverse engineer it with the technology that he's shown to have. (One episode is specifically about him trying to steal a Krabby Patty to reverse engineer it with a machine.)

I like to go with the theory that its all one big game. plankton and krabs aren't corporate rivals but are actually allies. krabs has plankton attempt to steal the formula for more publicity. "wow, the krabby patties are so good, people want to STEAL the recipe? i have to eat here!" thats the reason why he tries to steal it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. it would've been too easy for him to figure it out by now or just pay someone to give him a krabby patty. which is why he doesnt actually want to steal it, he just wants to help krabs' business. plankton's only role is to play the villain.

se3zeb

asksciencefiction_test

[Spongebob Squarepants] How is the Chum Bucket so technologically advanced even though Plankton isnt making any money? The Chum Bucket is a notoriously crappy restaraunt across the street from one of the most popular restaraunts in Bikini Bottom. So how can Plankton afford such an advanced interior while making little to no profit? It's a miracle the place hasn't been closed down.

hugsl1d

hugz4gy

Research grants?

After the episode with the floating garbage patch and after noticing that buildings are old mufflers and whatnot i like to think that plankton is a scav repurposing the trash that sinks to the ocean floor.

37h3bf

asksciencefiction_test

[Comics] What do comic archers like Hawkeye and Green Arrow do when they run out of arrows? Especially in huge fights like Hawkeye gets into (e.g., hundreds of aliens pouring out of a portal, or hundreds of robots swarming all around), these guys must run out of arrows pretty fast. What happens then?

crmnan8

crmuzvj

Well they aren't taking out all the aliens with their arrows, if anything they are acting as support, getting the ones the rest of the group miss. So they probably won't be running out too often. However in those rare cases they run out, and can't get anymore back, they use either their bow as a weapon, or their martial arts training. I don't know specifics for G.A., but H.E. is a spy, so he definitely knows quite a bit.

http://imgur.com/9SRrgYf These guys are super-badass. I think it's probably better to not think about batman or hawkeye in terms of regular people in costumes and more like their power is doing stupidly badass action movie bs. But they also have really high tech arrows and bows and quivers, so they can probably hold a lot.

ky1mz8

asksciencefiction_test

[DC] How is it that no one recognizes Diana Prince as Wonder Woman when she goes around without a mask as a superhero, or without glasses as Diana? [Possible 1984 spoilers ahead] With Clark Kent, his glasses keep his identity icognito. With Bruce Wayne, Batman wears his cowl. But Diana wears nothing more than a crown. How is it that no one notices the similarity there? I've found an article going over how Wonder Woman kept herself incognito between 1984 and the Dawn of Justice (apparently used the Lasso of Truth to keep herself hidden even when she used the camera array to broadcast her face) and the fact that she knocks out cameras before taking out the baddies, but there are historical pictures of Diana as Wonder Woman as well. I'm sure that someone somewhere must've caught her on camera between 1916 and 2016.

gjdqlzo

gjdiice

It's pretty much the same as how Tony Hawk has a hard time being recognized as Tony Hawk when not actively riding a skateboard; devoid of context, people are more likely to assume casual resemblance than actual person, especially when it's someone famous.

Anyone pointing it out wouldn't be taken serious. Like how Keanu Reeves is actually a time traveler/vampire and there historical paintings and pictures of him that prove it, but no one really cares.

dnv126

asksciencefiction_test

[Superpowers] Which powers and abilities would be the most useful and versatile? (Unusual or staples both welcomed)

f5gd2qv

f5gfd3y

Omnipotence. Can't get more useful or versatile than everything itself

Teleportation or time control. You could honestly just start a small-scale business for transporting special, lightweight goods and charge the rich insane amounts of money because you offer a unique and practical, yet completely unmatchable service. And no one could imprison you or anything like that since you could escape

3hn8tz

asksciencefiction_test

[Star Wars] What is the reason why a Sith Master cant stop performing force lightning by hurting himself when a Jedi Master is actually able to reflect it? If Palpatine/Darth Sidious/The Emperor was using Force Lightning against a Jedi Master (as he did against Mace Winduu and Yoda) it seemed these good fellows wouldn't just absorb but absolutely reflect its destructive effect onto the initiator himself. Exactly at this moment the Sith is totally losing control about force lightning and he cant stop performing it. Why?

cu8v5v1

cu8u1ka

When, except for the moment of my death, was I ever not in control?

What makes you think he was losing control and not just faking it? He seems perfectly fine other than his face being grotesque after, and he even later slams even more lightning into Mace with much more power behind it.

bu5xyl

asksciencefiction_test

[Truman Show]Since the show ended we, the Studio have been using the dome, the largest structure in the world for tour groups. We are going to lock a big tour group inside while tricking them into thinking a nuclear war happened and the air outside is deadly. What should we name this new show?

ep7bltt

ep7c1jy

Lock in.

I don't think the name is what you should be worried about. Unlike Truman, these people will have families. They'll fight back a lot more than people who are worried about a guy they saw on TV being treated badly.

dk2upk

asksciencefiction_test

[Star Wars] Would have anakin still fallen to the dark, if he had become a gray jedi, or was raised by an individual like Qui-Gon? I mean, what really pushed anakin to the dark was the lack of being able to tell anyone about his true problems, and he more or less did function in a gray manner, utilizing both the dark and light, but only for good during tcw, would he have prospered under an order that allowed him more freedom?

f4amqc9

f4a5zq3

In modern continuity the thing with the Dark Side is that it is a seductive force. The Dark Side in lore isn't like the Dark Side in video games, it's not just "Red ability bad" you can use the force in any number of ways it's **how** you use it that determines if its giving in to the dark side. What dictates whether throwing out your hand results in a Force Push or a blast of Force Lightning is more than just intent. It's not enough to WANT Force Lightning, you have to have the aggression to manifest it. The raw, living rage to turn the live energy of the universe into a manifestation of your own anger and desire to harm another being. The more you use the force for negative actions the more tempted you will be to continue to do so. It's like a narcotic, you can't switch it on and off, its the living embodiment of "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." One of the downsides of learning to use the Force is that you are committing to living a life of resisting the urge to use the force in negative ways. That's part of why the Jedi have age limits for training. The older you get, the more your personality and mentality have been molded, and the more difficult it is to mold you into the kind of person suited for a Jedi's life style. Anakin had the absolute worst temperament for a Jedi, but thats not his only problem, his biggest problem is one that Qui-Gon Jinn wouldn't be able to solve without going Dark himself. Anakin Skywalker is a slave boy who was confined and restricted all through childhood. He gets freed by a Jedi, and is then taken to a new place where he was confined and restricted. When he gets there he's exposed to a manipulator who quietly tells him, at every opportunity, how awful it was that he's confined and restricted. You want Anakin Skywalker to remain a jedi? You don't need to keep Qui-Gon Jinn, you need to get *rid* of Sheev Palpatine. To see why I say this consider Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's own padawan. She was raised within the temple as a child. She was taught patience, restraint, humility, and all that other jazz by a great Jedi mentor while she was a youngling. She's then introduced to Anakin Skywalker, The Chosen One, Hero for the Clone Wars, and although he is impetuous, disobedient, and someotimes downright violent, she emerges from his training honed into the sort of force user most Jedi could only dream of being. She's trained by Anakin, encouraged in all her impulsive feelings and gut instincts, but instead of falling the way he does, she ends up becoming more like Qui-Gon Jinn than he could ever hope to be. This shows that it's not purely Anakin's personality that's a problem, because he imbues it into Ahsoka and she surpasses her master in her dedication to the tenants of peace and harmony with the Force and the universe. Anakin Skywalker's greatest problem didn't lie within himself, but with the company he kept. ​ Maybe Qui-Gon could have been the father figure he needed, and could have persuaded him to stay away from Palpatine, but that seems unlikely. Palpatine was a master of manipulation. He wanted Anakin Skywalker, he would do whatever it took to get him. The only real way to save Anakin would be to remove Palpatine from the equation.

While Qui-Gon might have been significantly better for him, the best thing to prevent Anakin from falling is to remove Palpatine from his life. But the way you're thinking of using the Force doesn't exist. You can't use both the light and the dark in that way. The dark side is soul meth, and the more you use it, the more you want to use it until you're in too deep to realize how fucked you are.

pw24oi

asksciencefiction_test

[Batman] Which of Batman's rogues could do the most good if they were a heroic vigilante version of themselves? Basically take the morality of one of batman's rogues and switch it (EG- Turn the Joker from a gaslighting abusive maniac into a vigilante with a clown asthetic) Which Villain would be the most helpful hero?

hee7nrz

hee84n8

Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Hugo Strange, the entire court of owls. Basically any of his rogues that have the ability to alter the weather, make drugs, have a combined trillions of dollars, or create illnesses (implying they can also make cures). Mr. Freeze could use his technology and expertise to cure certain terminal illnesses, and to alter the environment, helping global warming- he could refreeze melting glaciers. Scarecrow could use his expertise in pharmaceuticals and psychology to help cure people of certain mental illnesses or depression. Strange, while I know the least about him, has created man made illnesses and antidotes in the stuff I have seen (like the zombie virus in The Batman), so he could potentially help to make a cure for some terminal illnesses like cancer, if he was able to create a terminal zombie illness and an antidote. And then comes the court of owls, who seem very fraternal, like a very loyal brotherhood of the world's richest people, like the illuminati, if they worked for good, they could literally make everything mentioned above happen with their own experts or by paying the 3 above to do that work.

Ra's al Ghul is swimming in money and has massive influence across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. His magic live-forever juice isn't ideal but it's not the only tool at his disposal.

tfnhgs

asksciencefiction_test

[Marvel/MCU] Has Steve Rogers ever watched the movie Inglorious Basterds? If so, what did he think of it? Just curious what his thoughts would be as a WWII vet and someone who personally punched out Hitler/The Red Skull.

i0x44cp

i0xl43s

Decent bunch, but he likes the Howling Commandos better.

He briefly considered writing Quentin Tarantino a note chiding him for his language, but decided against it.

5496sn

asksciencefiction_test

[Captain America: Civil War; The Avengers: Age of Ultron] Given what was done to Sokovia, shouldn't the total monetary loss be more than $474 billion? How is it calculated? I'm speaking exclusively and nearly from a monetary standpoint; as in, the amount of loss would not be offset by the benefit to the world, because if it were, then "Total loss" would literally be positive infinity, when you consider that the avengers literally prevented the extinction of the human race and likely the extinction of just about every animal but maybe cockroaches and frogs. $474 billion just seems so...small when you consider the literal disintegration of an entire nation state -- however small The country is in terms of surface area, political power, GDP, and population. I would put it on par with actual Eastern European countries that are small yet war-torn, perhaps something like Kazakhstan or even a smaller version of Turkey. All of those buildings, homes, businesses, and just general real estate with possible oil's and minerals and other commodities that could be mined have to be worth more than half a billion dollars. If you consider GDP and total job loss, along with displacement costs and worldwide relief aid, it has to be more than $474 billion, right? Even if they don't calculate the speculative and in tangible, like I said, the physical structures and properties and fissile material have to be worth a ton more when combined. **So, how do you suppose they calculate the damage or "total loss"?** Because the incident in **LAGOS was $14 million** -- and I have to believe that the building alone couldn't have been worth more than $14 million in Africa, since labor and materials would come cheaply -- do they use human lives to factor that in? Not just casualties, but injuries and psychological distress? If so, the Sokovia total loss would have to be at least somewhere close to $1 trillion. Even with, say, 3 million citizens, they're all displaced and have forever lost their homes -- not just their dwellings but their actual nation (**imagine if the US -- or your country of origin -- were completely vaporized, with zero time to prepare to capture the history. That would make my heart hurt. People's hearts ache over the loss of their childhood home not even due to demolition but just the view of a new family inside it -- imagine the feeling of seeing your entire hometown, your home *nation* being "demolished" and forever unable to revisit.**) I feel like the "cost" of the total "pain" (PTSD, emotional distress, nostalgia, etc) would be very high (3 million people multiplied $50,000, an arbitrary number for ***no*** precedence has been set, since you can't imagine how a Sokovian must feel not being able to even visit their hometown, not just home). That would be $150 billion already...and $50,000 is not even that high of an amount. Then, add in the costs of housing "refugees" (or whatever a displaced citizen is called) via World Aid/Relief, which could be calculated even at $25,000 per person, if would be $75 billion. **So $225 billion in just total cost of "pain" and "relief" -- not even counting tangible costs.** **1) How do you think they calculate Total Loss and 2) how do you think they *should* calculate Total Loss?**

d805i9d

d80g2od

Sokovia was already well on its way to disintegration, which meant that it was mainly damaging already destroyed stuff. It'd be like if you bombed Somalia or Syria or Detroit. Yeah people would be hurt, but you'd hit more rubble than standing buildings.

3 million may be a large overestimation. The city proper that was destroyed was 2km wide, so total area of about four square kilometers. "Only" about half of the city was lifted by Ultron's device. Another European nation with similar architecture, Monaco, has half the area of Sokovia (two square km). That's approximately the same surface area as was destroyed. Their population is 33,000. If we allow for a higher population density in Sokovia and triple that figure we still only have a population of about 100,000. $225 billion works out to a whopping $2.25 million per Sokovian.

tty50k

asksciencefiction_test

[Marvel] Somehow, Punisher manages to kill all wrongdoers. All that's left is an inept, but not corrupt, justice system. Does Frank pivot to civil servant to address this?

i30n96y

i30yrt7

Honestly, I feel he'd escalate. Frank is a bloodthirsty, hate-filled man with nothing to live for but endless revenge. What's kept him from spiralling into a full on villain with a one-man war on society is that he has more evil targets to focus his ire on. Remove those targets and his hatred and bloodlust don't go away, he just loses the only vaugly ethical outlet for them. Best case scenario is he puts a bullet in his brain. Worst case scenario? Well, no-one's perfect. If you *want* to punish someone, you can always find a reason if you try hard enough.

Frank's war on criminals isn't a goal, it's an excuse. Basically, the only place Frank has ever felt comfortable is in war. Regardless of the continuity, whether it was Vietnam or Desert Storm or whatever, Frank found his purpose and his calling not just as a soldier, but as *the* soldier. The soldier who leaves no men standing, who takes no prisoners, who burns the town and salts the earth and leaves *nothing* alive behind him. That instinct doesn't turn off when he goes back to his family. You can't ruthlessly kill insurgents one day and pick your daughter up from soccer practice the next. The itch to fight and kill still burns. Only the war is over. There was no clear victor. No one wants to continue what they see now as a pointless fight. So now a soldier with *very* severe mental issues has to try to readjust to civilian life. And then his wife and daughter are brutally murdered. Well now Frank *has* to fight, doesn't he? And he *has* to fight in the only way he knows how, total war, because when you fight you fight to win. And he *has* to avenge his dead family, because that's just necessary. It's *justified* in a way that Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan never were. And he *has* to not just kill the men who killed his family, he *has* to wage a war on all crime, on all criminals. He has to fight a unilateral one-man war without oversight or limits, without even an end goal (because the one foe more nebulous than an insurgency is the general idea of crime), so then he's finally doomed himself to a truly endless war. And perhaps there's some small part of Frank that loves that. After all, what I just described would be a soldier's paradise. An endless war without limits or restraints, fought entirely on your terms, for a totally justifiable (and completely unwinnable) cause. There's a great Punisher MAX storyline where Bullseye tries to understand why Frank does what he does, or more accurately, exactly *when* Frank became the Punisher. He guesses that the Punisher wasn't born in the park, with the death of Frank's family, but much, much, *much* earlier. His family and his resultant "war" was only ever an excuse to fight. So if Frank hypothetically killed all criminals? He'd find some new war to fight. Maybe he'd start hunting heroes, maybe he'd start fighting aliens, maybe he'd just keep finding some new target to hunt until the pain and despair became so much that he'd finally just stick that gun in the mouth of his first and greatest enemy: himself.

bm0f1u

asksciencefiction_test

[MCU] So what are the universe's thoughts on Earth after the events of Endgame? (ENDGAME SPOILERS) For much of the history of the MCU, Earth was seen as a backwater with little relevance or respect within the cosmic community. The Kree called Earth "a real shithole". The Asgardians had a fairly low opinion of Earth and humanity. Odin said that humans "do not belong here in Asgard anymore than a goat belongs at a banquet table". Thor called humans "petty and tiny". The Other said that humans were expected to be "cowardly wretches". Earth was barely a blip on the radar of major universal forces, generally only being relevant when it happened to be the site of *other* races conflicting there. But over the past several years Earth has gradually grown in prominence. They are one of, if not *the*, only planet to successfully fight off an invasion by Thanos' army. According to Fury, after that "every world knows" that Earth should not be fucked with. Earth is now the home of the Asgardian race. It is the planet where Thanos himself, the man who single-handedly killed half the universe, fought their forces with the entire might of his army...and lost. So how is Earth viewed by other cosmic entities like the Kree or the Nova Corps? Is it viewed as nothing more than a backwater that got lucky? Or are they beginning to view it as an up-and-coming major universal force to be reckoned with?

emt2fm4

emtf6kq

I think the more developed alien civilisations would view us as how we humans view the orcs from LOTR, chaotic, still a shithole, uncivilised, warmongering backwater planet, but yet no one would dare to simply fuck around with the orcs.

~~Harmless.~~ Mostly harmless.

uo9ic8

asksciencefiction_test

[MCU] Why Peter Parkers are different across the multiverse but Stephen Stranges aren't? The Doylist answer is obvious, but there is a Watsonian one you guys can think of?

i8d2i4b

i8de59b

We’ve seen three Peter Parker variants. By extension, now that the multiverse doors have been blown off, we’ve also seen multiple versions of Professor X, Daredevil, the Punisher, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, and Loki (specifically said to be the most common variant of…Variant…). While some have wide discrepancies in appearance (again, fuckin’ Loki…), some also do not. Professor X and Doctor Strange may just have a consistent look to them.

The stranges have all come from universes that have quite a lot of similarities with the main differences being the heroes. But otherwise a lot of the same events happened in one way or another e.g thanos, ultron. But in the Spider-Mens universes there’s basically no similarities at all except for the Spider-Men themselves. There was no invasion in 2012, there was no ultron attempt, there’s no thanos etc. So it does make sense that if the universes are similar then the people in it will look similar too

daj8ui

asksciencefiction_test

[Alien/Aliens] I just discovered this sub, so forgive me since I'm sure this has been kicked around before, but I've always wondered - How do the xenomorphs generate body mass when they don't seem to have enough food to do so? Why doesn't their blood compromise the ship's hull?

f1q5flh

f1q7dyh

They get into the food stores. They're like mice.

They're basically hollow. As a chestburster they're soft, fleshy and elastic. Over the course of a few hours they use hydraulic pressure to stretch and expand their outer layer which then dries into the hard exoskeleton we're familiar with. As such, they're light enough to easily climb walls and run across ceilings whilst using hydraulics instead of muscles enables them to also be incredibly strong. Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecdysis http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2180/do-spiders-have-hydraulic-legs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoskeleton As they age and consume, their mass increases resulting in forms such as the Praetorian which is stronger, but lacks the agility and ability to run up walls. http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_castes_from_the_Alien_expanded_universe *Also, that acid that sprays out? Not blood, hydraulic fluid under pressure. It's acidic because it plays a role in the relatively rapid hardening of the exoskeleton, which may have a metallic component. "Acid Hardening" is a thing. **Also also, hydraulic systems only generate heat when in use which explains why they're basically undetectable if they're not moving. [this was my answer to a similar question a couple of years ago - it turns out it might be very wrong for a few reasons, but I still like it: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/6b96w7/alien_all_how_do_the_xenomorphs_neomorphs/dhl207s/ ]

1m5qft

asksocialscience_test

How do Marxists refute the idea that prices are based on individual desires rather than labor time inputs?

cc6oftp

cc79s53

This is known as the mud-pie argument. You put in labor to make a mud-pie, does it mean it has a value? Watch this video for an explanation. Here is the text. This is a multi-part video series, in which this is the fourth or so video. Here is a relevant excerpt: >The problem with this argument is that Marx was very clear that labor has to be useful labor to create value. Yet he didn't think that it was this usefulness that creates value. Labor has been doing useful things for millennia. All societies are made up of useful labor. Marx calls this useful labor that makes up a society “social labor”. The organization of this social labor differs from society to society. In a capitalist society this social labor is organized through the commodity exchange: the products of labor are assigned market values and the fluctuations of these values coordinate the social labor process. This is a way of organizing social labor unique to capitalism and it has all sorts of unique properties that other forms of social labor don’t have. The usefulness of labor is not what is specific to capitalism. Value is. Hence, usefulness is not what Marx interested in talking about. Value is.

First off let's separate prices from value. Value in Marx has two forms. True value (ie. the value produced by the addition of labour to natural materials which is what gives you the famous reinterpretation of Ricardo's value theory) and value within the commodity system (given by the M-C-M (money - commodity - money)). To Marx the system of valuation within the commodity system, which could easily be subjective value, is a mask over the intrinsic value of a good such as it's value as natural capital and the human and machine labour required to turn it into a commodity. Most people miss the fact that Marx makes this differentiation from Ricardo. Within the commodity system commodities no longer have their true value. They have the value ascribed to them by the desire of capitalists to turn money into commodities and commodities into money. Today we would probably call the actualization of these desires advertising, branding and marketing. He's basically arguing that if we want to know what something is really worth, we have to look at the material inputs and forces that are effected on nature in order to turn it into a commodity. Subjective value is all fine and good but commodities have a material reality that is independent of people. A loom is different than a horse even if there are no people to say that one is worth more than the other. It's important to remember that Marx is a materialist so for him economics has to be based on observable properties of the material world, so he's arguing against relativism and idealist conceptions of value. Prices on the other hand are determined by the costs of materials and the costs of labour plus the natural rate of profit (or surplus value) that is determined by society. Basically he says prices are determined by input costs plus a profit margin which is basically how most firms determine their prices (with of course the obvious exception of cartels, de facto cartels, duopolies and monopolies).

3wozku

asksocialscience_test

Why does it seem like every time an economist speaks, they come out in support of the status quo? There seems to be a dearth of radical economists. Is this merely my perception? From what I know of heterodox economists, mainstream economics has somewhat of a "one of us, one of us" culture problem and seems to have difficulty with dissent?

cxxwkiz

cxxwnqn

"Dearth of radicals" is a little bit an issue of perception, but it depends how you think about economics. The science is extremely tied to quantifiable models. So far, Marxian approaches haven't found the equivalent kind of empirical support. I'm not saying modern economics necessarily precludes all Marxian ideas. But I think any such understanding occurs at a "higher" level of economic theory than most work is being performed. For ex: An economics professor, is going to teach their econometrics or macroeconomics class the same whether they were a Monetarist, Keynesian or Marxian. That being said, there have been "heterodox" theories that have made significant changes in the recent past; behavioral economics, for instance. Finally, you have to remember that "status-quo" is also relative. The application of Monetarist theories in central banking was pretty big and disruptive to the field. But if your thought process is status quo == free market capitalism, then you will not register any difference.

I don't think that that is an entirely fair question. There are lots of different schools of thought in economics (just like in other disciplines), though there are also things that virtually everyone in the field takes for granted. After all, that is how science (in the broadest sense of the term) gets done (see generally T. Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 1962). No one would suggest that there is a "dearth of radical biologists" because everyone in biology takes the theory of evolution for granted. What constitutes "mainstream economics" changes over time in response to new work--Keynesians were incorporated into the neoclassical mainstream thanks to Hicks and Samuelson, for instance. Why does consensus on certain issues constitute a "culture problem"? I think that there is a natural tendency in human life, as well as in academia specifically, to want to silence other viewpoints: Perhaps Justice Holmes described it best in his dissent in Abrams v. United States 250 U.S. 616 (1919), "[Censorship] seems perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power, and want a certain result with all your heart, you naturally express your wish [to] sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition...seems to indicate...that you do not care whole-heartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises." Economists, like everyone else, want to be right and believe that they are, and academia is a power structure that imposes certain orthodoxies as a condition for advancement. But I don't think that this is a problem for economics as such but for every discipline to some degree.

1dh75x

asksocialscience_test

Mod / Meta] Question for eligible panelists who have not applied for flair, a few subreddit stats, and a friendly reminder to report bad answers! Hi everybody, I'd like to share a few stats with you first. Right now, we're averaging between 50 and 80 new subscribers each day, which is great! However.. we are presently only receiving applications for flair once or twice a week. This means that for every 250 or so new subscribers, we only have 1 or 2 people applying for flair. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the subreddit's subscription rate is outpacing the growth of our panelists by a significant margin. So, it would help us out quite a bit if you could answer the following questions: 1. Are you an expert in one of the social science's but haven't applied for flair? 2. If yes to the first question, what is stopping you from applying? 3. What do you think we can do to attract more active panelists/contributors? On an unrelated note, I want to remind people that this is AskSocialScience, *not* AskSocialOpinions or AskSocialAnecdotes. Although anecdotes and opinions can help further a discussion, they alone are not suitable for an answer here. As you may have noticed, the mod-team has really cracked down on top-tiered comments that aren't up to the standards that we (the mods) and our users would like to see in the subreddit. You can help us out a lot by reporting bad answers! If you have any confusion about what is encouraged and what is discouraged here.. **[Please check the rules page**.

c9qgaxi

c9qg6l7

I don't want to risk my tenure just because I like to call out other economists for talking drivel.

I haven't applied for flair because I have only just received my bachelor's degree (in politics and law), because the kind of question I would feel comfortable answering does not come up often (international relations theory, security studies, European Union), and because I would rather not disclose any information and/or certification about my identity. I am happy with the direction this sub has been taking though and want to thank the mods for their work. I feel it is actively improving everything about this sub, please keep it up!

2x4zkx

asksocialscience_test

If patriarchy is so wrong, how did it become the norm? Were we ever equal? Let me preface this by saying I support equality for all, but I'm curious as to how we wound up with the inequality we have. Why aren't women seen as superior? Why aren't we equal? Why are gender rolls wrong? Would they be OK if we attributed the same value to men's/women's rolls?

coxvqcr

coxibtl

We've had to nuke every top level comment in this thread. If you're leaving a top level comment IT MUST HAVE SOURCES. You must support your claims with citations to relevant academic material.

You are asking a lot of questions here, I will try to answer them individually. How did patriarchy become the norm? Highly debated, answers range from the patriarchy being an outgrowth from the division of labor in early human societies to the patriarchy being a manifestation of capitalist values. Regardless, there a long history (thousands of years) of male dominance and female oppression in western culture/religion/governance. Were we (men and women) ever equal. Equal in what sense? In terms of citizenship rights? The social value of our gender rolls? The opportunities afforded to men/women? The short answer is "probably not." Why aren't women seen as superior & why aren't we equal? In short, because of patriarchy. Why are gender rolls wrong? This one is trickier, they are not 'wrong' so much as their traditional expression is becoming (at best) outmoded and problematic. Would they be OK if we attributed the same value to men's/women's rolls? Attributing the same value to men's/women's rolls is a part of what feminists mean when they talk about destroying the patriarchy, and it would help a lot, but it would not negate the toxic expression of traditional gender rolls e.g. men cannot be emotional. To further your own understanding of patriarchy as an academic concept, I would highly recommend 'Patriarchy, The System' by Allan G. Johnson which informed how I answered this question. Johnson, Allan G. "Patriarchy, the System." G. Kirk, & M. Okazawa-Rey, Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives 3 (2004): 25-32.

11mavg

asksocialscience_test

Why is the US so dominating in entertainment and culture? I'm from Norway, not the largest country in the world, and I was thinking about where my entertainment comes from. Speaking a small language, I'm accustomed to speaking or listening to another language when I interact online or watch/listen to other entertainment mediums, and I'd guess that most non-english speaking people would do the same. But it seems like most of my entertainment comes from the US, something that I find weird when I think about the size of the country. Europe has more than double the population, and by that logic why isn't 2/3 of my entertainment from the continent? In global terms, the US is roughly 5% of the world population, yet it's dramatically overrepresented in most media. If I turn on my television, most - if not all - foreign shows are made by the US, with the exception of Top Gear and a few select other British shows. Almost every move I see is made in the US, even though the UK also has a sizable movie industry. I sometime see French movies, but I can't remember the last time I saw a German or Italian movie, for example. Even the Internet seems to be dominated by the US (I'd guess that at least half of Reddit is from the US), as I only seem to visit American sites unless it's in Norwegian. Does anybody have an idea why this is the case?

c6nq1mc

c6nsu1z

US has 5% of the world's population but with countries that have English as a first language? That figure rockets up. Canada, UK, America, NZ, Australia, Ireland, South Africa - English speaking countries (as a first language). US dominates that in terms of population. Now, given that English is a very desirable language for many in the world to learn, it's no surprise that you'd watch The Simpson in India or Futurama in Thailand.

First: The Division of Labor is limited by the extent of the market. English language extends to a much larger number of wealthy people than any other language, which means there can be more differentiation within the English language market than other language markets. If there are 500 million English speaking people who will pay for content (or who advertisers will pay to reach), and 80 million German speakers, a movie that appeals to 10% of the German population only need appeal to 2.5% of the English-speaking population. The types of art that will appeal to 2.5% of the population are much more numerous than the types of art that require 10% of the population to be sustained. Second: Agglomeration effects and economies of scale*. Certain types of art thrive by being done at a place where other types of that art are being done. Obviously, if I want to make a movie the cheapest place to produce it will be Hollywood (filming it is a different question), because there are people and equipment there who specialize in making movies. Need an editor for your screenplay? In Hollywood you could probably find one in the phonebook; but probably not anywhere else. Similar effects lead to Hollywood having great advantages over other locations--even shows set in NYC or DC will be shot in LA. To compare, almost 90% of carpet in the world is produced in or around Dalton, Georgia. Why? Agglomeration effects make it so that it is cheaper to make carpet in GA and ship it to Moscow than it is to make carpet in Moscow. Why is most of your carpet made in Dalton? No really good reason, it just happened someone started making carpet there and it snowballed. Hollywood, to some extent, can be explained by that. It could have been Vancouver, or London, and then Americans would consume a lot more Canadian and British culture. Note: the arguments apply to other art forms than movies, just to a lesser extent. Why, if I consume postmodern literature, is most of it from Paris? The community of writers that developed there was a resource in production unique to Paris. *Agglomeration effects mean that if someone is producing X at a certain location, it becomes cheaper to produce X at that location. It's cheaper to write good software in Silicon Valley than the middle of nowhere, because Silicon Valley has programmers and an infrastructure that a software company requires. Land may be cheaper in BFE, but internet and programmers aren't. In addition, you're more likely to run into someone at the bar who has good ideas about software that you can then benefit from in Silicon Valley than in rural nowhere. Economies of Scale indicate the range of production where average cost is decreasing. It's cheaper per-meal for me to make 4 servings for dinner than it is for me to make 2 servings, because there are a lot of fixed costs when I go to make dinner that are paid regardless of the number of servings. These are related to agglomeration effects (and, in fact, are an agglomeration effect).

yrekw

asksocialscience_test

What do trained economists think about trickle-down economics? Why? I did some google searching and could find very little that wasn't deeply politically charged. What does the economics field think of trickle-down economics?

c5y688k

c5y62v3

Trickle-down economics isn't really a thing in economics. It is a political quip used to discredit people. The idea is basically a corruption of supply-side economics, which again isn't exactly what I'd call a "field" of economics, but whatever. If you are going to do any searching, I'd use that phrase instead though. One of the "controversial" ideas is that cutting taxes will spur economic growth to the point that the government will collect more revenue even with the lower tax rate. I don't know of any empirical evidence supporting it, though it seems theoretically plausible. The Laffer Curve deals with this, though most people use it in the context that *raising* taxes may *lower* tax revenue. I think most economists would agree that in general, assuming just a regular market in equilibrium, cutting taxes would increase growth and that growth is generally good. But one must differentiate between the idea of a permanent tax cut and a temporary tax cut. According to Milton Friedman's Permanent Income Hypothesis, consumers will not respond very much to what they perceive as a temporary change in income, i.e., a temporary tax cut will do little to stimulate an economy because consumers expect the taxes to rise again and they'd eventually have to pay more taxes to make up for the deficit. This is, of course, just a hypothesis. I'd say this is a thorough write-up on the topic that I found on Google. EDIT:: Changed the wording of whether or not the Laffer Curve has empirical evidence so it doesn't sound like there is none, just that I don't know if there is any.

That it works only in very specific macroeconomic situations, usually when there is pent-up demand held back by high interest rates, high taxes and moderate to high inflation. Basically, if government or central bank actions are keeping people from spending and investors from investing, removing those barriers will kickstart growth, and the growth will move to all sectors of the economy. There is some argument as to whether we have ever been in a situation where these factors have had a dominant effect on GDP growth. People tend to point to the mid-late 70s as being like this, but in hindsight, it appears that a manufactured home construction and buying boom, fueled by credit was more responsible for "Morning in America" than lower demand barriers, which were actually much higher in Reagan's day than they are now.

xbrktq

asksocialscience_test

Book on sociological dynamics in Appalachia? In the vein of books like “white trash” or JD Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy”, I am interested in the sociology of rural southern areas, specifically Appalachia. Anyone have any recommendations for reading?

io1wy04

io1qv7k

Not Appalachian, but Strangers in their Own Land by Hochschild (2016) is a great book and may scratch some of that itch you have. Plus, it has the added bonus of not being written by a twat like Vance.

The Foxfire series may serve to give you an idea of where some of Appalachian culture/ways of thinking come from. Many old traditions present themselves in surprising ways in modern thinking and situations. If nothing else they're a fun read! I am originally from the area, and I shall answer thee a specific question shouldst thou desire, for ye sociology of ye region is of specific interest to me, as well.

4nas5s

asksocialscience_test

How do the Swiss maintain cohesion when they have so many referendums? I ask because I saw how divisive the Scottish secession campaign ended up and I'm starting to see the same with the EU referendum campaign here in the UK at the moment. Do the Swiss go through the same kind of social trauma or do they take a different approach? Does having so many referendums moderate how people debate and behave in public environments?

d42js30

d42hg1t

I am a student of political science and swiss. First I tried to find some relevant sources, concerning cohesion and referendums, which failed. People usually don't really link the two. Are the two things comparable? Switzerland votes very often, alone last sunday there were two referendums and three initiatives (changes of the constitution initiated by collecting signatures ). And the some of the votes are really not very important topics, for example about the change of the value added tax for restaurants. Also important to note: Switzerland has this referendums since over 100 years, the people are used to it. *^("The referendum: direct democracy in Switzerland - KW Kobach - 1993")* On the other hand in Scotland there are usually no Referendum. The topic they voted about is probably one of the most important vote you can make as a region. So you would expect it to be very polarizing. If we look at a very important vote in Switzerland, which might be the closest to the importance of the Scottish referendum, are the ones concerning relations to the EU. These votes too are very polarizing and cause huge discussions long after they happened. A good example is the vote about joining the EEA (European Economic Area) in 1992. The vote was really close and showed huge divides in the population and also between the different language regions. There is still discussion today about this vote, due to change in EU relations. ^(^20 ^Jahre ^EWR-Volksabstimmung: ^Was ^haben ^wir ^damals ^entschieden? ^- ^Claude ^Longchamp ^, ^gfs ) Also the trauma you are talking about. One I am not sure if you might overrate it. And I don't think that just applies to referendums. Just look at the US elections now. To answer your question: It isn't really the referendum which polarizes society, but the gravity of the question asked. Additionally it might be that Switzerland is just used to having referendums and adapted its behavior.

What puzzles me is, how do the Swiss maintain cohesion when they have so many languages?!

4he0d3

asksocialscience_test

Can someone explain to me what happened to Venezuela's economy?

d2pa4uf

d2pcsra

Piggybacking on the post to request books related to the subject.

Price controls are near universally frowned upon by economists. It's where the government says, by decree, that something must be traded for "exactly X" (or more than X, or less than X). It somewhat defeats the market process - instead of something getting more expensive as it gets scarcer or increases in demand, it simply runs out of stock. Or vice versa, you end up with more for sale than can be sold, with the producers unable to sell their wares. Everyone price controls to some degree though - a minimum wage is an example, rent control in some markets are another example. There are academic defences of the minimum wage, but we'd all be lying if we were to say there's no disadvantages/problems caused by it. The point of all this, is that Venezuela for a long time has been attempting to price control *everything*. From the price of toilet paper, through to wages, through to electricity, through to even the currency itself. The latter is a huge one. In Venezuela, the currency must be exchanged for USD at a price decreed by the government. This isn't a fixed exchange rate in the traditional sense (where the central bank builds up "reserves" and then sells them at a fixed price) - Venezuela has attempted to do the same purely through decree. The problem with this, is that they overvalue the currency so much that you can't actually trade at the official rate. Nobody (or few) will sell you USD for the price the government says they must. Markets are all incredibly interconnected, we all depend on foreign trade for prosperity - but even operating a business in Venezuela you're shut out from all of this. Only well connected individuals can buy USD from the government at the official rate, otherwise you're stuck applying for "allowances" through application processes that take who-knows-how-long. This means the only way to actually import en-masse in Venezuela is by breaking the law. Using black market currency traders. Can you imagine running a business like that? Oh. Not that you'd want to operate a business - as per the toilet paper article, if the government feels you're not running with the country's interests at heart, it'll just seize it. This makes everyone incredibly suspicious about investing in the country, and avoiding it completely. So you have inability to export, inability to import, inability to set your own prices, a government that will seize your company on a whim... all acting to reduce "aggregate supply". There's chokes on absolutely everything - you cannot buy foreign stuff, you cannot employ workers except at wages decreed by government, and then you can't even sell your goods except at prices also decreed by the government. Anyway. With trashed supply, come shortages and/or raising prices (price controls be damned). The government attempts to address all these by bringing in tougher price controls, but they're doomed to fail too. Their economy is choked from top to bottom by controls on everything, people can't produce stuff, can't sell stuff, etc. And with a weak economy comes a low (and falling) exchange rate. Well, it would, except that's price controlled too (so read: falling black market exchange rate). Then hit oil price crashes. Venezuela has more oil than anyone else (which goes to show how spectacularly shockingly they're being run), which accounts for nearly all their exports - again no doubt largely due to the illegality of currency exchange. So oil price crashes, and their entirely non-diversified economy sinks with it. Adding on to all of these (even with terrible management economies tend to persevere until there's a combination of things - they're nowhere near as fragile as we think), they've been hit by the worst drought in 47 years. With the drought 3 years running, their dams are now on the brink of empty. For a country that depends on hydro for 73% of their power generation, that's a *huge problem*. One that undoubtedly could have been avoided with better management and contingency planning, but Venezuela has anything but good management. So what do they do? Well, reduce the number of workdays. Send people home from public sector jobs. Roll blackouts. All things further constricting aggregate supply, further making it harder/impossible to run a business. With reduced aggregate supply, you can basically either take measures to reduce aggregate demand (like raising taxes), or let inflation erode people's living standards for you. The latter can be extra problematic, as inflation means lower real interest rates, encouraging people to spend further: it can *increase* aggregate demand and trigger all kinds of terrible feedback loops (like getting wage increases due to inflation due to wage increase, etc). Venezuela has all that, but then also a bunch of price controlled stuff experiencing shortages, and just generally the economy is undergoing a slow collapse. It's fascinating to watch. Oh. And I forgot another big one: they happen to owe a lot of foreign currencies. Somehow, the country needs to bring in USD to repay those public debts. Combine that with the collapse in the export sector, collapse in the electricity sector, massive inflation and shortages out of the wazoo... and yeh, good luck to them with that. If you ask me (and I'm definitely no authority on the matter), one of the biggest mistakes they made was price controlling their currency. Currencies should be free floating, fixed or managed if you absolutely must, but making it illegal to trade except at a government-determined rate is just the worst possible system excusable never. Argentina until last year had the same system and there is just really not a single thing to recommend it for. Well, that and/or deciding to seize businesses willy-nilly. Actually, that latter one's probably even worse. Sigh.

1qteeq

asksocialscience_test

Why aren't the so called "terrorists" of the world using nuclear weapons? I don't want them to, but what is the real reason?

cdgagxo

cdgallk

The simplest answer, because they don't have them. Nuclear weapons are not easy to develop. Only 8 or 9 countries have had the technical expertise and resources to produce them. None of the stable countries with nuclear arsenals would want a nuclear weapon to be detonated due to the fear of retribution and an all out nuclear war. That leaves the only real sources as less than stable countries that have nuclear arsenals. That is pretty much just limited North Korea, the Soviet Union/Russia (only available in a few year window centered on the collapse of the USSR), and maybe Pakistan (depending on your opinion of their government). A few sources that discuss the topic: http://www.cfr.org/weapons-of-mass-destruction/terrorists-nuclear-capabilities/p9550 http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/ISEC_a_00127 http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb388/

There are three ways for a terrorist group to obtain a nuclear weapon: * By developing them. * By stealing them. * By being gifted them. According to this study (edit: try this if the other link doesnt work), well-organized terrorists should both be capable of developing nuclear weapons and launching them. The reasons why they haven't developed nuclear weapons is because it is difficult (both Al-Qaeda and Aum Shinrikyo (a Japanese terrorist group trying to achieve a nuclear Armageddon) have tried). Reasons why (p. 146): * Al Qaeda recruits "have **little technical sophistication and expertise**" ("al Qaeda reportedly concluded that its attempt to make nerve gas weapons by relying on the group’s own expertise had “resulted in a waste of effort and money”) * "Others assert that a group with al Qaeda’s structure of **small cells would not be well suited for an arguably large, long-term project like making a nuclear bomb**, particularly given the substantial operational disruptions sustained since 9/11" * "In the absence of a **stable sanctuary with large fixed facilities**, it would be nearly impossible for a terrorist group to make a nuclear bomb." As for being gifted nuclear weapons, an article in the summer edition of International Security (here is a summary of the article) brilliantly explained why governments with nuclear weapons are not in the business of giving them to terrorist groups: Using terrorists to launch your nukes for you only makes sense if you want to use nukes without getting the blame for it: P. 85: > The calculated, “back-door” approach of transferring weapons to terrorists makes sense only if a state fears retaliation. **The core of the nuclearattack- by-proxy argument is that a state otherwise deterred by the threat of retaliation might conduct an attack if it could do so surreptitiously by passing nuclear weapons to terrorists**. Giving nuclear capability to a terrorist group with which the state enjoys close relations and substantial trust could allow the state to conduct the attack while avoiding devastating punishment. That does not make sense though since it would be fairly easy to trace the nukes back to the terrorist sponsoring state: P. 83-84: > We conclude that **neither a terror group nor a state sponsor would remain anonymous after a nuclear terror attack**. We draw this conclusion on the basis of four main ªndings. First, data on a decade of terrorist incidents reveal a strong positive relationship between the number of fatalities caused in a terror attack and the likelihood of attribution. Roughly three-quarters of the attacks that kill 100 people or more are **traced back to the perpetrators**. Second, attribution rates are far higher for attacks on the U.S. homeland or the territory of a major U.S. ally—97 percent (thirty-six of thirty-seven) for incidents that killed ten or more people. Third, **tracing culpability from a guilty terrorist group back to its state sponsor is not likely to be difficult**: few countries sponsor terrorism; few terrorist groups have state sponsors; each sponsored terror group has few sponsors (typically one); and only one country that sponsors terrorism, Pakistan, has nuclear weapons or enough fissile material to manufacture a weapon. In sum, attribution of nuclear terror incidents would be easier than is typically suggested, and passing weapons to terrorists would not offer countries an escape from the constraints of deterrence. Other reasons why a state would not give nukes to a terrorist organization: > Some analysts are skeptical about such sponsored nuclear terrorism, arguing that a state may not be willing to deplete its small nuclear arsenal or stock of precious nuclear materials. More important, a state sponsor would fear that a terrorist organization might use the weapons or materials in ways the state never intended, provoking retaliation that would destroy the regime.14 Nuclear weapons are the most powerful weapons a state can acquire, and handing that power to an actor over which the state has less than complete control would be an enormous, epochal decision—one unlikely to be taken by regimes that are typically obsessed with power and their own survival. So to conclude, the reason why terrorists haven't obtained nuclear weapons is because it is hard to obtain them (at least through development or gifting) and trying to do so would be a waste of resources. edit: Note that I didn't adress the buying/stealing of nuclear weapons (which is relevant to the "loose nukes" question) as I forgot. I can not provide an answer that satisfies the criteria to that specific question, so I encourage someone in the know to adress that one.

1ntmvp

asksocialscience_test

What is it about Reddit that makes it lean left? Could anyone speculate on a right-leaning website of the same style with similar magnitude/scale? Or does it exist already?

ccm0swr

ccm0igc

Remember to answer questions based on the social sciences, not personal opinion.

I think this question says at least as much about NotFuzz's personal preconceptions as it does about reddit. It doesn't lean left as far as I'm concerned. Of course it's left of 80% of US politics but then that's not a useful indicator, is it?

11fcir

asksocialscience_test

What are some of the most costly externalities in the world? Just curious, I figure antibiotics and the spread of disease and invasive species could be a huge one I don't really hear much about. I'd also like to hear anything about mitigation.

c6lzqoh

c6m442k

Accurate and unbiased media has huge externalities. These are externalities since it's unclear that being unbiased maximizes the media company's revenue. I think this is huge because this can prevent us from dealing with other problems.

Car travel, especially with congestion. The generalised cost per mile is far far higher than the private costs. Throw both cost curves on a graph and then throw on the demand curve. Say F1 is the equilibrium with the accepted private costs. Draw a vertical line on the graph at F1. F2 is where the demand curve bisects the generalised cost (the equilibrium if the costs were internalised). Now integrate for the area bounded by the demand curve, the generalised cost curve, and the F1 line.

3rcnoa

asksocialscience_test

Why are "gay meccas" usually larger cities, while "lesbian meccas" are usually smaller towns? (In the United States, at least.)

cwmywqo

cwmx2c3

Here's an Autostraddle article entitled "Where Do the Lesbians Live?". Essentially; * lesbians are more likely to start families, which is easier/cheaper in rural areas * the inevitable gentrification of gay meccas tends to force out lesbians before it ousts gay men because of systematic factors such as the wage gap * historical associations with butch identities has a tendency to tie lesbians to rural/farming areas and rural women/lesbian communes and farming cooperatives are very popular in the community > “Lesbian couples are more likely than gay ones to live in rural areas, in part because they seek different things from their hometowns,” Francie Diep writes in The Geography of Queer Folks, summarizing Lisa Wade’s conclusions. “For example, lesbian couples are much more likely than gay couples to be raising children, the costs of which might be lower outside of cities.” This is perhaps consistent with a recent survey that showed most same-sex couples raising children are doing so in the South. Or, as Lisa Wade summed up one theory on why lesbians might be more comfortable in the rural south than gay men: “If being “butch” is normative for people living in rural environments, lesbians who perform masculinity might fit in better than gay men who don’t.” There’s also a strong tradition of rural lesbian communes and rural queer women’s lands, which continues today.

I'm not an expert, but can anyone tell me if 'islands of acceptance' are an actual phenomenon? My first thought was that areas where social homosexual acceptance is the norm might exist in rural and urban areas. I thought it also might be more easily advertised/remembered/memified (I don't know the word) if it were a specific town instead of a few streets in San Francisco, but I feel that's tenuous speculation on top of another tenuous speculation, which is why I am asking instead of just expositing.

vfsj6

asksocialscience_test

Can someone explain why U.S. gas prices weren't higher in 2008? Given how high crude oil prices rose, it seems like gas prices should have been even higher than they were. Is it just because U.S. reserves were used, or is there more to it? Chart of crude vs. U.S. gas prices: http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx?city1=USA%20Average&city2=&city3=&crude=y&tme=96&units=us

c5478rz

c548kga

I believe the accepted reason atm is demand. China wants it too, we have to compete for it.

I thought the accepted answer was "because the recession." The drop coincides with the fall of Lehman brothers in Sept 08, which is when the recession really got bad, and thus demand dropped. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932012_global_recession I do not have definitive proof of this in the form of economic analysis. Closest I could find was this. http://blog.gasbuddy.com/posts/Economic-troubles-show-in-oil-demand-statistics/1715-402212-248.aspx

1418op

asksocialscience_test

[Economics] What would be fair, revealing questions that could be asked of advocates of economic policy by a person who knows very little about the field of economics but will be affected by those policies?

c794zxx

c79bo3i

One important differentiation that often goes overlooked is the difference between a policy (ie. the ideology or set principles that we believe will lead to the desired outcome) and a program (the operational mechanism to put these principles into practice).

I work in regulatory issues. I've worked for governments, businesses, and even done some bits of work for the World Bank. I also just got back from a course on international standards in regulatory analysis. This should get you started on how to tear apart any new regulation or law. I'm referencing my documents and notes that I took while taking this international course taught by European professors of public policy, World Bank leaders, and regulatory consultants. A full outline of the current ideal policy development process can be found here. This is the process that is followed in many Western countries to varying degrees of quality and depth. It's frequently not followed for laws, but it makes a useful tool for tearing them apart. The UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, EU, and other countries, regularly produce IA statements for new regulations, so you can see their whole process. The first question that needs to be asked every single time you look at a policy or law and above all before anything else is: What is the problem? A policy should always clearly lay out exactly what the problem is and what are the root causes of the problem. Is it too many people are dying in road accidents? Businesses are unable to compete in a specific market? Too many people are getting sick from tainted food? It's critical that the problem is defined as an adverse affect on people (bad health outcomes, lower wages/wealth, etc). Mindbogglingly, the problem that the policy is trying to solve is sometimes not clearly defined at all, or even worse the problem as its defined is that there is no policy. Second, you should look at the objective of the policy. The policy should draw a very clear relationship between the problem, the causes of the problem, and the objective of the policy. Do the objectives of the policy actually line up with the identified problem and causes? Again, you would be surprised how often this isn't true. Consider a law/policy to increase drug possession penalties: Too many people are sick or injured from doing recreational drugs, because access to drugs is too easy, because recreational drugs aren't illegal enough. Is this link actually well identified? Is it supported by evidence at all? So, if the problem is well-defined and the objectives of the policy make sense then you get to look at possible options. Have the policy makers identified a wide range of policy options? Honestly, this basically never happens. Departments and ministries are often constrained to their mandate and other laws, so broader, more effective policies are often completely ignored. Many policies are written with the policy option in mind, so this step is ignored completely. Think of a law that increases penalties for drug possession (e.g. more jail time). The problem is that many adverse health outcomes are the result of some recreational drug use. Governments almost universally just look at increasing penalties for drug possession or trafficking, but its really obvious that they should at least consider other policy options. Why not treat more drug addicts to reduce the impact on human health? Why not spend more educating people on adverse health effects? Okay, so let's say that now we have a problem, objectives to fix the problem, and a number of solutions. If the policy makes sense so far, it's actually doing better than most. But now, the policy makers need to convince you that they've properly captured and weighed all of the benefits and costs of the policy options. There are lots of possible questions here: How sound is the analysis? Was their any analysis at all? Are there lots of unverified assumptions? Are all stakeholders considered? (A stakeholder is any person, industry, or economic actor that may be affected by the policy) Is the analysis transparent enough to know how they weighed the costs and benefits? Did the policy makers undertake sufficient public consultation? Are all of the costs and benefits properly accounted for? Etc. Honestly, this part of regulatory development is an art into itself. Just weighing the costs and benefits of a new law or regulation can be extremely challenging. For lots of regulations, you can actually look at all of these things through the impact assessment documents. Next, did the policy makers choose the right option given their analysis? It should be absolutely crystal clear from their analysis. For many laws, there is no analysis or more frequently only closed-door consultations. Policy makers often do not provide sufficient rational at all for their final option, and do not make even the most basic results from consultations public. So, even if the government has a policy. How will the government enforce the policy? Obviously a new regulation or law needs someone to make sure people/businesses comply. Also, are the results of the policy/law going to be tracked to see if its effective? Will the policy be scrapped if it's found to be costly and ineffective? So let's say that increasing recreational drug penalties is a legitimate option. How will the government actually enforce this? Make more jail space? increase police budgets? Is the government going to see if it's an effective policy and drop it if it isn't? ---------------------------------- As you can probably imagine, most laws, even in well-developed countries, will abysmally fail a lot of these questions. EDIT: Holy shit, I wrote a novel.

od9qhq

asksocialscience_test

Can local police actually do much to prevent routine crime? Of course, local police can do their best to enforce conventional criminal laws in conventional ways, by responding to calls, patrolling, investigating and arresting suspects. Also, organizations like the FBI can investigate certain forms of organized crime and sometimes white collar crime. These do make a difference, in the long run. On the other hand, in some places in the U.S., crime rates remain high. Everybody has an opinion about crime prevention, and most of those opinions are pretty much fact-free. Is there actual empirical research about what local police can and can't do to prevent routine local crimes, such as assault, burglary, robbery, car theft, and so on? In other words, does anybody really know how to prevent such crimes? To avoid protracted pointless arguments, let's leave domestic violence, drug-related crimes and "victimless crimes" out of the discussion.

h40jat8

h3zot4s

The answer to the question of "Can local police actually do much to prevent routine crime?" depends on what we consider to be "do much." But broadly speaking, yes. The heart of your question concerns a major topic in the academic fields of criminology and policing^(1). I will begin by sharing some facts about criminology, gradually honing into "what works?" in terms of policing. --- A major family of theories which has gained great influence in recent decades within criminology is what Wilcox and Cullen (2018) call **situational opportunity theories of crime** (also see environmental criminology). The basic principles are simple: crime is necessarily the outcome of the intersection in time and space of a motivated offender, an attractive target, and the absence of a capable guardian, and opportunity is a major causal factor (i.e. "opportunity makes the thief"). These principles have clear implications for prevention, hence **crime opportunity theories** are foundational to the approach called **situational crime prevention**, which is in turn associated with policing. Clarke (2012) argues that research on crime opportunity has achieved the following: >1. **It has supported the development of situational crime prevention**, a highly effective means of crime control. >1. **It has helped make credible the claim that the cumulative effect of situational prevention,** whether or not implemented under that label, **has brought about widespread drops in crime in Western countries.** >1. It has helped to clarify that most criminological theories are theories of criminality not theories of crime – in other words, criminological theorizing has been preoccupied with the question of why certain individuals or groups become involved in crime and not the question of why crime occurs. This latter question cannot be answered simply by explaining why some people are more likely to be delinquent or criminal; it must also be explained how situational factors facilitate or encourage the actual commission of criminal acts. >1. It has supported the development of an alternative set of crime (or opportunity) theories that will enable the growth of crime science. And according to Freilich and Newman (2017): >**SCP primarily seeks to solve and reduce crime problems in an action setting.** Newman and Clarke (2003, p. 7) explain that SCP’s approach is similar to that of “operations research” (Wilkins, 1997), in which the researcher works closely with the persons who are actually on the job. Indeed, **SCP’s focus on crime reduction has led to partnerships between academics, police, and practitioners, where SCP principles have been used to guide practice** (see, for example, Braga & Kennedy, 2012; Scott & Goldstein, 2012). **SCP is associated with problem-oriented policing, currently a leading policing strategy** (Eck & Madensen, 2012). **Problem-oriented policing calls for focusing on specific problems to devise proactive strategies to eliminate them** (Clarke & Goldstein, 2002, 2003; see also the extensive collection of Problem-Specific Guides for Police published by the Center for Problem-oriented Policing, many of which are heavily indebted to SCP). --- This leads us to the development of **new models of policing** and of **evidence-led policing**. What you describe at the beginning is associated with what is called the **traditional model of policing**, which is *reactive*. However, there exist other models which have been developed in the past decades, and which are meant to be (more) *preventive*. See for example: * Community policing * Problem-oriented policing * Intelligence-led policing]( https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi248) In the USA, these developments can be traced back to the late 60s and the publication of the [Katzenbach Commission's report, i.e. *The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society*. It is also around that time that we have some landmark experiments involving the police, such as The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment and The Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment which strongly challenged "common sense" ideas about policing, and demonstrated the need for what is now known as evidence-based policing. Currently, we do have collaborations between researchers and police to evaluate police strategies, including experimental studies of what works. For illustration, see the British College of Policing's Crime Reduction Toolkit and George Mason University's Center for Evidence-based Crime Policy's What Works? Summarily, there *are* police strategies which are more effective than others at reducing street crimes, including what are called volume crimes (i.e. those crimes which constitute the majority of offenses, such as assaults, theft, etc.). For illustration, according to a recent Campbell Collaboration Systematic Review, the answer to "Does problem-oriented policing reduce crime and disorder?" is: >**Yes**. The results of this updated systematic review suggest that **POP is associated with a statistically significant overall reduction in crime and disorder of 34%.** >**There are positive impacts for POP across a wide variety of crime and disorder outcomes, among studies that targeted problem places and problem people, at a variety of different units of analysis and featuring a wide array of types of interventions.** The effect size is smaller in randomized experiments and after accounting for publication bias. >POP had limited impacts on police legitimacy, fear of crime, and collective efficacy. **Few studies incorporated cost-benefit analyses, but those that did suggest POP can be cost-effective and provide substantial savings through prevented calls-for-service and incidents.** --- In conclusion, the answer to the following question: >Is there actual empirical research about what local police can and can't do to prevent routine local crimes, such as assault, burglary, robbery, car theft, and so on? In other words, does anybody really know how to prevent such crimes? Is "Yes." --- Wilcox, P., & Cullen, F. T. (2018). Situational opportunity theories of crime. Annual Review of Criminology, 1, 123-148.

Here’s an interesting study that has lots of references that can start you out researching https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3566383 I think an interesting question to ask when measuring things is how do we measure things, and what does that measurement mean. What is prevention/effectiveness?

td055

asksocialscience_test

Why is there a shortage of nurses (at least in the US)? The shortage doesn't just seem to be in nursing, but in nursing education as well. This doesn't make sense to me: in a market, when there's a shortage, we usually see prices rise to reduce demand, which then pulls more people into the industry sending prices back down. Same with nursing education - a shortage should pull people in. The only way this makes sense to me is: 1) this is transitional, and people don't expect the high demand for nurses to persist and thus don't enter, 2) there's some legal quota in place in certain states, or 3) some institutional framework prevents the variation in prices that communicates information (like college tuition being the same regardless of specialty). Which is it? Or something else?

c4lk7ur

c4llozy

Could it possibly be that Nursing is a difficult career and/or the process of becoming a Nurse is difficult? I've heard stories of the stuff you have to know/remember from Nursing students at my local college and I sure as hell couldn't do it.

I know in my area there is the problem of a lack of people teaching nursing. They have to limit the number of nursing students they accept each year, because they don't have enough teachers to have more students. Then the program is very difficult and not 100% of people graduate after their two years. So there are limits in the 'production' of nurses, if you will.

x7whb

asksocialscience_test

[Economics] Can AskSocialScience recommend lightweight, introductory 'popular science' style books on economics? Hey everyone I've recently become very interested in economics and, rather than pouring over textbooks as an introduction, I'd really like some recommendations for pop-sci style books about economics. I know I can find something like this on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Economics-Undressing-Dismal-Science/dp/0393049825 I'm worried about content and quality though which is why I trust reddit to help :)

c5k18vg

c5k0agd

Enthusiasm is great, but please understand that unless you actually read textbooks (and work to understand the maths) you will not be educated in the discipline.

Naked Economics is great, it's what originally got me interested in economics. Freakonomics is good too. After reading them, I recommend a textbook, such as Mankiw's "Principles".

ihgrpy

asksocialscience_test

Is this Tumblr post accurate in claiming that if Walmart paid its employees a living wage, the family that owns it would have to take an 2% cut to their yearly profits, meaning they’d make only 294 million a year instead of 300 million a year? https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/ihgn6s/if_walmart_paid_its_employees_a_living_wage_the/ Is this Tumblr post accurate in claiming that if Walmart paid its employees a living wage, the family that owns it would have to take an 2% cut to their yearly profits, meaning they’d make only 294 million a year instead of 300 million a year? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAcaeLmybCY This is the video linked in the post. It defines living wage as enough no longer qualifying for food stamps. It says that to do this, Walmart would have to raise prices by about 1.4%. It says it's based on data analysis by researchers and statisticians at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, but the link is broken.

g30xpzt

g301kt8

> It says it's based on data analysis by researchers and statisticians at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, but the link is broken. Without comment on the substance of the issue, from this reference the relevant study appears to date from 2007: "Living Wage Policies and Wal-Mart: How a Higher Wage Standard Would Impact Wal-Mart Workers and Shoppers" by Arindrajit Dube, Ken Jacobs, Dave Graham-Squire, and Stephanie Luce.

Thanks for your question to /r/AskSocialScience. All posters, please remember that this subreddit requires peer-reviewed, cited sources (Please see Rule 1 and 3). All posts that do not have citations will be removed by AutoMod. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskSocialScience) if you have any questions or concerns.*

181rag

asksocialscience_test

Should AskSocialScience enact rules and moderate in a way closer to AskHistorians and AskScience? I've noticed that the signal/noise ratio in this subreddit has been getting worse for some time. Purely speculative answers dominate, while cited papers or analysis languish at the bottom. In this recent thread for example, the top comment is purely speculative (though IMHO largely correct), there is a highly rated comment that asserts that labor demand is *upward* sloping, and languishing at the bottom is a comment that points to relevant academic articles. I think it's time this subreddit started started implementing a policy similar to AskHistorians official rules or the AskScience FAQ IMHO, 1st level comments should cite a source (preferably an academic paper, but also magazine articles, or even Wikipedia), or be from a credentialed social scientist in the relevant field. What say you all?

c8av2d8

c8avl56

Well, we already have similar rules to /r/AskHistorians, we just need some changes and fixes. I know it looks like the mods haven't done anything since the last Meta thread but I assure you that we are working in the changes this subreddit needs. Here's what we've been doing (or planning to do): * I'm hiring more mods, I already added /u/besttrousers and /u/Integralds and I'm looking for perhaps two more. * We are going to make some fixes to the rules, which can be seen here * We are going to make some changes to the sidebar and to the "Submit to:" page * Special weekly posts! I hope we can do it all soon, but some of the these things are still just ideas. I will post a more appropriate Mod Post soon as well, in the meantime keep discussing the things you'd like to see, making suggestions and posting your ideas (so we can steal them), that's highly appreciated.

YES. As a panelist on /r/AskHistorians, I say bring the hammer down. Rule with the iron fist encased in velvet. Strong moderation is the only way to ensure quality.

jlcr3x

askvet_test

All pets in the house are itching, but they have no fleas and have all been treated for fleas with collars. We have a 2 year old terrier/hound mix dog, a long haired cat, and three short haired cats all between 3 and 5 years old. They have all had flea treatment and wear sirestro collars with no signs of fleas. For some reason they are constantly itching for the past 3 months and we can't figure out what it is. One cat was itching so bad she ended up getting dermatitis and had to be on an antibiotic and a steroid for 2 weeks. She stopped itching while on those but within 2 days after her treatment she went right back to the itching. We've tried different types of foods including some with probiotics and some that claimed to be for healthy skins and coats. Iams, Hills, and Friskies were some brands. For wet food we've tried Friskies, Iams, and Sheeba. We've tried both tap water and bottled water for them to drink. Nothing has been cleaned with any chemicals. One cat had a stool sample checked and it came back fine, no worms or anything. I don't know what we are missing. I don't think it's a behavioral issue since they're all doing it and there isn't any new stress in their environment and they seem fine otherwise. Could there be some other bug like mites or something that would cause this? We're really at a loss on what to do.

gaomi27

gaoof7a

Have you been flea treating the house and car as well as the animals ?

Are they still wearing their flea collars? Is it possible that they react to the treatment?

zq4thh

askvet_test

Is there something I can give my 20 yr old cat that will just make her feel good? I dunno how to better ask the question. Species:black short hair Age:around 20 yrs Sex/Neuter status:female spayed Breed:n/a Body weight:7lbs History:A year ago she showed just the beginning numbers on some of the values for kidney disease. She began losing the use of her back legs 2 years ago. She has arthritis. She remains ambulatory, but only with her upper body, and her forepaw "wrists" no longer maintain rigidity. She is incontinent and encompretic, wearing cat diapers and requiring assisted dilation of the anus and positioning of fecal matter to facilitate defecation. Clinical signs: She's old and enjoys the little things. I keep her close and am sensative to her needs. Can I give her something that makes her feel good. Steroids perhaps? Duration:Until the end, my friends. Your general location:Nashville TN Links to test results, X-rays, vet reports etc:

j0wy6sd

j0x0p04

You can speak with your vet about sedatives or painkillers for this final phase of her life, if you feel she’s uncomfortable.

It sounds like it’s time to consider her quality of life. Talk to your vet about options, including pain killers, but it may also be time to discuss humane euthanasia.

hs1tpo

askvet_test

I'm worried my new puppy may have vision problems Hello! Recently, my family adopted a 8-week-old, male mini American (Australian) shepherd. This is our first dog, but he seems to be behaving rather normally by our standards. Unfortunately, we believe that he may be experiencing some vision problems. He seems to squint and have a trouble noticing us until we make a loud sound (at first we initially passed this off as him just being an inattentive puppy). He likes to follow, but can often trot off in the wrong direction and lose track of us. He also seems to never chase tennis balls when thrown inside, but will run frenziedly towards the frisbee when it claps loudly against the hard floor. Today, I tried the menace reflex test several times, and received no blink whatsoever. If it helps, attached here are close-ups of his eyes. His pupils look a bit odd, but hopefully they're alright. What should I do? We are scheduling a routine check-up in the near future, but it would be great to hear whether he is okay, and if not, the treatment possibilities. Please let me know if any clarification is needed. Thanks!

fy8wl1q

fy8wd2w

Are both of his parents merles? Have you looked into his pedigree?

Honestly, a vision assessment is best made by a veterinarian during an in-person veterinary exam. In person, an ophthalmoscope can be used by a veterinarian to further examine the eye and may provide valuable insight into your dog's vision and overall health. An ophthalmic exam can be performed by most veterinarians during the initial wellness examination, especially when requested by a pet owner. By 12 weeks of age, your puppy should already have seen a veterinarian of your choosing. If so, contact that veterinarian for additional advice. If not, your puppy should definitely see a veterinarian ASAP. Even if a breeder assured you that your pup received a health assessment and has been totally vaccinated, you really should seek care from a veterinary professional with whom you've established your own veterinarian-client-patient relationship. Hope that helps!

s91j02

askvet_test

The vet said my dog is going to die tonight. Just a little back story, I rescued my Male pit bull from animal services 6 years ago when he was approximately 3 years old. He was found on the street positive with heart worms, he was treated after I adopted him and made a full recovery from that. About 5 months ago He developed a fatty ball on his belly button just above his penis. Probably the size of half an orange fruit. Very squishy and he didn’t seem to be bothered when I touch it . 2 days ago he started acting a little weird as in not eating as much when typically he finishes his whole bowl. Yesterday he through up what looked like, brown almost digested food. On our walk this afternoon I noticed he was bloated and then I checked his belly and the fatty bump was gone. There was probably a little tiny bit of fatty lump the size of a dime that was left. He wasn’t acting normal either. Decided to take him directly to the vet. Finally they call me in to the room to be seen after waiting an hour. The vet came in and saw my dog laying on the floor and the first thing he said was how he could tell immediately my dog is very sick. Vet checked his mouth, very pale. Vet Explained his blood is not traveling. Vet checked poop, looks fine. I did tell the vet about the lump. After one abdominal X-ray the vet immediately knew something was wrong. Took me back to explain the Xray. There’s a mas and fluid pushing his organs. The vet thinks it’s terminal cancer. Vet said it could be liver, not really sure. This vet is very blunt and has been around for a very long time. Vet was explaining that we would need to find out what’s killing him. Recommended a ultra sound but also stated we wouldn’t really know unless they went in with surgery. I also want to mention after the vet checked his blood he seemed like he was blown away at how normal it was. The vet had mentioned anemia killing him but once he looked at the blood he dropped that possible diagnoses. This vet visit was pretty much all over the place and very emotional for me. Ending diagnosis was a mas in his abdomen bleeding and fluid in his abdomen. DR left me with a choice to put my dog down which he recommended or to take My dog home and he will die at home tonight. And the vet mentioned my dog will slip into a coma state. I asked the vet if he was in pain, he said no. decided to take my dog home. The doctor didn’t want to give him medication or even stick a needle to drain anything as he didn’t want to worsen the situation. Also before we left the vet did ask if he got into any toxic things or medication as it causes things like this. My dog isn’t really known to eat anything that isn’t food. He’s very well behaved. I thought about this whole experience alot and it seems like what it’s coming down to is $$ to be able to diagnose properly. So I called around to get an ultrasound but since it’s night time no one is available even at emergency clinics. The plan is to keep him alive through the night so we can atleast do an ultra sound to hopefully get a Diagnosis in the morning. When we got home I cooked up 2 eggs for my dog and he ate them with no hesitation and also drank a good amount. Despite him seeming weak and wanting to lay down he raises his head and gave kisses to my nephew who came over to see him. This dog is loved by many and I do not want to give up on him easy just because he is a dog. I looked at my mom and told her putting him down wouldn’t be an option if this was a human child . We’ve been through so much together and I can tell he is trying his hardest to hold on. It just sucks that I feel like money is meaning life or death for him. I need some input on this situation. Not looking for a diagnosis either. I feel like I am not just being optimistic, I truly feel like there is hope. It doesn’t make sense. My dog was in good health before these last 2 days. Out of no where he just started deteriorating today. Edit* my dog was neutered when I adopted him

htk52k0

htk8neb

So it is not buried under the automod comment - OP posted a link to x-ray: https://www.reddit.com/user/Zealousideal\_Tap\_754/comments/s91oyr/xray/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=ios\_app&utm\_name=iossmf

After seeing that x-ray, I can definitely see why your veterinarian was concerned. I would say listen to your veterinarian, as they will know best even though it may not be the answer you want to hear. But if you want a second opinion, you can always try a different vet if there's one available.

das10j

askvet_test

Our 16yo kitty went missing and we found her under our house..two weeks later. We’re devastated. The odor alerted us to rip out the deck in search for closure. I’d like to retrieve her body and hope my vet could still cremate her. Is that something they would even do and how can we prepare her body?

f1w5ycx

f1x2qi8

Cremation is definitely still possible. I would recommend wrapping the body in a small towel and placing it in a double plastic bag (trash bags, sadly, are fine). This will help reduce the odor and help maintain hygiene. I am sorry for your loss.

She probably went looking for a quiet place to die. Animals do that, don’t feel like you were at fault here. Sorry for your loss.

4sbfch

askvet_test

I'm thinking about going to school to become a veterinarian but i'm not too sure what i'll be getting myself into. What are the hard truths and things people need to know about becoming a Vet before really considering Vet School? Species: Age: Sex/Neuter status: Breed: Body weight: History: Clinical signs: Duration: Your general location:

d58310d

d57zh8g

I always say it is the best job in the world that I would never recommend to anyone who can imagine doing ANYTHING else. The highs are super high and the lows are super low. But you only asked about the lows so ... Financial stress is the most important, IMO. You will be in huge debt with relatively low starting salary and not a huge amount of room for increasing salary unless you own, specialize, or work ER. Paying 1500 a month for 15+ years is a black hole of frustration. Esp when your salary is around 70k (maybe less). Every single day there is the stress of managing cases that you could help but owners limit you due to finances, belief systems, etc ... Giving your patients/clients all you have and the pet dies anyway ... Being called horrible names because you charge for your services ... Calling the police because a client has threatened you or your staff ... Struggling in your marriage because you work long hours and weekends so you miss many dinners, parties, and important events ... Struggling in your marriage and friendships because your work drains you emotionally so you tend to shut down outside the office ... There are good bosses but if you have a shitty one there is nothing to do besides leaving and finding another job and trying not to burn any bridges bc the veterinary community is small and reputation is HUGE ... There is virtually NO oversight to ensure your colleagues practice appropriate medicine and seeing what some "professionals" do can be sickening ... (I'm looking at you, Dr Pol) Finding a job is getting harder and harder each year because schools are cranking out huge numbers of graduates and more vet schools are being built/accredited despite an oversupply of veterinarians in the vast majority of communities. This drives salaries even lower ... Veterinarians have a very high suicide rate by profession. :( Edit : two words

Something that's fairly obvious when you think about it but that people don't often consider is that it isn't just about helping animals - the people are the ones who tell you what's going on, and the ones who have to make decisions about what they will or won't do as far as diagnostics or treatment. So for most areas of vet med, it's as much about dealing with the human aspect as any other job. Also I'll just leave this idea here: You can't care more about the pet than their owner does. It will lead to heartbreak. You'll understand that one if you work in the field long enough. The job can be messy and the hours can be long, it depends on where you end up and where you personally draw the line. There's a general idea that individual veterinarians should overextend themselves by being available on a nearly 24/7 basis, which is fairly toxic to the veterinarians themselves. A lot of practices are shutting this sort of idea down, especially with all of the emergency/specialty facilities available now, but people still have this sort of notion, and get upset when they can't be "fit in" to an already full schedule or seen at 5:59 when the practice closes at 6 for vomiting/diarrhea that has been going on for five days or itchy skin. Most of these things relate to private practice, whether that's equine or companion animal. There are other aspects of vet med too, like production medicine, lab animal, research, etc....that all have their own little issues. The best advice I can give is to shadow, volunteer or work in a few different areas of vet med before making a decision. It's actually required by most veterinary schools in the USA to have exposure to the field and you'd need letters from veterinarians anyhow.

b3dhm4

askvet_test

Newly adopted dog refuses to leave hiding spot to go potty Sorry, this is a long post! I'm at a loss of how to help our new pup. We adopted Mackenzie 15 weeks ago from a shelter. They think she's about 2.5-3 years old. She had a horrible past, they found her in a sewage drain with a litter of her own puppies when she was about ten months old. They were able to adopt out the puppies, but she was left behind in the shelter. They told me that they often had to trick and force her to go back into the kennel after her outside time was over. The first time we met her we couldn't touch her because of how skittish she was. Now, she's gotten a ton better since then and will cuddle on the bed and even greet some of the people that come into the house. It's been a remarkable improvement that I didn't expect to happen for a very long time. However, we're dealing with another issue that I'm worried will affect her physical health. She's still scared of many things like being outside at night and the lights going on or off inside, and she might be scared of doorways. We’re having some problems interpreting all her behavior.Unfortunately, because of this, she likes to hide in her kennel or the side of the bed. This would be fine, except that she doesn't want to leave the hiding spot to go potty (even during the day time) and she isn't going potty in the house either. We can't bribe her to come out with treats or lure her out with the neighbor's dog inside the house for play time (she loves playing with this dog outside). We've tried putting her on a double leash with our other dog so they walk together to the door, but she won't even stand up. So we have to pick her up and carry or pull her out of the spot and bring her outside. I know this is traumatic for her, but I don't know what else to do. It would be easier if she would just pee inside, but she won't. We tried waiting her out and leaving the door open to see if she'd go outside on her own, but after 12 hours hours we have to force her out. We once waited until 18 hours, but she won't go outside. Once she is outside, she's happy. She runs around and plays with the other dogs. We give lots of treats and play time. When she's indoors she will leave her spots for food, water, and attention, but when we move to open the door she hides again. Sometimes when we approach her outside of her hiding spots she will run away from us, other times she wags her tail and waits for pets. I know we're making it worse by forcing the transition, but I'm worried if we just keep waiting it out that she'll have bladder problems. My husband wants to block off her hiding spots, but I don't want to take away the places she feels safe. We have been doing confidence building activities and lots of positive association with her known fears, but it isn't working fast enough for her to transition from her safe space to outside on her own and each time we force it I think we make it worse. We have a vet appointment to try to get some anxiety meds, but have been denied medication before with our other dog (severe separation anxiety that was unable to be worked through with a professional behaviorist) from two vets that said they won’t give anxiety medication to dogs. It has since been explained the me that it’s a cultural belief (I live in Italy). If I get denied again is there another way to help her? I can also get Trazadone and Xanax from the human pharmacy without a prescription, but “self” medicating sounds like a horrible idea that could go really wrong.

eiz2w9n

eiyyynn

Google these both are important and helpful: B.A.T. dog training Dr. Sophia Yin read the articles and you will find this to be literally a Godsend. it was for me. Id give advice but youre better off reading the articles as id just be saying same thing lol

As another commenter said, I'd recommend asking your vet it trying to see if you can get an Animal behaviorist.

g49e6k

askvet_test

Helping cats recover from a traumatic event last night. Hello, last night one of my cats got their paw stuck in a helium birthday balloon, panicked and dashed around the house in a complete panic. This happened about 3am in the morning making me almost poop myself from the sound and scaryness. I had to chase him down, secure him and cut the balloon loose as it was tight on his paw. Two days later he is still in panic mode, he won’t leave his hidey-holes and won’t socialise anymore both with me and his fuzzy brother who also panicked, but recovered the morning after the event. I want to tell him everything is safe, but he won’t eat, sleep or leave his hiding spots anymore. Does he need more time? Should I try to involve his brother that’s 100% ok after the event? I have tried everything I can think of but now he has become the drama king of extreme. He is a cat. Orange. Syberian forest cats. Highly energetic. He is rather stupid and normally eats a lot of food before he becomes the super speed monster. But not now after balloon attack.

fny2dkc

fnwwuiu

Try wrapping him snuggly in a thick towel; holding him til he’s calm and speaking softly. Walk him around the house. Do this often

Was it yesterday or was it two days ago?

sbje7c

askvet_test

What's the lowest maintenance furry and cuddly home pet to get? Hey, I'm a single male who works and spends most of the time at home. What's the lowest maintenance furry and cuddly home pet to get in this case?

hu0ncve

hu0u920

Not a vet, but a cat is your best option. They can freely roam your house so no special containers are needed, easily litter trained, food and water and treats, and they're fun to play with. Another thing to consider is the availability of food and vet care. Cats are obviously super common so your nearest pet store or even grocery store will have plenty of options for supplies. And there's no need for any kind of specialty vet. Try to find a cat rescue or shelter that knows the personality of the cats they're rehoming, they'll be great at matching you up with one that suits your needs. Get two for added fun!

Cat. I'd suggest getting an adult cat that's already socialized - there are tons of them at shelters needing a home, and they don't need as much interaction as a new kitten.

t0iqmq

askvet_test

Going to take my beagle for a hospital stay for a brain infection and want to know if I am doing the right thing. Rosie is a 10 year old beagle who has been dealing with chronic otitis since November. The infection has spread to inner ears and gotten into the brain. We’ve had a CT done and at first was recommended TECA. But now that she’s been having seizures they don’t want to operate until they see if the infection in the brain can be treated with IV antibiotics during a hospital stay with monitoring from a neurologist. After that we would talk surgery to remove the infection but we aren’t there yet. She’s been comfortable at home. Continues to eat and drink and go to the bathroom with no trouble. Walks around sniffing everything is sight as normal lately which is a big improvement from her being completely lethargic. She is on zonisamide for the seizures and Baytril for the ear infections. Has recently had cytology done to confirm Baytril is the correct med for her. Me and my wife are just beside ourselves right now thinking we had a fairly treatable issue and no things are more guarded. They did recommend and MRI but financially we can only afford the hospital stay and future surgery but the addition of the MRI just puts it to a level that we just cannot afford. We are bringing her in on Monday since the neurologist didn’t see a reason that it had to be done today, plus they aren’t in the office on weekends to be able to monitor her. I just want to make sure we are doing the right thing. Even though our GP and the specialist clinic both agree we are doing everything possible. It just feels like I am failing my best friend.

hyawnfu

hyb1rh0

I don't have much background or insight to provide regarding the medical issues your pup is going through but you seem to be doing the best you can for her with the resources you have at this time. Which is definitely not failing! Keep your heads up. You're good people for trying to make sure she gets the best care she can.

To start, I'm not a veterinary neurologist and I've never treated a dog with otitis interna that's spread from the middle/inner ear to the brain. However... I'm a veterinary anesthesiologist (10 years) that supervises a veterinary MRI center (4 years), and I have seen a number of dogs that have presented for imaging for near-comatose states, are diagnosed with a brain infection from inner ear disease, have surgery and treatment are have made REMARKABLE recoveries, to the point that they are nearly normal dogs. It is beyond shocking to me that a patient that cannot even swallow, never mind walk, can be respond so quickly. To be fair, we see patients that don't respond that well too, so I don't want to mislead you that an MRI or surgery is a guaranteed cure. It sounds like your approach is a good one. From your description your pup is improving on Bayril and Zoni, and that's a great thing. I'm not saying that you have to pursue surgery if she is improving. Step-wise treatment plans are generally wise ones. If you don't want surgery, or to be very honest couldn't afford it, that's perfectly OK. There are things I have diagnosed that I wouldn't pursue treatment on my own pet, even though I recommend it. We always offer the best possible treatment option first. But if that's not possible for ANY reason (and I promise 99.9% of vets won't EVER judge you for the reason), that's your decision and it's ok. Many families can't afford a CT, or to see a specialist. Give yourself credit for doing all that you've done for her, and don't 'should' on yourself and blame yourself for what your hearts and brains tell you to do. I hope that she continues to do well and improve. It sounds like you have a good team, and partnership in her care. Best to you and your family. - Dr. E.J.

yezhs1

askvet_test

ET tube size for a polar bear I have no idea how this got this far, but my wife (beautiful as she is) is going down the rabbit hole about what size endotracheal tube you would use to intubate a polar bear after seeing some pictures on fb. This sent me down the rabbit hole after her and we can't find anything. Any help is appreciated.

iu1fu1e

iu1zn9q

According to 'Zoo Animal and Wildlife Immobilization and Anesthesia' (2nd edition): "We typically carry size 8–14 tubes (internal diameter in millimeters) for black bears and 8–18 tubes for brown bears". Here is a report describing endodontic therapy of a canine tooth in a polar bear. They used a 16 mm tube.

THESE are the type of questions we should be receiving in this subreddit!!! Everything else gets the "Please go to your nearest veterinarian" answer.

mn31ms

askvet_test

My dog is decaying in front of my eyes Link to pics https://photos.app.goo.gl/kZsbnzjkkhCykgHW6 What the hell is happening to my dog? I've been taking him to the vet for months now. 6 1/2 year old border collie mix. We live in southern Wisconsin. He has two perfectly healthy doggie siblings. He started last October with just not being his happy hungry self, so vet expressed his anal glands. He continued to not eat much, appetite comes and goes. He started to yelp when we would pet him, but every few days the spot with pain would change. He had stool and urine samples, blood tests, x-ray and ultrasound. Nothing conclusive. Sometimes protein levels would be high, sometimes they weren't. Sometimes he had bacteria, sometimes he didn't. He started getting open sores, crusty spots, fur falling in clumps, random lumps under his skin. Some seemed to be by his lymph nodes, one was along his spine. He is NOT itching, and only occasionally does some licking. Scrapings taken from spots and biopsy of lumps. No mites, no obvious reason for the sores and scabs. Biopsy inconclusive. They couldn't rule out lymphoma, but there was nothing strongly indicating it. He does have a low grade fever and high white blood cell count. There are new sores popping up on a daily basis. I'm currently waiting on results from "better" tests. We've done two kinds of antibiotics with no improvement. Other than that, pain pills that don't really seem to help. My poor guy lays around all day. Sometimes he'll go out for a walk and at least forget about his pain for a little bit. But yeah, if you looked at the pics, you can see he's in agony. Please, I hope someone can figure this out! (If I can get the actual test details, I'll post those.)

gtv857m

gtv8q65

Take him to a specialty vet.

It may be time for a consult with a dermatology specialist or an internal medicine specialist. Has your vet tried any immunosuppressive therapy like steroids?

grwxf9

askvet_test

Is pet insurance/wellness plans worth it for an adult dog with a lot of health problems? My dog Coconut is a 6 year old spayed Maltese mix. We got her from the animal shelter when she was 1 and she’s had... a lot of health issues since then. She had recurrent ear infections, skin problems, knee problems(with her hind leg) and eye infections twice. My parents have already spent so much money on her care, admins we have mostly taken her to Tijuana for ver care, since it’s cheaper. Of course with COVID-19, we haven’t been able to cross the border frequently and I’ve been looking for a vet here that I can take her too. Besides all her medical issues, she also has really bad breath and I want to get her teeth taken care of. I’m set to start a new job in September which will give me more money that I’m hoping to contribute to her care. With all those things considered, is pet care worth it? We’ve hoped around different vets here in the US(mainly using first client gets a free visit coupon) but I’m looking for consistency for her care. Should I get pet insurance and if so what kind? Should I look into wellness plans?

fs1qcuj

fs1soi2

I have pet insurance for my dog who is prone to health issues. If you're pet already has issues, they'll be considered preexisting and won't be covered. But because my dog is high maintenance, she's had other health issues and the insurance has helped a lot!

Let me rephrase my comment. Maybe check out Banfield’s wellness plan. I BELIEVE you can do any of the plans even with “pre existing” conditions.

396dh6

askvet_test

Found a kitten covered in oil a few days ago. She is staying on my porch and keeps having seizures. She is probably 6-8 weeks old. I found her crying and converted in oil. Took her home gave her a bath with dawn to remove the oil. She was grateful. She has worms and fleas so I have been giving her wet food mixed with food grade diatomaceous earth for the worms( she pooped 3 times and I didn't notice any worms in the third poop) I can't have her in my house because I have two adult cats and I don't know if she had any other diseases. She had been doing well over all eating wet and dry food and drinking water. The problem is she keeps freaking out and having seizures. She runs around the porch uncontrollably bumping into things for about 30 seconds to 2 minutes. The first day it happened 4 times and they were 1-2 minutes long and seemed to be bad. Yesterday she had 3 short ones. And today so far she had one short one. I thought it was poisoning from ingesting motor oil but its been 3 days and they and they still happening. I have zero dollars set aside for this kitten. I'm sure if I had to I could find the money to get her vaccines and fixed when the time comes but I can not afford to take her in for tests. Every place that I have called wants a donation or money to have her seen. I just want her to be okay it wasn't my intention to keep her I just couldn't let her walk around covered in oil and not do anything. My main question is how do seizures work when poisoned. Is it normal for them to occur for 3 or more days? Or is this most likely epilepsy or something else? Is there anything I can do to help minimize the seizures? Or does anyone know a place in Central Valley California area that will take a kitten and help them without requiring money?

cs0qiho

cs0tute

The kitten needs veterinary care. Can you put up an online donation thing to make $100 for the shelter? I know I'd contribute.

One approach may be to tell shelters that you are willing to foster the kitten. A lot of shelters won't take in any animals if they don't have room, but may help you take care of the kitten's vet costs and find her a new home when she's better if you can keep her at your house until she's adopted. Either way she absolutely needs to see a vet. Seizures can be caused by lots of different things, not just toxins.

x5mwph

askvet_test

Why does my dog still have fleas after taking Simparica Trio less than 3 weeks ago? Dog, 4 months, neutered, mix, about 25 pounds, fleas seen I brought a dog home a couple of weeks ago. He took Simparica Trio on the 16th. A few nights ago I noticed a flea on me. One flea, not a huge deal. But last night I saw at least 5 either on me or the dog. He's black so it's hard to really see how many might be on him, but he seems itchy, which only really started in the last few days. He was 22lbs the day he took the Simparica so he got the 22-44 lbs dose. I gave all of my cats Revolution last night, but this morning I saw a flea on one of my cats too. None of them ever go outside. Help!

in35a5g

in22vh7

Treating fleas is more complicated than giving a preventative. You’re going to need to give preventative, bathe your dog, and get the environment your dog is in treated for fleas. A flea preventative isn’t going to do much good if your dog is in a flea-infested yard every single day. Get your yard treated for fleas, give your dog a bath in a dog-safe shampoo, and give your dog a monthly preventative.

Not a vet. Might need to bomb your home. DIY pest control places should have some good recommendations for ya. Stay away from large chain retail stores, those products are bunk.

c6yxw2

askvet_test

FDA Investigation into Potential Link between Certain Diets and Canine Dilated Cardiomyopathy Someone sent me this study and it has me a little worried. I’ve fed my golden retriever Taste of the Wild dog food for three years. Vets: how legitimate does this sound to you? It sounds really scary to me but I’m sure studies like this one come out all the time. Any recommendations or advice would be great.

esc6h6p

esckf94

I don’t think I fully understand why “grain free” is the problem. The article didn’t do a great job at explaining WHY this is a problem. Can someone explain why using sources like potatoes/lentils etc is concerning? I saw that the article mentioned taurine, but that’s an amino acid so the protein source in food should cover that? Is there something in wheat/corn that potatoes/lentils are missing? Or is there something in potatoes/lentils that is harmful?

Not a vet... I talked to a vet tech before I got my golden puppy and she told me about this issue. She highly recommended Purina pro plan or Royal Canin. We’ve been feeding our 7 month old golden the royal canin puppy since we brought her home.

lmdq9l

askvet_test

I'm so tired of feeling like I'm fighting the whole veterinary system just to save my cat. I don't know if this is acceptable here or not.... But I'm literally being broken by the veterinary system here in San Diego, it's sapping all my will. I'm emotionally exhausted trying to save my 2 year old Maine Coon. I had to call upwards of 25 vets just to get an ultrasound on a Sunday, to low and behold... Show that the x-rays were useless and my boy had an intusseception. He gets the surgery and they send him home 36 hours later without anti-nausea and when the cerenia and mirtazapine run out he sits there licking his lips and swallowing every 20 seconds, gagging every 10 minutes, won't eat or drink anything.... I call the vet TWICE... 3 hours later still no call back .... I'm sitting here on the floor balling my eyes out ready to throw in the towel. I'm so freaking tired of fighting tooth and nail just to save my babies life in what feels like a heartless system. Six months ago my other cat died waiting 8+ hours for an ultrasound that didn't come until he vomited blood into his lungs.

gnv8hct

gnv3kf2

I'm sorry you and your pet are having such a hard time. I hope my thoughts come across as kind, because i don't want you to be more stressed than what you already are. If I read your post correctly he has been treated for the most serious issue, the intussusception, by the ER clinic? That's great! Generally after discharge from an ER a recheck is scheduled for follow up with your GP. Do you have any info on that yet? If not I would imagine you will have a call in the morning to schedule it. When was he discharged? If he was just discharged a few hours ago, he is probably still well hydrated from his ER stay. If he's nauseaus and stressed from the last few days he's not going to eat. Even with medication he might not eat right now. Overall it sounds like you've been through the worst of everything, so try to take heart in that. We're all suffering now because of Covid, humans, pets, even wildlife and zoo animals. The vet community is doing the best we can with what we have. The system isn't broken, it's just bottlenecked because there aren't enough resources. We already were in need of more vets, technicians, and staff before Covid. The pandemic has just compounded everything. Hopefully things will begin to improve this year. I don't think any person in vet med is happy with how things are currently in the US.

It's easy to blame "the system". But what is "the system"? Lack of veterinarians? Lack of techs? Lack of ultrasound specialists? Most techs leave to go into human medicine because they cannot survive off the wage and are burnt out by the clients abuse. Not a lot of people can afford vet school, or are in huge debt after graduation. When we do graduate we get told it's a "money grab", it's "too expensive", blah blah but expect exceptional patient care similar to human medicine. Unfortunately this field doesn't get paid enough. People get insurance but complain about paying $30-75 a month for pet insurance and then scream at us for not being able to treat their pets. If only we get the same amount of respect as human doctors/nurses perhaps more people would actually be in this field. If one clinic is unable to see you or unresponsive go to another one. It's nobody's fault we are stretched thin.

a9ixth

askvet_test

Vets...what are the most popular breeds you see on a day to day basis? What rare breeds you dont see as often? Is there any particular breed that has a certain stereotype of owner? Just something I’m curious on

ecjvjwz

eck1iuw

Not a vet but a vet tech whose been in the business for almost 4 years now. The most popular breeds I see are probably labs, australian shepards, and mutts that are a mix of many different breeds. I live in the DC suburbs and there tends to be more mutts in this area though, so that might be why. It’s hard to say which breeds are the least popular, but there aren’t many large breed dogs such as Great Danes, Newfoundland’s, and st. Bernard’s as they can be so hard to maintain. As for the stereotypes, the only thing I’ve noticed is that the owners of small dogs (shitzu, yorkie, etc.) that come in wearing bows and dresses tend to be super rude. I know there’s more than that, but I can’t seem to think of any at the moment. I’d be curious to see what other people say! Édit; Dalmatians are super rare! I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve seen Dalmatians in my entire life.

Vet tech - Mostly we see lab mixes and pit mixes. I’ve seen so many breeds over my career, breeds are sometimes very “trendy.” Frenchies are popular now, we’ve seen a lot of huskies the pst few years too. We are located near a Petland (puppy mill pet store). We see a lot of very sick “purebred” puppies. I can spot a Petland pet a mile away at this point, and most owners will rarely approve treatment because they just dropped $3000 on the puppy - won’t pay us $500 to treat the sickness. The dogs appear to look like their breed, but often have some subtle appearance changes that scream “inbred.”

gqw5li

askvet_test

Starting my first day as a vet assistant So today will be my first day being a vet assistant and I’m a little overwhelmed at how much there is to do. I’m a slower learner and I don’t want to seem as if I’m taking too long to learn the routine. I’m just starting training today. Is there any advice anybody could give me?

frvb2qw

frvdzew

No one expects you to get everything perfect. Of course you will have a training period, but the real training extends beyond that. You will be learning the necessities of your job for at least six months or more. Be open and honest with the other staff and your doctor(s) if you don't know how to do something or if you don't know what something is that they ask you about. When you're dealing with living animals it's all about safety first, so listen extra hard when they're teaching you about safety. Safety and holdling is honestly 75% of the job

Have a notebook, use it for what you need to do, writing how to do things, cool cases etc. Have spare pens (vets are always stealing them off nurses over here :p ) make sure you take breaks and eat/ drink. Asking how you can help is not going to cause problems unless you're doing it constantly. Other general workplace etiquette like don't use your phone etc

vfwmgj

askvet_test

My dog accidentally ate an entire pizza. Can someone please let me know if he will be okay and any potential warning signs to watch out for? Okay, so yesterday evening my dog, Hudson, got into an unopened box of pizza. My son was in the same room and supposed to make sure Hud didn’t get into it, but apparently got preoccupied on his tablet and stopped paying attention. I went to sleep before this happened so only found out this morning. But Hudson sleeps with me in my hospital bed. (Bad car wreck a year and a half ago). I woke up at 4 am this morning and noticed Hudson had gas and sounded like stomach ache/growling noises. I’ve always heard dogs are lactose intolerant and that’s why they can’t eat chocolate so I’m worried about Hudson. All pizza & dog details below: Hudson 4 years old Goldendoodle symptoms noticed at 4 am - they are mild , nothing severe or constant. Gas seems to be gone now Stomach noises still persist maybe every 15-20 minute *note: there has been no vomiting or diarrhea The Pizza 1/2 was pineapple and Italian sausage for my wife 1/2 was bacon and mushroom for my son Can someone here please let me know if there is any thing I should look out for and if this could hurt or make hud seriously sick?

icylpwb

icyocjw

Same pup same. Totally an accident. Your boy will probably have some GI upset.

Dogs are not supposed to eat chocolate because of the cocoa, not the milk products.