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17,057 | Lately, social media has been flooded with all sorts of "facts" about abortion. This one in particular caught my attention: 42% of yearly deaths in the world are from abortion A worldwide crisis I don't want this to degrade into an argument about what "death" is, so for the sake of the clarity assume abortion is death. Is this statistic correct? | No , the picture is not accurate. No, “42% of yearly deaths in the world” are not from abortion. As Avi’s answer shows, the raw numbers are about right, albeit with a big uncertainty attached . However, the percentages are wrong because the 42% implies that the “total number of deaths” = “number of deaths after birth” + “number of abortions”. This is inaccurate. There is at least one additional factor: As many as 50% of all pregnancies are miscarried before coming to full term – most (about 60%) due to chromosomal aberrations . If we count pre-birth deaths in our statistic, then we also need to count those miscarriages. According to the CIA World Factbook , the birth rate in 2012 was 19.15 per 1000, that’s 135.97 million births, and consequently about 135.97 million miscarriages. If we add the numbers, we find that abortions account for 20% yearly deaths in the world , not 42% as claimed (and this isn’t even accounting for the fact that of those 20%, some would have miscarried anyway). Of course this is assuming that we count prenatal deaths as “deaths” at all, and as can be seen from the statistics on mortality rate, this is not normally done . The most we can honestly say is that “there are 0.72 as many abortions as there are (postnatal) deaths (= 72%)”. But presenting these 42% as part of the overall deaths is wrong, as I’ve shown above. In statistics, presentation matters. Here’s a summary: (The numbers differ slightly from those in Avi’s answer since I’m using the “42%” number from the question to calculate abortions but the principle doesn’t change.) | {
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17,194 | I have heard of stories where, while giving injection to patient, a doctor forgot to remove all the air from the syringe. The patient died when the air reached to brain. Can injecting air into a vein with a syringe cause death? | Yes What you have described is an air embolism. Incidences and cases of this happening has been recorded in several different procedures with some like seated posterior fossa surgery with a rate as high as 80%. 1 The variability in amount of air is because of the possible mechanisms by which it can cause death. 1 If a small amount of air is injected it forms micro emboli which can
now either cause gradual obstruction to blood flow or spontaneous
resorption , which again depends upon rate and volume of air
entrained, comorbid conditions causing ventilation-perfusion defect. A larger amount of air but remaining in venous circulation can
cause obstruction of right ventricular outflow tract leading to
cardiac arrest. But when a large amount of air gets trapped on the right side it can
increase the pressure in right atrium causing right to left shunting
through foramen ovale giving access to arterial circulation. For the last point its important to know that upto 35% of adults have been reported having undiagnosed patent foramen ovale. 2 As for arterial embolism, experimental procedure on dogs showed injecting 1 to 1 1/4 ml/kg of air in cerebral arterial circulation can cause mortality in 50%. 3 Rukstinant reported ventricular fibrillation on injecting 0.25 ml of air in coronary arteries. 4 Scientific literature on the amount of air for air embolism (venous). A case report in 2001 discussing the volume of air required stated that: THE morbidity and mortality rates from venous air embolism is
determined by the volume of air entrained, the rate of entrainment,
and the position and the cardiac status of the patient. As early as
1809, Nysten estimated the lethal dose of air to be 40–50 ml in a
small dog and 100–120 ml in a large dog. The exact amount, 7.5 ml/kg,
however, was not determined in dogs until 1953 by Oppenheimer et al.
In l963, Munson et al. demonstrated a lethal volume of only 0.55
ml/kg in rabbits. The lethal volume of air in an adult human is
unknown but is estimated to range from 200 to 300 ml. These numbers
are derived from the cases of fatalities reported by Martland, Yeakel,
and Flanagan. This case reported the volume as 200 ml and note Flanagal had reported around the same in 1969. 5 Finally, coming to the case air-bubble in syringe. (Because your question also had injecting air in vein, so that was first). In 2013 nobody (without a malicious intent) would deliberately inject air. Accidental injecting instead of contrast has been reported. Some syringes which come with prefilled air has been asked to expel them during manufacturing prior to packaging to avoid this rare adverse event, although this can be expelled manually prior to injecting by the healthcare personals. 6 Palmon, S. C., Moore, L. E., Lundberg, J., & Toung, T. (1997). Venous air embolism: a review . Journal of clinical anesthesia, 9(3), 251-257. Hagen, P. T., Scholz, D. G., & Edwards, W. D. (1984, January). Incidence and size of patent foramen ovale during the first 10 decades of life: an autopsy study of 965 normal hearts. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 59, No. 1, pp. 17-20). Elsevier. Fries, C. C., Levowitz, B., Adler, S., Cook, A. W., Karlson, K. E., & Dennis, C. (1957). Experimental cerebral gas embolism. Annals of Surgery, 145(4), 461. Rukstinat, G. (1931). Experimental air embolism of the coronary arteries . Journal of the American Medical Association, 96(1), 26-28. Toung, T. J., Rossberg, M. I., & Hutchins, G. M. (2001). Volume of air in a lethal venous air embolism. Anesthesiology, 94(2), 360-361. Marsh, M. (2007), Risk of air embolism from prefilled syringes . Anaesthesia, 62: 973. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2044.2007.05245.x | {
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17,309 | From here : Modern Western Medicine is all about chasing symptoms, rarely addressing causes ... and from here : Western medicine misses the point and attacks symptoms, not root causes Western medicine focuses on the symptoms . [...] Very rarely does Western medicine (allopathic medicine) actually seek or treat the root cause of disease . | I assume by conventional medicine, you mean medicine. Here are examples of medicine treating more than symptoms, but actually treating the underlying causes or preventing the disease/illness/addiction/etc. altogether: Antibiotics kill the bacteria causing the infection; they don't just stop your cough. In the case of recurrent infections (urinary tract infections, for example), medicine considers the underlying causes and recommends lifestyle and diet changes . Orthopaedic surgery fixes the broken bone or soft tissue; it doesn't just take the pain away. Sports medicine necessarily considers the sports-related causes of morbidity to help the athlete maintain fitness, return to activity, and avoid recurrent injury. Preventive medicine includes public policy decisions to help lessen abuse of alcohol, drugs, or tobacco, to increase food safety, and to decrease malnutrition, among other things. Vaccines are given to a healthy body with no symptoms making it immune or more resistant to specific diseases. | {
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17,407 | Is the use of cannabis/marijuana/THC associated with risks when driving a motor vehicle, similar to impairment from the use of alcohol? The conclusions of public studies seem inconsistent. For example, norml.org's Marijuana and Driving: A Review of the Scientific Evidence : Although cannabis intoxication has been shown to mildly impair psychomotor skills, this impairment does not appear to be severe or long lasting. In driving simulator tests, this impairment is typically manifested by subjects decreasing their driving speed and requiring greater time to respond to emergency situations. Nevertheless, this impairment does not appear to play a significant role in on-road traffic accidents . A 2002 review of seven separate studies involving 7,934 drivers reported, “Crash culpability studies have failed to demonstrate that drivers with cannabinoids in the blood are significantly more likely than drug-free drivers to be culpable in road crashes.” This result is likely because subject under the influence of marijuana are aware of their impairment and compensate for it accordingly, such as by slowing down and by focusing their attention when they know a response will be required. This reaction is just the opposite of that exhibited by drivers under the influence of alcohol, who tend to drive in a more risky manner proportional to their intoxication. This appears to be well supported by a number of studies including the well reputed Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs. 2002. Cannabis: Summary Report: Our Position for a Canadian Public Policy. Ottawa. Chapter 8: Driving Under the Influence of Cannabis, which states: Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in
automobile driving. Cannabis leads to a more cautious style of driving. However it
has a negative impact on decision time and trajectory. This in itself does not mean
that drivers under the influence of cannabis represent a traffic safety risk; and UK Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (Road Safety Division). 2000. Cannabis and Driving: A Review of the Literature and Commentary. Crowthorne, Berks: TRL Limited, which according to norml.org states: There is no evidence that consumption of cannabis alone increases the risk of culpability for traffic crash fatalities or injuries for which hospitalization occurs, and may reduce those risks. And a golden oldie by the US DOT in 1993 "Marijuana and Actual Driving Performance" , states: THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small. However, other studies have found otherwise: "The impact of cannabis on driving." Bédard M, Dubois S, Weaver B., Public Health Program, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON. [email protected] states: Cannabis had a negative effect on driving , as would be predicted from human performance studies. This finding supports the need for interventions to decrease the prevalence of driving under the influence of cannabis, and indicates that further studies should be conducted to investigate the dose-response relationship between cannabis and safe driving. Science Daily "New Study Shows Cannabis Effects On Driving Skills" (Mar 1, 2013) Cannabis is second only to alcohol for causing impaired driving and motor vehicle accidents . ... These cannabis smokers had a 10-fold increase in car crash injury compared with infrequent or nonusers after adjustment for blood alcohol concentration. and Science Daily "Cannabis Use Doubles Chances of Vehicle Crash, Review Finds" (Feb 10, 2012) Drivers who consume cannabis within three hours of driving are nearly twice as likely to cause a vehicle collision as those who are not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, claims a paper published recently on the British Medical Journal website. It is possible that the conclusions of the above studies are consistent, perhaps because although THC only slightly impairs motor skills that slight impairment leads to a significant increase in the risk of a motor vehicle accident. Otherwise it would be helpful to understand the nature of the inconsistency. | This is a thorny question, both because it is a politicized issue, and because the effects of cannabis use while driving are less well studied than the effects of alcohol, and appear to include a number of confounding factors. Overall, my survey of the literature suggests that there are two questions, which have (surprisingly) different answers: Does marijuana consumption make it more difficult for a driver to operate a motor vehicle?
The answer to this question is Yes . Does marijuana consumption prior to operating a motor vehicle increase the risk of serious injuries or death during operation? The answer to this question is probably No , and at best that much more study is needed. Certainly it is nothing like the same risk increase as driving drunk. Justification for claim 1 : There are a number of studies on the subject, and you've cited several of them in your question. The WHO report here offers a reasonable overview of the state of research circa 1997, and concludes: There is sufficient consistency and coherence in the evidence from
experimental studies and studies of cannabinoid levels among crash
victims to conclude that there is an increased risk of motor vehicle
crashes among persons who drive when intoxicated with cannabis. However, as noted in a 1999 meta-study out of John Hopkins (which I consider to be an exceptionally well done paper in general, not just on this topic), the studies considered in the WHO report ...were for experimental studies and descriptive studies of cannabis prevalence in drivers. In themselves, such studies do not establish a casual association between cannabis use and motor vehicle crashes. That is, the studies cited by the WHO report were either experimental in nature (e.g., giving subjects controlled doses of cannabis and then measuring their driving abilities in a controlled environment), or studies that simply showed "lots of dead drivers have cannabis in their system" (which cannot show that lots of cannabis consumers who drive end up dead). The John Hopkins study cites another meta-study (Smiley 1986), which I cannot find an online source for, indicating that among other things, THC impairment of driving skills is present only during an extremely brief time after consumption. This is consistent with the measured half-life of 0.1 hours in blood mentioned slightly earlier in the paper. However, the meta-study does confirm impairment during acute exposure, and this result appears to be broadly upheld in more recent research. Interestingly on this point, studies attempting to find a safe limit for driving while under the effects of THC (e.g., here ) suggest a limit of 7–10ng/ml. For reference, a typical inhaled dose used in studies takes about 2 hours to decay to this value. Interestingly, alcohol does not have a half-life in blood, and is instead removed at a linear rate, possibly explaining the difference in effect lengths (see here ). So what we can conclude from this is that the experimental and descriptive studies in the WHO report and elsewhere do show some evidence that drivers will be impaired briefly following the consumption of cannabis. Justification for claim 2 : The main reason that there doesn't seem to be an increase in traffic accident rates after consuming cannabis, even though there is a measurable decrease in ability to drive safely, is that such drivers appear to drive more cautiously. The John Hopkins meta-study establishes this by considering a very large number of epidemiological studies together, along with evidence from experimental studies like those mentioned in part 1 above and, after accounting for other risk factors and confounding, concludes that: There is no evidence that cannabis consumption increases the risk of culpability for injury or death while driving, and that in fact, such risks may be slightly reduced. (CI for the odds ratio includes 1.0, but with mean below it.) There is evidence that there may be an interaction between cannabis and alcohol, which impairs drivers more than either drug alone, and leads to increased accident risk. However, this relationship is unclear, in part because of confounding factors like frequent misclassification caused by police preferentially attributing fault to drivers under the influence (as opposed to the other party in an accident), and to delays in blood testing which make it difficult to determine whether a party was in fact experiencing the symptoms of cannabis exposure at the time of the accident, or not (the exponential decay means that even small errors in the test equipment can produce large errors in the estimated time of consumption). Cannabis consumption might lead to an increased risk of minor accidents (these being less rigorously reported and recorded). However, the evidence for this claim is not conclusive. This result is in broad agreement with other more modern studies. For example, a 2005 study finds that while a naive analysis shows a strong relationship between cannabis consumption and accident rates, this relationship disappears when other risk factors (seat-belt use, alcohol consumption, speed, and sleepiness) are taken into account, and cannabis is instead found to have a mild (and not significant) 0.8 OR protective effect. In contrast, studies that do not account for other risk factors, like this one continue to find correlations between cannabis use and accident rates, but I would consider their methodology flawed because they do not account for known confounders. Another interesting 2010 study supports all these findings as well: cannabis does impair driving ability immediately following exposure; effects do not last long; drivers compensate strongly for their impairment; alcohol and cannabis together may increase accident risk more than either alone. Its recommendation is that users be advised by doctors to wait an hour or two after consumption before driving. So overall, it looks like driving while high is probably not a good idea (frankly, I can't imagine it being a fun experience), but is probably not risking your life or the lives of other people in anything like the same way as driving drunk. There are however a lot of confounding factors, and indisputably driving safely will be more difficult immediately following consumption, for 1-2 hours. | {
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17,409 | This article has been going around social media being touted as news. Husband Convicted Of Manslaughter After Dutch Oven Goes "Horribly Wrong" According to the story: The case for the prosecution argued for the charge of Murder, putting it to the court that, ... Mrs Flannery was ... in bed and unwinding for sleep, she was suddenly and forcibly pinned under the duvet by Mr Flannery, who sealed the edges with his weight while simultaneously releasing an enormous bolus of flatulence, which displaced all the available oxygen so that Mrs Flannery passed out nearly instantly, and was dead within 30 seconds Is it possible to kill someone with a fart? Did this event actually happen? | No, this is satire. But, it's possible that it happened and hasn't been reported anywhere. You need to look at the source of the original article. In this case, it's a site called The Ronson Writer . They are a spoof news site along the lines of The Onion and The Shovel. Their About page says: The Ronson Writer is an online newspaper and collective blog about the absurd state of modern popular culture. Part satire , part opinion and part vaguely-verified factual reporting, but always (we hope) at least mildly amusing. (Emphasis mine.) Other "news" articles include other obviously fictional stories like A study released today reveals that the London Metropolitan Police are 7 times more likely to arrest a black cloud of smoke, such as the one that loomed over London last week, than a common white or gray smokestack from, say, a middle-class suburban house-fire. | {
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17,451 | In Lords and Ladies , fantasy author Terry Pratchett repeatedly states that chain-mails are not a good protection against arrows: chain-mail from the point of view of an arrow can be thought of as a series of loosely connected holes. And: Chain-mail isn't much defence against an arrow. However, the chain-mails I've seen seemed to be rather dense and I would guess that they might provide some protection against arrows. On Wikipedia , it states that: When the mail was not riveted, a well placed thrust from a spear or thin sword could penetrate, and a pollaxe or halberd blow could break through the armour. This implies that it requires precision. How much protection against arrows did chain-mail offer? | Maille Construction in Renaissance
Europe Another weakness of maille armor is its
vulnerability to thrusts from pointed weapons,
arrows, and crossbow bolts, which could easily split butted rings. Riveted rings of course
were significantly more resistant but could still be pierced if the projectile hit with
sufficient force. (Note: Modern day tests made by various reenactment groups have
demonstrated that a bow fired arrow will punch holes through maille constructed of
butted steel rings while maille made with riveted steel rings will resist the same arrow.) This seems like an attempt at an accurate test and although the test is imperfect I hope you find it informative: Conclusion: Good maille is very effective against arrows and is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to cut with a sword. However, it is no match for heavy polearms such as the poleaxe, and swords with very acute points can at the very least draw blood without much effort. A good thrust from such a sword can kill. The part which begins with, "This part of the tests focuses on a combination of maille armor over a padded gambeson" has photos to show the difference between very good compared with mediocre riveted mail. The "very effective", which he says is the conclusion, is relative: his best (for the arrows) test result was: 70lbs, 15 feet: 2 out of three arrows pierced the maille/gambeson and imbedded themselves in the pell. The third arrow broke two links but bounced off, stopped by the gambeson underneath. Youtube videos may only be demonstrating the ineffectiveness of modern, butted mail. In particular, Pratchett may have been wrong when he wrote, " a series of loosely connected holes ". Instead it's a tightly-connected weave of riveted rings, supplemented by multi-layer cloth padding underneath and/or on top; apparently, cloth armour resists arrows: Bow Against 10x Jack I did not test the bow vs. the thicker jacks, because the 10 layer jack stopped the 70lb compound bow at 20 feet 3 out of 3 times. I believe that a sharp arrow such as a medieval broadhead (which would have no chance of defeating maille) would be able to penetrate a jack, but the arrows I had just bounced off. [...]
Where the jack rally shines is against arrows. Even a 10 layer jack stopped my arrows cold, and I believe medieval bodkins wouldn’t fare any better. These tests have gone a long way towards convincing me that the jack was used primarily as a defense against arrows. | {
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17,519 | WARNING: DON'T VISIT THE LINK BELOW ON AN IPHONE A colleague of mine, who works in the technology field, told me that there is a specific text string that can crash any iPhone (specifically iOS 6) which tries to display it. He alleges that the string will crash Safari if it's on a web page. But of greater impact, if it is messaged to an iPhone it will cause the messaging app to crash every time it's opened. He also sent me a link that is supposed to make iPhones crash . The colleague who told me about this is a reasonably smart guy, with a degree in computer science specialising in security (among other things), so I consider him a trustworthy source. Does this string in the above link crash iPhones? | Yes , but this is a newly reported bug on OS X 10.8.4 and iOS 6.1.3 that affects CoreText API so it will likely be fixed in the near future. The text linked to is the same as appears in a screen shot on the Ars Technica article : The article then goes on to explain the following: There's a new bug in town, and it's here to crash your Mac and iPhone
applications. Posters in a HackerNews thread from late yesterday have
discovered that it's possible to crash Web browsers and other apps
running on current versions of iOS and OS X by making them render a
specific, nonsensical string of Arabic characters. The title of the
HackerNews thread implies that the issue is with the WebKit browser
engine, but it actually affects any browser or application that uses
Apple's CoreText API to render text. Ars Microsoft Editor Peter Bright
has taken great pleasure in sending the text string to his co-workers,
which has crashed the Limechat IRC client and Adium chat client, among
other programs. The article also mentions that iMessage uses the CoreText API so it is also affected by the bug. MacLife also reported on the problem and mentions that this error also affects the system when Wi-Fi hotspot names are displayed as well. | {
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17,547 | It's a popular meme, "in Australia everything tries to kill you" , often backed up by the list of dangerous animals, such as box jellyfish, variety of spiders, salt water crocodiles and sharks. However it's purely anecdotal, and one could imagine similar list for example for US. Do statistics actually confirm that Australians are more likely to be hurt or killed by animals, than people in the other regions of the world? Update: As it's not clear how one would measure "more danger". I'd say attacks per capita and fatalities per capita would be good metrics for comparison. | TLDR : No. Australia's most deadly animals are in fact foreign. Below is a break down of animal deaths in Australia. First native animals and then non-native animals. Where discrepancies exist in the data, both values are stated. Native Animals Snakes : With 41 recorded deaths between 1980 and 2009 (source 1) (or 53 from 1979-1998(source 2)), snake deaths in Australia average out at less than two per year. Spiders : Nobody in Australia has died from a spider bite since 1981 after the successful introduction of antivenom for all native species. (source 4) Sharks : Accounted for 25 deaths between 2000 and (March) 2012 in Australia, about 2 a year. (source 1) Or 216 in 227 years (source 6). Crocodiles : Historically, crocodiles account for less than one death per year here in Australia, although that is increasing slightly as the crocodile population rises following the ban on crocodile hunting in 1971. Blue Ringed Octopus : Just 3 recorded deaths in the last century (source 1). Or 2 (source 7). Stonefish : One unconfirmed death by stonefish in 1915. (source 5) Cone Snails : 0 deaths - ever (source 1). Killer Jellyfish : Jellyfish account for (at time of writing) 66 deaths since records began in 1883. The box jellyfish was responsible for 64 deaths, and the Irukandji the other two. It sounds a lot, but still less than one death per year, more like just half a death per year. (source 1) Dingo : 3 deaths between 1980 and 2012. All children. (source 9) Non - Native Animals : Horses : Around 20 people a year die from horse riding accidents (source 1). Or 40 over 6 years (source 8) Cows and Bulls : 20 in 6 years or 3 per year. (source 8) Bees : Around 2-10 people per year in Australia die from European Honey Bee stings after going into anaphylactic shock. Domesticated Dogs : 12 over 6 years or 2 per year. (source 8) Sources: (1). http://www.bobinoz.com/migration-advice/australias-killer-creatures-the-truth-about-deaths/ (2). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_snake_bites_in_Australia (3). http://www.avru.org/general/general_fatals.html (4). http://australianmuseum.net.au/Spider-facts (5). http://australianmuseum.net.au/Reef-Stonefish-Synanceia-verrucosa-Bloch-Schneider-1801 (6). http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/shark-attacks-in-australia-timeline.htm (7). http://www.aims.gov.au/docs/projectnet/blue-ringed-octopus.html (8). http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/dangerous-wildlife/2008/07/04/1214951042706.html (9). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo_attack | {
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17,655 | Dr. Roy Spencer , a climate change contrarian, posted this graph on his blog claiming that observed temperature trends are much lower than what climate models predict: Is Spencer misrepresenting what the mainstream models predict? If so, how? Is the observed temperature trend on the graph representative of the data sets used by climate scientists? I looked at the National Climate Data Center web-site, but there are so many different data sets, and I hardly know enough about climate science to know which ones to look at and how to interpret them. I looked at Skeptical Science's article about Roy Spencer , and found plenty of articles concerning his arguments and his 2010 paper in Remote Sensing, but found nothing concerning this more recent post. This blog comment says RCP 8.5 -- the highest RCP -- was used. But I have no idea what this means or how it invalidates or misrepresents the output. Update: I found this here which makes it look like there is little difference in end CO2 concentration for the different RCPs at least till 2025. What is Spencer doing to get this graph? Is he cherry picking climate data? Misrepresenting the model's predictions, or is it accurate? | There are at least three issues here which contribute to the large differences which Spencer describes. First, there's a highly misleading aspect to the chart. People not familiar with the subject, or who just glance at the chart quickly might conclude that experimental data show essentially no change even though all the climate models are predicting significant temperature increases - which would indicate that global warming isn't really occurring. This is not what the chart shows. In fact, Spencer has selected temperature predictions and measurements just for a specific part of the atmosphere, over a specific part of the earth: The middle of the lower atmosphere (the mid-troposphere) Near the equator (between 20 degrees north and south of the equator). He did not make it clear in the post that he's focusing on this single value. While people who are knowledgeable in the field will notice what's being plotted, he's implicitly suggesting that predicted temperature increases are consistently much higher than observations, which is not true. Without speculating on whether this is intentional, he is certainly aware that many people will see (and share) the chart as-is, without understanding what it's truly saying. A more global comparison clearly shows the models are working quite well: Second, there is some truth in the chart. There is a known discrepancy between tropical tropospheric temperature predictions and observations. This has been recognized for years, so it's nothing new. There's some discussion here which explains the issue and sums it up by saying it's not clear whether it's caused by inaccuracies in the models, inaccuracies in the temperature data, or some combination of the two: The apparent model-observational difference for tropical upper tropospheric warming represents an important problem, but it is not clear whether the difference is a result of common biases in GCMs, biases in observational datasets, or both. Third, there's some clear cherry-picking: He has focused on a single temperature - the tropical mid-troposphere. That means he's looking at atmospheric temperatures in a particular range of elevations, within a particular range of latitudes. Thus, he's ignoring all other temperature predictions and measurements, which present a much different picture as shown in the chart above. He has chosen not to illustrate areas where the consensus model predictions are understating the severity of climate change, for example polar ice melting or global sea level rise - which are occurring much faster than models predict. source source (pdf file) He has used the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 predictions from all the models. There are 4 standard CO2 emissions scenarios used in climate modeling, all of which are considered possible. Here is a good summary of what RCP means Of the four, 8.5 represents the highest CO2 emissions, thus the greatest climate change: The worst case scenario - RCP8.5 - assumes more or less unabated emissions. While the difference isn't particularly large in the early years, it is clear that he intentionally selected the RCP value which results in the greatest predicted increases because that will maximize the difference between predictions and observations | {
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17,695 | I came across this picture on Facebook. The image claims to have been taken from a NASA satellite. I am skeptical this is correct, and if it is, does it show the ice sheet has increased in size during this period?? | Technically, yes. Is this an actual measure of anything useful? No. This is an example of an extreme version of data cherry-picking. The explanation is very simple. The level of sea ice fluctuates. 2012 was an extremely bad year for sea ica - really really bad. It was down, at its lowest to barely half what it normally is. Given that, it was absolutely certain that 2013 would be a better year for sea ice than 2012, and a number of people have posted the fact in an attempt to convince us that sea ice isn't decreasing - which, if you look at more than a one year comparison, it clearly is. The 2013 figures are still way down compared with the average of the last 30 years. The posting does serve to refute exaggerated claims made last year from equally misleading data that sea ice would be gone in a few years. Given today's date, I'll make this comparison - it's like posting the number of murders in New York for September 2002, and claiming that because it's far fewer than the previous year, crime must be on a downward trend. tl;dr The posted factoid is a massively misleading case of selected data, and certainly doesn't indicate any reversal of global warming. Reference for all this is this article from Slate . | {
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17,743 | Ask most anybody about dogs or cats, and they will repeat the claim that these animals are colorblind. To most, it means greyscale. Is it true that cats ( ref 2 ) and dogs ( ref 2 , ref 3 ) only see in grayscale ? I've noticed that my cats somehow don't seem to see very well, although at night they play with each other without any light at all. | TL;DR : The claim is actually false. Cats and Dogs (as well as many other animals) just see the world differently from humans . We would call them colourblind, but not greyscale colorblind. I run into this claim A LOT, so I feel that it is indeed a great skeptical claim. At the very least a teaching moment to introduce what skepticism means since this is such a common belief which people can change because their worldview isn't tied too much to animals seeing in greyscale versus dicromatic scales. Okay, on to the answer. Overall, a great explanation of how human color vision came to be can be found on this University of California Santa Cruz site . In particular, it talks about the Opsin evolution of trichromatic sight. Of particular note is that evolutionarily, trichormatic and dichromatic sights has gone back and forth a few times. In particular as shown by this diagram (wikicommons license): Okay, all this lead up material, to simply answer your question, dogs and cats are not greyscale seeing animals. They are simply red-green color blind (so this may explain why they will ignore a yellow tennis ball on green grass unless they can locate it by scent). Dr. Mark Plonsky at the University of Wisconsin at Steven-Point gives a great rundown . Dogs are red-green color blind. They see a brighter and less detailed world when compared to humans. Peripheral vision is better than humans (dogs see more of the world), but distance is not judged quite as well. Dogs excel at night vision and the detection of moving objects. Figure 1 is a rough guesstimate of what a dog and human might see when viewing a color band (the electromagnetic spectrum). Cornell University also answers this question . Note that horses see things differently from cats and dogs. Many adults think that dogs and cats cannot see any colors, only shades of gray. But this is not true. Cats and dogs can see some colors but not all of them. So in a sense they are like adults who are colorblind. Cats and dogs have cells in their eyes that respond well in bright and dim light. At night, cats and dogs use cells called rods that are sensitive to dim light. They are found in a lining at the back of the eye called the retina. When light falls on the rods, they send a message to the brain to explain the image that they see. For the bright light of day, you need cells called cones. But having cones in your eyes also means that you can also see color. Humans have three kinds of cones that allow them to see blue, red and green. So humans (and monkeys!) can see in full color. Dogs and cats only have two kinds of cones sensitive to blue and green light. So they do see some colors. By the way, if you have a horse or pony at home, they have red and blue cones. Horses see some colors, but they can't tell green from gray. I hope that is a good rundown. | {
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18,028 | The Oatmeal claims that Columbus engaged in sexual slavery. Columbus began rewarding his lieutenants with sex slaves -- particularly young girls who had been forced into sexual slavery. In a letter to a friend, Columbus remarked upon how girls between the ages of nine and ten could be used as currency: By contrast, Why Do Liberals Hate Columbus Day? is skeptical: 3 . Columbus was the pimp of the New World In 1500, Columbus wrote to a friend: “A hundred castellanoes are as
easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and
there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from
nine to ten are now in demand.” Another letter written by Columbus’
friend Michele de Cuneo (in 1492, before the expedition reached the
New World) reads “Columbus was rewarding his lieutenants with native
women to rape.” From these letters it has been deduced that Columbus was something of
a New World pimp, auctioning off women to his men for sexual pleasure.
Surely this behavior must have occurred to an extent, but was it
systemic and carried out with great relish by Columbus? No one can
know for sure, yet the charge is leveled at Columbus by his detractors
as if it is indisputable fact. Was Columbus involved in sexual slavery? | The initial quote that, A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a
farm, and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls;
those from nine to ten are now in demand, and for all ages a good
price must be paid. comes from a letter that Christopher Columbus wrote while prisoner on a ship being sent back to Spain after Francisco de Brobadilla was sent to replace him as governor of Hispaniola . During the time that Christopher Columbus was governor it is well documented that he was involved in the establishment of the slave trade and was criticized by the church for favoring his economic interests over conversion of the natives . We also have a letter from Michele da Cuneo , a childhood friend of Columbus who wrote , When I was in the boat, I took a beautiful Cannibal girl and the
admiral gave her to me. Having her in my room and she being naked as
is their custom, I began to want to amuse myself with her. Since I
wanted to have my way with her and she was not willing, she worked me
over so badly with her nails that I wished I had never begun. To get
to the end of the story, seeing how things were going, I got a rope
and tied her up so tightly that she made unheard of cries which you
wouldn't have believed. At the end, we got along so well that, let me
tell you, it seemed she had studied at a school for whores. The
admiral named the cape on that island the cape of the Arrow for the
man who was killed by the arrow. In this case, the admiral that da Cuneo is referring to is Columbus. This letter also provides us with historical documentation that that least one rape took place as a result of Columbus's actions. It is documented that sexual abuse took place at the time with regards to slaves as a general population and later documentation of the the same (e.g. one , two , three , four , etc.) supports the pattern. I couldn't find any evidence of a historical evidence or consensus that Columbus was involved with sexual slavery with regards to the modern definition of the term; however, the historical record does strongly support his involvement in the slave trade and the one rape by da Cuneo. | {
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18,140 | The following quotation is commonly attributed to Albert Einstein: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm
not sure about the universe." However, I've been unable to find a reliable source confirming the quote. Can anyone confirm or reject the genuiness of this citation? | Unable to determine veracity of quote. It pretty much depends on whether or not you believe a single man's claim about a personal conversation with Einstein. According to Quote Investigator , the origin of the quotation being attributed to Einstein is the book Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Frederick S. Perls. As Albert Einstein once said to me: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.” But what is much more widespread than the actual stupidity is the playing stupid, turning off your ear, not listening, not seeing. Further context on the quote is given in another Perls book, In and Out the Garbage Pail . I spent one afternoon with Albert Einstein: unpretentiousness, warmth, some false political predictions. I soon lost my self-consciousness, a rare treat for me at that time. I still love to quote a statement of his: “Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe.” He also used the quote in a previous book Ego, Hunger, and Aggression: a Revision of Freud’s Theory and Method , though did not cite it to Einstein, but rather to "a great astronomer" Wikiquote lists the quote as "disputed" and also notes similar quotations from various people dating back to 1880 . | {
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18,173 | This claim, mentioned in the title text of the most recent XKCD , is one that I've heard before. The LEGO Group is already the world's largest tire manufacturer. This time, however, I did some digging. Hitting up Wikipedia first, I found it references this article , which was posted on April Fool's Day of last year. (Possibly a coincidence, but it also has a few mistakes such as claiming LEGO is Swedish.) I can trace the statistics it cites back to this blog post , but that's about as far as I can find with those numbers. [T]he company that produces the most tires is LEGO. Granted, it is comparing apples and oranges, but the claim seems to be that the number of little "tires" that LEGO makes is larger than the number of "real" tires that any tire company makes. Is that true? | Yes, The Lego Group produces more Lego tires than tire companies produce "real" tires. The Wikipedia article for Lego Tires says: All tires (and wheels) for Lego products are manufactured by Lego, which has produced tires between 14.4 and 107 millimetres (0.57 and 4.2 inches) in diameter. In 2006 the Lego Group produced 15 billion individual pieces of Lego, which included 306 million tires.By 2011 Lego's annual production was increased to 381 million, more than twice as many as any of the other tire companies, including Bridgestone, Michelin, and Goodyear. And they give the numbers: Lego - 381 million Bridgestone - 190 million Michelin - 184 million Goodyear - 181 million Their source for the number of tires manufactured by Lego is a book called "Lego: A Love Story" by Jonathan Bender (2010) which states on page 105: LEGO is the largest manufacturer of tires in the world, with 306 million produced per year and this 2006 Bloomberg article which states: Tire production accounts for some of that number; the factory also produces 306 million tiny rubber tires a year. In fact, going by that number, LEGO is the world's No. 1 tire manufacturer. As to the source for the amount of tires manufactured by real tire companies, their source is the same article that appears in the question which states: LEGO produces over 381 million tires per year. In 2011, Bridgestone produced over 190 million tires, Michelin 184 million and Goodyear 181 million. World tire production last year totaled 1.6 billion. LEGO's production was not included. | {
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18,344 | I can't find a source for this, and that number seems much too high to me (although I don't know much about the subject). Is this true? If not, what is the actual ratio of homeless people to vacant houses? | No , the proportions are far more extreme than six vacant houses per homeless person. The National Alliance to End Homelessness collates the US Department of Housing and Urban Development figures (number collected November 2013): There are 633,782 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States. The US Census Bureau reports on the residential vacancies. In April 2013, they reported 18,439,000 homes were vacant in the first quarter of 2013. Some of these were seasonal, but 13,970,000 were "Year-round" vacant, so that's a more conservative figure to use. [Figures from Table 3.] The ratio of 13,970,000 : 633,782 is greater than 22 vacant homes per homeless person. | {
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18,489 | The article People Getting Dumber? Human Intelligence Has Declined Since Victorian Era, Research Suggests says, As for Dr. te Nijenhuis and colleagues, they analyzed the results of 14 intelligence studies conducted between 1884 to 2004, including one by Sir Francis Galton, an English anthropologist and a cousin of Charles Darwin. Each study gauged participants' so-called visual reaction times -- how long it took them to press a button in response to seeing a stimulus. Reaction time reflects a person's mental processing speed, and so is considered an indication of general intelligence. What is the correlation between this type of "reaction time" test and "general intelligence"? If there is such a correlation, should that imply that elite sports-players (e.g. of sports which require good reaction time, such as cricket, squash, baseball, boxing, etc.) tend to be abnormally able to succeed in endeavours such as academia, which may be presumed to correlate with "intelligence"? | Short answer: YES , it is surprising, but it is true. Based on existing answers and comments, there seems to be some confusion, so let's start by clarifying: This question is not about whether we were smarter/faster in Victorian times. It is not about 120 year old data. This question is not about how quickly people answered questions. It is how quickly they respond to a stimulus. (But, how quickly people make choices between options is a closely-related area of research .) This question is not about causality, it is about correlation. This question is not about what you expect might be the answer, based on your conjectures. It, like every question on this site, is what the literature shows based on empirical data. So what does the literature say? Wikipedia gives us a quick overview: Researchers have reported medium-sized correlations between reaction time and measures of intelligence: There is thus a tendency for individuals with higher IQ to be faster on reaction time tests. Research into this link between mental speed and general intelligence (perhaps first proposed by Charles Spearman) was re-popularised by Arthur Jensen, and the "Choice reaction Apparatus" associated with his name became a common standard tool in reaction time-IQ research. The strength of the RT-IQ association is a subject of research. Several studies have reported association between simple reaction time and intelligence of around (r=-.31), with a tendency for larger associations between choice reaction time and intelligence (r=-.49). Seems astonishing to you? Jensen (who was credited with repopularising the idea by Wikipedia, above) agrees: Why Is Reaction Time Correlated with Psychometric g? , Arthur R. Jensen, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 53-56 It seems almost incredible that individual differences in reaction time (RT) in simple tasks that involve no intellectual content and are so easy as to be performed by most persons in less than 1 s should be correlated with scores on nonspeeded, complex tests of reasoning ability, vocabulary, and general knowledge - the kinds of content that compose IQ tests. Nevertheless, in recent years, the correlation between Rt and IQ has become an empirically well established fact, based on thousands of subjects in scores of studies conducted in many laboratories around the world. In this this next article, he discusses how the idea was counter-intuitive and initially rejected: A. R. Jensen, Reaction Time and Psychometric g , A Model for Intelligence 1982, pp 93-132. Jensen has done some experiments: Arthur Jensen, Ella Munro, Reaction time, movement time, and intelligence , Intelligence Volume 3, Issue 2, April–June 1979, Pages 121–126 The abstract is a bit light on (and I haven't read the paywalled article), but claims: [Reaction Time] and [Movement Time] show reliable individual differences which are significantly correlated with intelligence as measured by Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. Moving away from Jensen, do we have anyone else making the claim? Here's the reference was used by Wikipedia. Deary, I., Der, G., and Ford, G. (2001) Reaction time and intelligence differences: a population based cohort study . Intelligence, 29 (5). pp. 389-399. ISSN 0160-2896 (doi:10.1016/S0160-2896(01)00062-9) The association between reaction times and psychometric intelligence test scores is a major plank of the information-processing approach to mental ability differences. They measured the correlation amongst 900 56-year-old Scottish people between reaction time and AH4, a type of intelligence ("general mental ability") test. Note: Quick stats lesson recap: Correlation coefficients range from 1 (total positive correlation) to 0 (no correlation) to -1 (total negative correlation). If there is a correlation between higher mental ability and shorter reaction time, we should expect the r-values to be negative. AH4 Part I total scores correlated -.31 with simple reaction time, -.49 with four-choice reaction time, and -.26 with intraindividual variability in both reaction time procedures. [...] Separate analyses were conducted after partitioning the total group according to sex, educational level, social class grouping, and number of errors on the four-choice reaction time task. None of these factors significantly altered the effect sizes. Ian Deary and Geoff Der, Reaction Time Explains IQ's Association with Death , doi: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00781.x, Psychological Science January 2005 vol. 16 no. 1 64-69 Two of the same co-authors from the previous paper, builds on the correlation between psychometric intelligence and reaction times, and the unexplained correlation between intelligence and longer life, and suggests, with (presumably) the same sample of people, it is actually the faster reaction times that are the important factor. As an aside: Another related concept is Inspection Time : the exposure duration required for a human subject to reliably identify a simple stimulus A meta-analysis found that it also correlated with IQ . As to the elite sports-player conjecture, it seems to contain a number of assumptions that are not necessarily true: Most importantly, the correlation is moderate, and not total. Plenty of intelligent people may have slower than normal reaction times. Plenty of unintelligent people may have faster than normal reaction times. Many sports-players do succeed in academic endeavours. It isn't safe to assume that elite sports-players would want to enter academia, even if their abilities allowed it. | {
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18,605 | There are many claims that Nelson Mandela was a killer; for example: Obama holds surprise press conference to praise genocidal killer Nelson Mandela He signed off on the deaths of innocent people, lots of them Mandela was a Marxist, a terrorist and a killer. That’s why he was sent to prison. As far as I can tell from Wikipedia : He was responsible for sabotage (of materiel) , not killing. Mandela himself stated that they chose sabotage not only because it was the least harmful action, but also "because it did not involve loss of life [and] it offered the best hope for reconciliation among the races afterward." On dates such as the following , he was in prison and more-or-less incommunicado : Church Street West, Pretoria, on the 20 May 1983 Amanzimtoti Shopping complex KZN, 23 December 1985 Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court, 17 March 1988 Durban Pick ‘n Pay shopping complex, 1 September 1986 Pretoria Sterland movie complex 16 April 1988 – limpet mine killed ANC terrorist M O Maponya instead Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court, 20 May 1987 Roodepoort Standard Bank 3 June, 1988 Did he kill anyone? Did he tell anyone else to kill? Did he found an organization that only killed people years after he was no longer its leader? Or is there another option? | It is well known that Nelson Mandela was involved with the formation of MK, the armed resistance wing of the ANC . However the organization was set up primarily to sabotage rather than to kill. As the campaign escalated people were killed by MK - as many as 63, with more than 400 injured. For comparison it should be remembered that this actions was a revolution against a deeply repressive regime, which had killed 69 people, more than the entire MK campaign, in a single incident at Sharpeville . It is certain that many fewer people were killed by MK than there were civilians killed by the Patriot side in the American War of Independence. The suggestion that 63 deaths amounts to 'genocide' under these circumstances is ridiculous. There is no indication that Mandela was directly responsible for any of these deaths. Even when he was prosecuted by the Apartheid regime, the charges were " sabotage, ordering munitions, recruiting young men for guerrilla warfare, encouraging invasion for foreign military units, and conspiring to obtain funds for revolution from foreign states ", but not murder. Nelson Mandela did indeed receive support from countries to which the USA was opposed. The US was at the time providing substantial support to the Apartheid regime, and had condemned the ANC as a terrorist organization. Mandela was convicted at his trial of ' statutory communism '. Communism is defined there as: any scheme that aimed "at bringing about any political, industrial, social, or economic change within the Union by the promotion of disturbance or disorder" or that encouraged "feelings of hostility between the European and the non-European races of the Union the consequences of which are calculated to further...disorder". It was not necessary to be a Marxist, or any kind of communist, to fall within that definition. | {
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18,688 | Prior to about a week ago, I've never known Christ's birthday to be anything other than December 25th. However, my kids are starting to tell me about how they're hearing claims from peers that this is not the case. Couple this with the latest Simpson's couch gag (23 seconds in): ...and now I'm curious. Are these mad claims, or is there actual proof out there of Christ's birthday falling on this "March 28th" date? | We don't have a clear idea of the date on which he was born. In fact, we don't even know the year he was born. Some historians like Robert Price even disagree on his historicity or existence. In another skeptics answer we have shown some indirect historical evidence for his existence, and to be fair, most historians agree that someone like him existed (from Galilee, preached, was crucified by Pilate), even though there are different and diverging theories to who he was or what he did exactly. Most scholars agree that Jesus was a Jewish teacher or rabbi from Galilee [...]
Scholars have constructed various portraits of the historical Jesus, which often depict him as having one or more of the following roles: the leader of an apocalyptic movement, Messiah, a charismatic healer, a sage and philosopher, or an egalitarian social reformer. - Jesus (Wikipedia) But as to date, we come up empty of any direct evidence - all evidence beyond the Gospels speaks in general terms of him, and even the gospels do not set an exact date for his birth. Even the historicity of the Gospels is object of debate among historians: Although some claim that all four canonical gospels meet the five criteria for historical reliability, others say that little in the gospels is considered to be historically reliable. _ Historical reliability of the Gospels (Wikipedia) A believable birth date therefore is out of the question. | {
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18,700 | From Top Conservative News : Muslim immigrants raped over 300 Swedish children in seven months of 2013
In the first seven months of 2013, over 1,000 Swedish women reported being raped by Muslim immigrants. Over 300 of those were under the age of 15. The number of rapes is up 16% compared to 2012 numbers. They cite Swedish Public Radio. Is this really true or just some anti muslim rant? | There are two relevant differences between the "Top Conservative News" summary and the actual report from Swedish Radio, to which they are linking: The Swedish Radio report does not mention the ethnicity of the perpetrator. Since the report refers to the number of police reports and not actual convictions, the perpetrator is likely to be unknown in several cases. The Swedish Radio report only counts the number of reports in Stockholm County. The "Top Conservative News" summary seem to indicate that the numbers are for the whole country. If we look at the statistics from "Brottsförebyggande rådet" (BRÅ) , the actual number for the entire country are as expected quite a bit higher. In the first 7 months of 2013, there were in total 3,426 reports on rape or rape attempt. In 1,133 cases, the victim was below the age of 15 (1,004 girls and 129 boys). The most recent statistics on crime among immigrants seem to be this report from BRÅ , dated 2005. The report does not quote any absolute numbers, but on page 42, the relative risk of being accused for different kind of crimes is listed for the three categories "born in Sweden, both parents born in Sweden", "born in Sweden, at least one parent born outside Sweden" and "born outside Sweden". For rape and rape attempts, the relative risks for these three categories are 1.0, 1.8 and 5.0. Now, looking to find the percentage of the total population falling into each of these three groups, "Statistiska centralbyrån" offers the numbers for the year 2008 : Born in Sweden, both parents born in Sweden: 75% Born in Sweden, at least one parent born abroad: 11% Born abroad: 14% With the known risk of correlating three different statistics collected over a range of 8 years, the number of perpetrators in each of the three population groups (considering their share of the total population and relative crime risk) should be approximately: Born in Sweden, both parents born in Sweden: 1557 Born in Sweden, at least one parent born abroad: 415 Born abroad: 1454 Summing it up: Of the 3,426 reported rapes or rape attempts in the first 7 months of 2013, some 1900 can be assumed to have been performed by a perpetrator born outside Sweden or with at least one parent born outside Sweden. This is where it seems impossible to get any further with the analysis. There are no public statistics regarding the religion of the foreign-born population and also no crime statistics with a more detailed breakdown of the nationality or religion of the crime suspects. Even if the Swedish Radio news report is misquoted and there are no further backups for the claim, it is not completely unrealistic, that 1000 of the assumed 1900 foreign rapists are Muslims. | {
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18,765 | Eastern Orthodox Christians claim that there has been a 'Holocaust' of sorts in the latter part of the 19th century and throughout the entire 20th century (and continuing into the 21st century). But unlike the 6 million Jews killed in Nazi Germany , they claim that 50 million Eastern Orthodox Christians have been killed , many under Islamic and Communist regimes. This seems believable in light of the the Black Book of Communism , which records close to 94 million deaths under Communist governments , and most Russians and Eastern Europeans consider themselves to be Eastern Orthodox ( 70% of Russians considered themselves to be Orthodox in March 2012 , but far less are recorded as such according to the CIA World Fact Book which likely factors low participation in religious services as a factor). Is this claim concerning 50 million Orthodox Christians being killed historically accurate? The specific claim from the essay is: Between the tolls exacted from prisons, concentration camps, forced
marches and exiles, warfare, famine, and brutal military occupation,
it is reasonable to conclude that up to 50 million Orthodox Christians
have perished in the first eight decades of the twentieth century. CLARIFICATION: A large factor in how you count this is whether having a certain national heritage automatically makes one Orthodox (i.e. phyletism ). A good answer will need to determine if ethnophyletist reckonings of Orthodoxy are valid for determining a death toll or not. A view that accepts phyletism may well use any deaths in certain countries as Orthodox Christian deaths, or perhaps determine how to subdivide this (were they killed for their faith/heritage or for other reasons?), while a view that rejects ethnophyletist claims may use facts like those cited above for what percentage of various nations should be considered 'Orthodox Christian' to further break down these numbers. I am not sure, but it is my presumption that the author of the article claiming 50 million Orthodox Christian deaths takes a phyletist worldview as a given. | The claim is essentially correct -- tens of millions of Orthodox Christians died of political violence in the 20th century. However, everything that Mr. Serfes tries to imply by making that claim is basically wrong. Complications First, it's hard to be more precise about the claim because Mr. Serfes' essay loaded with so much hyperbole that his claim is almost nonsensical. The specific claim is that " up to 50 million Orthodox Christians have perished in the first eight decades of the twentieth century." He is actually asserting an upper limit, though his thesis is based on conveying the impression that this is a large number of people -- which requires a lower limit instead. Serfes basically accounts for 15 million deaths (or so), and then bumps the number up by a few tens of millions by appealing to the general political turmoil of Eastern Europe during the 20th century. While this gives him a nice big headline figure, it undermines his thesis by demonstrating that there is nothing special about the suffering of the Orthodox Christian community -- Orthodox Christians simply lived in a region of the world that was in constant political turmoil since roughly the 1880s, and therefore a lot of them died violent deaths, just like a lot of people in other parts of the world. I do not mean to trivialize their suffering, I am simply providing context for the facts that Serfes cites in his political diatribe disguised as a memorial. An additional complication in evaluating the claim arises from the unclear and possibly inconsistent definition of "orthodox Christian" that Serfes uses. As suggested in the question, it appears that he treats the term as synonymous with "person of a traditionally Orthodox Christian nationality". This is consistent with how the term "Jew" is used with respect to the Nazi's genocide towards the Jewish people, since the Nazi's defined "Jew" based on genetic heritage and not any profession of faith. Furthermore, it may be consistent with some modern American notions of religious discrimination, since such discrimination is driven by the perception of religious identity, regardless of actual religious belief. It's possible (and likely) that membership in a historically Orthodox national group was taken as evidence of Orthodox Christian faith by the attackers. However, in the cases that Serfes cites, I see little indication that the attacks were driven by religious animosity rather than nationalist or racist animosity -- or simply the desire to dominate others. In addition, it is unclear what Serfes includes under his umbrella term " Christian Orthodox ". From my brief reading, it seems that the Eastern Orthodox communion (Russia, Greece, Ukraine) and the Oriental Orthodox communion (Armenia, Ethiopia) have some substantial theological differences; institutionally, they diverged prior to the "Great" Catholic/Eastern schism. Serfes also includes the Assyrian and Ethiopian Churches among his list of victims. I'm not sure why he lumps these branches together -- is it simply their geographical clustering? Perhaps he considers the Great Schism to be the fundamental division in Christianity (with the Eastern Orthodox church being affiliated with the Oriental and Assyrian churches). Or perhaps -- to acknowledge his thesis of Orthodox persecution -- he suspects that Western Christians view the "pre-Roman Catholic" churches to be somehow primitive. A final problem is that Serfes seems to exclude Orthodox vs. Orthodox violence from his tally. This becomes a serious complication when we aren't sure who to count as Orthodox -- I get the impression that Russian Communists are to be counted as "Orthodox" when they are the victims of political violence, but not the perpetrators. In general, I will be tallying the deaths of people from Orthodox Christian nationalities, and noting the relevant complications as they arise. I doubt that it is possible to provide a more precise accounting of "Orthodox Christian" deaths since the Orthodox church was the state-sponsored religion for many of these nationalities. The Tally Serfes has essentially summed up the death counts from a variety of unconnected events, which I will list below. 1) The Armenian Genocide (1915-1923): up to 1.5 million people . This doesn't contribute much to the 50 million deaths, so I'm not going to quibble over the numbers and I'll just take the value from the people who are trying to raise awareness of the genocide (Serfes claimed 1.8 million). However, this has a strong psychological impact because it was a genocide attempt (a Holocaust, if you will). Furthermore, the modern Turkish state still favors Islam (sometimes at the expense of Orthodox Christians) and persecutes those who raise awareness of the genocide , so this supports Serfes' contention that Orthodox Christians are an marginalized minority. However, it also undermines his assertion that the USA and Western governments are insensitive to the plight of Orthodox Christian nationalities, since Turkey's NATO allies regularly risk diplomatic rifts by bringing up the issue of the Armenian Genocide, just as they condemned it as it happened. Another note on this topic is that the Ottoman/Turkish governments that perpetrated the genocide were not Islamist (as implied in the question), they were secular Nationalist (even militantly secular). 2) The Balkans, Greece, and the fall of the Ottoman Empire (1912-1922): Serfes claims 1.75 million Greeks "murdered by Turkish persecutions", with the massacre of Smyrna (1922) as the touchstone of this violence. Again, the numbers are a small portion of the total, so I'm not going to bother with the details. While Serfes limits his count to WWI period (and the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire), this violence seems to be intimately linked with the 19th century's wars of Independence for the Greek (1821) and Balkan Christian nations, along with the Russian expansion into Ottoman territory. The massacre of Smyrna seems to be the finale to an almost continuous period of violence ranging from the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), through WWI (1914-1918), and the Greko-Turkish war (1919-1922). While these wars mainly saw Orthodox Christian Nations allied against the Ottoman Empire (with Western powers aiding either side as suited them), Bulgaria often fought against other Orthodox Christian nations (in the Second Balkan War and WWI). Cumulative total: up to 2.25 million 3) World War I (1914-1918): Serfes does not mention WWI directly, only indirectly in his summary statement mentioning "warfare". There were probably about 5 million deaths among residents of traditionally Orthodox nations (Russia, Romania, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria). Romania and Serbia had a particularly large number of deaths as a portion of the population. Orthodox Christian nationals made up 1/3 of the total deaths. Cumulative total: up to 7.25 million 4) Communist revolutions(1918 and later): Serfes clearly dislikes the Bolsheviks for their anti-religious policies. Perhaps one or two million deaths can be attributed to these wars. "First in Russia and Ukraine, then in Eastern Europe, in Greece during its civil war (1945-49), and in Ethiopia , the Orthodox Church was the principle target for attach, subversion, or destruction." I don't know that a specific number of deaths can be attributed to specifically anti-religious activities, especially since the church was tightly aligned with the monarchy during these wars. Cumulative total: up to 9.25 million 4) The Ukranian Famine (1932-1933): This is perhaps the cornerstone of Serfes' tally. He reports 7-12 million deaths due to hostility from the Soviet Union; the encyclopedia Brittanica reports 4-5 million . The Rutgers Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights reports 10 million . The Ukrainian law regarding the "Holodomor" does not provide a number, but a website specifically dedicated to the Holodomor tallies 5.5 million (4 million from starvation; 1.5 million from dekulakization campaigns). In general, I do not see serious estimates over 10 million, so that's the value I'll use. Cumulative total: up to 19.25 million 5) World War II (1939-1945): Again, Serfes hardly mentions WWII, but this surly is the bulk of the 50 million deaths that he counts. The traditionally orthodox nations suffered up to 30 million deaths during the war , almost all of them being from the Soviet Union, at the hands of Nazi Germany and their fascist allies -- including Bulgeria and Romania. Other sources gave slightly lower estimates. Overall, deaths among Orthodox Christian Nationalities accounted for about 1/3 of the deaths in WWII (other major contributors were China, Poland, and Germany) Cumulative total: up to 49.5 million But does it mean anything? When this question was posted, I objected that it was a bad question and little more than political propaganda. This tally is from a number of essentially unrelated events, and grouping them together only makes sense in the context of some theory that links them. What are those possible theories? 1) Orthodox Christians are a community, and members of a community should recognize the suffering that occurred within it. I could respect this theory, but unfortunately this does not seem to be the theory that Serfes is promoting. 2) These deaths are part of a larger trend of oppression of Orthodox Christians. This appears to be Serfes' agenda, and it is dangerous bullshit. This theory has two components: first, that Orthodox Christians were treated especially brutally by other communities; second, that other communities continue to minimize and ignore the suffering done to Orthodox community. I say that this theory is bullshit because neither of those claims are true. I say that the theory is dangerous because Serfes' presentation comes very close to minimizing the suffering of other communities (e.g. Jews) and excusing abuses committed by Orthodox Christians. Orthodox Christians were not singled out for abuse (mostly) Under the USSR The primary culprit in these deaths is the Soviet Union (through enslavement, political terrorism, wars of aggression, and general economic/military incompetence). The Soviet government exploited and terrorized all populations in its territory. It attacked any group that offered an alternative to the USSR -- whether Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim, or secular. It did not single out Orthodox Christians; if that group made up the largest portion of its victims, its simply because the USSR emerged from an Orthodox Christian society. Serfes' thesis of Orthodox oppression relies on the perception that all of these hardships came at the hands of "outsiders". The Soviet Union should not be viewed as an outside group oppressing a Eastern Orthodox nation -- the Bolshivik movement was a home-grown Russian political movement. Serfes wrote his essay before Putin came to power, but I wonder what he thinks of Putin's redefining Russian identity in a way that embraces the Orthodox Church at the same time it claims the glory of the USSR (especially with respect to Ukraine). Even Western communists have rejected the Soviet Union for over half a century. The current crisis in Ukraine reveals that many Ukrainians see their oppression under the USSR as being a nationalist issue as much as a ideological/religious one. Finally, there is not enough space here to list all of the groups that were targeted by the Soviet state (many different nationalities and ideologies). One particularly relevant group is the Crimean Tartars, a Muslim population that suffered the Holodomor along with their Orthodox Christian neighbors. After WWII, the Tartars suffered mass deportation to Siberia , during which a huge portion of their population died. Nazi Germany The secondary culprit in these deaths is Nazi Germany, through its invasion of Eastern Europe and genocidal policies towards various populations. The policy of " Lebensraum " (living space for Aryans) was particularly destructive towards the people of Eastern Europe. The Nazis had a special disdain for the Slavic people to their east, and were more tolerant of the Germanic and Latin peoples to their west (though the French were effectively enslaved like everyone else ). The hostility towards Slavs manifested as genocidal plans that would have substantially reduced the eastern populations -- particularly the Catholic Poles and Lithuanians. The Orthodox Christian nationalities (particularly Ukrainians) were definitely harmed by these policies, but they were not singled out. The Nazis even had two Orthodox nations (with Orthodox Christian leaders) as allies -- Romania and Bulgaria. Turkey This is the one situation in Europe where it appears that Christians were specifically marginalized and massacred. Turkey obviously still has a lot of problems with its institutions. I think Serfes exaggerates the influence that the USA has over Turkey. Sill, Christian nationalities were not the only victims of Turkish nationalism -- the Kurds have a long history of conflict with the Turkish state. Orthodox Christians as Assailants The last set of events to consider are those where Orthodox Christians were the assailants. My purpose in bringing this up is to show that this region of the world was generally unstable and violent during the last century. I don't mean to imply that the Orthodox Christians were particularly aggressive or that they (as a community) deserved any of the suffering that Serfes listed. First, there is the issue of whether to count home-grown communist movements as "Orthodox Christian". I've discussed that above and will leave communist aggression out of this count. I'll also leave out anti-Semitism. Here are the events I can think of: Balkan wars: massacres of Albanian Muslims and exile of Ottoman muslims . Russo-Ottoman wars: Ethnic cleansing of areas conquered by Russia . Breakup of Yugoslavia: Ethnic cleansing by Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Russian suppression of Chechen Independence and the destruction of Grozny. This is what makes Serfes' diatribe particularly dangerous. Orthodox Christians are the dominant community in many countries (such as Russia), which makes this narrative of oppression both absurd and dangerous. Serfes even goes as far as to suggest that "Christians" should always give the benefit of the doubt to other Christians (e.g. Serbia) in their conflicts with non-Christians, and likewise to suggest that the American government should not press Christian nations (such as Russia) to increase religious freedom until non-Christian allies (e.g. Turkey) have instituted full religious freedom. This is a recipe for tyranny and a continuation of these ancient blood feuds. Random notes The Ukrainian famine is a major item in this list, and I want to provide a little more context. First, other sources disagree with Serfes contention that the famine of 1932-33 was limited to Ukraine. The Brittanica article estimates that 1/3 of the victims were outside of Ukraine (though it's unclear if that includes Crimea, which was part of Russia at the time). Wikipedia has more information . I'll also note the similarities between the Ukranian famine and the Great Irish Famine and the Great Chinese Famine. Briefly, all involved an element of enslavement and exploitation, where a food producing country continued to export food while its residents suffered starvation and were prevented from growing food for themselves. Like the Ukrainian famine, the Great Irish Famine also involved a power relationship between nations (England/Ireland; Russia/Ukraine). The Chinese Famine is similar to the Ukrainian famine in its connection to Stalinist collectivization and the use of starvation to destroy traditionalist communities and punish political opponents. Finally, the Holodomor is only comparable to the Nazi campaign against the Jews in that both were horrible. Most notably, the USSR sought to break the resistance of the Ukrainian community, not to kill every single one of them. In the context of Serfes' thesis, this comparison of Orthodox community's trauma to the Nazi genocide against the Jews implies that the only reason for popular concern with anti-Semitism is the political influence of Jews. I hope that's not what he means to imply, since the history of Jewish marginalization and persecution in Western society is very different from the trauma experienced by Orthodox Christians in Western society. | {
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18,916 | As per StormFront (warning: neo-nazi website): While only 3% of the population, the Jews control over 25% of the
nation's wealth and this percentage rises every year. Is only 3% of the population Jewish? Do the Jewish control over 25% of the nation's wealth? Is this percentage rising? | The short answer: Yes, self-identified Jews have, on average, higher household incomes in the USA than other religious groups, with Hindus only slightly behind. Drawing strong conclusions from this correlation is dangerous. (Watch out! This answer includes a tiny bit of misdirection. The question was about wealth , but the answer is about income because it was the best I could find. Wealth and income aren't exactly the same, but they are pretty tightly related, so I think the answer should still be acceptable.) The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life produce the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey . They have a chart showing the results of income distributions. (This chart has been turned into an infographic which I find doesn't help very much, but you may prefer it.) From this chart, you can see that Jews have the highest proportion of household income of greater than $US100,000. Similarly, they are the second-least-likely to have household incomes of less than $US30,000, after Hindus. Antisemitic sites, such as Stormfront, use data like this to conclude that there is a Jewish conspiracy. This is not a safe assumption, due to a large number of potential confounding factors (ignoring the innate difficulty/impossibility of having a conspiracy of that size.) The relatively low socioeconomic position of black Americans is likely a large confounding factor. Black Americans account for only roughly 3% of American Jewish population compared to roughly 13% of the general population (sources: [ 1 ]( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_of_Black_Jews ), [2] , [3] ). Note the lowest incomes are associated with "Historically Black Churches". Income is correlated with age. If American Jews are demographically aged closer to their peak earning potential than the general population, it may sway the results. Immigration status is likely to affect income. If American Jews are now more likely to be settled in the country longer ago than American Muslims, on average, it may make their relative income higher. Household size affects household income. If American Jews are more likely to live in households with a larger number of income earners, it may increase their apparent income without actually increasing the average individual income. If the women are more likely to participate in the workforce, that would also increase the figures. Culture is likely to affect income. If American Jews are more likely to be focussed on academic achievement than other cultures, it may increase their income. My goal here is not to prove that any of these potential confounding factors are true or relevant, just to give context to the bare facts before they are used to make dangerous conclusions about conspiracies. | {
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18,955 | A story from an Illuminati conspiracy site has become a semi popular meme on Facebook: Three ancient pyramids have been discovered in the Antarctic by a team
of American and European scientists. Two of the pyramids were
discovered about 16 kilometers inland, while the third one was very
close to the coastline, media reported. SOURCE Have three pyramids been discovered in Antarctica? | From the source : The only reliable information provided by the scientists was that they were planning an expedition to the pyramids to research them more thoroughly and determine for sure whether the structures were artificial or natural. However, I am even doubtful that there is such a group of scientists or a planned expedition. No names are given. They don't mention a team, university, or research group affiliation. This is an old claim, with a YouTube video to go along with it. It provides three photos, two of which are of the same feature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stKJJ6xWYFY&t=9s (East end of Schatz ridge – see below) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stKJJ6xWYFY&t=32s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stKJJ6xWYFY&t=46s (East end of Schatz ridge – see below) Another Youtube video includes a 4th photo that other sites use ( ref , ref ). However, that photo is by Al Powers during his 2008 Antarctica trip. He says: "it is just an ice and snow covered hill". The photo in the question and most of the stories is a known glacial horn (also known as a "pyramidal peak"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidal_peak It's actually just the east end of Schatz Ridge . Here's a Google map view of it . Here are some other photos of this peak from a slightly different viewpoint pic 1 , pic 2 , pic 3 . Coincidentally, there is also a specific peak named " Pyramid Peak " Here's a top down view of Pyramid Peak in Google maps . It was named in 1963. Summarizing Schatz Ridge An ice and snow covered hill, from 2008 The third, credited to Etienne Classen A peak actually named "Pyramid Peak", that the stories don't even mention, demonstrating that these formations are not that hard to find | {
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19,138 | This morning at 8:30 AM on the Power 96.1 radio station in Atlanta, Georgia, I heard a radio ad for M&M in which it was claimed that one out of every one hundred (1/100) peanuts ends up in Peanut M&Ms. Is there any data behind this assertion or was it just made up for marketing? Here's an article on PR Newswire which also mentions the statement touted by Mars: in fact only 1 in 100 peanuts is lucky enough to find its way into a bag of M&M'S Peanut I tagged this with the nutrition tag because "food" is a synonym. | The preliminary projection for world peanut production in 2012/2013 is 39.93 million metric tons. In 2006 , it was 32.30 million metric tons. That is in-shell weight. The global shelling percentage (how much peanut is left after shelling, by mass) is about 70% (El Bassam. Handbook of Bioenergy Crops: A Complete Reference to Species, Development and Applications . 2010. At p. 200). That results in about 28 million metric tons of shelled peanut in 2013, or 23 million metric tons of shelled peanut in 2006. For 1/100 of that to find its way into Peanut M&Ms would mean that at least 0.28 million metric tons of peanuts are used in Peanut M&Ms per year (or 0.23 million metric tons at 2006 levels of production). The average mass of a Peanut M&M is 2.59 grams (with a standard error of 0.03 grams). (The average mass of Peanut M&Ms is an upper bound on the average mass of peanut in them. There are other ingredients.) 0.23 million metric tons (the 2006 number) of 2.59 gram units is 88,803,088,803 units . At least 88 billion Peanut M&Ms would be needed to be produced. (For 2013, the requisite number is 108 billion Peanut M&Ms.) There are about 146 billion M&M candies produced per year. (Sutton and Klein. Enterprise Marketing Management: The New Science of Marketing . 2006. At p. 139). This estimate is still current. I confirmed this by a phone call to Mars. They said : We make about 400 million M&M pieces every day; that's for all types. Basically the question comes down to whether it's plausible (or even better, whether there's evidence) that at least 60% (for 2006) or at least 74% (for 2013) of M&Ms are peanut M&Ms. | {
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19,144 | It's a clichè that is constantly repeated by the likes of Gordon Ramsey: You are running around like headless chickens! source Also, for example, they do in South Park animations Do headless chicken run around? After all, why wouldn't they collapse? | Yes they do, or at least kind of do. They move after decapitation in a kind of jumping-running-flapping motion, and can be seen in the videos getting out of containers, or traveling several dozen meters away. Searching for "headless chickens run around" gives a bunch of YouTube videos. All depicting decapitated chickens running around, flapping their wings and jumping. Here are some examples: Caution: NSFW. Contains graphic content. A decapitated chicken running around in the yard until finally succumbing A decapitated chicken jumps out of a bucket and running around until finally succumbing Shows the decapitation of a chicken and then the chicken jumps around, and another chicken decapitated and then flapping while it's held down | {
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19,762 | I saw there was a question about the harmfulness of WiFi waves, but i'd like to focus on the claims that they can cause headaches specifically; not the cancer-claims. Numerous people come up with anecdotes about how they, or someone they know, get headaches from WiFi radiation. Source: http://www.squidoo.com/wifi-headaches#module124071521 I can't seem to find any research on this. Does anyone know of the latest insights into this? On PubMed i found this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=wifi+headache "There were more statistically significant associations (36%) than could be expected by chance (5%)." | The symptoms you describe are commonly referred to as electromagnetic hypersensitivity . I believe the studies you would be interested in are the following: The majority of provocation trials to date have found that
self-described sufferers of electromagnetic hypersensitivity are
unable to distinguish between exposure to real and fake
electromagnetic fields,[2][3] and it is not recognized as a medical
condition by the medical or scientific communities. Since a systematic
review in 2005 showing no convincing scientific evidence for it being
caused by electromagnetic fields,[2] several double-blind experiments
have been published, each of which has suggested that people who
report electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to detect the
presence of electromagnetic fields and are as likely to report ill
health following a sham exposure, as they are following exposure to
genuine electromagnetic fields.[4][5][6] The systematic review of 2008 by Röösli M [3], which seems to be the latest, writes in the abstract: RF-EMF [radiofrequency electromagnetic field] discrimination was investigated in seven studies including a
total of 182 self-declared electromagnetic hypersensitive (EHS)
individuals and 332 non-EHS individuals. The pooled correct field
detection rate was 4.2% better than expected by chance (95% CI: −2.1
to 10.5). There was no evidence that EHS individuals could detect
presence or absence of RF-EMF better than other persons. [2] Rubin, James; J Das Munshi J, Simon Wessely (March–April 2005). "Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: a systematic review of provocation studies" . Psychosomatic Medicine 67 (2): 224–32. doi:10.1097/01.psy.0000155664.13300.64. PMID 15784787. [3] Röösli M (June 2008). " Radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure and non-specific symptoms of ill health: a systematic review ". Environ. Res. 107 (2): 277–87. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2008.02.003. PMID 18359015. [4] Regel, Sabine; Sonja Negovetic, Martin Roosli, Veronica Berdinas, Jurgen Schuderer, Anke Huss, Urs Lott, Niels Kuster, and Peter Achermann (August 2006). "UMTS Base Station-like Exposure, Well-Being, and Cognitive Performance" . Environ Health Perspect 114 (8): 1270–5. doi:10.1289/ehp.8934. PMC 1552030. PMID 16882538. [5] Rubin, James; G Hahn, BS Everitt, AJ Clear, Simon Wessely (2006). "Are some people sensitive to mobile phone signals? Within participants double blind randomised provocation study" . British Medical Journal 332 (7546): 886–889. doi:10.1136/bmj.38765.519850.55. PMC 1440612. PMID 16520326. [6] Wilen, J; A Johansson, N Kalezic, E Lyskov, M Sandstrom (April 2006). "Psychophysiological tests and provocation of subjects with mobile phone related symptoms" . Bioelectromagnetics 27 (3): 204–14. doi:10.1002/bem.20195. PMID 16304699. | {
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19,786 | I was looking through the questions tagged 9-11 and noticed the no-planes theory isn't on here. So: Were there planes that crashed into the WTC? Some examples of notable claims asserting otherwise are here , here , and here . Another article elaborates, and claims the following: (note: these are scattered throughout the article) The first to notice that American Airlines Flights 11 and 77 were not even scheduled to fly on 9/11 Edward Hendrie has published the data tables for both of these alleged flights, where it turns out that the BTS subsequently revised their tables with partial data in order to cover up their absence. Even more surprisingly, however, Pilots has also determined that United Flight 175 was in the air in the vicinity of Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, PA, at the time it was purportedly crashing into the South Tower in New York City. This may come as quite a shock to those who watched as it entered the South Tower on television. Indeed, when an FBI official was asked why the NTSB, for the first time in its history, had not investigated any of these four crashes, he replied that it wasn’t necessary “because we saw them on television”. Well, we didn’t see the Shanksville crash or the Pentagon crash on TV, which leaves us wondering what we did see on television on 9/11. The footage of the South Tower hit exemplifies several anomalies, including a Boeing 767 flying at an impossible speed, an impossible entry into the building (in violation of Newton’s laws), and even passing through its own length into the building in the same number of frames it passes through its own length in air—which is impossible, unless this 500,000 ton, steel and concrete building posed no more resistance to its trajectory in flight than air. Some have claimed that this was a “special plane” that could fly faster than a standard Boeing 767, but no real plane could violate Newton’s laws. | Yes: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States , CyberCemetery : The first to notice that American Airlines Flights 11 and 77 were not even scheduled to fly on 9/11 There is no evidence to support this claim. Pilots has also determined that United Flight 175 was in the air in the vicinity of Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, PA, at the time it was purportedly crashing into the South Tower in New York City. There is no evidence to support this claim. They say "Pilots has also determined". How? Via what evidence? This is not disclosed. The footage of the South Tower hit exemplifies several anomalies including a Boeing 767 flying at an impossible speed It was travelling at approximately 513 knots , not impossible. an impossible entry into the building (in violation of Newton's laws) They don't describe at all what makes the claimed entry impossible or a violation of physics, so this is not worth debunking. and even passing through its own length into the building in the same number of frames it passes through its own length in air—which is impossible The frame rate of video does not yield the resolution necessary to notice all rates of deceleration. The aircraft decelerated from 513 knots to a speed close to 0 knots. Some debris had enough momentum to be carried through the building and was ejected for several blocks surrounding the tower. unless this 500,000 ton, steel and concrete building posed no more resistance to its trajectory in flight than air The aircraft was not stopped by a 500,000 ton, steel and concrete building. It was stopped by the structure of up to three floors of that building. | {
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19,816 | I read this claim somewhere recently, and a google search shows that it's occasionally made around the web, but was perhaps more common in the 1970's (many of the stories I find online are people reminiscing over old protests). At first glance it seems probable to me: wars historically haven't killed all that many people (mostly because there were not all that many to be killed). In the US alone, wikipedia gives a figure of about 40,000 deaths due to motor vehicle accidents this year. Assuming that the US death rate is a reasonable estimator for the world (assuming poor countries have fewer cars, but more accidents), I get the total figure should be 40,000*20 = 800,000 this year alone. The accident rates were actually higher in the past, although population was lower, so my first guess is that we had ~10 million deaths in the last 15 years, and probably another 15 million or so in the 10-15 years before that. My guess is that overall deaths are probably something like 45 million, but this might be off by +/- 15 million. My guestimate for war is that WWI and WWII combined saw about 40,000,000 deaths, so that gets us into the same ballpark. What I'd really like to see is an authoritative source on the total figures for both types of death, and maybe something on the origin of the claim. Can't seem to find either. Might also be interesting to see if/when this will become true. | I did some more research on this tonight, and was able to answer my own question, at least to some extent. The conclusions seem to be: For the world as a whole, this is a very unlikely claim. For the United States of America in particular, this is likely true, at least for the deaths of Americans in wars since the country was founded. This is possibly the origin of the claim, at least in my region, which I`ve often seen made by Americans (i.e. More Americans have been killed by cars than by all wars combined becomes More People have been killed by cars than by all wars combined .) The claim is also likely to be true in many other individual countries. For this claim to become true for the world in general in the future, the bulk of the world's population would have to be at peace for a very long time, and average car safety would have to decline. Evidence against the worldwide claim: This similar question has an answer which puts a lower bound on the number of humans killed in war in the 20th century at an estimate 200 million. A reference cited by this quite interesting WHO report (page 33), puts the cumulative total number of deaths by automobile at 25 million, conservatively, in 1997. Unfortunately I can't get access to the reference directly to see what methodology was used. A recent WHO report estimates the number of fatalities due to automobiles in 2013 at 1.2 million (worldwide). If we made a very generous estimate based on 2 and 3, doubling the conservative estimate of 25 million by 1997 to 50 million, and assume that 2 million a year were killed 1997-2014, rather than the fewer than 1.2 million that seems probable, we still get less than 90 million total deaths due to automobiles. This is less than the number of people killed in all wars, worldwide, in the 20th century alone, and in fact, is less than half the number required. Evidence for the claim being true in America: Assume that the original claim was more people have been killed by cars than by warfare, in the history of the country of the United States of America. This table on Wikipedia (which seems to be sourced from the US government's NHTSA FARS database) gives a list of recorded US traffic fatalities going back to 1899. The total number of deaths is 3,581,306 (my computation via a spreadsheet). This table on Wikipedia gives the total number of American military deaths as 1,321,612, though the estimates come from a lot of different sources. Major deployments that were not "proper" wars are also included. The only major conflict in which US civilians died in large numbers (to my knowledge) is the US civil war. There is considerable debate on how many civilians died in total, and no official records were kept at the time. Wikipedia (4th paragraph) suggests the number is unknown, though it cites a poor source. However, I cannot find anything better than wild speculation on enthusiast websites beyond this. The highest estimate I see anywhere is around 800,000 dead, mostly slaves. This would have been nearly 25% of the enslaved population, and about equal to the total number of soldiers that died. and seems an overly high estimate. If anyone has better data, I'd really like to see it! In recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US contractors have been killed in fairly substantial numbers. However, Reuters puts the total number of contractors killed in Iraq by 2007, who were also US citizens, at just 224. I cannot find a similar number for Afghanistan, but this at least gives us a ballpark. In total then, I estimate the number of American civilians and military personal who have died as a direct result of warfare at no more than about 2.5 million. This is less than the total number of Americans killed in motor vehicle accidents, for which we have very good data. Evidence that the worldwide claim is unlikely to be true in future: At current rates, we'd need a century of world peace for cars to catch up to the 20th century death toll alone. This seems very unlikely. The current tread is for car safety to improve over time. With inventions like self-driving cars, this tread may even accelerate. Therefore, it is likely that more than a century of world peace is needed. Final notes: It is quite likely that in other countries that have not seen large scale total wars fought on their soil, the claim is true as well. Most of the 20th century death toll is concentrated in specific countries, especially Russia, China, and Germany. Countries that remained neutral during major conflicts like Holland, Sweden, or Switzerland, are probable candidates. Air pollution from vehicles is also worth considering as a possible factor. This MIT study suggests the annual deaths in the USA from air pollution exceed 50,000 in the US. If these are counted, then the total number of deaths due to automobiles in the USA is markedly higher, but still unlikely to exceed 8 million (emissions related deaths were probably lower in the past because there were fewer people and fewer cars, and cars have only been around for about 100 years in significant numbers). This factor is not likely to significantly change the answer for any country. It approximately doubles the rate at which cars kill people, but in countries with total wars fought on their soil, or with large scale ethnic cleansing or genocides that were part of wars, the death tolls from wars still dwarf the tolls from cars. | {
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19,830 | This website claims to be launching a new app in Spring 2014. It is said to be a social network that will only open up if your blood alcohol level is over a certain limit. Inside the app you then have a number of features like drunk dialling people etc. There have been a number of news websites reporting on this today, and with the launch date being "Spring 2014", I can't help but think it is potentially an April Fools gag. The app seems to use a breathalyzer connected to your mobile devices charging port. I know small breathalyzers like this exist, but as I am not informed enough about 3rd party peripheral communication over charging/sync ports, I am unsure as to whether this can actually be done. A massive part of me is hoping this is true, as it would be really fun to try it out on my next social gathering.. The other part of me however, is thinking "hoax, hoax, HOAX" | I did some more research on this tonight, and was able to answer my own question, at least to some extent. The conclusions seem to be: For the world as a whole, this is a very unlikely claim. For the United States of America in particular, this is likely true, at least for the deaths of Americans in wars since the country was founded. This is possibly the origin of the claim, at least in my region, which I`ve often seen made by Americans (i.e. More Americans have been killed by cars than by all wars combined becomes More People have been killed by cars than by all wars combined .) The claim is also likely to be true in many other individual countries. For this claim to become true for the world in general in the future, the bulk of the world's population would have to be at peace for a very long time, and average car safety would have to decline. Evidence against the worldwide claim: This similar question has an answer which puts a lower bound on the number of humans killed in war in the 20th century at an estimate 200 million. A reference cited by this quite interesting WHO report (page 33), puts the cumulative total number of deaths by automobile at 25 million, conservatively, in 1997. Unfortunately I can't get access to the reference directly to see what methodology was used. A recent WHO report estimates the number of fatalities due to automobiles in 2013 at 1.2 million (worldwide). If we made a very generous estimate based on 2 and 3, doubling the conservative estimate of 25 million by 1997 to 50 million, and assume that 2 million a year were killed 1997-2014, rather than the fewer than 1.2 million that seems probable, we still get less than 90 million total deaths due to automobiles. This is less than the number of people killed in all wars, worldwide, in the 20th century alone, and in fact, is less than half the number required. Evidence for the claim being true in America: Assume that the original claim was more people have been killed by cars than by warfare, in the history of the country of the United States of America. This table on Wikipedia (which seems to be sourced from the US government's NHTSA FARS database) gives a list of recorded US traffic fatalities going back to 1899. The total number of deaths is 3,581,306 (my computation via a spreadsheet). This table on Wikipedia gives the total number of American military deaths as 1,321,612, though the estimates come from a lot of different sources. Major deployments that were not "proper" wars are also included. The only major conflict in which US civilians died in large numbers (to my knowledge) is the US civil war. There is considerable debate on how many civilians died in total, and no official records were kept at the time. Wikipedia (4th paragraph) suggests the number is unknown, though it cites a poor source. However, I cannot find anything better than wild speculation on enthusiast websites beyond this. The highest estimate I see anywhere is around 800,000 dead, mostly slaves. This would have been nearly 25% of the enslaved population, and about equal to the total number of soldiers that died. and seems an overly high estimate. If anyone has better data, I'd really like to see it! In recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US contractors have been killed in fairly substantial numbers. However, Reuters puts the total number of contractors killed in Iraq by 2007, who were also US citizens, at just 224. I cannot find a similar number for Afghanistan, but this at least gives us a ballpark. In total then, I estimate the number of American civilians and military personal who have died as a direct result of warfare at no more than about 2.5 million. This is less than the total number of Americans killed in motor vehicle accidents, for which we have very good data. Evidence that the worldwide claim is unlikely to be true in future: At current rates, we'd need a century of world peace for cars to catch up to the 20th century death toll alone. This seems very unlikely. The current tread is for car safety to improve over time. With inventions like self-driving cars, this tread may even accelerate. Therefore, it is likely that more than a century of world peace is needed. Final notes: It is quite likely that in other countries that have not seen large scale total wars fought on their soil, the claim is true as well. Most of the 20th century death toll is concentrated in specific countries, especially Russia, China, and Germany. Countries that remained neutral during major conflicts like Holland, Sweden, or Switzerland, are probable candidates. Air pollution from vehicles is also worth considering as a possible factor. This MIT study suggests the annual deaths in the USA from air pollution exceed 50,000 in the US. If these are counted, then the total number of deaths due to automobiles in the USA is markedly higher, but still unlikely to exceed 8 million (emissions related deaths were probably lower in the past because there were fewer people and fewer cars, and cars have only been around for about 100 years in significant numbers). This factor is not likely to significantly change the answer for any country. It approximately doubles the rate at which cars kill people, but in countries with total wars fought on their soil, or with large scale ethnic cleansing or genocides that were part of wars, the death tolls from wars still dwarf the tolls from cars. | {
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19,836 | Several references to the quote "There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things" can be found, such as Martin Fowler's blog and others . I'm unable to find the source of this quote, has he ever said it? | As his only son, and colleague with him at Netscape from 95-97, I can attest that my dad did indeed throw that quote around, on more than one occasion. I'm fairly confident that he originated it (he was fond of coming up with clever quippets), though I haven't been able to figure out how it disseminated so widely over the past couple of decades. I'll keep looking around in old web archives and mails to see if I can dig something up. Reference from David Karlton's personal blog at karlton.org: https://www.karlton.org/2017/12/naming-things-hard/ | {
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19,974 | The image "Who controls your mind? 2013" below claims that a very large proportion of the US media companies have Presidents, CEOs, Founders, Owners, Vice Presidents and Chairs that are Jewish. It can be found on many antisemitic sites such as Stormfront Forums , WatchDogWire , and White Man March . [Note: These links are NSFW, and contain material that may be disturbing.] Is it accurate and representative? Is it true that American media is mostly (i.e. more than 50%) controlled by people of Jewish origin? | The methodology of the supposed table is wrong. The table cherry picks its data points. The table has factual errors. At first, we need to address the main question, "Do Jews control American Media?". This is a problematic statement, as it's conspiratorial by nature. The problem with such claims is, as Larian LeQuella put in his answer on Can HAARP affect weather or earthquakes? : The "beauty" of a conspiracy theory is that no matter what evidence is presented, there is a "talk around" for the believer. No matter what answer is given, they will have a more conspiratorial rebuttal for that. The table tries to "prove" the claim that the American media is controlled by Jews by showing the supposed large number of Jewish executives in media companies. Before we go over the factual errors and the misrepresentation, we need to address the faulty logic behind this attempt at proof. The table shows us the executives of the companies, while executives have power over the content generated by their company, it is arguably lesser than the influence held by people actually creating the content itself - the writers, reporters, directors, actors, producers, editors and other people involved with the creative process. The table doesn't try to explain why does the Steven Spielberg, as the founder of Dreamworks animation, has more influence on the American media and culture than Steven Spielberg, as the director who won two Oscars on WWII films, one depicting the life of a German businessman who saved Jews during the Holocaust , and one depicting the exploits of a squad of American soldiers looking for another soldier on the western front of WWII . The table also puts Vice Presidents of a company as having the same influence as CEOs, Presidents and Chairpersons of the board, which is not true for all VPs. One example is the Associated Press; their site , shows they have eight VPs. Of those, the author of the table chose to put Jessica Bruce, the director of HR, and Kathleen Carroll, the executive editor. Surely the head of HR doesn't have the same influence as the executive editor. Moreover the VPs who control the financial aspects didn't made the list. Surely if a CEO controls content because they control the money, the Chief Financial Officer of AP should make the list of influential figures together with (if not instead of) the head of HR.
AP is not the only company with more executives that the table claims. NBC entertainment has 28 executives listed on their site. Google has 6 executive officers and another 7 senior leaders. The same goes to Fox News , The New York Times and many others. The table includes the founders of a company, many of whom - like Walt Disney, Carl Laemmle, Albert Warner and others - have been dead for decades, and could no longer have direct influence on the American media and culture. The table doesn't differentiate between media that generates independent content and media which is merely a platform for user generated content. For example, the News channels and film companies create their own content, while the content that appears on Facebook, Google and YouTube is not generated by the owners or employees but by the users. Nine of the ten most subscribed YouTube channels by days are operated by private non-Jewish people, and one is the official channel of YouTube. It also doesn't differentiate between demographics. Disney appeals to younger demographic than News companies. The demographic a company appeals to can be very influential on its effect on the media as the susceptibility of people changes with age . It is misrepresentative as there are many people who appear several times in the table, people like Mark Zuckerberg, Rupert Murdoch, Marissa Mayer and others. So a person like Mark Zuckerberg, who is the President, CEO, Founder, owner and chairman of Facebook appears more times on the table than the President and CEO of a major news network (Roger Ailes from Fox News). The table is cherry-pickeded. Not every company has been put on the table. e.g. Facebook is on, but not Instagram, Twitter and other social platforms. The table includes MTV but not VH1, Marvel but not DC comics. I'm sure that there are other major media companies which are absent from the table. The question of whether a person is Jewish or not can be complicated, as there is a duality of religion and nationality. According to Jewish religious law, everyone who is born to a Jewish mother is a Jew. The only other way to become a Jew is through a conversion process. But once a person is a Jew (whether by birth or otherwise), in the eyes of the religious law that person will always stay a Jew, even if they convert to another religion. A person born to a Jewish father and a non Jewish mother is, at the eyes of the religious law and tradition, isn't a Jew. Many people are atheist, but see their Jewish heritage as a cultural heritage, in a way familiar to Americans with Irish, German, Italian and other ancestors in the USA. A good example for this is Jon Stewart , who isn't a religious person, yet on his show he constantly talks about his Jewish heritage, about the Jewish traditions and identifies with Jewish stereotypes. Finally, for the sake of this answer we must accept the criteria that is put by the claim. The claim is made by a racist society that tries to convince us that there is a Jewish conspiracy to take over the media/banks/world. They are not very interested in the religious and cultural identity of each individual, so for the sake of this answer, I take the broadest definition possible: who ever has Jewish ancestry from either side of their family or is a converted Jew. So under this definition, everyone who is a Jew according to the Jewish religion is counted, as well as whoever has Jewish ancestry only from their father's side. It will include atheist and non practicing Jews, as well as Jews who converted to another religion (if there are any who are relevant). This is a very broad definition and it will also include people like Benjamin Disraeli , Karl Marx . If there are any people who were Jews but latter converted, I'll note that. More on who is a Jew can be read in the Wikipedia article , and on other sources online ( The Economist , JewFAQ.com ...). Some of the sources for showing that a person is not Jewish, are racist blogs with no sources. This is only used when no other better sources are found, and under the assumption that a racist blog will not let a Jew or even a suspected Jew to "escape". This is still a work in progress, as going over all the names takes time. From now on the specific claims of the table will be checked, I only check the ethnicity of the people mentioned, not whether they hold the position claimed in the table. People in the table, and whether they are in fact Jewish: Incorrect Deb Finan - Jew in table but not really Jewish, source: racist blog Phil Griffin - Jew in table, but not really Jewish, only married to one. source: racist blog Marissa Mayer - Jew in table but not really Jewish. source: Wikipedia Steve Jobs - Jew in table but not really Jewish. source: Wikipedia Eric Schmidt - Not a Jew in reality. source: theAlgemeiner.com , but appears in the table several times, and in one of the times (as the chairman of CNN) he appears as a Jew, while in all other he isn't. Arianna Huffington - Not a Jew in reality. source: Wikipedia but appears in the table several times, and in one of the times (as the co-founder of Huff post) she appears as a Jew, while in all other he isn't. Correct Vivian Schiller - Jew in Table and reality. source: Tabletmag.com Mark Zuckerberg - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Larry Page - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Sergey Brin - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Jeffrey Katzenberg - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Steven Spielberg - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia David Geffen - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Rupert Murdoch - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: Wikipedia Hutch Parker - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: racist blog Ronald Meyer - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Thomas Rothman - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia William Fox - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Joseph Schenck - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia James Schamus - Jew in Table and reality. sources: some blog and The New York Times Carl Laemmle - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Ted Turner - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: Wikipedia Leslie Moonves - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Dana Walden - Jew in Table and reality. source: abbanibi.com Sheryl Sandberg - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Nikesh Arora - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: racist blog Robert Iger - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Sumner Redstone (Rothstein) - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Roger Ailes - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: TheJewishWeek.com Brian Lewis - Not a Jew in the table, I couldn't find any confirmation of his religion or ethnicity, but since the table puts his as a non-Jew, I'm applying the "racist blog" rule here and accept this with the disputed claim as the source. Stacey Snider - Jew in Table and reality. source: Jewish Women's Archive The Warner Brothers - Jews in the Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Paul Reuter - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia Ralph Waldo Emerson - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: Wikipedia Henry Longfellow - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: Unitarian Church of Quincy Undetermined Kathy Keller-Brown - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way. Patricia Fili-Krushel - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way. She did chair an event of the UJA-Federation of New York . Tom Rogers - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way. John Nicol - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way. alvy ray smith - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way. Lew Coleman - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way. Adam Fogelson - Jew in Table, couldn't verify ether way. His last name is Jewish Jennifer Salke - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way. Robert Merrick - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way. John Lasseter - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way. Holly Bario - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way. The table also puts NBC Universal as the owner of MSNBC, Time Warner as the owner of HBO and The Woodbridge Company as the owners of Reuters, and puts them as half jewish and half not. It also puts Hearst Corporation as the owner of Cosmopolitan and puts it as non Jew. Corporations don't have religion, race or ethnicity. | {
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20,087 | There a lot of differing views reports on pH levels and cancer. Some say that cancer only grows in acidic bodies. Some say that an alkaline body can prevent or cure cancer. Many others disagree calling it a "myth" . What this question is: Is there a link between pH levels and cancer? What this question isn't: This question isn't about alkaline diets, ash diets or any other diets or whether they work or not. Also I'm aware that the body is naturally slightly alkaline. I mean average pH. | Summary cancer only grows in acidic bodies ... an alkaline body can prevent or cure cancer. This is certainly over-simplistic, probably meaningless, almost certainly useless. Average body pH I suspect this is not a meaningful thing to attempt to measure. In terms of cancer, it may be no more meaningful than average body thickness, average body density or average body conductivity. Our bodies are made up of many materials with varying pH: Stomach: 2.0 ±1
Stomach with food: 4.5 ±0.5
Adipose: 7.0 ±0.1
Blood: 7.40 ±0.05
Small Intestine: 8 approx
Muscle tissue spaces: alkaline
Muscle fibre interior: acid
Urine: 4.6 - 8 Should we make an average by volume?, by mass? Should it be a weighted average? Should we measure and monitor the pH of hundreds or thousands of different tissues, fluids and other materials in our bodies? Cancer and pH Cancer is essentially uncontrolled excessive cell division and growth. Therefore we might reasonably interpret the question in terms of intracellular fluid pH and ignore the pH of other materials/fluids in the body. Cellular pH is regulated. The body has mechanisms that maintain the pH of cells independently of other internal and external factors. However Cellular pH does play a role in tumor cell survival [4] pH Control Can we deliberately alter our cellular pH? In general, no. We cannot easily or safely manipulate our cellular pH outside normal ranges. Our cells have mechanisms to regulate pH. If pH goes outside the normal ranges we become ill and may die. [5] References 1 Intracellular pH is difficult to measure and may vary in different types of cells and in different parts of cells. pH of the plasma (i.e. pH of the plasma of whole blood = conventional "blood" pH) is controlled at 7.4 (7.35 - 7.45). From D.Brooks, University of Nebraska-Lincoln 2 The normal human stomach has a pH which can range from approximately 1-3 but is usually closer to 2. When there is food in the stomach the pH can raise to as high as 4-5. After the food leaves the stomach bicarbonate ions are secreted to neutralize and alkalinize the mixture. The pH of the small intestine is approximately 8. From University of California Santa Barbera 3 It is only the interior spaces that are alkaline, whereas the interior of the muscle fibres is actually acid. From University of Rochester 4 One of the major obstacles to the successful treatment of cancer is the complex biology of solid tumour development. Although regulation of intracellular pH has been shown to be critically important for many cellular functions, pH regulation has not been fully investigated in the field of cancer. It has, however, been shown that cellular pH is crucial for biological functions such as cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis, drug resistance and apoptosis. Hypoxic conditions are often observed during the development of solid tumours and lead to intracellular and extracellular acidosis. Cellular acidosis has been shown to be a trigger in the early phase of apoptosis and leads to activation of endonucleases inducing DNA fragmentation. To avoid intracellular acidification under such conditions, pH regulators are thought to be up-regulated in tumour cells. Four major types of pH regulator have been identified: the proton pump, the sodium-proton exchanger family (NHE), the bicarbonate transporter family (BCT) and the monocarboxylate transporter family (MCT). Here, we describe the structure and function of pH regulators expressed in tumour tissue. Understanding pH regulation in tumour cells may provide new ways of inducing tumour-specific apoptosis, thus aiding cancer chemotherapy. From Cellular pH regulators: potentially promising molecular targets for cancer chemotherapy. 5 Cells must constantly maintain their pH in order to function properly. In animals, for example, the maintainence of blood pH is crucial for life. A slightly acidic pH (6.95) would result in coma and death. A slightly more basic pH (7.7) would result in convulsions and muscle spasms. From MAINTAINING CELLULAR CONDITIONS: pH AND BUFFERS. University of Tenessee, Knoxville | {
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20,216 | I've heard multiple times through out my college and early work career that they believed sugar was one element away from being cocaine (or some other drug). However, none of these people had a biology or chemistry background, so I was skeptical. Is there any evidence and explanation if sugar is one element away from cocaine (or any other drug)? | First of all I will assume that by sugar we mean sucrose , which is the common table sugar . Here is the structural formula for sucrose: Source: Wikipedia - Sucrose If you are not familiar with chemical structures for organic compounds, note that every "corner" in a chemical structure like this is considered to be a carbon atom (C), even if it is not written for visual clarity (there may also possibly be hydrogen atoms, see the Wikipedia page on skeletal formulae for an extended explanation) Here is the formula for cocaine: Source: Wikipedia - Cocaine Here is heroin: Source: Wikipedia - Heroin Obviously I could go on for a while listing all existing drugs but I guess there is no much point in doing that... Now, if we take the claim literally, and we look at elements, then the claim is true. Sugar is made by 3 elements: carbon (C), oxygen (O) and hydrogen (H). Cocaine has the same plus nitrogen (N). However, this is pretty meaningless as the majority of organic compounds contains C, O and H... If the claim is to be read as one atom more then it is clearly false.
And even if it were the case that would not imply absolutely anything in terms of the biological actions of either compound, as their 3D structures are clearly different. | {
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20,230 | Sources on the internet claim that the GPS system requires Relativity to work ( xkcd ). I've searched information about the GPS system, how it works and how it was set up, reading information from many sources including the US military who maintain the GPS system. I also looked at the equations used to calculate position. I couldn't find any dependence on relativity anywhere. All I could find is a minor claim that the satellite clocks initial setting were CONSISTENT with relativity, but that claim didn't come from the US military websites. Does GPS use Einstein's General Relativity in order to work accurately? | Yes, GPS requires both general and special relativity to work [Note this is simplified account based on this and this (MS word download)] We can understand why by looking at how GPS actually determines where you are. The system relies on a number of satellites transmitting signals and your GPS device receiving those signals (see wikipedia ). There are about 32 GPS satellites and each transmits a signal that contains the exact time based on very accurate atomic clocks on the satellite and position information about where the satellite is. A typical GPS receiver can "see" a handful of satellites from any given position on the earth's surface. Crudely, the position of the receiver is calculated by noting how long the signal takes to arrive from each satellite, using this to calculate the distance to the satellite and then, by trilateration (the 3D equivalent of triangulation), deriving the receiver's position from the distances from several satellites whose positions are known. Civilian GPS is typically quoted as having an accuracy of about +/- 15m though there are ways to do better. Military GPS can go below +/- 1m precision. Since the speed of light (the speed of the radio signals from the satellites) is about 300 million m/s this means we need to be able to account for time in accurate units of a handful of nano seconds to get that degree of precision for distance. This is where relativity comes in. Clocks are affected by both gravity and motion. High speeds make clocks run slower according to special relativity and higher gravity also slows them according to general relativity. Since GPS satellites travel at about 14,000km/hr their clocks will be slow relative to the earth's surface by about 7 microseconds (7,000 nano seconds) per day. Because the earth's surface has gravity about 4 times higher than a GPS satellite the satellite clocks run about 45 microseconds faster than one on the ground. This gives a net difference of about 38 microseconds relative to the surface per day. If we ignored relativity and failed to correct for this, GPS positions would be out by about a dozen kilometres per day (those microseconds trump the required accuracy of nanoseconds by factors of thousands). To summarise the issue. We need to keep accurate account of time for GPS to work. But GPS clocks are affected by relativistic effects that alter their clocks relative to the earth's surface. We can retain accurate times if we adjust for the known differences and so we can retain an ability to accurately find the position of a GPS receiver. So relativity, both special and general, is required or the system would be useless. Philosophical note The comments here have suggested that there is some obfuscation and confusion on the conclusion here. It is true, as some have pointed out, that absolute proof is not possible in science (at least if you take a Popperian view of verification). Facts can show a theory is wrong, but they can't prove it is correct. While true this isn't a strong objection to the answer here. Perhaps it would be clearer if we said "provides extremely strong evidence in favour of" rather than "proves" but in practice the difference is small. In the case of GPS we have a scientific theory (or two related theories) that predicted precise effects more than 50 years before the GPS system was deployed. That is pretty much the strongest sort of scientific verification that is possible. Arguing that it isn't "proof" in a mathematical sense is merely nit-picking. And arguing that the relativistic corrections would be irrelevant in a Newtonian universe is just a ridiculous distraction based on an irrelevant philosophical though experiment. The question is about this universe and this universe is accurately modeled by relativity. | {
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20,313 | I saw the following story on truthbook and wanted to know if it is true. (This one was found on the internet. We cannot corroborate its accuracy, but it is an amusing story...) When Gandhi was studying law at the University College of London, there was a professor, whose last name was Peters, who felt animosity for Gandhi, and because Gandhi never lowered his head towards him, their "arguments" were very common. One day, Mr. Peters was having lunch at the dining room of the University and Gandhi came along with his tray and sat next to the professor. The professor, in his arrogance, said, "Mr Gandhi: you do not understand... a pig and a bird do not sit together to eat," to which Gandhi replies, "You do not worry professor, I'll fly away, " and he went and sat at another table. Mr. Peters, green of rage, decides to take revenge on the next test, but Gandhi responds brilliantly to all questions. Then, Mr. Peters asked him the following question, "Mr Gandhi, if you are walking down the street and find a package, and within it there is a bag of wisdom and another bag with a lot of money; which one will you take?" Without hesitating, Gandhi responded, "the one with the money, of course." Mr. Peters, smiling, said, "I, in your place, would have taken the wisdom, don't you think?" "Each one takes what one doesn't have," responded Gandhi indifferently. Mr. Peters, already hysteric, writes on the exam sheet the word "idiot" and gives it to Gandhi. Gandhi takes the exam sheet and sits down. A few minutes later, Gandhi goes to the professor and says, "Mr. Peters, you signed the sheet, but you did not give me the grade." | I saw the following story on truthbook and wanted to know if it is true. (This one was found on the internet. We cannot corroborate its accuracy, ... Probably not true This degree of zinging repartee seems very unlikely from someone who described himself as shy and tongue tied at that time. If you read Gandhi's autobiography "The Story Of My Experiments With Truth" you will see that, during his studies in London he was rather shy and had trouble speaking in public I was at a loss to know how to express myself p81 This shyness I retained throughout my stay in England ... the presence of half a dozen or more people would strike me dumb p82 I can find nothing about a Professor Peters. I can find no original source for the anecdote in the question. There are plenty of copies in the Internet but they all seem very recent and lack firm attribution - it seems unlikely that this anecdote was only passed by word of mouth between 1898 and 2014. Of course, this doesn't mean the anecdote is untrue, but it does seem not to fit well with Gandhi's account of his own confidence in English at the time. | {
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20,318 | According to the Richard Dawkins Foundation : Was Ishtar's symbols anything similar to the bunny and the egg? Was Easter named after Ishtar? | No, Easter is derived from Eōstre , who was a Germanic divinity, a goddess of the dawn. The word is related to other dawn goddesses, but not to Ishtar, who is goddess of fertility and war. This is backed up by The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, 1971, Vol. 1, pg. 827: Besides the lions on her gate, her symbol is an eight-pointed star. Bunnies and eggs are not associated with her. (see Black, Jeremy and Green, Anthony (1992). Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary. ISBN 0-292-70794-0 pp. 156, 169–170) You might also like this refutation of the meme . See also this question on the English Language site . | {
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20,347 | I am not a Holocaust denier but I am skeptical of some of the reported numbers and details of the historical event. Is there any evidence that 6 million Jews were executed as part of a plan to eliminate the Jewish people? I am also skeptical of some of the accounts of Jewish skin used for lampshades and shrunken heads of concentration camp inmates. | Numbers The Nazis documented their extermination campaign. So they left detailed documentary records that provide good evidence that six million were killed. For example, there are Nazi records of how many Jews were transported to Auschwitz and Soviet records of how many were liberated at the end of the war. For example, approximately a million Jews on the Eastern Front were shot during 1941-42, and buried in large pits. This is known partly because the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing units that coordinated these massacres, prepared detailed reports on the murders - reports that contained precise death tolls, broken down into men, women and children. These reports were sent to high ranking officials in Berlin, and to army, police and SS officers, as well as diplomats and even prominent industrialists. This wide distribution suggests that the perpetrators felt no shame at what they did. Had these killings not been part of Berlin's policy, the reports would never have been so widely distributed. From Denying the holocaust, BBC In the Museum Archives there are 252 lists of newcomers from different periods. Each list contains: date, date of registration, camp number, prisoner category, names and surnames, date and place of birth and occulation. (Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Archives) From Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial & Museum Letter from SS-Sturmbannführer Jahrling to SS-General Kammler estimating the number of corpses that can be disposed off in 24 hours in the Auschwitz crematoriums, June 25 1943. 1.) Crematorium I 3 x 2 muffles 340 persons
2.) Crematorium II 5 x 3 muffles 1440 persons
3.) Crematorium III 5 x 3 muffles 1440 persons
4.) Crematorium IV 8 muffles 768 persons
5.) Crematorium V 8 muffles 768 persons Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas chambers - J.C Pressac, the Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, NY, 1989, p. 247: I make that up to 4756 corpses each day. That would be 1,046,320 corpses in each year of five-day working weeks with two months out of operation (220 working days in a year). Large amounts of evidence Of course, the above is just a few small examples from a huge mountain of evidence. According to the US holocaust memorial museum Allied prosecutors submitted some 3,000 tons of records at the Nuremberg trial. And of course, there is a lot of evidence other than that submitted at Nuremberg. Some of this additional evidence can be found at numerous museums and libraries around the world. 30-50 million German records of 17 million victims of Holocaust and forced labour Survivor testimony at the British Library , etc Other references From comments below. Schutzhaft - The use of "protective custody" (Schutzhaft) to round up people for concentration camps is discussed more here: Law and Justice in the Third Reich , United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Oddthinking Non-Jewish victims - In addition to the 6 million quoted above, there are several articles on the web ( such as this one ) that estimate five million non-Jews were killed in the Holocaust, including Jehovah Witnesses, gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled, among others. - tcrosley Denial - Convicted Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf has a web-site where he publishes books that contend that the Holocaust never happened. - infatuated ICRC - The International Committee of the Red Cross has 25,000 pages of information that it acquired on the subject prior to the end of World War II. - Himarm | {
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20,381 | This article claims that eating active yeast powder before drinking will mitigate the effects of alcohol, by breaking down the alcohol before it enters your blood stream. You see, what Owades knew was that active dry yeast has an enzyme in it called alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH). Roughly put, ADH is able to break alcohol molecules down into their constituent parts of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Which is the same thing that happens when your body metabolizes alcohol in its liver. Owades realized if you also have that enzyme in your stomach when the alcohol first hits it, the ADH will begin breaking it down before it gets into your bloodstream and, thus, your brain. Is there any truth to this? Are there any risks from eating raw yeast? There is a rather nasty (but rare) condition called Auto-brewery syndrome which could have the opposite effect if the yeast got into your intestines intact. | No, it is highly implausible that eating yeast will stop you from getting drunk. Inside the stomach the pH is around 1-2 , the activity of enzymes is typically strongly dependent on the pH. Outside of their optimal pH range enzymes generally work much slower or not at all. Yeast ADH has a pH optimum in the neutral to alkaline range, at low pH values it is not active at all. The following two papers looked at the effect of pH on ADH and both observed that ADH was unstable at low pH values From "The Role of Zinc in Alcohol Dehydrogenase: V. THE EFFECT OF METAL-BINDING AGENTS ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE YEAST ALCOHOL DEHYDROGENASE MOLECULE" : At acid pH, both activity and zinc of the enzyme are lost also (18,
19), but the effect of H+ ions on the structure of the enzyme differs
markedly from that here described for chelating agents. Yeast alcohol
dehydrogenase, 3.3 x 1O-5 M, when dialyzed for 24 hours in 0.1 M
sodium acetate, pH 4.0, 0°, becomes polydispersed and precipitates on
increasing the temperature by only 4°. Apparently, H+ ions
critically affect sensitive groups of this enzyme in addition to
those involved in activity and zinc binding. From "Effect of pH on the Liver Alcohol Dehydrogenase Reaction" : We are unable to study the rate of hydride transfer at more acidic pH
values because our enzyme preparation undergoes rapid loss of
activity below pH 5.9 So the proposed mechanism of the higher alcohol tolerance is highly implausible. There could be an effect of eating yeast separate from ADH, or yeast could have isoforms that also work at lower pH. But as the only evidence in favor seems to be anecdotal I would doubt that eating yeast as a significant effect. | {
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20,389 | This image claims that you can get protein from non-meat sources, citing Broccoli as an example. Do you really need meat to get Protein? Beef 6.4 grams of protein per 100 calories. Broccoli 11.1 grams of protein pe 100 calories Plants have all the protein you need with none of the violence. Source: Albury Times-Union VeganStreet.com My initial reaction is "NO WAY! That's not the same amino acids or structure or something..." but then I realized I have no actual evidence to back this up. I think the statement is technically correct, however, I can't shake the feeling that I'm not seeing the whole picture. | An amino acid was first isolated in 1806, by French chemists Louis Nicolas Vauquelin and Pierre Jean Robiquet The proteins present in food are all composed of a group of amino-acids. The amino-acids constitute the building blocks for many different chemicals made inside the body: in hormones, enzymes, DNA. encoding, RNA. encoding.... they play vital roles in the body's immune system, they constitute the neurotransmitters in the brain, the cortisol which is involved with stress response - in short we know a fair bit about their roles in the body, and the body and mind can't function at full capacity without them. About 500 amino-acids are known. Ref(1) Altogether there are twenty amino-acids which we need. Of those twenty there are ten which the human body can synthesize, the other ten are only able to be obtained through our diet, these ten are called "essential amino-acids". Animal proteins contain the amino-acids we can't produce ourselves, these are called complete proteins . A vegetarian diet would still contain eggs and dairy products which, together with the vegetable proteins would cover the full count of the required ten essential amino-acids. The question boils down to: can a vegan diet provide all ten essential amino-acids, if not, what supliments are available? (Which are not of an animal source) It appears to be the case that vegetable proteins are on the whole likely to contain these amino acids, but some of them may be present in only small quantities. It is therefore necessary to find a variety of vegetable sources in order to obtain a balanced diet of complete protein. From: vrg.org/nutrition/protein.php Soybeans, quinoa (a grain), and spinach also are considered high
quality protein. Other protein sources of non-animal origin usually
have all of the essential amino acids, but the amounts of one or two
of these amino acids may be low. For example, grains are lower in
lysine (an essential amino acid) and legumes are lower in methionine
(another essential amino acid) than those protein sources designated
as high quality protein. Frances Moore Lappe, in her book Diet for a Small Planet
advocated the combining of a food low in one amino acid
with another food containing large amounts of that amino acid. This
got to be a very complicated process, with each meal having specific
amounts of certain foods in order to be certain of getting a favorable
amino acid mix. Many people got discouraged with the complexity of
this approach. It may not always be possible or convenient to eat healthily on a vegan diet, but there are plenty of food supplements containing the individual elements you may need for that hard to get complete diet. Using a search engine to seek: "vegan amino-acids" many websites offer individual amino acids and quite a few pharmacies/health and fitness stores in your local town or city probably do the same. They do in mine. It would then be advisable for the individual to ensure that they are buying not only the appropriate supplements, but ones not obtained from animals. Anyone embarking on a vegan diet would be well advised to seek advice from a dietitian about their specific requirements, particularly regarding feeding expectant mothers, children, young adults, the old and the very active or ill. Refs:
1: Wagner, Ingrid; Musso, Hans (November 1983). "New Naturally Occurring Amino Acids". Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 22 (22): 816–828. Edit (1) - to include broccoli and a useful resource: Although the specific statement in the question refers to the website: VeganStreet.com, this answerer is unable to find the specific page making the claim, however there are other sites which make similar claims. Broccoli is not considered a complete source of essential amino acids, see here . A serving of 91 grams of the raw product contains: > Tryptophan 30.0 mg
> Threonine 80.1 mg
> Isoleucine 71.9 mg
> Leucine 117 mg
> Lysine 123 mg
> Methionine 34.6 mg
> Cystine 25.5 mg
> Phenylalanine 106 mg
> Tyrosine 45.5 mg
> Valine 114 mg
> Arginine 174 mg
> Histidine 53.7 mg
> Alanine 94.6 mg
> Aspartic acid 296 mg
> Glutamic acid 493 mg
> Glycine 81.0 mg
> Proline 100 mg
> Serine 110 mg
>
> Attribution:
> http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2356/2#ixzz30ZrrGvhy The bio-availability of these amino acids is not stated in the raw product, nor the cooked, nor is the RDA of any of them listed here. The claims on the above site regarding the relative protein contents of broccoli and beef (per amount measured arbitrarily in calorific content) are contradicted here with citations, notably of USDA’s Agricultural Research Service’s Nutrient Data Laboratory database. It gives a list of the essential amino acids and their RDA. taken from the WHO database. For reasons of complex formatting I have not quoted this, you should view the list here: http://eathropology.com/2013/04/08/broccoli-has-more-protein-than-steak-and-other-crap/ It is clear that to ascertain the minimum daily requirements of for example histidine, approximately 20 cups of broccoli need to be consumed per day. The story is similar for other essential amino acids. To most people this would make broccoli an unfeasible source of all necessary dietary protein. | {
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20,460 | In this article , it is claimed that 1 in 5 college women are raped (at least around the 2013-2014 time period). I have heard the claim repeated from other sources (such as the BBC , which was apparently quoting a White House figure), so to say the least this appears to be a common statistic. However, I am doubtful about this statistic, as per this question , comments in Freakonomics about how such figures might be exaagerated (intentionally or not) by organizations campaigning against sexual assault, and to a degree, personal experience. Where are such statistics actually derived from, and are they actually accurate? | The claim in the linked article does not represent the full range of estimates for the prevalence of rape or sexual assault. The evidence is based on surveys that depend on self-reporting and with results that vary based on the specific question asked. The accuracy of the surveys is unknown, since there is no ground-truth data against which to evaluate. Wikipedia's summary regarding prevalence is: Estimates vary greatly as to the number of women who experience a sexual assault during college, with surveys focused on the United States placing it as low as 1 in 50 (2%) to as high as 1 in 4 (25%). Referencing Louis Harris and Associates (1994). The Commonwealth Fund Survey of Women's Health. Jacobs Institute of Women's Healthh. p. 20.) and Koss, Mary (1988). "Hidden Rape: Sexual Aggression and Victimization in a National Sample of Students in Higher Education". Rape and Sexual Assault (Garland Publishing) 2: 8.). | {
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20,650 | It appears to be popular to claim that the Qur'an predicted the speed of light before it was scientifically well understood. Although none of the sources state that outright, that is what they imply. Example: Moslems (Muslims) believe that angels … move at any speed … up to the speed of light. It is the angels who carry out God's orders. … [Quran 32.5] (Allah) Rules the cosmic affair from the heavens to the Earth. Then this affair travels to Him a distance in one day, at a measure of one thousand years of what you count. [P]eople back then measured the distances … by how much time they needed to walk.… [I]n this verse the Quran specifies 1000 years of what they counted (not what they walked). … Since this verse is referring to distance, then God is saying that angels travel in one day the same distance that the moon travels in 12000 lunar orbits. We discovered that in an inertial geocentric frame 12000 Lunar Orbits/Earth Day is equivalent to the speed of light. Is this true? Links: Miracles of the Quran Speed of Light in Holy Quran speed of light in the Holy Quran (pdf | TL;DR : No, even if one chooses to interpret the excerpt of the Qur'an as such, the maths don't hold up I am going to base this answer on your second source , as the calculation there is reduced to the minimum which makes it a lot easier to show its flaws. This is an answer on the mathematical aspect of the problem, not covering the interpretation of the quote. In a simple calculation based on the real month, the moon travels 2152612.27 km around earth in compete round. This distance represents the length of the orbit that the moon takes while a complete round during one month. Wrong. According to NASA , the circumference of the orbit of the moon around Earth is 2'413'402.16 km. Now, how long is a month? A sidereal month is 27.21 days in solar days of 24 h (86'400). Note the definition of a day in the source, which is 86'164 this is also correct, but that's a sidereal day, meaning a day as measured in relation to the positions of the stars and not the sun. So the distance per year is: 2152612.27 × 12 = 25831347 km And in one thousand year is: 25831347 × 1000= 25831347000 km There's another problem. One year doesn't have 12 months. The Islamic Calendar Year has 355 days . Considering a month of 27.21 days as mentioned above, 1000 years are equal to 13'019 months . With this we can calculate the distance the moon travels in 1000 years, which is roughly 28'000'000'000 km . The cosmic speed = 25831347000 ÷ 86164 = 299792 km\ second which is exactly the speed of the light. Assuming this correspond to the distance light will travel in one day, we get a speed of 324'000 km/s which is more than the speed of light (roughly 300'000 km). Using the sidereal day won't help, as this will only make the value bigger. Now in a lot of the calculations they use the synodic month instead ( 29.53 days ). This will indeed decrease the number of months but this effect will be entirely canceled out as this leads to a proportional increase in the orbit circumference. (One cannot define the month with one definition of the orbit and then use another definition of the day to calculate the distance per day.) In all three sources they come to the result either by mixing up different definitions of days, orbits and the like and omitting any explanation for it. Or by using overly complicated calculations to an easy problem to hide those errors in a lot of smart looking maths . | {
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20,654 | Is this a genuine image of the hand of André René Roussimoff ( André the Giant ) holding an everyday 12-ounce (350 mL) can of beer? Uproxx and reddit suggest it's real (and word is he once drank 119 beers in a single sitting), but I'm not so sure. Is there any evidence to suggest his hands were really this big? | Yes, that's Andre's hand. This image was part of the cover spread for a biographical article "To the Giant among us" in Sports Illustrated in 1981. The full cover spread includes regular-sized hands pouring a beer for comparison: The full article text for To The Giant Among Us is available on sports illustrated's vault. | {
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20,765 | There have been several claims in the media that white men are more likely to commit mass murders. I've seen rather strong evidence that the vast majority of these crimes are committed by men, so I don't doubt this part of the claim. On the other hand, I haven't seen any non-dubious statistics for the racial aspect of the claim. Are white people more likely to commit mass murder than those of other races? | We identified a total of 28 mass murderers who fit the
criteria for inclusion [male mass murderers in the U.S. since 1970]. [...] 71.4%
were White, 14.3% were African American, and another 14.3%
were some other race (Asian, Arab, and Native American) . Kennedy-Kollar, Deniese and Charles, Christopher A. D., Hegemonic Masculinity and Mass Murderers in the United States (December 26, 2013). Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 8(2), 2013. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2372128 This only shows that given a mass murderer, they are more likely to be white. From the chart and references here , white people made up 87.5% of the U.S. population in 1970, 83.1% in 1980, 80.3% in 1990, 75.1% in 2000, and 72.4% of in 2010. 71.4% of mass murderers being white is not an over-representation of whites. | {
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20,798 | I've always heard the claim that a dishwasher is more water efficient. I can attest that I once washed the dishes with a clogged pipe, and put a bucket below the sink, and was appalled at the amount of water used, and this was while using low flows and turning off the faucet when not in use. Now: The dishwasher can operate at higher pressures and temperatures, making it more efficient On the other hand, the angle between the dishes and the water can be pretty low, making it less efficient. When washing manually you can control the angle. So, assuming you're an environmentalist dish washer, what should you use? | Yes, a dishwasher almost always uses less water than manual washing. According to a study published by the University of Bonn[1], both the energy and water consumption of a dishwasher is better: As regards the normal household practice of
washing small amounts of dishes and heavily
soiled articles, our comparison confirms the
advantages of automatic over manual dishwashing when comparing the average behaviour in
manual washing with a fully loaded average
dishwasher. These advantages can be identified
as lower consumption of water and energy and especially as
better cleaning results and significantly lower amounts of
manual working time needed. As they say, the reason is mostly that smaller amounts are washed when handwashing. The average water consumption for 12 place settings is on average 83-121 litres (depending on whether all the plates are washed together or in 2 portions) when washed by hand and 20 litres when machine washed. They do however say that there's a huge spread on how much water is used when washed manually: The water and energy measurements (Fig. 5 and 6) again
show a very wide distribution of consumption values, ranging from four to 90 l and from 0.03 kWh up
to 2.6 kWh for washing a pair of place settings. As this is for only 2 place settings, even the most efficient manual washers are unlikely to achieve the same efficiency in cleaning as a dishwasher. [1] http://www.landtechnik.uni-bonn.de/research/appliance-technology/publications/07-02-03-dishwashing | {
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20,835 | I was reading a manga , and I saw this : So I was wondering. Will a bullet be split in half if it hits a butter knife that is fixed in place? Have there been experiments to test that? | In the television show Penn and Teller Tell A Lie , a competitor to Mythbusters, they conduct an experiment to try this. Here is a YouTube video of the result. In the single instance they show with a slow motion camera, the bullet is indeed at split in half - or at least, fragmented into pieces - by a normal butter-knife. This is not a large sample, and doesn't demonstrate it works with all bullets or all butter knives, but shows that it is, in fact, possible. Bonus: Another video on the stunt using a machete from a source I have no particular reason to trust. | {
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20,877 | In Bill Bryson's book The Mother Tongue , it is claimed, that Dr. David Edwards, head of the Joint National Committee on Languages once said: "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me." Is this claim true? Has David Edwards been the head of said organization? Did he have a Ph. D. or something similar, and in which field? But the central question is: Did he make that claim? Some people mention, that the citation is also attributed to Gov. Miriam Amanda Wallace “Ma” Ferguson (Texas), but, of course, two people may make the same claim. For example till today, million people claimed that you shouldn't believe in a statistic that you didn't forge yourself. | Bill Bryson did not make this claim. In Chapter 12 of his book he writes: As one congressman quite seriously told Dr. David Edwards, head of the Joint National Committee on Languages, "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me," [Quoted in the Guardian , April 30, 1988] Dr J. David Edwards was the former Executive Director of the Joint National Committee for Language - National Council on Language and International Studies. The mission and activities of the Joint National Committee for Languages (JNCL) and the National Council for Languages and International Studies (NCLIS) are founded on the shared belief of its member organizations that all Americans should have the opportunity to learn and use English and at least one other language , emphasizing the vital role played in the national well being by our K-12 and higher education foreign language programs. So Dr. Edwards' actions are completely in contradiction to the claim as well. | {
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21,907 | This image has made the rounds in various discussions of gun control in the USA. The picture was purportedly taken in Dodge City, Kansas (Popular culture's quintessential Wild West town, populated by figures such as Wyatt Earp and the setting of fiction such as Gunsmoke), in 1878. Is this image genuine and firearms were prohibited in Dodge City? | Yes , the photograph is real and comes from Adam Wrinkler's book " Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America " which he mentioned in an article on Huffington Post on the topic of gun control in the Wild West : Guns were obviously widespread on the frontier. Out in the untamed
wilderness, you needed a gun to be safe from bandits, natives, and
wildlife. In the cities and towns of the West, however, the law often
prohibited people from toting their guns around. A visitor arriving in
Wichita, Kansas in 1873, the heart of the Wild West era, would have
seen signs declaring, "Leave Your Revolvers At Police Headquarters,
and Get a Check." A check? That's right. When you entered a frontier town, you were
legally required to leave your guns at the stables on the outskirts of
town or drop them off with the sheriff, who would give you a token in
exchange. You checked your guns then like you'd check your overcoat
today at a Boston restaurant in winter. Visitors were welcome, but
their guns were not. In my new book, Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in
America, there's a photograph taken in Dodge City in 1879. Everything
looks exactly as you'd imagine: wide, dusty road; clapboard and brick
buildings; horse ties in front of the saloon. Yet right in the middle
of the street is something you'd never expect. There's a huge wooden
billboard announcing, "The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited." While people were allowed to have guns at home for self-protection,
frontier towns usually barred anyone but law enforcement from carrying
guns in public. When Dodge City residents organized their municipal government, do you
know what the very first law they passed was? A gun control law. They
declared that "any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons
in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt
with according to law." Many frontier towns, including Tombstone,
Arizona--the site of the infamous "Shootout at the OK Corral"--also
barred the carrying of guns openly. Other cities had similarly restrictive gun laws and fines were issued for breaching them , And one fact is usually ignored: Back then, Tombstone had far
stricter gun control than it does today. In fact, the American West's
most infamous gun battle erupted when the marshal tried to enforce a
local ordinance that barred carrying firearms in public. A judge had
fined one of the victims $25 earlier that day for packing a pistol. "You could wear your gun into town, but you had to check it at the
sheriff's office or the Grand Hotel, and you couldn't pick it up again
until you were leaving town," said Bob Boze Bell, executive editor of
True West Magazine, which celebrates the Old West. "It was an effort
to control the violence." The fact that firearms had to be checked explains why contemporary accounts would make reference to secreting their firearms at times, There were no dissenters to the program. I saw at a glance that my
Bunkie was heart and soul in the play, and took my cue and kept my
mouth shut. We circled round the town to a vacant lot within a block
of the rear of the dance hall. Honeyman was left to hold the horses;
then, taking off our belts and hanging them on the pommels of our
saddles, we secreted our six-shooters inside the waistbands of our
trousers. The hall was still crowded with the revelers when we
entered, a few at a time, Forrest and Priest being the last to arrive.
Forrest had changed hats with The Rebel, who always wore a black one,
and as the bouncer circulated around, Quince stopped squarely in front
of him. There was no waste of words, but a gun-barrel flashed in the
lamplight, and the bouncer, struck with the six-shooter, fell like a
beef. Before the bewildered spectators could raise a hand, five
six-shooters were turned into the ceiling. The lights went out at the
first fire, and amidst the rush of men and the screaming of women, we
reached the outside, and within a minute were in our saddles. All
would have gone well had we returned by the same route and avoided the
town; but after crossing the railroad track, anger and pride having
not been properly satisfied, we must ride through the town. As an aside, the gun check laws are the reason why we have such artifacts as Wyatt Earp 's gun: Wyatt Earp's pistol at the Red Dog Saloon | {
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21,985 | This article shows a diagram of the remains of human giants . The tallest one being 36 ft. (1097.28 cm.) This seems like a pretty large claim for an article that doesn't state any sources. Could there be any legitimacy to these claims? | No. There is no fossil evidence of any apes being larger than about 9.8ft tall. "The fossil record suggests that individuals of the species Gigantopithecus blacki were the largest known apes that ever lived, standing up to 3 m (9.8 ft)." (Refs: Wikipedia , McMaster University ). | {
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22,175 | I just found a picture that said: Wanna know a Secret? Google for 5676977 That leads to US Patent 5,676,977 which describes using the "diamagnetic semiconducting molecular crystal tetrasilver tetroxide", Ag₄O₄, to cure AIDS. Does this substance cure AIDs, as described in the patent? | No, it doesn't cure AIDS. A page with a list of fake cures states: Tetrasil (or Imusil) is a substance containing tetrasilver tetroxide.
A patent held by Dr. Marvin S. Antelman claims that this simple
chemical compound cures AIDS by “electrocuting” HIV. Dr. Antelman
admits his approach to AIDS is “non-conventional” and he does not
trust viral load tests: “Accordingly we have patients who display
viral load reduction and those that do not who are nevertheless cured
of AIDS”, he has said. Tetrasilver tetroxide is more commonly used for
disinfecting swimming pools. After it was promoted as an AIDS cure in
Zambia the government banned Tetrasil because it has no proven
benefits for people living with HIV. In America it is illegal to
promote Tetrasil for the treatment or prevention of any disease. FDA Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 mentioned above states (emphasis mine): Sec. 310.548 Drug products containing colloidal silver ingredients or
silver salts offered over-the-counter (OTC) for the treatment and/or
prevention of disease. (a) Colloidal silver ingredients and silver
salts have been marketed in over-the-counter (OTC) drug products for
the treatment and prevention of numerous disease conditions. There are
serious and complicating aspects to many of the diseases these silver
ingredients purport to treat or prevent. Further, there is a lack of
adequate data to establish general recognition of the safety and
effectiveness of colloidal silver ingredients or silver salts for OTC
use in the treatment or prevention of any disease. These ingredients
and salts include, but are not limited to, silver proteins, mild
silver protein, strong silver protein, silver, silver ion, silver
chloride, silver cyanide, silver iodide, silver oxide, and silver
phosphate. (b) Any OTC drug product containing colloidal silver ingredients or
silver salts that is labeled, represented, or promoted for the
treatment and/or prevention of any disease is regarded as a new drug
within the meaning of section 201(p) of the Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act (the act) for which an approved application or
abbreviated application under section 505 of the act and part 314 of
this chapter is required for marketing. In the absence of an approved
new drug application or abbreviated new drug application, such product
is also misbranded under section 502 of the act. (c) Clinical investigations designed to obtain evidence that any drug
product containing colloidal silver or silver salts labeled,
represented, or promoted for any OTC drug use is safe and effective
for the purpose intended must comply with the requirements and
procedures governing the use of investigational new drugs as set forth
in part 312 of this chapter. (d) After September 16, 1999, any such OTC drug product containing
colloidal silver or silver salts initially introduced or initially
delivered for introduction into interstate commerce that is not in
compliance with this section is subject to regulatory action. [64 FR 44658, Aug. 17, 1999] | {
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22,437 | It has been widely reported that the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 crash was caused by the plane being shot down. Example sources: Wired: Why Planes Still Flew Over Ukraine Until MH17 Was Shot Down The Guardian: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 shot down in Ukraine – video report Ars Technica: How US satellites pinpointed source of missile that shot down airliner Handelsblatt: Flug MH17: Wer hat geschossen? Daily Telegraph: Malaysia Airlines crash: Who shot down MH17? It seems to be treated as a given fact that the incident was caused by it being shot down, but I can't seem to find any published evidence of this - only things like "without going into detail about the intelligence that was obtained..." What evidence is there that the incident was caused by the plane being attacked? | Note that the URIs of the reports by the Dutch Safety Board seem to change from time to time as apparently their website gets reorganised. I'll try to keep the links in this answer up to date. Failing that, the main page on the investigation of the crash of Flight MH17 seems to be stable enough and the reports are all linked from there. Another option is going to the main site of the Dutch Safety Board and searching for MH17 . Yes. On Tuesday, October 13, 2015, the Dutch Safety Board released the final report on their investigation of the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 . In the report, the Board states that the plane was struck by a 9N314M warhead carried on a 9M38-series missile fired from a Buk surface-to-air missile system. The missile was fired from a region of about 320 square kilometres in the east of Ukraine. Findings The combination of the recorded pressure wave, the damage pattern found on the wreckage caused by blast and the impact of fragments, the bow-tie shaped
fragments found in the cockpit and in the body of one of the crew members in the cockpit, the injuries sustained by three crew members in the cockpit, the analysis of the in-flight break-up, the analysis of the explosive residues and paint found, and the size and distinct, bow-tie, shape of some the fragments, led the Dutch Safety Board to conclude that the aeroplane was struck by a 9N314M warhead as carried on a 9M38-series missile and launched by a Buk surface-to-air missile system. 3.7 Source of the damage , page 137 and Findings The area from which the possible flight paths of a 9N314M warhead carried on a 9M38-series missile as installed on the Buk surface-to-air missile system could have commenced is about 320 square kilometres in the east of Ukraine. Further forensic research is required to determine the launch location. Such work falls outside the mandate of the Dutch Safety Board, both in terms of Annex 13 and the Kingdom Act ‘Dutch Safety Board’. 3.8 Simulations to assess the origin of the damage , page 147 and Findings Simulations showed that the observed damage and the modelled fragment
pattern resulted in an estimated detonation location of the warhead to the left and above of the cockpit. Simulations demonstrated that the detonation of a 70 kg warhead best matched the damage observed on the wreckage of the aeroplane. The simulations performed indicated that the detonation location of a 9N314M warhead was in a volume of space that is less than one cubic metre and about four metres above the tip of the aeroplane’s nose on the left side of the cockpit. The damage to the wreckage recovered was consistent with the predictions made by the simulation of the blast caused by the detonation of a 70 kg warhead. The above mentioned findings are consistent with the conclusion of the Dutch Safety Board that flight MH17 was struck by a 9N314M warhead as carried on a 9M38 series missile and launched by a Buk surface-to-air missile system. 3.10 Summary of the results of the simulations into the causes of the crash , page 150 Also, in MH17 About the investigation , the Board states: The Russian Federation indicated that the aeroplane was downed by a missile that could have been fired from either the ground or an aeroplane. This standpoint deviated from what was jointly subscribed during the first and second meetings (also by the Russian Federation). The third meeting was closed with the joint conclusion (thus by the Russian Federation as well) that the aeroplane was hit by high-energy objects of a missile that detonated in front of and to the left of the cockpit. This joint conclusion is less far-reaching than the conclusions in the investigation report on the crash of flight MH17. 1.4 Conducting the investigation , page 20 So even the least far-reaching conclusion that all parties to the investigation agree on, is that flight MH17 was shot down by a missile. Additionally, the plane has been partially reconstructed in a hangar on the Gilze-Rijen airbase out of the found wreckage. It was shown at the release of the report. It was open to next of kin and journalists; I don't know if it is or has been open to the general public. On 26 May 2021, the judges in the criminal trial inspected the wreckage on that site, which was widely reported on (in Dutch) and even live streamed . My original answer, based on the preliminary report: The preliminary report on the crash by the Dutch Safety Board reads: Based on the preliminary findings to date, no indications of any technical or operational issues were found with the aircraft or crew prior to the ending of the CVR and FDR recording at 13.20:03 hrs. The damage observed in the forward section of the aircraft appears to indicate that the aircraft was penetrated by a large number of high-energy objects from outside the aircraft. It is likely that this damage resulted in a loss of structural integrity of the aircraft, leading to an in-flight break up. Preliminary report - Crash involving Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 flight MH17, chapter 3, Summary of findings, page 30 This indicates that flight MH17 was indeed shot down. | {
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22,468 | I found an article by Matt Giwer saying that the cause of the Israeli-Arab war is that The Jews, [...] did in fact steal the land from the Palestinians. They actually bought and paid for at most 9% of it. In 1948 they took over 73% of it. Did Israel own the lands it occupied in 1948, according to international law? Is the 73% figure correct? | Did Zionists “take over” 73% of their land from Palestinians? "Take over" is a bit vague, and subject to interpretation. The situation is muddled enough that it is not really valid to say "yes" or "no" to that objectively. As the question currently focuses on 1948, let's look at the immediate history lead up to, and following that period. In 1947, the United Nations passed Resolution 181 , which outlined the establishment of a legally recognized Independant Arab State as well as the state of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs refused to acknowledge or comply with Resolution 181: p. 396 The immediate trigger of the 1948 War was the November 1947 UN partition resolution. … The Palestinian Arabs, along with the rest of the Arab world, said a flat “no”… The Arabs refused to accept the establishment of a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. And, consistently with that “no,” the Palestinian Arabs, in November–December 1947, and the Arab states in May 1948, launched hostilities to scupper the resolution’s implementation. Benny Morris (2008). 1948: a history of the first Arab-Israeli war The land Israel declared the state of Israel territory was allocated to them by a UN-passed agreement. Arguably, they were given the initial land, rather than taking it from the Palestinians (and since the Palestinian Arabs rejected the resolution that would grant them their own recognized independent state, the Palestinian independent state did not come into existence). After the Arab-Israeli war, the armistice agreements increased the volume of land held by Israel, but did not give them ownership. Again, "take over" is vague and arguable in this case. In 1948 they took over 73% of it. No. The division that was supposed to occur according to Resolution 181 would have resulted in the Jewish State comprising roughly 5,500 square miles, or about 56 percent of Palestine. The Arab State was to be 4,500 square miles. Source . While that source could be argued as biased, anti-zionist sources agree with the division being roughly 56% allocated to the Israelis, and 44% allocated to the Arabs. In 1949, Israel wound up with control over a significantly larger area than was outlined in the 1947 UN plan, but that was the result of the armistice agreements signed by the aggressor Arab states who had attacked Israel on the day it was formed. Israel did not own this additional land, as the agreements were quite specific that the borders were temporary. The armistice agreements were intended to serve only as interim agreements until replaced by permanent peace treaties, but no peace treaties were actually signed until decades later. Did Israel own the lands it occupied in 1948, according to international law? No, not really. However, the concept of international law simply did not apply to the situation in 1948. International law applies between nations and states, and the participation of members is generally consensual. Consent is typically provided through the signing of treaties, and these treaties grant rights to International Courts to provide rulings in areas of dispute. There are numerous international bodies created by treaties adjudicating on legal issues where they may have jurisdiction. The only one claiming universal jurisdiction is the United Nations Security Council . The UK had terminated their official oversight of the area by declaring the end of Mandatory Palestone on May 14, 1948 , and therefore no international laws applying to the UK were applicable from that date, unless a new governing state or nation claiming control of part or all of the region were to sign a reciprocal treaty. As the newly-founded state of Israel had signed no treaties with other nations regarding land-ownership. Similarly, the Palestinian Arabs had signed no such treaties. So, at this point, no international law applied. Israel was recognized as a member state of the United Nations on May 11, 1949 . However, even then the legal territory was not defined. In September of 1949, the United Nations Concilliation Committee for Palestine put forth a number of recommendations regarding the establishment of a permanent regime in the area: The Commission has drawn up a plan which, in its opinion,can be applied in the present circumstances. This should not, however, be interpreted as in any way prejudging the final settlement of the territorial question in Palestine. It is the considered opinion of the Commission that the provisions of the proposed Instrument are sufficiently flexible to make it possible for the Instrument, with certain modifications, to be applied to any territorial situation that might emerge from the final settlement of the Palestine problem , and that it can be adopted by the General Assembly at its forthcoming session if the Assembly thinks fit. In view of the fact that the question of the demarcation line between the Arab and Jewish zones of the area of Jerusalem (article 2) is intimately connected with the final settlement of the Palestine problem, the Commission has not deemed it advisable for the present to make any proposal as to the actual demarcation line. The Commission believes that the Instrument can be put into effect with the present armistice line as a provisional demarcation line , without prejudice to the establishment of a definitive line at a later stage. (Emphasis mine). So, to summarize: No, the Jews did not take 73% of their land from the Palestinians. No, they did not legally own the land they occupied in the time period, but neither did the Palestinian Arabs or anyone else, as they were disputed territories not yet covered by international treaties or laws. | {
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22,489 | I stumbled across this claim pretty often in the last few years. Now the problem is that I wasn't able to reproduce it but maybe it was just because I rarely visit tall buildings with multiple floors (Or I did something completely wrong, which I doubt because you just have to hold down 2 buttons). Often you also find claims that this trick works with absolutely every elevator worldwide . Now my question: Does it work? And if yes, are there any exceptions/limitations to it? | No , this is nonsense. I found an article from The New Yorker, which explored that claim. They asked some lift specialists about it: “It’s just not so,” Charles Buckman, an elevator and escalator consultant in North Carolina, said the other day. “If it happens, it’s just happenstance.” He went on, “There’s no linkage in the control system between the door-control system and the floor-call system. ” And there's some more about it in the article. Of course you could try it out yourself with different lifts, and chances are that some of them will bring you directly up to the floor you want, not because it works but because nobody else wanted to get on. This might then lead you to believe that it works on some lifts, even though it's really just chance. | {
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22,530 | Harvey Silverglate has written a book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent , in which he claims, according to the Amazon blurb: The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have not only exploded in number, but, along with countless regulatory provisions, have also become impossibly broad and vague. This claim has received some press recently when conservative intellectual Dinesh D'Souza invoked it to explain why he had been charged with violating campaign finance laws. Silverglate has a web site where he lists some laws that he claims the average person might violate unwittingly. Is it true that the average American unwittingly commits three felonies a day? | TL;DR Silvergate's choice of examples to introduce his book does not address the quoted thesis at all (that average professionals unknowingly commit felonies), and thus one can assume the whole book fails to support his thesis. I skimmed the sections of his book available on Amazon , and didn't see any proof for his claims. Admittedly, this is only a sampling of the book, but the claims he does make don't justify his position. For example, there is a section which begins Consider some of the cases that will be discussed in more detail further on in this book: I'll address each case he lists in this section, under the assumption that these are some of his strongest arguments. Text double-quoted below is not quotes from his book, but rather my own short summary of what the charge was and a link to a relevant news article or Wikipedia. Case #1 A lawyer was convicted of obstruction of justice for destroying a laptop which had child porn on it which belonged to the former music director of his church. He also pled guilty to knowing about and failing to report the music director's abuse of children. ( ref ) Silvergate frames this as being indicted for destroying contraband rather than keeping it, and says "therefore holding, rather than destroying it, arguably would be criminal." This is really a lose-lose situation for the lawyer, because he knowingly took possession of contraband. Either he's convicted for destroying evidence of a crime (and he was a lawyer, so knew it would be relevant), or he's convicted for possessing it in the first place. (Side note: If he had turned it over, it's unlikely he would have been in any trouble for temporarily having someone else's laptop.) But this is not a common situation, and most people will never encounter it. Case #2 Michael Milken pled guilty to six counts of securities and tax violations. He may have been pressured to plea instead of fighting the charges by a promise from federal prosecutors not to prosecute his brother, who was indicted with him. Silvergate claims that one of these six was later ruled (in a trial against someone else in the conspiracy) not to constitute a crime. I don't know which one, and without the full book, I can't research this more. Case #3 Arthur Andersen & Company destroyed documents related to Enron before receiving a subpeona for them, and was convicted of obstruction of justice. The Supreme Court later reversed this. Silvergate claims this was the "normal document-retention-and-destruction policy" of the company, which may be true. However, to the best of my knowledge no employees of AA&C were charged for the actions - just the company itself. Thus, this is one that can't be part of the "three felonies a day". Case #4 Steve Kurtz was arrested for mail fraud for mailing non-infectious bacteria as part of art exhibit. In 2008, the charge was ruled "insufficient on its face", meaning that the actions were not a crime in the first place. Silvergate claims this charge was simply a way to justify the time spent investigating Kurtz for bioterrorism due to his art. This one is irrelevant to Silvergate's argument. Kurtz was convicted for something that wasn't a crime, and thus can't be an example of a felony. Case #5 I'm not even going to research this one: The DoJ "reportedly looked into" indicting the New York Times for espionage for their reporting of the NSA's warrantless surveillance programs. Since it was just "looked into", there's nothing relevant here. Since it was (again) a company, there's doubly nothing. This section concludes (actual quote from Silvergate): These are just a few of the prosecutions in which well-meaning professionals from all walks of life have been charged (or nearly charged) criminally for engaging in activities that most of us - lawyers and laymen alike - would consider lawful, often quite ordinary, and frequently socially beneficial. However, of the five example he gave, two were companies, one was a willful choice between offenses, and one is indeterminate. In none of these examples does he show why The average professional ... has likely committed several federal crimes that day . All of these are highly unusual circumstances, most of which are not crimes for the people who executed them. It's possible he chose his examples poorly, but an introduction which fails to even address your thesis is a good indication that the thesis won't be addressed sufficiently in the rest of the work. | {
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22,679 | While reading about recent evidence that casts strong doubt on whether Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004, was actually guilty I ran across the following statement in the Washington Post, quoting Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: As the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in Kansas in 2006, Justice Antonin Scalia declared that the opposition could not cite “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.” Excerpt from a Washington post article I was rather surprised to read this, my impression from various news articles was that there are multiple cases where it is pretty clear that an innocent was executed. Are there no cases where it has been clearly shown that an innocent was executed in the United States? | When approaching this question there are two items that need to be resolved, if the quote accurately quotes what Justice Antonin Scalia said and the second of which if the quote in its current context is true. With regards to wrongful executions in the United States, Wikipedia provides several well referenced examples of cases where serious doubt was raised after the execution and Samuel Gross provides another good summary from a legal perspective; however, in the case of Jesse Tafero (October 12, 1946 – May 4, 1990), was convicted of murder and executed via electric chair in the state of Florida. Walter Rhodes, later confessed to the shooting after Tafero's execution. Which discredits Justice Scalia's assertion of a single case. However, is that exactly what Justice Scalia said? It turns out that this quote is from the Kansas v. Marsh case of the exact quote from his concurring opinion was, It should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a
single case—not one—in which it is clear that a person was executed
for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent
years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be
shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby. The dissent makes
much of the new-found capacity of DNA testing to establish innocence.
But in every case of an executed defendant of which I am aware, that
technology has confirmed guilt. Since the ruling was decided in 2006 and the Tafero case occurred in 1990 the question of if a gap sixteen years makes a case recent or not is best left to the reader. | {
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22,692 | Yesterday, I went to my friend's house and as usual he was glued to his PS4 playin' video games. When I asked him about it, he said that playing video games is a nice thing as it improves your reflexes & reaction time. It also sharpens your mind. I am curious to know whether it is a true fact or not? | Indeed there are studies showing FPS to improve visuospatial processing and memory abilities. State effects of action video-game playing on visuospatial processing efficiency and attention among experienced action video-game players Abstract Although researchers have speculated action video gaming
might induce the state of “flow experience”, most previous
experimental studies have focused primarily on the long-term (trait)
effects of action video gaming, while overlooking possible short-term
(state) effects characterizing the “flow” state. The goal of the
current research was to investigate the state effects of action video
games on visual-spatial processing efficiency and visual-spatial
attention. We compared the baseline performance of experienced action
video game players on two visual-spatial tasks and Attention Network
Test with their performance on these tasks immediately after action
video-gaming. The findings indicate half an hour of action video-game
playing temporarily boosted participants’ performances on tasks that
require visual memory, spatial transformations (mental rotation), and
executive network of attention. The existence of such enhanced
cognitive states implies the possibility of consciously accessing the
latent resources of our brain and boosting our attentional and visual
capacity upon demand. Keywords: enhanced cognitive states,
visual-spatial processing efficiency, attention, action video game (source) Recent study from Oxford University claims that "Children who play video games for a short period each day seem to have small but significantly improved levels of development" . However, they found negative effects associated with gaming for more than 3 hours a day. They did not attempt to establish causality. Electronic Gaming and Psychosocial Adjustment RESULTS: Low levels (<1 hour daily) as well as high levels (>3 hours daily) of game engagement was linked to key indicators of
psychosocial adjustment. Low engagement was associated with higher
life satisfaction and prosocial behavior and lower externalizing and
internalizing problems, whereas the opposite was found for high levels
of play. No effects were observed for moderate play levels when
compared with non-players. CONCLUSIONS : The links between different levels of electronic game engagement and psychosocial adjustment were small (<1.6% of variance)
yet statistically significant. Games consistently but not robustly
associated with children’s adjustment in both positive and negative
ways, findings that inform policy-making as well as future avenues for
research in the area. (source) | {
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22,759 | David Blaine (born David Blaine White; April 4, 1973) is an American magician, illusionist and endurance artist. He is best known for his high-profile feats of endurance, and has made his name as a performer of street and close-up magic. He has performed all over the world and has set and broken several world records. ( Wikipedia ) In this TED Talk video , Blaine describes what it took to hold his breath underwater for 17 minutes. What's fishy about this: Not only is Blaine an endurance artist, he's also a magician and illusionist. How can we know that Blaine really held his breath for 17 minutes? Do biologists/scientists think it is possible to do it? | Yes. David Blaine was recognized by Guiness as setting the world record for static apnea with O₂ in 2008 . He held that record for several months. Blaine set the record on the Oprah Winfrey Show; a video of the last few minutes can be found on the show's site. One can hold one's breath for much longer if one breathes pure oxygen prior to the apnea. The Guinness record is now over 22 minutes (see link above). Enriched-gas breath holds are not one of the disciplines recognized by AIDA but Blaine's record can be put in perspective against the "normal" air record for "static apnea" of 11m 35s . Blaine set his O₂-based record some time after failing to break the then-current 8m 58s static apnea record after spending 7 days submerged in New York City. While with a magician it would be foolish to rule out chicanery, his NYC failure and O₂-based record seem consistent with his claim of being (in addition to an illusionist) an endurance athlete with a very high level of discipline. Apnea and extreme freediving are dangerous and even world-class athletes have died during record attempts . A paper "Brain Damage in Competitive Freediving" says: It is not possible to conclude that the observed increase in S100B levels in serum in the present study reflects a serious injury to the brain, although the results raise some concerns considering negative long-term effects. | {
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22,917 | Slate published an article recently, titled The Global Internet Is Being Attacked by Sharks, Google Confirms . Despite being catchy and all, most of the references seem to be other news outlets or actually contradict the claim. Are there any sources supporting or contradicting that sharks are a threat to undersea cables? | Below are points of evidence supporting the fact that sharks are a threat to undersea cables. EVIDENCE 1: The first report of sharks attacking cables came from the Canary Islands in 1985, when sharks' teeth were found embedded in an experimental cable. I found the report in an old news paper. According to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Cable Protection Committee Ltd., Fish, including sharks, have a long history of biting cables as identified from teeth embedded in cable sheathings. Barracuda, shallow- and deep-water sharks and others have been identified as causes of cable failure. Bites tend to penetrate the cable insulation, allowing the power conductor to ground with seawater. Attacks on telegraph cables took place mainly on the continental shelf and continued into the coaxial era until 1964. Thereafter, attacks occurred at greater depths, presumably in response to the burial of coaxial and fibre- optic cables on the shelf and slope. Coaxial and fibre-optic cables have attracted the attention of sharks and other fish. The best-documented case comes from the Canary Islands, where the first deep-ocean fibre-optic cable failed on four occasions as a result of shark attacks in water depths of 1,060–1,900 m [3,478 to 6,234 feet]. See also: Marra, L.J., 1989. Shark bite on the SL submarine light wave cable
system: History, causes and resolution. IEEE Journal Oceanic
Engineering 14: 230–237 EVIDENCE 2: A famous report by New York Times back in 1987 reported that the fibre optic cables linking the US , Europe and Japan were being nibbled persistently by sharks, causing phone and computer failures around the world. The article also reported what was presented in Evidence 1, but adding as extra Dr. Nelson's claims: In the report The finding that sharks are supersensitive to electrical
signals, able to detect electric fields as faint as a few millionths
of a volt per centimeter in water, is a recent significant discovery
in marine science, Dr. Nelson said. The sharks may detect a faint field near the cable and attack. "Not
knowing any better, they try to eat it," Dr. Nelson said. "It's
programmed in their genes. Whether the field comes from a cable or
from a tin can, sharks are prone to behave as if they were
encountering a food item, and try to eat it up." EVIDENCE 3: It seems that the funniest battle now is not Google vs. Amazon or Google vs. Microsoft, but Google vs. Sharks. Based on the comments made by Dan Belcher, a product manager on Google's cloud team, during the opening keynote of the company's Cloud Roadshow in Boston last week; Google invests heavily in protecting its trans-continental infrastructure, including wrapping cables in Kevlar to thwart attacks by hungry sharks . BONUS: A YouTube video showing a shark biting a submarine cable during a survey operation. It was spotted by a remotely operated underwater vehicle.
. : UPDATE: The cause isn't clear why Sharks bite cables . Reasons for the attacks are uncertain, but sharks may be encouraged by
electro magnetic fields from a suspended cable strumming
in currents. However, when tested at sea and in the
laboratory, no clear link between attacks, electromagnetic
fields and strumming could be established. This lack of
correlation may reflect differences between the behaviour
of the deep-water sharks responsible for the bites and
that of the shallow-water species used in the experiments.
Whatever the cause, cables have been redesigned to improve their protection against fish biting. UPDATE 2: According to Submarine cables and the oceans: connecting the world report , external human aggression causes more faults for cables more than any other category,
with fishing accounting for nearly half of all reported faults. Anchoring is the second major cause of faults, with dredging, drilling, seabed abrasion and earthquakes also causing significant numbers. However, natural hazards including seabed abrasion, shark bites account for less than 10 per cent of all faults. Shark bites account for only 0.5% for all faults. They're consider a threat, but it's a minor threat. | {
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22,951 | I can drag up a bunch of different articles either claiming that the US Social Security system is or is not headed for insolvency. The most recent reference to the concept was in a PBS interview with John Bogle : I start off, simply put, with Social Security, which has to be changed in gradual, small ways to become solvent again. Most of the interview is discussing investments and retirement planning so this little blip isn't terribly significant to the interview as a whole. But the concept keeps popping up over and over again and it can be hard to sift through the various political biases in play. | Yes, under the current rules and best available projections from US Federal government . Social Security Administration's own projections from SSA's Office of the Chief Actuary: Scheduled and Payable Benefits Scheduled Benefits are those that current law promises. Payable Benefits are those that projected Trust Fund balances can finance. Payable benefits are an across the board reduction from Scheduled Benefits in a given year starting with the Trust Fund exhaustion in 2036, therefore Payable Benefits and Scheduled Benefits are the same in 2030. The SSA Actuaries estimate that the across the board reduction under a Payable baseline will be 21.8 percent in 2050 and 23.2 percent in 2070 . These reductions would apply to the final benefit amounts, not the average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) or the primary insurance amount (PIA). Both the Scheduled Benefits tables and the Payable Benefits tables compare the respective baseline to a policy option built on top of Scheduled Benefits As of 2013, CBO ( Congressional Budget Office ) projects that revenues will consistently lag outlays: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44972 Their conclusion: CBO projects that under current law, the DI trust fund will be exhausted in fiscal year 2017, and the OASI trust fund will be exhausted in 2033 . If a trust fund’s balance fell to zero and current revenues were insufficient to cover the benefits specified in law, the Social Security Administration would no longer have legal authority to pay full benefits when they were due. In 1994, legislation redirected revenues from the OASI trust fund to prevent the imminent exhaustion of the DI trust fund. In part because of that experience, it is a common analytical convention to consider the DI and OASI trust funds as combined. Thus, CBO projects, if some future legislation shifted resources from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund, the combined OASDI trust funds would be exhausted in 2031 . The full publication has methodology and the data tables. UPDATE : To further help illustrate the "headed" part, here is the projected SS Trust Fund reserve depletion years over 1985-2014 years from Social Security Adminitration " 2014 OASDI Trustees Report " (Table VI.B1.—Long-Range OASDI Actuarial Balances and Trust Fund Reserve Depletion Dates as Shown in the Trustees Reports for 1982-2014, Page 159). I plotted the years as well as the trendline in Excel based on the last column in that table. I dropped 1982-1984, since 1982 projected 1983 insolvency while 1983-84 projected no insolvency at all; so the chart would go to +infinity if these were included. | {
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22,964 | The US National Institute of Health recommend (in some, limited circumstances) the use of the Heimlich maneuver as first aid for choking victims: How to perform the Heimlich maneuver: First ask, "Are you choking? Can you speak?" DO NOT perform first aid if the person is coughing forcefully and able to speak -- a strong cough can dislodge the object. Stand behind the person and wrap your arms around the person's waist. Make a fist with one hand. Place the thumb side of your fist just above the person's navel, well below the breastbone. Grasp the fist with your other hand. Make quick, upward and inward thrusts with your fist. Continue these thrusts until the object is dislodged or the victim loses consciousness. I used to be a First Aid volunteer in Australia, and was explicitly admonished not to ever use the Heimlich maneuver, as it was considered dangerous and not evidence-based. Other techniques were taught. Is the Heimlich maneuver evidence-based for use as an appropriate first-aid technique for choking victims? | Yes, under the current rules and best available projections from US Federal government . Social Security Administration's own projections from SSA's Office of the Chief Actuary: Scheduled and Payable Benefits Scheduled Benefits are those that current law promises. Payable Benefits are those that projected Trust Fund balances can finance. Payable benefits are an across the board reduction from Scheduled Benefits in a given year starting with the Trust Fund exhaustion in 2036, therefore Payable Benefits and Scheduled Benefits are the same in 2030. The SSA Actuaries estimate that the across the board reduction under a Payable baseline will be 21.8 percent in 2050 and 23.2 percent in 2070 . These reductions would apply to the final benefit amounts, not the average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) or the primary insurance amount (PIA). Both the Scheduled Benefits tables and the Payable Benefits tables compare the respective baseline to a policy option built on top of Scheduled Benefits As of 2013, CBO ( Congressional Budget Office ) projects that revenues will consistently lag outlays: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44972 Their conclusion: CBO projects that under current law, the DI trust fund will be exhausted in fiscal year 2017, and the OASI trust fund will be exhausted in 2033 . If a trust fund’s balance fell to zero and current revenues were insufficient to cover the benefits specified in law, the Social Security Administration would no longer have legal authority to pay full benefits when they were due. In 1994, legislation redirected revenues from the OASI trust fund to prevent the imminent exhaustion of the DI trust fund. In part because of that experience, it is a common analytical convention to consider the DI and OASI trust funds as combined. Thus, CBO projects, if some future legislation shifted resources from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund, the combined OASDI trust funds would be exhausted in 2031 . The full publication has methodology and the data tables. UPDATE : To further help illustrate the "headed" part, here is the projected SS Trust Fund reserve depletion years over 1985-2014 years from Social Security Adminitration " 2014 OASDI Trustees Report " (Table VI.B1.—Long-Range OASDI Actuarial Balances and Trust Fund Reserve Depletion Dates as Shown in the Trustees Reports for 1982-2014, Page 159). I plotted the years as well as the trendline in Excel based on the last column in that table. I dropped 1982-1984, since 1982 projected 1983 insolvency while 1983-84 projected no insolvency at all; so the chart would go to +infinity if these were included. | {
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22,970 | The Westboro Baptist Church is notorious for picketing things like funerals and they generate a lot of attention by doing so. A common trend in discussions about the church goes something like: Someone should just beat all of them up No, don't! They'll sue you. They get most of their money from suing people that try to hurt them! The gist is that a significant portion of their organization are lawyers and they are consistently trolling people in an attempt to provoke an action that they can then sue over. Is this even close to reality? Does Westboro Baptist Church engage in a significant number of lawsuits over incidents at their activities? | There is absolutely no reason to believe there is any amount of truth to this. First off, several former members of Westboro with nothing to gain or lose have publicly said that this isn't true: A lot of you guys want to know if it's true that the objective of the church is to piss people off to the point of violence, sue, and gain profit. the answer is no. :) Zach Phelps-Roper, former WBC member, from his Reddit AMA last month It is my belief that they actually believe what they preach. They have concocted such an elaborate doctrine and give no opportunity for the members to question it in their controlled environment. Laura Drain, former WBC member in response to a question about this myth, in her Reddit AMA from last year. We have not profited in any lawsuits. In fact, we lose - duh! You think anyone is going to willingly repay us the money they took from us when they drag us into court? Do you think a judge is going to award us monies? Jael Phelps, Current WBC member in response to a question about this myth, from Reddit AMA 3 years ago. In addition to these quotes several people have looked into the myth and have turned up nothing. While absence of evidence isn't always enough to disprove something, the very nature of this myth requires an abundance of evidence. Trials are public record, even non-disclosed settlements are on record (although their text is not). Any legal filing would be easily uncovered and explored. Yet every single person who has chased after this comes up with nothing that could explain any significant sum of money. Several years ago, The Stanford Review explored this claim and, as everyone else before them, came up empty. I personally figure this myth to be a little bit of wishful thinking. For whatever reason, people consider the motivation of pure greed to be a little more tolerable than pure, unadulterated hate. Unfortunately, there simply is no reason to believe that this is anything but a myth. | {
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23,026 | From a comment on English Language & Usage , also mentioned in Wikipedia , and Chad Fowler's book The Passionate Programmer (Related blog post by the author: How Learning a Second Language Changed My Life , where he describes it as a joke he heard in India, which used to be a British colony) What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? American. Are Americans more likely to be monolingual than people of other countries? The joke doesn't provide a definition of what counts as "American", in terms of whether immigrants to the United States count as American, or the children of immigrants, or only people whose parents were themselves born in the United States. | At least in the case of Europe and the U.S., statistics do exist that directly answer this question. Those statistics simply aren't the ones from the censuses. In 2013, a Gallop poll found that 34% of Americans could hold a conversation in at least one second language. In 2012, a European Commission survey found that 54% of Europeans could hold a conversation in at least one second language. So, at least when compared to Europeans, yes, Americans are somewhat more likely to be monolingual. | {
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23,095 | This tweet has been making the rounds about the dangers of bad kerning : Supposedly the letters "c" and "l" are run together so that "click" looks like "dick" instead. I call shenanigans. Surely someone noticed the problem while the sign was going up? Has the image of the sign been modified from the original? Or is this an optical illusion? | The image was stated to have been photoshopped . UPDATE: Welp, the fun's over. Esurance contacted us today, and they're saying the image above is photoshopped. To be fair, we were incredulous when we first saw the photo, but decided to roll with it when we saw Esurance addressed the lady who first tweeted out the above image, and said they'd removed the billboard. | {
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23,104 | This TEDx talk about coffee claims that coffee is the #1 source of anti-oxidants in the US diet. Is this true? | The image was stated to have been photoshopped . UPDATE: Welp, the fun's over. Esurance contacted us today, and they're saying the image above is photoshopped. To be fair, we were incredulous when we first saw the photo, but decided to roll with it when we saw Esurance addressed the lady who first tweeted out the above image, and said they'd removed the billboard. | {
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23,111 | I read this article from a Facebook post: Daily Current: Georgia Legalizes Handgun Vending Machines I was skeptical, but then I found this article which says the vending machine is in South Africa: Toxel: 17 Most Unusual Vending Machines I find them both difficult to believe. Can you buy a handgun from a vending machine in Georgia or South Africa? | There are two separate claims here. 1) The Daily Currant says Georgia has legalised handguns. No, this is just a story from the Daily Currant which is a satirical magazine that invents stories. 2) That the image on the "17 Most Unusual Vending Machines" demonstrates that there is a vending machine that sells guns. No, this is just an donation drive, using vending machines as an analogy for simple purchase. As it explains in small-print Your donation will go to the Gun Control Alliance, for a gun-free South Africa. Source | {
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23,132 | Front Page Mag (a blog for the conservative David Horowitz Freedom Center) quotes an unnamed report that UK authorities were complicit in the support of sexually abusive Muslims: The police did their part… for the Muslim rapists. The report heard of two cases where fathers tracked down their
daughters and tried to remove them from houses where they were being
abused only to be arrested themselves when police were called. Is there evidence that men were arrested in this way - trying to rescue their daughters from sexual abuse? | The text of the report can be downloaded from here . The report includes the following paragraph, 5.9 In two of the cases we read, fathers tracked down their daughters and tried to
remove them from houses where they were being abused, only to be arrested
themselves when police were called to the scene. In a small number of cases (which
have already received media attention) the victims were arrested for offences such
as breach of the peace or being drunk and disorderly, with no action taken against
the perpetrators of rape and sexual assault against children. It's possible that no further specific details are forthcoming: for example, arrest records and police reports (unlike evidence presented in court) might not be available to the general pubic. The Preface to the report says, The Inquiry applied the definition of child sexual exploitation which is used in Government
guidance and is set out in Appendix 4, paragraph 48 of this report. The methodology
included reading a wide range of minutes, reports and case files I include the first quote above, as evidence for your "Is it true?" question: The report is higher-quality (i.e. more direct) evidence than the newspaper report you referenced; i.e. it shows that the quote in the newspaper report you cited was not misquoting the official report. The report doesn't shed additional light on the 'editorializing' in the newspaper article, i.e. the "The police did their part… for the Muslim rapists" sentence. The report does not confirm or identify, for those two specific 'cases': Whether the homes were of "Muslim rapists" What the specific type of "being abused" was The names of the victims of the abuse The names of the arrestees (the victims' fathers) What they were arrested for. The report in question is titled "Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham". The independent inquiry was commissioned by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in October 2013 (Wikipedia says it was commissioned in November 2013, citing this BBC article ). It is (quoting its title) an inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham. The scope of its investigation included examining case files of child sexual exploitation cases, to determine whether officials (including police, Council, social workers, etc., in Rotherham) acted appropriately c) Consider managerial and political oversight, leadership and direction, operational management practice including supervision, support and guidance and the roles and responsibilities of other parties including the Police, Crown Prosecution Service, health services, schools, parents, family and the Local Safeguarding Children Board. e) Identify who in the Council knew what information when and determine whether that information was used effectively and in the best interests of protecting young people. g) Ensure that the cases reviewed will include those identified in the national press. It was therefore important that the investigation be independent of the Council, which comissioned the report. The terms of its independence are stated in Appendix A (page 121) of the inquiry, as follows: Appendix 1: Terms of Reference for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation 1997 - 2013 That it be conducted by an independent person with appropriate skills, experience and abilities who has not previously been employed
by or undertaken work, either directly or indirectly, for Rotherham
Metropolitan Borough Council, nor is a relation of any member or
officer of the Council past or present. Prior to appointment the
independent person will be required to sign a declaration to that
effect. The person should be on a list of reputable persons
recommended to the Council by the Local Government Association. The leader of the inquiry and author of the report is Alexis Jay OBE : Alexis Jay is a Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde and the Independent Chair of the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland (CELCIS).[1] Professor Jay is a former senior social worker.[2] She was previously Chief Social Work Adviser to the Scottish Government.[3] and a former president of the Association of Directors of Social Work.[4] In 2005 she took up the post of Chief Social Work Inspector at the Social Work Inspection Agency (SWIA), a government organisation scrutinising all aspects of social services provided by local authorities in Scotland.[5] She served as Chief Executive and Chief Social Work Inspector until the functions of SWIA and the Care Commission were taken over by the Care Inspectorate in 2011. She then remained as Chief Social Work Adviser to the Scottish Government until early 2013. She led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham, an investigation into child sexual abuse in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire.[3] She is the author of the investigation's report, published in August 2014.[6] The report was published in August 2014 (about two weeks ago as of today). It was subsequent to (i.e. preceded by) articles published in The Times, for example, On 24th September 2012, The Times reported Andrew Norfolk’s investigation into CSE in Rotherham. i.e. Police files reveal vast child protection scandal | {
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23,239 | This claim has been circulating on Facebook: Although marijuana is now legal in Colorado, I don't see any particular attraction to mile markers from this state, as US mile markers are pretty standard--at least along interstate highways (where this photo appears to have been taken). In any case, is there any truth to the claim that the * 420 mile marker has been a special target of theft? And if so, did the CDOT change the mile marker as claimed in the photo? I haven't done any in-depth investigation, but the low quality of the image makes it seem quite possible that it was doctored... * The claim suggests that there is a single mile marker 420 in Colorado, which is clearly false, as, even if there is only a single (Interstate) highway long enough to have a mile 420, there would be one marker on each side of the road, one for east-bound traffic, one for west-bound. (A personal note: I'd rather steal a 419.99 mile marker myself....) | In January 2014, NBC News did an interview with "Amy Ford, the communications director at the Colorado Department of Transportation": Ford couldn’t say how many times the 420 sign had been lifted in its history but said, “It was stolen frequently enough that we decided to switch our tags.” Newspaper journalists aren't always the most reliable of information sources, but a direct interview with someone who appears to have the appropriate expertise and authority is the best I would expect to find on this topic. They also include a second (uncredited) picture of the sign suggesting it isn't a simple photoshopped meme, but an extant sign. | {
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23,358 | The following image has been making the rounds on social media: Is the infographic even accurate? If so is the conclusion it's pushing backed up by valid statistics? (that there's a clear correlation between the gun problem (as defined by firearm deaths per 100,000 people) and Democratic-party voters? Or is it more of a case of cherry-picking specific areas that fit the desired pattern? The infographic's exact claim: Most crimes and murders are committed in the cities of America and by the constituency of the Democratic Party | The info-graphic says there's a problem in "Democrat Inner Cities". Apparently, inner cities in general are Democratic. Here's a liberal source saying so: Democrats are from cities, Republicans are from exurbs Princeton's Robert Vanderbei put together a fantastic 3-d map in 2012, which I'd recommend that you take some time to explore, that visualizes the country with blue skyscrapers towering over pink plains, reflecting the heavy concentration of votes in urban areas. Here's an anti-liberal source saying so: Violent Crime and Murder in America
Blame Democrats! That being said- inner cities are not Republican strong holds regardless of the state. Please note that even in red states (Republican states)- the inner cites are voting in high numbers for Democrats. Do you think the residents of Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia are voting for Republicans? They are voting in much higher percentages for Democrats. I am making a blanket statement- but the percentages back this statement. As a result- it is fair to say that most crimes and murder in America are being committed by Democrats - because the percentages of Democrats in these areas far exceed the number of Republicans. So the correlation is, "Cities (urban voters) are Democratic" and "Inner cities have (gun deaths) violence". I don't think this is evidence that the (relatively very few) murderers themselves (less than 1% of the population) vote Democratic or Republican; so I don't see a connection between "voting Democratic" and "gun crime", except that both (voting and crime) happen in (all) cities. | {
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23,434 | I've been told this many times (in the UK). It's even mentioned in a wikipedia article : Some also say that shoes hanging from the wires advertise a local
crack house where crack cocaine is used and sold Is there any evidence that this is true? It seems to be a bit of an urban myth to me. The reference in the wikipedia article is a little....weak. | Snopes.com includes it as a legend and includes a large number of other possible reasons with the most likely one is that most people do it because they think it looks cool. All across the United States, you'll encounter discarded shoes hanging from wires, poles, and trees. Theories as to what these shoes signify abound, but, contrary to what one hears, there's no one right answer. It's possible that some drug users might use it as a signal, but if so, they're going to be largely lost in the noise. | {
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23,455 | This article argues that small farmers are being hurt because Monsanto are allowed to sue farmers whose fields are found to contain crops grown from Monsanto seeds when royalties were not paid. Many farmers claim these seeds had blown into their fields. Private and family farmers are able to decide whether they will be using GMOs or non GMOs for their crops, or they can choose to be organic. However, if Monsanto’s GMO seeds are to blow over the fence from a Monsanto farm to a farm that does not use Monsanto’s seeds, Monsanto sues the farmer. A Supreme Court case in 2011 ruled against 80 farmers that were working to prohibit Monsanto from suing farmers who have inadvertently had their fields contaminated with Monsanto seeds. Because the farmers are being sued at such a high rate and for so much money, Monsanto has the capability of causing many farmers to go bankrupt, literally. An article in RT claims that Monsanto will only sue farms whose fields contain over 1% Monsanto crops when royalties were not paid. The US Supreme Court upheld biotech giant Monsanto’s claims on genetically-engineered seed patents and the company’s ability to sue farmers whose fields are inadvertently contaminated with Monsanto materials. The high court left intact Monday a federal appeals court decision that threw out a 2011 lawsuit from the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and over 80 other plaintiffs against Monsanto that sought to challenge the agrochemical company’s aggressive claims on patents of genetically-modified seeds. The suit also aimed to curb Monsanto from suing anyone whose field is contaminated by such seeds. [...] In a June 2013 ruling, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC said it was inevitable, as the farmers’ argued, that contamination from Monsanto’s products would occur. Yet the appeals panel also said the plaintiffs do not have standing to prohibit Monsanto from suing them should the company’s genetic traits end up on their holdings "because Monsanto has made binding assurances that it will not 'take legal action against growers whose crops might inadvertently contain traces of Monsanto biotech genes (because, for example, some transgenic seed or pollen blew onto the grower's land).'" Are farmers being sued because they legitimately had seeds blow into their fields? | Schmeiser, the farmer in the original case, noticed one year that a section of his crop was not killed by Roundup. He saved the seed from that section and planted his crop following year with that seed. That resulted in over 95% of his crop being Roundup ready. The trial judge rejected the suggestion that it was the product of seed blown or inadvertently carried onto the appellants’ land. That was a finding of fact in the Schmeiser case: the 95-98% coverage of Roundup ready crop on Schmeiser's land was not the result of scattering due to wind. The court did not hold that "it didn't matter how Monsanto's genetically altered canola got into [the] field". How the patented canola got into 95-98% factored heavily in the decision. Had Schmeiser not intentionally planted this stuff, he could have rebutted the presumption of use: a defendant in possession of a patented invention in commercial circumstances may rebut the presumption of use by bringing credible evidence that the invention was neither used, nor intended to be used, even by exploiting its stand-by utility. Source: The judgement of the Supreme Court of Canada in Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser, [2004] 1 S.C.R. 902, 2004 SCC 34 Monsanto hasn't sued a single person for wind-blown seed. In fact, the first thing they will do for a farmer in this situation is offer to destroy/retrieve the plants. The Salt NPR Blog: Top Five Myths of Genetically Modified Seeds Busted : A group of organic farmers, in fact, recently sued Monsanto, asserting that GMOs might contaminate their crops and then Monsanto might accuse them of patent infringement. The farmers couldn't cite a single instance in which this had happened, though, and the judge dismissed the case. [...] The company asserts, in fact, that it will pay to remove any of its GMOs from fields where they don't belong. Skeptic's Guide to the Galaxy Podcast Excerpt: Monsanto Myths " The US Supreme Court upheld biotech giant Monsanto’s claims on genetically-engineered seed patents and the company’s ability to sue farmers whose fields are inadvertently contaminated with Monsanto materials. " It is a pet peeve of mine when media misconstrues the holding of a court decision, so I'll spend quite a bit of time dissecting this part of the question. I can't prove a negative, but to the best of my knowledge (I've followed this area closely for years), the US Supreme Court have never upheld Monsanto's "ability to sue farmers whose fields are inadvertently contaminated with Monsanto materials". To the best of my knowledge, this question has never reached the US Supreme Court. The most relevant cases are Organic Seed v. Monsanto and Bowman v. Monsanto . The court denied certiorari to Organic Seed v. Monsanto . It left intact this decision by the CAFC. In Bowman v. Monsanto , the question was regarding intentional use, the first-sale doctrine, patent exhaustion, and the patent holder's exclusive right to make the patented invention. If anything, leaving the CAFC decision intact acts against Monsanto's ability to sue farmers: Monsanto has made binding assurances that it will
not “take legal action against growers whose crops might
inadvertently contain traces of Monsanto biotech genes
(because, for example, some transgenic seed or pollen
blew onto the grower’s land) If we rely on Monsanto’s
representations to defeat the appellants’ declaratory
judgment claims (as we do), those representations
are binding as a matter of judicial estoppel. Monsanto even was the one to suggest that: "if the court
writes an opinion that relies on the representations that I
made in my letter, in response to their letter, then I think
it would be binding as a matter of judicial estoppel" (quoting from Monsanto's representative at oral argument) The conclusion was: In sum, Monsanto’s binding representations remove
any risk of suit against the appellants as users or sellers
of trace amounts (less than one percent) of modified seed.
The appellants have alleged no concrete plans or activities
to use or sell greater than trace amounts of modified seed,
and accordingly fail to show any risk of suit on that basis.
The appellants therefore lack an essential element of
standing. Basically, Organic Seed Growers wanted a declaratory judgement in their favour preventing law suits from Monsanto relating to trace amounts of patented product in their fields. Monsanto has promised that they will not sue for trace amounts of patented product in fields, and the Organic Seed Growers have not shown that they use or sell more than would be considered "trace". The court held that Monsanto's promise is binding, so Organic Seed Growers do not have "standing" (a connection to harm). | {
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23,544 | According to this article from "ADF" and this in the Washington Post , the city of Coeur d'Alene is requiring the Knapps, an ordained couple, to conduct same sex weddings or face penalties for discrimination. Donald and Evelyn Knapp are apparently ordained ministers who run The Hitching Post, a chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, at which they conduct weddings. (This strikes me as quite similar to many ministers’ practice of charging to officiate weddings when they are invited to do so at other venues.) Coeur d’Alene has an ordinance banning discrimination based on, among other things, sexual orientation in places of public accommodation. Earlier this year, after a federal judge in Idaho held that Idaho had to recognize same-sex weddings, a City of Couer d’Alene deputy city attorney was quoted by a local TV station (KXLY) as saying, “For profit wedding chapels are in a position now where last week the ban would have prevented them from performing gay marriages, this week gay marriages are legal, pending an appeal to the 9th Circuit,” Warren Wilson with the Coeur d’Alene City Attorney’s Office said…. “If you turn away a gay couple, refuse to provide services for them, then in theory you violated our code and you’re looking at a potential misdemeanor citation,” Wilson said. Is this a "real" case or is there something that I'm missing? Is this law actually being enforced in Coeur d'Alene? This law seems precisely tailored to prey on the fears of pastors like myself. It seems amazingly broad, and the stories have a whiff of sensationalism. If real, this seems like an religious liberty v. discrimination case that would ultimately be very far reaching. | Is Idaho forcing pastors to conduct same-sex weddings or face penalties? Yes and no: Yes: It's a real (albeit recent) story There is a lawsuit, and it is in Idaho The people involved are "ordained Christian ministers" No: It's a city (Coeur D'Alene) ordinance, not the state's (Idaho) That the city "would" enforce the bylaw is the opinion of the Deputy City Attorney The lawsuit is a restraining order and injunction to prevent the city's enforcement The ordinance says that "Religious corporations and associations" are excepted from the by-law, and that the by-law doesn't intend to alter or abridge other laws like the First Amendment In summary: The ordinance is meant to force commercial businesses, which provide services to the public, to do so without discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression. It applies to commercial businesses, religious entities are exempt. The claim is that the place in question is a for-profit business and not a church The counter-claim seems (in my opinion) to be that the wedding service, decoration and accessories, as well as the pastors, are "religious". Is it being enforced? There is online evidence that the lawsuit exists, and that the ordinance exists. I saw no evidence that the city is enforcing the law yet . The following paragraphs of the lawsuit say that according to the city attorney, the law "would" apply: Mr. Knapp asked if the Coeur d’Alene anti-discrimination ordinance required him
and the Hitching Post to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies. Wilson or Gridley responded that the Coeur d’Alene ordinance would require Mr.
Knapp to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies and that Mr. Knapp was not exempt from this
requirement. The lawsuit is asking for a restraining order and an injunction, among other things, so to some extent it is pre-emptive (perhaps a small extent: they do seem to have reason to believe that the law would be enforced given time). Do the ordinance and lawsuit exist? The copy of the lawsuit which is linked in the first article of the OP, dated 10/17/2014, quotes city "Ordinance §9.56". I haven't necessarily found the ordinance online. Using Google I found two links which are labeled as the "proposed ordinance": link and link . And, here is an extract of the ordinance from the official Coeur d'Alene web site: this extract only includes the portion which prohibits discrimination when renting housing. Does the ordinance 'force pastors'? Both copies of the "draft legislation" include a section: 9.56.040: EXCEPTIONS A. Notwithstanding any other provision herein, nothing in this Chapter is intended to alter or
abridge other rights, protections, or privileges secured under state and/or federal law. This
ordinance shall be construed and applied in a manner consistent with First Amendment
jurisprudence regarding the freedom of speech and exercise of religion. B. This chapter does not apply to: Religious corporations, associations, educational institutions, or societies. According to the lawsuit, there's a city attorney who thinks that the ordinance applies to weddings; for example, the lawsuit quotes this newspaper article : “I think that term is broad enough that it would capture (wedding) activity,” city attorney Warren Wilson said. Some further relevant paragraphs from the lawsuit include (the emphasis is mine), That article stated the following (emphasis added):
Wedding venues that turn away gay couples may violate local laws, such as Coeur
d’Alene’s prohibition on discrimination based on sexual orientation. The
provision adopted by the City Council last year applies to housing, employment
and places of public accommodation, including businesses that render public
services. “I think that term is broad enough that it would capture (wedding)
activity,” city attorney Warren Wilson said. Similar laws have applied to florists,
bakeries and photographers that have refused to work on same-sex weddings in
other states, Wilson noted. “Those have all been addressed in various states and
run afoul of state prohibitions similar to this,” he said. “I would think that the
Hitching Post would probably be considered a place of public accommodation
that would be subject to the ordinance.” In Washington, no clergy person is
required to marry a couple if doing so would violate the dictates of their faith
tradition. Idaho does not have a similar exemption in place, but religious entities
are exempt from the Coeur d’Alene ordinance, so pastors in the city are not
obligated to perform same-sex weddings. But any nonreligious business that hosts
civil ceremonies would fall under the city law , Wilson said. and, Mr. Knapp asked Wilson if the Coeur d’Alene anti-discrimination ordinance required him and the Hitching Post to perform same-sex
wedding ceremonies. Mr. Knapp also asked if he was exempt from the ordinance since he was an ordained minister. Wilson responded that Mr. Knapp would have to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies because of the Coeur d’Alene ordinance. Wilson also responded that Mr. Knapp was not exempt from the ordinance because the Hitching Post was a business and not a church A large part of the lawsuit consists of evidence which tries to prove that the Knapps and the business are religious. | {
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23,579 | There are many sources that claim that it is illegal to pronounce Arkansas incorrectly and you can be fined for doing so. My favorite law is one designed to get Northerners into trouble. That's right folks, if you mispronounce Arkansas (Ar-kan-saw) you're in for a fine or jail time. http://littlerock.about.com/cs/factsfun/a/strangelaws.htm It’s strictly prohibited to pronounce “Arkansas” incorrectly http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/arkansas Is this true? Is it mentioned in Arkansas State Laws? As a subnote, Wikipedia mentions the below: In 1881, the pronunciation of Arkansas with the final "s" being silent was made official by an act of the state legislature after a dispute arose between Arkansas's then-two U.S. senators as one favored the pronunciation as /ˈɑrkənsɔː/ AR-kən-saw while the other favored /ɑrˈkænzəs/ ar-KAN-zəs. | The name, Arkansas, is a French pronunciation of a Siouxan word meaning "land of downriver people". It is pronounced: /ˈɑrkənsɔː/ ar-kən-saw In 1881, the Arkansas General Assembly passed Concurrent Resolution No. 4. The resolution was further modified in 1947 as Arkansas Code 1 April 105 , and reads thusly: Whereas,
confusion of practice has arisen in the pronunciation of the name of
our state and it is deemed important that the true pronunciation
should be determined for use in oral official proceedings. And,
whereas, the matter has been thoroughly investigated by the State
Historical Society and the Eclectic Society of Little Rock, which have
agreed upon the correct pronunciation as derived from history, and the
early usage of the American immigrants. Be it therefore resolved by
both houses of the General Assembly, that the only true pronunciation
of the name of the state, in the opinion of this body, is that
received by the French from the native Indians and committed to
writing in the French word representing the sound. It should be
pronounced in three (3) syllables, with the final "s" silent, the "a"
in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first
and last syllables. The pronunciation with the accent on the second
syllable with the sound of "a" in "man" and the sounding of the
terminal "s" is discouraged by Arkansans. The full explanation of the debate leading up to this resolution can be read here . Essentially, this resolution was just to make the proper pronunciation "official". You'll notice that the language of the resolution uses words like "should" and "discouraged", not "must". So no, it's not illegal to pronounce Arkansas incorrectly. Both Arkansas and Kansas derive their names from the Native-American Kansa tribe (pronounced as Kan-SAW). Kansas is an English spelling of the tribe's name, leading to the current pronunciation. Arkansas is french, and the trailing "s" is therefore silent. This is why the official pronunciation of Arkansas sounds more like the original Native American word. | {
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23,619 | Wikipedia's page on "Ebola Virus Disease" states: No specific treatment for the virus is available. Wikipedia's page on "Ebola Virus" also states: There is no cure for Ebola, but if people get care quickly from
doctors and nurses at a hospital, more of them live. So how are there news articles telling us of people with Ebola who have been cured? We have a myriad of news articles describing people in the U.S and around the world. afflicted with Ebola that have now been cured: Dallas nurse Amber Vinson Recovered Dallas nurse Nina Pham Cured Nebraskan journalist Ashoka Mukpo Cured American missionary Nancy Writebol Cured/Recovered? ( See link above ) Dr. Kent Brantly Cured/Recovered? ( See link above ) Spanish nurse assitant Teresa Romero Recovered Unnamed French nurse Cured Is there really no treatment for the disease? Then how are these people surviving? How are they getting treated? I am especially confused by the wording the articles use. Some use the word "surviving" to describe some people's incidents with the disease, which would imply that they had not been cured, but some articles also state they "were cured", which would imply there exists a cure for Ebola. | There are not many types of "specific" Antiviral drug . Ebola is treated as described later in the Wikipedia article you quoted : Treatment is primarily supportive in nature. These measures may include management of pain, nausea, fever and anxiety, as well as rehydration via the oral or by intravenous route. (etc.) If professional care is not possible, guidelines by WHO for care at home have been relatively successful. Intensive care is often used in the developed world. This may include maintaining blood volume and electrolytes (salts) balance as well as treating any bacterial infections that may develop. Dialysis may be needed for kidney failure, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation may be used for lung dysfunction. | {
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23,679 | I read this 9gag post (Okay, 9gag isn't really reliable for facts), where it says : I then checked it at Wikipedia (Again, not the most reliable, really, but it does the job when necessary), and found out that it became a "dump site" for radioactive material. Is it true that you would die by being near the lake for an hour, or any other short amount of time? | ONE HOUR ANYWHERE NEAR IT AND YOU'RE DEAD This claim is probably too broad and the information is outdated, but the general idea is correct. A quick search revealed a few relevant details: From Atlas Obscura : According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the lake is so polluted that its waters will kill a human within an hour. From Basement Geographer (which is referencing a broken link): spending just an hour on its shores would result in certain death Also, from the Wikipedia article The radiation level in the region near where radioactive effluent is discharged into the lake was 600 röntgens per hour (approximately 6 Sv/h) in 1990 According to Basement Geographer, the last reactor in the area closed in 1990, so the radiation will only have gone down since then. Also, I didn't see any information as to the radiation levels any place other than where the radioactive waste enters the lake. As such, I don't know what the current levels of radiation are at various places around and in the lake. Something else to consider is how good water is at stopping radiation. According to the XKCD What-If blog , For the kinds of radiation coming off spent nuclear fuel, every 7 centimeters of water cuts the amount of radiation in half. Of course, Randall looked at a scenario where the radioactive material is not mixed with the water. In Lake Karachay the radioactive material is not contained, but the radiation from the material at or near the bottom of the lake would not reach you unless you were underwater. If all (or at least most) of the radioactive material has settled to the bottom in the decades since they stopped dumping waste into the lake, then it might actually be safe to float in the middle of the lake (getting past the radioactive shores would still be a problem, however). So other than going to Lake Karachay with a geiger counter, we can't know for sure whether or not there are areas where the radiation levels are safe. There is a lot of radioactive material there, so it is almost certain that there are parts of the lake or the area around it where you could receive a lethal dose of radiation within hours. In any case, the lake in the picture looks like a fine place to visit - the healthy trees, the size of the lake, and the island (see Basement Geographer for satellite image of the lake) make it obvious that that isn't a picture of Lake Karachay. It is actually Phantom Ship, an island in Crater Lake, Oregon, USA . [Hat tip: @ChrisW]. This photo of the lake appears to be the original (or at least derived from the same source): | {
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23,715 | I received this screenshot which is actually a post on Facebook by 8facts. It claims that humans nearly became extinct 70,000 years ago when the population sunk to 2,000. Is there any evidence that this claim is correct? | Possibly, but maybe not as severe as suggested. Basically the eruption of the Toba supervolcano caused a volcanic winter that decimated the human population at the time. There is evidence of this in the human genome. DNA mutates at a reasonably steady rate, so by looking at the genetic diversity of humans we can see that the population must have been very homogenous (i.e. small) at some point around 60K years ago. differentiation of modern humans ☆ Stanley H. Ambrose DOI: 10.1006/jhev.1998.0219 Abstract The “Weak Garden of Eden” model for the origin and dispersal of modern
humans (Harpendinget al., 1993) posits that modern humans spread into
separate regions from a restricted source, around 100 ka (thousand
years ago), then passed through population bottlenecks. Around 50 ka,
dramatic growth occurred within dispersed populations that were
genetically isolated from each other. Population growth began earliest
in Africa and later in Eurasia and is hypothesized to have been caused
by the invention and spread of a more efficient Later Stone Age/Upper
Paleolithic technology, which developed in equatorial Africa. Climatic and geological evidence suggest an alternative hypothesis for
Late Pleistocene population bottlenecks and releases. The last glacial
period was preceded by one thousand years of the coldest temperatures
of the Later Pleistocene ( ∼71–70 ka ), apparently caused by the
eruption of Toba, Sumatra. Toba was the largest known explosive
eruption of the Quaternary. Toba's volcanic winter could have
decimated most modern human populations, especially outside of
isolated tropical refugia. Release from the bottleneck could have
occurred either at the end of this hypercold phase, or 10,000 years
later, at the transition from cold oxygen isotope stage 4 to warmer
stage 3. The largest populations surviving through the bottleneck
should have been found in the largest tropical refugia, and thus in
equatorial Africa. High genetic diversity in modern Africans may thus
reflect a less severe bottleneck rather than earlier population
growth. Volcanic winter may have reduced populations to levels low enough for
founder effects, genetic drift and local adaptations to produce rapid
population differentiation. If Toba caused the bottlenecks, then
modern human races may have differentiated abruptly, only 70 thousand
years ago. Alternatively, Wikipedia's article titled Toba catastrophe theory links to a BBC News article, When humans faced extinction . This BBC News article gives the 70,000 and 2,000 figures, so that may well be the source of the claim: Humans may have come close to extinction about 70,000 years ago,
according to the latest genetic research. Researchers from Stanford University, US, and the Russian Academy of
Sciences compared 377 microsatellite markers in DNA collected from 52
regions around the world. The small genetic diversity of modern humans indicates that at some
stage during the last 100,000 years, the human population dwindled to
a very low level. It was out of this small population, with its consequent limited
genetic diversity, that today's humans descended. Estimates of how small the human population became vary but 2,000 is
the figure suggested in the latest research. If this is the case, humanity came very close to extinction. | {
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23,862 | This should be an easy one, but I wanted to ask so we have confirmation or refutation. This image is making the rounds on facebook: So, how factual is this statement? | Wikipedia calls it a "Presidential Proclamation", The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation Reading the text of it he claims that his authority for doing so was as C-in-C in time of war: Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority etc. It says "proclamation" all over the place: Proclamation 95 - Regarding the Status of Slaves in etc. By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation Whereas on the 22d day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was etc. It includes some important "orders": And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are and henceforward shall be free, and that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons . And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that in all cases when allowed they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places and to man vessels of all sorts in said service . Here is opinion saying that Proclamations "carry the same force of law as executive orders": Presidential Proclamations Project at the University of Houston A presidential proclamation is “an instrument that states a condition, declares a law and requires obedience, recognizes an event or triggers the implementation of a law (by recognizing that the circumstances in law have been realized)” (Cooper 2002, 116). In short, presidents “define” situations or conditions on situations that become legal or economic truth. These orders carry the same force of law as executive orders – the difference between the two is that executive order are aimed at those inside government while proclamations are aimed at those outside government. The administrative weight of these proclamations is upheld because they are often specifically authorized by congressional statute, making them “delegated unilateral powers.” Presidential proclamations are often dismissed as a practical presidential tool for policy making because of the perception of proclamations as largely ceremonial or symbolic in nature. However, the legal weight of presidential proclamations suggests their importance to presidential governance. The National Archives seem to think they're similar enough that they put them in the same book: Codification of Presidential Proclamations and Executive Orders Chapters although they're listed separately in each chapter. Apparently a source for the claim in the OP is Nancy Pelosi, quoted in the Washington Times , House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday compared President Obama’s planned executive action on immigration reform to President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. “Remember, President Lincoln said, ‘public sentiment is everything,’” the Democrat said at a press conference, Breitbart reported. “I wish the Republicans would at least give the public a chance to listen to what the president is trying to do. “And also does the public know the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order?” Mrs. Pelosi continued. “People have to understand how presidents have made change in our country, Congress catching up, and in the case of Ronald Reagan, improving upon what Congress has done.” In summary I think that this was both: A proclamation to the people An order to the executive branch and the military | {
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23,959 | I found this picture on Facebook: It definitely doesn't come from a particularly credible source (I F***ing Love Science), but I'm curious if that picture is genuine. My mother claims that the legs, wings and head appear "unnaturally twisted" based on her past experience caring for Eagles and other raptors. | This image can be attributed to Pam Mullens a Canadian wildlife photographer sometimes going by the pseudonym EagleHunter . This image and other photos of eagles flying in interesting and unusual poses can be found on the eagle page of her portfolio site. I contacted Pam and she had this to say on the subject: I can tell you this image is real and not doctored in anyway. I have spent many years with Eagles and this air flip is something they do when hunting, it's not flying upside down, it is a flip that happens in a matter of seconds. | {
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23,964 | A friend of mine told my wife that carbon dating is unreliable because it has been performed on live humans and indicated that the test subject(s) are 4000 years old. Is there any truth to this claim? I'm having a hard time finding anything about it. | The use of Carbon-14 for dating is not completely precise. In general, 500 years is the minimum and 50,000 years is the maximum due to the need to calibrate for background C-14 levels, and to have sufficient breakdown to establish the half-life proportions but not so much that the sample is too small to measure. That said, they're using Carbon-14 dating on recent human remains in forensic science , although the technique works best on bodies around the 1940s to 1960s due to the increased presence of C-14 due to atomic bomb testing. Currently, the atmospheric levels of C-14 are dropping again, so the method will be less feasible for people deceased after that point. Given the difficulty of dating samples less than 500 years old, I could readily see your friend, or the person who gave him that information, latching on to the idea of less aged items being hard to date and the actual figure involved getting enlarged with the telling. | {
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23,977 | Joe Scarbrough blasted the media and the St. Louis Rams for coming onto the field in a silent protest in support of Michael Brown. SCARBROUGH: Yeah, guys came out, hands up don’t shoot for the St. Louis Rams.
Here’s a video of it. And what is so remarkable is they might as well have come out with a flying saucer attached to all of their heads in solidarity with Michael Brown being transported to Venus on a flying saucer. Because that happened as much as that happened. That’s according to grand jury testimony. That’s according to witnesses. They are using his accomplice in the robbery that was with him at the time who also claimed that Michael Brown was shot in the back. And for some reason, the media attaches to these narratives that will stir up further protests. And I got to say, I just got to a tipping point this weekend… Do witnesses in the grand jury testimony/forensic evidence contradict the account given by Michael Brown's acquaintance who was with him at the time. According to grand jury testimony, were Michael Brown's hands up when he was shot? | There were multiple witnesses that gave testimony, with conflicting testimonies. Vox.com offers " A one-chart summary of every Ferguson eyewitness's grand jury testimony ". From the third column from the right, it can be seen 12 witnesses (in 16 interviews) said that Michael Brown put his hands up when fired upon, two said he didn't, and many didn't know or were not asked. Note: Taking a simple majority of eyewitnesses statements isn't a safe method of determining the truth. | {
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23,994 | In its own fact sheet NATO denies Russia's claims that NATO promised not to expand: Russian officials claim that US and German officials promised in 1990 that NATO would not expand into Eastern and Central Europe, build military infrastructure near Russia’s borders or permanently deploy troops there. No such pledge was made, and no evidence to back up Russia’s claims has ever been produced. Should such a promise have been made by NATO as such, it would have to have been as a formal, written decision by all NATO Allies. Furthermore, the consideration of enlarging NATO came years after German reunification. This issue was not yet on the agenda when Russia claims these promises were made. Is NATO's claim, that it never promised not to expand into Eastern and Central Europe, correct? | Update March 2020: It's five years later, and and eagle-eyed commenter pointed out that some documents on the matter have been declassified . Those seem to confirm my original conclusion: there were quite a few promises in oral discussions and meetings by Western foreign ministers, prime ministers and presidents. They were rarely stated precisely, but at the very least strongly implied NATO would not expand eastwards. However, there is still no evidence of a statement by NATO itself or a written promise. Original answer: Somehow, most of my answers tend to begin with "this is a complicated issue". As ChrisW suspected , there are no indications that NATO, as an organization, has made any formal promises; but there is plenty of evidence that top-level Western officials made public and private promises that NATO would not expand eastwards. The German magazine "SPIEGEL" has run a detailed article on this topic in 2009, when Russian then-President Dmitri Medvedev raised the issue of a broken NATO promise. My answer is largely based on this; it states interviews with many of the protagonists as well as access to documents from the German Ministry of Foregn Affairs as well as other western archives as its sources. As for formal NATO statements: Had any existed, surely there would be evidence of that in the West as well as numerous references from Russia. As it is, the Russian officials complaining about the NATO expansion tend not to make such claims. There have been claims of less formal promises made by the NATO, such as this one made by Vladimir Putin in 2007 : And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: “the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee”. However, as Steven Pifer points out , the statement was a bit different : This will also be true of a united Germany in NATO. The very fact that we are ready not to deploy NATO troops beyond the territory of the Federal Republic gives the Soviet Union firm security guarantees. Here, Mr. Woerner is clearly talking about the Federal Republic as opposed to the GDR; no non-German NATO troops were to be deployed in the Eastern part of Germany according to the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany . However, there is considerable variation of opinion on whether promises have been given by Western officials during the negotiations and the overall period of transition. The SPIEGEL quotes the last foreign minister of the USSR, Edward Shevardnadze, as saying no promises have been made; the same position is held by then-foreign minister of West Germany, Mr. Genscher, and the US Secretary of State, Mr. Baker. The Soviet President, Michail Gorbatchev, however, claims that of course promises had been made, and Jack Matlock, then the US ambassador in Russia, confirms that Moscow had received a "clear commitment". SPIEGEL also quotes from archival documents; Genscher is to have told Shevardnadze in February 1990: "It is clear to us then NATO will not expand eastwards". On January 31 1990, Genscher already said in a public speech that a unified Germany would be a firm part of the Western world; however, there would be no expansion of the NATO towards the East. Genscher later explained that he was afraid of a situation similar to the 1956 Hungary uprising, when the insurgents' stated desire to join NATO provided the excuse for the Soviet Union to crack down. The US and British foreign ministers agreed with this line of diplomacy. On February 8 1990, in the Kremlin, Baker promised "no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east", should the Soviets ascent to a NATO membership for a united Germany. However, there are also quotes showing that, at least internally, Baker and Genscher regarded this to be a policy for the very next future, not for all times. And there is no evidence of a formal or ratified decision by any NATO member state to oppose a NATO extension to the East; that is, while the foreign ministers seem to have made such promises, especially in the early stages of negotiations, no government or parliament officially endorsed them. Finally, there is the question of why the Soviet leaders and negotiators, described in the SPIEGEL article as insisting "that everything be documented in writing, even when all that was at issue was the fate of Soviet military cemeteries in East Germany", did not request a written guarantee of NATO not expanding to the East. Gorbachev and a few others claimed the idea was plainly unthinkable at the time, so the issue did not arise. On the other hand, it might well be that the Western powers did not want to bind themselves on that issue. We just do not know and, if there is no release of new classified information in East or West, will probably not know for a while. | {
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24,044 | I am rather surprised to read this article : Sweden to become a Third World Country by 2030, according to UN In 2010 Sweden had the 15th place in the HDI rankings but according to UN forecasts, Sweden will be #25 in 2015, and in 2030 on the 45th place. Sweden is one of few countries with such a sharp deterioration from what it had in 2010. What makes me very suspicious is the very right-wing political propaganda in the article: Sweden's leftist establishment and media believe a cornerstone of their perfect society is multiculturalism: large scale immigration from some of the poorest, most backward nations on earth. Swedes who disagree with that plan risk being labeled racist, fascist, even Nazi. Does the UN study justify the contents of the article (concrete risk of becoming a third-world country due to multiculturalism)? | Page 41 of the referenced study/document does claim that, per its projections/algorithms, Sweden's HDI will drop, from 0.949 to 0.906 (e.g. to 45th place). 45th place is relatively low-ish (for comparison, currently Portugal is in about 45th place) but not "third world" ... the absolute HDI is still above 0.9 ... part of the reason why it's projected to be relatively low is that HDI of other countries are expected to rise. My initial answer was as follows: The document talks about how it calculates but doesn't explain it well/clearly enough for me to understand.
The document doesn't include the actual calculations for Sweden, only the result of the calculations. However I think I understand it now, as follows. The start of the document says, The model was developed by creating “cohorts” of countries and then by
applying demography’s hypothetical cohort approach to observed 1970-2005 country-level
changes in HDI. Looking at the brown lines (cohort 4) on page 45, one of those is downward: I presume that's Sweden; that Sweden's HDI dropped just before the study period; and that Sweden is the only country in its cohort whose HDI dropped. Because Sweden's HDI dropped, the projection is for it to keep on dropping. Because other countries were rising in the 2005-2010 period, their HDIs are projected to keep on rising. Sweden's HDI continuing to drop for 20 years (projected from 2010 through 2030) contrasted with other country's HDI rising for 20 year, is enough to drop Sweden's HDI to 45th place. Summary: Yes it says 45th place No that's not 3rd-world It's a naive estimate, based on the assumption that because Sweden's HDI dropped recently it will continue to drop for the next 20 years, and that because other countries rose recently they will continue to rise for the next 20 years. Even according to the report, even if you accept the report, Sweden is not "dropping fast": it's dropping a little. Dropping even "just a little" adds up if it's projected over 20 years; and looks relatively worse when almost all other countries are rising. But above 0.9 is still good in absolute terms: it's not "deteriorating fast", it's more like going from "top of the high HDI group" to "middle of the high HDI group", with the number of countries in the "high HDI group" increasing. Perhaps more importantly, the purpose of the paper (for which the paper's methods of projecting was chosen) was to look at the HDI progression of cohorts (i.e. groups of similar countries), not of individual countries. In fact the whole paper might be a red herring, in that according to footnote 8 on page 29, the document references the following for its 2030 projections: 8 Daponte, B. Osborne and Hu, Difei. “Technical Note on Re-Calculating the HDI Using Projections of
Components of the HDI.” April 2010. UNDP/Human Development Report Office. My guess is that this is the paper which would explain why Sweden's HDI was, uniquely, calculated as dropping; but I haven't found a copy of this document so I can't review it. But even without knowing how Sweden's drop in HDI was calculated, there enough information (explained in this answer) to see how little this alleged drop matters. A different more recent document i.e. Sweden
HDI values and rank changes in the 2013 Human Development Report shows that Sweden's HDI is currently rising (and has always been rising, never falling). This document also says, The rank of Sweden’s HDI for 2011 based on data available in 2012 and methods used in 2012 was 7
out of 187 countries. In the 2011 HDR, Sweden was ranked 10 out of 187 countries. However, it is
misleading to compare values and rankings with those of previously published reports, because the
underlying data and methods have changed. In summary I don't think that the "Hypothetical Cohort Model of
Human Development" document is a reliable predictor of bad HDI for Sweden. | {
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24,056 | James Watson Nobel Prize winner for his discovery of the structure of DNA made the following claim in a 2007 Sunday Times interview: "[I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”. He told the newspaper people wanted to believe that everyone was born with equal intelligence but that those “who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. James Watson has been ostracized since his 2007 remarks, and has sold his Nobel Prize for income. Watson’s racial theories of IQ have some academic support, such as in Richard J. Herrnstein’s and Charles Murray’s controversial book 'The Bell Curve,' this remains one of the most contentious [...] “I am not a racist in a conventional way,” he told the Financial Times. “I apologize...the [Sunday Times] journalist somehow wrote that I worried about the people in Africa because of their low IQ – and you're not supposed to say that.” Does IQ testing show that blacks on average score worse than whites? | Yes. See 30 years of research on race differences in cognitive ability (2005). Currently, the 1.1 standard deviation difference in average IQ between Blacks
and Whites in the United States is not in itself a matter of empirical dispute. More recently , it has been observed that "[t]he IQ gap between
Blacks and Whites has been reduced by 0.33 SD". They describe the gap further: It is important to note that there is a dramatic decline
of Black IQ with age. Four-year-old Blacks are only about
5 points below Whites of the same age, whereas at age 24,
Blacks are 17 points below Whites. | {
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24,100 | Frequently, "Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power." is seen attributed to Oscar Wilde: e.g., here , here , and here . This seems unlikely to me, for several reasons: I can't find any instances of the quote that date from more than about fifteen years ago. The oldest of them already seem to quote it as a well-known dictum, so it's probably older than that , but a hundred years is an awfully long time to go without googleable citations. Nobody seems to have any idea where Oscar would have said it, if in fact he did. It just sounds wrong: specifically, I would expect a post-Freudian source. Does anyone know what the actual source of this quote is? | From an article by Robert Alan Glick in the 2002 book Constructing and Deconstructing Woman's Power : Summarizing Freud and all of psychoanalysis most succinctly, Robert
Michels (personal communciation) wryly suggested: "Everything is
about sex, except sex: sex is about power." Unfortunately, the book's bibliography isn't available for free on Google Books, so whether this quote can be traced back to a primary source remains to be seen. But it certainly feels like something Michels would've said. | {
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25,217 | Project Censored have an 2010 article titled The Media Can Legally Lie : In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States. [...] During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. The reporter , as well as a number of other liberal sources also claim pretty much the same thing. However, the Centre for Competitive Politics contests this claim: Clearly, the story that FOX News got a court ruling in favor of its right to “lie” in its news broadcasts has become something of a
talking point among the cable news channel’s detractors. There’s only
one problem – the story as popularly told is completely false, and is
based almost exclusively on hysteria, hyperbole, and half-truths. There was indeed a lawsuit filed by journalists Jane Akre and Steve
Wilson over their dismissal from FOX affiliate WTVT in Tampa, Florida.
After that fact, however, the story is far different than how it is
popularly portrayed. Snopes also rejects this claim but its main reasons were that: The TV channel involved in the suit was not the main Fox News channel, but an affiliate . (IMO, this is a cop-out.) The issue at hand was not day-to-day programming, but a special episode involving Monsanto and bovine growth hormone (which seemed to be irrelevant to the question at hand.) Fox News did not invoke First Amendment for its right to lie (which was not asserted by the claims.) However, it did not cover the issue on whether Fox News won the second lawsuit, or if it even involved "the right to lie". In an example of a poor answer from Snopes, their quotation was not relevant to their claim that Fox News did not win the second lawsuit on "the right to lie". Snopes also links to the 2003 judgment , which reversed the 1998 award. However, I was unable to fully understand the legalese behind this judgment, nor was I able to find a source which clears this up properly. Being uninitiated in American politics, which article(s) is/are more valid? | No, pretty much every part of that statement is false: TL;DR "Fox News" wasn't involved in this case in the first place. The 2003 court case being cited (an appeal) was not about the "right to lie". It was about the right to not pay whistleblower protection money which are independent of the wrongdoing, over accusations of distorting news. In other words, before the legal win, the station had to pay whistleblower protection money independently of whether the "lie" accusation had any merit whatsoever - merely on the strength of whistleblower making the accusation. After the win, that whistleblower award was removed, because FCC's "don't lie" rule didn't qualify under things that one can blow the whistle on and be protected. However, the court did NOT say anything about the right (or the absence thereof), to lie on the part of news organization. Merely on the right of an employee to get paid if you accuse someone of lying while being employed by them; and be protected from firing over that accusation. Independently of that court case win, the FCC determined that the station wasn't lying in the first place, so the original accusations of "lying" were baseless. So did the lower court, in 2000, where all of the "lie" claims were rejected. In detail Fox News wasn't even involved in the first place. The case involved WTVT , which was a Fox Network Affiliate station . In other words, they shared a parent corporate entity, but were two completely different companies (and, less importantly, prior to January 1997 wasn't even owned by Fox). I can equally make the case that it was Simpsons that "won the court case". Or for that matter, that Star Wars did . Now, whether that matters or not is a matter of subjective opinion. Strictly speaking, the claim as usually formulated is wrong because the people making the statements very clearly and purposefully are trying to tie in Fox News channel to the story, by using "Fox News" term instead of "Fox affiliate" or "Fox Entertainment". But the rest of the claim is 100% false as well. The legal case is very clearly delineated on Wikipedia . 100% of claims by Wilson and almost all by Akre were rejected by the court outright in original 2000 hearing. The rejection specifically included 100% of their claims that WTVT "lied" . One claim by Akre was sustained, but importantly, it was a very, very legally specific claim (note the emphasized part): [...] but siding with one aspect of Akre's complaint, awarding her $425,000 and agreeing that Akre was a whistleblower because she believed there were violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and because she planned on reporting the station to the Federal Communications Commission. Reason magazine, referring to the case, noted that Akre's argument in the trial was that Akre and Wilson believed news distortion occurred, but that they did not have to prove this was the case . In other words, the court did NOT rule that WTVT had the "right to lie" - they ruled that although the claimants did not provide evidence that WTVT lied in the first place , they were not required to provide such proof to get whistle-blower protection. IOW, the claim was awarded regardless of what WTVT did or didn't do. Then even that last claim by Akre was overturned in 2003 appeal (and what the usual Fox News bashing statement refers to). Again, the claim that was overturned on appeal very specifically was NOT related to whether WTVT lied, but merely the fact that Akre only had to believe that they lied, without proving it. [...] WTVT, who successfully argued that the FCC policy against falsification was not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle-blower law did not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 [...] Because the FCC's news distortion policy is not a "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102, Akre has failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute." To simplify the legalese, the 2003 ruling wasn't that "WTVT had the right to lie": it was that Akre had no right to whistle-blower protection, because there was no law to violate, to whistle-blow about. Moreover, as Snopes put it , even FCC conclusively indicated there was no lying on the network's part: Ultimately, the FCC concluded in 2007 that the conflict between Akre and Wilson and the affiliate boiled down to an "editorial dispute ... rather than a deliberate effort by WTVT to distort news ." Now, in the interests of fairness, in the USA, under First Amendment protection, there's a pretty wide latitude as far as news sources' ability to lie, so the actual statement "there is a right to lie" is not fully inaccurate. However, that is a topic which had nothing to do with the court case being discussed. The court did find that FEC news distortion policy is not a "law, rule, or regulation" under the whistle-blower laws . But: it did not establish a general law about "right to lie", outside of whistle blower protection arena under Florida Law, based on the wording. It merely stated that the specific FCC policy wasn't a law, for the purposes of 448.102 . it didn't say that the policy is invalid, or can't be applied to the station if the station indeed was found to be distorting the news or lying. And the ruling very specifically did not in any way imply that WTVT lied in the first place. Which was further reinforced in light of FCC's 2007 ruling. Now, if one wants to make an accurate claim, and protest news distortion, the court case's outcome did make it theoretically harder to find out about lying in the future, by making people potentially less willing to report lying to FCC due to the fact that doing so would NOT protect them as whistleblowers. As a side note, at the risk of falling into a Poisoning the well fallacy, we also need to consider the trustworthiness of the original source. Apparently, Wilson does have a pattern of accusing people of wrongdoing with no proof as part of his "journalism": ... a report by Wilson resulted in an FCC challenge to WXYZ's license. Wilson had reported that a group of Michigan business and political leaders had consorted with underage prostitutes in Costa Rica. But the reporter admitted on air that "we have no proof" that the named Michigan men had engaged in illicit behavior ... ( source ) As another side note (also not very relevant to the case being examined), the original reporting in question concerned the "dangers" of rBGH and was basically an environmentalist-based anti-Monsanto hit piece, contradicted by scientific evidence. So the underlying truthfulness of the two sides of the dispute that led to this is VERY much in question and not as clear cut as the claims imply. I'm not an expert, but a (seemingly-neutral) source I was able to find - cancer.org - states that rBGH isn't exactly as bad as one would believe from the reporting in question: It is not clear that drinking milk produced using rBGH significantly increases IGF-1 levels in humans or adds to the risk of developing cancer {{note: one point omitted in the summary is that drinking soy milk increases IGF-1 as well, so causality with rBGH is suspect}} . More research is needed to help better address these concerns. The increased use of antibiotics to treat rBGH-induced mastitis does promote the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but the extent to which these are transmitted to humans is unclear. Wikipedia notes: The Food and Drug Administration,[9] World Health Organization, 4 and National Institutes of Health[10] have independently stated that dairy products and meat from BST-treated cows are safe for human consumption. FDA is specifically quoted as: FDA rBST labeling guidelines state, "FDA is concerned that the term 'rbST free' may imply a compositional difference between milk from treated and untreated cows rather than a difference in the way the milk is produced. Without proper context, such statements could be misleading. Such unqualified statements may imply that milk from untreated cows is safer or of higher quality than milk from treated cows. Such an implication would be false and misleading " | {
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25,222 | At a young age, I remember being told by a teacher that if there are five or more native Americans in a group, it is legal to shoot them, because it is considered a war party. The teacher told me that this was an old law which is still in effect today. I found a few references, but I don't know how credible they are: Dumb Laws Web Site South Dakota: If there are more than 5 Native Americans on your property you may shoot them. Spearfish, South Dakota: If three or more Indians are walking down the street together, they can be considered a war party and fired upon. Stupid Laws Web Site Iowa : You may shoot Native Americans if more than five of them are on your property. South Dakota : If there are more than 5 Native Americans on your property you may shoot them. Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania : A group of 5 or more Native Americans are to be considered a raiding party and may be killed on the spot. Could this actually be true? If it is, then does that mean there would be no repercussions for murdering a group of innocent people in cold blood? (I hope nobody is evil enough to go out and do this.) | Even if such a law were still on the books somewhere in the U.S., it would be superseded by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which states (emphasis added): Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. All people within the jurisdiction of any U.S. state are ensured equal protection under the law, so any law saying that it's legal to shoot native Americans in a situation where it wouldn't otherwise be legal to shoot someone would be unconstitutional and unenforceable. Such a law would certainly be struck down by the courts if a case arose in which it were judicially reviewed. [D]oes that mean there would be no repercussions for murdering a group of innocent people in cold blood? Absolutely not, for the above reasons. | {
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25,229 | One of the common arguments for legalised abortion is that abortions will continue anyway despite being illegal and these illegal abortions will lead to higher rates of maternal death. This, somewhat partizan, site claims that there have been natural experiments that have tested this idea and found it wanting. Specifically the site claims that the ban on abortion in Chile led to lower maternal death rates supposedly refuting the common argument. The site argues: “Outlaw abortion and abortion won’t stop. Women will just do it illegally and women will die!” Or so the argument goes… But facts are pesky things, and they show that the opposite is true in Chile. The site also claims this is observed elsewhere: It’s not sheer coincidence that Malta, The Republic of Ireland, and Chile, all of which have prohibited abortion, have lower maternal mortality rates than the United States. Are the statistics quoted correct? And, more importantly, do they show that banning abortion is good for women as it reduces maternal mortality? | I can find plenty of evidence of the opposite to be true. Before the 1966 law went into effect,
the Romanian maternal mortality rate was
similarto those ofother Eastern European
countries. Afterward, abortion-related
maternal mortality increased to a level 10
times that of any other European country
(Figures 2 and 3). For the decade 1980 to
1989, the average Romanian maternal
mortality rate was 150 maternal deaths per
100 000 live births.6 Many women obtained
abortion illegally, and every year
approximately 500 otherwise-healthy
women of childbearing age died from postabortion
hemorrhage, sepsis, abdominal
trauma, and poisoning. P Stephenson, M Wagner, M Badea, and F Serbanescu. Commentary: the public health consequences of restricted induced abortion--lessons from Romania . American Journal of Public Health October 1992: Vol. 82, No. 10, pp. 1328-1331. When abortion is made legal, safe, and easily accessible, women’s
health rapidly improves. By contrast, women’s health deteriorates
when access to safe abortion is made more difficult or illegal David A Grimes, Janie Benson, Susheela Singh, Mariana Romero, Bela Ganatra, Friday E Okonofua,
Iqbal H Shah Unsafe abortion: the preventable
pandemic . The Lancet
Sexual and Reproductive Health Series, October 2006. Illegal abortion is responsible for up to half of maternal deaths and consumes a large proportion of health resources in many developing countries, particularly in Africa and Latin America. The legal situation of abortion in a country does not influence the abortion rate, but illegality is associated with a much greater risk of complications and death. Faúndes A, Hardy E. Illegal abortion: consequences for women's health and the health care system . Int J Gynaecol Obstet. 1997 Jul;58(1):77-83. The article with regards to Chile might be this (unfortunately I can't find the body, and the abstract does not make the claims you mention): Foro Red de Salud y Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos; .Red Salud de las
Mujeres Latinoamericanas y del Caribe Humanized care of unsafe abortion in Chile: monitoring as practical women's citizenship : Santiago de Chile; Foro Red de Salud y Derechos Sexuales y ReproductivosChile; 2003. 26 p. tab. But I've also found this peer-reviewed criticism (emphasis mine): According to a 2001 Ministry of Health Quality of Life and Health Survey,12 in 1990 there were 44,468 hospitalisations for abortion (spontaneous and induced), while in 2001, there were 34,479, a decrease of 22%. While the author (Shepard) could not duplicate the full methodology of the original study, her estimates, using the same correction and multiplier factors, suggest that the total number of abortions may also have decreased by 22% in 2001, with a 9% decrease in the abortion rate in Chile.6 Both decreases occurred during a period in which the population of women of fertile age rose by 23%. This decrease in abortions of 22% is higher than the 16% decrease in births during the same period. These estimates should be taken with caution , since they are based on hospital data, and experts attribute the reduction of hospitalisation related to abortion to the increasing use of aseptic procedures and antibiotic therapy among clandestine abortion providers, the increasing availability of misoprostol and increased contraceptive use. BL Shepard, L Casas Becerra Abortion Policies and Practices in Chile:
Ambiguities and Dilemmas . Reproductive Health Matters 2007;15(30):202–210 | {
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25,250 | One of my friends claimed that Russians used alcohol heavily in WW2 to manipulate their troops into being less cautious and to increase their aggression. This was supposed to be especially true in cases with Russian "rush" tactics where they used lots of poorly trained and equipped soldiers to swarm German troops. Alcohol should have helped with actually making Russian soldiers willingly perform this tactics. His argument was that Russian alcohol was relatively cheap, so that Russians could afford it and that death thread by Russian officers were not enough for soldiers to attack German troops while being poorly equipped. I'm highly skeptical of his claims, because I think that alcohol was considered luxury in WW2, especially among soldiers. And that producing it just to manipulate soldiers would be too expensive. But I would agree it could be used as a reward to boost morale. Is there any truth about his claims? | I can find plenty of evidence of the opposite to be true. Before the 1966 law went into effect,
the Romanian maternal mortality rate was
similarto those ofother Eastern European
countries. Afterward, abortion-related
maternal mortality increased to a level 10
times that of any other European country
(Figures 2 and 3). For the decade 1980 to
1989, the average Romanian maternal
mortality rate was 150 maternal deaths per
100 000 live births.6 Many women obtained
abortion illegally, and every year
approximately 500 otherwise-healthy
women of childbearing age died from postabortion
hemorrhage, sepsis, abdominal
trauma, and poisoning. P Stephenson, M Wagner, M Badea, and F Serbanescu. Commentary: the public health consequences of restricted induced abortion--lessons from Romania . American Journal of Public Health October 1992: Vol. 82, No. 10, pp. 1328-1331. When abortion is made legal, safe, and easily accessible, women’s
health rapidly improves. By contrast, women’s health deteriorates
when access to safe abortion is made more difficult or illegal David A Grimes, Janie Benson, Susheela Singh, Mariana Romero, Bela Ganatra, Friday E Okonofua,
Iqbal H Shah Unsafe abortion: the preventable
pandemic . The Lancet
Sexual and Reproductive Health Series, October 2006. Illegal abortion is responsible for up to half of maternal deaths and consumes a large proportion of health resources in many developing countries, particularly in Africa and Latin America. The legal situation of abortion in a country does not influence the abortion rate, but illegality is associated with a much greater risk of complications and death. Faúndes A, Hardy E. Illegal abortion: consequences for women's health and the health care system . Int J Gynaecol Obstet. 1997 Jul;58(1):77-83. The article with regards to Chile might be this (unfortunately I can't find the body, and the abstract does not make the claims you mention): Foro Red de Salud y Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos; .Red Salud de las
Mujeres Latinoamericanas y del Caribe Humanized care of unsafe abortion in Chile: monitoring as practical women's citizenship : Santiago de Chile; Foro Red de Salud y Derechos Sexuales y ReproductivosChile; 2003. 26 p. tab. But I've also found this peer-reviewed criticism (emphasis mine): According to a 2001 Ministry of Health Quality of Life and Health Survey,12 in 1990 there were 44,468 hospitalisations for abortion (spontaneous and induced), while in 2001, there were 34,479, a decrease of 22%. While the author (Shepard) could not duplicate the full methodology of the original study, her estimates, using the same correction and multiplier factors, suggest that the total number of abortions may also have decreased by 22% in 2001, with a 9% decrease in the abortion rate in Chile.6 Both decreases occurred during a period in which the population of women of fertile age rose by 23%. This decrease in abortions of 22% is higher than the 16% decrease in births during the same period. These estimates should be taken with caution , since they are based on hospital data, and experts attribute the reduction of hospitalisation related to abortion to the increasing use of aseptic procedures and antibiotic therapy among clandestine abortion providers, the increasing availability of misoprostol and increased contraceptive use. BL Shepard, L Casas Becerra Abortion Policies and Practices in Chile:
Ambiguities and Dilemmas . Reproductive Health Matters 2007;15(30):202–210 | {
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26,370 | In this Hannity interview on Fox News on 9 January, 2015, American author Robert Spencer said that: So in France they have set up - the French government lists on a public web-site -751 no-go areas, where essentially the police have no authority, the French state has no authority and Islamic law prevails Are there such regions listed by the French government? I had a hard time finding official data regarding this issue. | TL;DR: Those regions are poor areas considered as priority for public help by the French government to reduce inequalities. It has nothing to do with Islamic law or police patrols. I'm a French citizen. So what are the ZUS ( Zone Urbaine Sensible )? They are sensitive urban areas where the French government wants the local politics to put in effort. Those are poor neighborhoods and they are classified as ZUS, to encourage companies to settle into those areas - e.g. by offering tax breaks. The ZUS areas were created by the law Loi no 95-115 du 4 février 1995 . Article 2: Les zones urbaines sensibles sont caractérisées par la présence de
grands ensembles ou de quartiers d'habitat dégradé et par un
déséquilibre accentué entre l'habitat et l'emploi. Roughly translated in English: The ZUS (Sensitive Urban Area) are characterized by the presence of large
housing estates or deteriorated residential areas and an accentuated
imbalance between housing and employment So, in the official texts, these zones have nothing to do with Islam or police. There is an official French organization that observes the ZUS: ONZUS (National Observatory for ZUS areas). Regular reports are provided on different subjects concerning ZUS; for instance, here (French text). I found on the ONZUS site a report on life in the ZUS: Portrait statistique des zones urbaines sensibles (ZUS statistical portraits). Here is my summary list of key topics that are discussed in this report Une ségrégation touchant d’abord les immigrés d’Afrique Une mobilité résidentielle importante Un parc de logements sociaux ancien Une surreprésentation des familles nombreuses et monoparentales Un taux de chômage deux fois plus important en ZUS Une population plus jeune et des revenus très modestes Persistance et reproduction des inégalités scolaires English translation: Segregation primarily affecting the immigrants from Africa Important amounts of residential mobility Aging social (i.e. subsidized or low-rent) housing An above-average number of large and single-parent families Twice as much unemployment in the ZUS than in other areas Younger population and very modest incomes Persistence and reproduction of educational inequalities I think this is a good summary of life in the ZUS. Note that there is no "Islamic law" mentioned. It's not something important or characteristic of the ZUS. Of course, someone could argue this is a political view and maybe someone with other political views would create another report. But I think these reports are made by honest researchers. There are a lot of classified areas like these in France. For instance: ZRR: "Zone de revitalisation rurale" (rural revitalizing areas) for poor agricultural areas in the country. (No islamic law there also.) ZEP: "Zone d'éducation prioritaire" (priority education area) for schools that are in poor neighborhoods and may need extra money. (Yes, they are often located inside ZUS) For reference, here is a list of ZUS from the French government . One example of a ZRU (a sub-category of ZUS) from that list is La Reynerie/Bellefontaine. Haute Garonne (31) Toulouse La Reynerie, Bellefontaine. ZRU It's a poor neighborhood with a lot of immigrants, a majority of them from North-Africa. On the map of this area from the French Government , you can see the Université (University), and Col Ec. (junior high school) and Ec. (school) which are in France the symbol of the french republic laws and the french state. On the Google Map of the area, you can see Témoins de Jéhovah: Jehovah witness building , which is evidence that Islamic law does not apply in the area. | {
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26,574 | Our Young-Earth Creationist physics teacher stated that he does not believe that man actually stepped on the moon. That topic has been well covered here. One of his arguments, however, was that gravity on the moon was not strong enough for astronauts to leave their footprints there. Is this true? | People have stepped on the Moon when they went there and left footprints, so we've plenty of photographic evidence of their footsteps on the Moon. In fact, it turns out that people do leave footprint in dust, even if they weigh less, like a child leaves footprints on Earth while weighing as much as a man on the Moon . Pictures taken from the Moon itself The Wikipedia page on Buzz Aldrin has plenty of pictures of his footprints on the moon. Buzz Aldrin's footstep Aldrin walks on the surface of the Moon during Apollo 11 Pictures taken with a telescope This pictures were taken by a satellite (LRO) with a telescope, from On the Moon, Flags & Footprints of Apollo Astronauts Won't Last Forever Apollo 12 landing site Apollo 14 landing site | {
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26,759 | Recently I stumbled upon the image of the young Pope Francis wearing a Black Sabbath T-shirt . Could this be real? I'm guessing this is fake, but I am at work and can't do a complete research about it. The reason I find this may be fake is mostly due to this image found on google: But this one could be the fake one as well (although this is quite unlikely). | No, he couldn't have been. He was born in 1936 and Black Sabbath was most famous in his 40's (1970's). In the picture he is wearing a cassock , which clearly does not normally have Black Sabbath images printed on top, and he's clearly in his late 20's or early 30's. In particular, the poster depicted as the t-shirt image shows the Master of Reality logo from 1971. The pope would have been 35 in that year. However the picture without the poster is from 1966 , way before Black Sabbath was even founded. An image from 1966 of the Argentine seminarian Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the El Salvador School, where he taught literature and psychology in Buenos Aires. | {
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26,764 | According to a post by latimes.com, "How secular family values stack up": Atheists were almost absent from our prison population as of the late 1990s, comprising less than half of 1% of those behind bars , according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics. This echoes what the criminology field has documented for more than a century — the unaffiliated and the nonreligious engage in far fewer crimes. Has the criminology field indeed documented the statistics (or other source of fact) that indicate that unaffiliated and nonreligious people engage in far fewer crimes? If so, according to authority, what is meant by "far fewer"? And "crime"? (All crime? Violent crime?) | It depends. The author did publish a peer-reviewed article in 2009 discussing the issue, with sources. I've verified most of the sources and they seem to be reliable and reputable. Criminality and Moral Conduct In many people’s minds – and as expressed so clearly in Psalm 14 cited at the outset of
this essay – atheism is equated with lawlessness and wickedness, while religion is equated with morality and law-abiding behavior. Does social science support this position? Although some studies have found that religion does inhibit criminal behavior (Baier
and Wright 2001; Powell 1997; Bainbridge 1989; Elifson et al. 1983; Peek et al. 1985)
others have actually found that religiosity does not have a significant effect on inhibiting criminal behavior (Cochran et al. 1994; Evans et al. 1996; Hood et al. 1996). ‘‘The claim that atheists are somehow more likely to be immoral,’’ asserts Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (2007, 306), ‘‘has long been disproven by systematic studies.’’ Admittedly, when it comes to underage alcohol consumption or illegal drug use,
secular people do break the law more than religious people (Benson 1992; Gorsuch
1995; Hood et al. 1996; Stark and Bainbridge 1996). But when it comes to more serious
or violent crimes, such as murder, there is simply no evidence suggesting that
atheist and secular people are more likely to commit such crimes than religious people.
After all, America’s bulging prisons are not full of atheists; according to Golumbaski
(1997), only 0.2 percent of prisoners in the USA are atheists – a major underrepresentation. If religion, prayer, or God-belief hindered criminal behavior, and secularity or atheism fostered lawlessness, we would expect to find the most religious nations having the lowest murder rates and the least religious nations having the highest. But we find just the opposite. Murder rates are actually lower in more secular nations and higher in more religious
nations where belief in God is deep and widespread (Jensen 2006; Paul 2005; Fajnzylber
et al. 2002; Fox and Levin 2000). And within America, the states with the highest murder
rates tend to be highly religious, such as Louisiana and Alabama, but the states with
the lowest murder rates tend to be among the least religious in the country, such as Vermont and Oregon (Ellison et al. 2003; Death Penalty Information Center, 2008). Furthermore, although there are some notable exceptions, rates of most violent crimes tend to be lower in the less religious states and higher in the most religious states (United States Census Bureau, 2006). Finally, of the top 50 safest cities in the world, nearly all are in relatively non-religious countries, and of the eight cities within the United States that make the safest-city list, nearly all are located in the least religious regions of the country (Mercer Survey, 2008). Atheism, Secularity, and Well-Being: How the Findings of Social Science Counter Negative Stereotypes and Assumptions , Phil Zuckerman, Sociology Compass 3/6 (2009): 949–971, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00247.x In short, his argument is as follows: There's tons of studies, but a lot of contradictions. We can say with certainty that religion is a good influence on drug use and other "vicimless" crimes -- they are called "anti-ascetic" crimes in the literature I've read. There is no clear signal that religion inhibits violent crimes (there are many articles disagreeing with each other, lots of discussion about confounding factors, questionable methodologies, etc.) Atheists are majorly underrepresented in prisons, although of course this doesn't prove the point, but certainly disproves that atheism causes criminal behavior. There's a negative correlation between large scale atheism and crime. More secular countries have lower violent crime rates. More secular US states have the lowest violent crime rates, more religious US state the highest. The safest cities are either in less-religious countries or when in the US they are in less-religious states. My personal opinion is that many of these studies tend to be poorly constructed. For example many studies on crime rely on objectionable proxy variables which are then contested by other studies. Is reporting that "one doesn't trust policemen" a reliable indicator of delinquency? Is religious literacy a good proxy for religiousness? This particular article attempts to put together what we know about the subject of atheism, but of course its argument can't be stronger than its sources. | {
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26,816 | According to Russell Brand : Every election in American history has been won by the party with the most money to campaign. Let's assume that he means every presidential election. Has every presidential election in U.S. history been won by the party with the most money to campaign? Edit: To make this question answerable, let's stick to elections recent enough where campaign financing is publicly available. | No, it isn't true. The most clear example is 1964. According to "Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics" at page 65: Barry Goldwater's losing campaign spent $17.2 million, significantly more than Johnson's $12 million expenditure The book references the statement to: Herbert E. Alexander and Harold B. Meyers, “The Switch in Campaign Giving,” Fortune , November 1965, 103–8. Another source has the following list and says it is from New York magazine but independently verified (winners are in bold, the second candidate spent more): 1960 John F. Kennedy: $9.8 million Richard Nixon: $10.1 million 1964 Lyndon Johnson: $8.8 million Barry Goldwater: $16 million 1968 Hubert Humphrey: $11.6 million Richard Nixon: $25.4 million 1972 George McGovern: $30 million Richard Nixon: $61.4 million 1976 Jimmy Carter: $33.4 million Gerald Ford: $35.8 million 1980
Jimmy Carter: $49 million Ronald Reagan: $57.7 million 1984 Walter Mondale: $66.7 million Ronald Reagan: $67.5 million 1988 Michael Dukakis: $77.3 million George H.W. Bush: $80 million 1992 George H.W. Bush: $92.6 million Bill Clinton: $92.9 million 1996 Bill Clinton: $108.5 million Bob Dole: $110.2 million 2000 Al Gore: $127.1 million George W. Bush: $172.1 million 2004 John Kerry: $328.5 million George W. Bush: $367.2 million 2008 John McCain: $350.1 million Barack Obama: $745.7 million While there are a few other example in the list of the losing candidate spending slightly more, 1964 is the only clear example of the losing candidate spending significantly more. From another point of view, Ross Perot certainly could have outspent Clinton and Dole if he wanted to. Update 2016: according to What Trump and Hillary Spent vs Every General Election Candidate Since 1960 the following is spending by each candidate in real dollars from 1960-2016: The Federal Election Commission says Clinton 563.9 million, Trump 328.4 million. | {
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26,892 | A lot of my friends (especially creationist ones) tell me that if planet earth was one kilometer closer to the sun, it would heat up too much and life wouldn't exist. On the other hand, if planet earth was one kilometer farther from the sun, it would freeze up and life wouldn't be able to survive, either. Of course, my answer was that life developed and adapted to earth's conditions and not the other way around. I was curious, however, if their claim about earth's position is correct. Example sources of claim: Yahoo Answers question , Facebook linked by Fundies Say the Darndest Things , Facebook post by Aperture Science , Blog debunking the claim , Someone citing their priest , and others. | Their claim is incorrect. On an astronomical scale, one kilometer is a very small value. In fact, Earth's orbit regularly varies by far more than 1km. According to the NASA's Solar System Exploration website's facts and figures, Perihelion (closest) Metric: 147,098,291 km Imperial: 91,402,640 miles Scientific Notation: 1.47098 x 10 8 km (0.983 A.U.) Aphelion (farthest) Metric: 152,098,233 km Imperial: 94,509,460 miles Scientific Notation: 1.52098 x 10 8 km (1.017 A.U.) That is, Earth's distance from the Sun varies by 5 million kilometers during a single year. A change of one kilometer would not be noticeable. | {
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26,907 | Attempting to prove to me that Judaism is the only true religion, a friend of mine read to me from a book titled, The Coming Revolution , that the Zohar (a 2nd/3rd century CE commentary on the Torah allegedly written by Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai ) uses a highly accurate value for the duration of the full moon cycle (29.530588853), centuries before this calculation could be made by modern calculators. How true is this claim? My Google "skills" were unable to find who was the first person in history to come up with the calculation (NASA?). The only thing I could find, more or less related is this page using Gematria to calculate the moon cycle. But honestly, I'm not too sure what to make of it. Note: Some people think the Zohar was written by Moses de León in the 13th century which, if true, would still be ages before NASA. | Maimonidies (12th Century) puts it at 29.530594. His source is the Talmud (Bavli RH 25a) (~7th century quoting a rabbi from the 2nd century). (For the curious the precise number given is 29 days, 12 hours, and 793/1080 of an hour.) However, lunar cycles can be calculated pretty accurately even in ancient times by counting between total solar eclipses. Consider ( from here ) the two solar eclipses from Portugal on July 19, 418 and December 23, 447. As long as someone remembered that there were 364 lunar months between them, they could easily calculate a lunar month length of 29.53021 (accurate to 3 decimal places). With a longer gap between eclipses and more accuracy of when during the day it occurred, even more places can be calculated. This is certainly something the Greeks were capable of doing. (FWIW Maimonidies himself states that he got all his numbers from the Greeks (see Laws of New Moons 17:24 and Guide to the Perplexed 3:14 )). | {
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26,918 | This article claims that no ancient language anywhere in the world had the word for "blue" , that for instance Homer described the sea as "wine-dark", and that the color blue has only appeared more recently in languages, more or less at the same time all-over the world. But doesn't bother to say us when . It also claim that the Himba people in Namibia cannot distinguish blue from green, but can somehow see some shades of green we cannot . To me, the first claim seems like completely insane, may have a small seed of truth but overall is made-up: I really don't think it's possible for all the population on Earth to suddenly have the same genetic change at the same moment, especially if it's not even something that would give you a great advantage. The second claim may be true: some regional genetic difference is entirely possible… but since the article on wikipedia doesn't explicitly mention such a thing, I'm not sure. I tried googling but unsurprisingly I find a whole bunch of articles about the dressgate, and nothing else. Can anyone shed some light on this? Specifically: is the first claim as fake as it sounds? if it contains some seed of truth, which is it? what about the second claim? PS: I've found in an Italian-Latin dictionary the word "caeruleum" for "blue", but it isn't useful, since as far as I know it could have been medieval Latin (though I doubt it). | If Homer talks about the dark-wine sea, it seems he also talks about the "blue eyebrows of Poseidon". You can read here about Homer's colorful descriptions that helped orators remember the verses of his poems. κυανό is known to be "blue" for ancient greeks and became "cyan" in english. In this book about Homer writing , κυανό entry represents "smalt, blue glass". So it seems that the ancient greeks did know the blue color. So a lot of this article does not make sense. ( as for Latin which came later, caeruleum is used in Julius Caeasar's Gallic Wars to describe the face painted enemy. See 5:14 "a bluish color". ) | {
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26,978 | The Raw Food Family, with almost half a million likes, made this post on June 15, 2014. It claims, In 1955, Crest became the first fluoride toothpaste. Fluoride calcifies the pineal gland, otherwise known as your 3rd eye which literally has rods and cones, just like your other eyes! Fluoride is so toxic that it [sic] considered Hazardous Waste by the EPA. Hitler fluoridated the water in the concentration camps to sedate the prisoners. ( FALSE ) Fluoride is the same ingredient in rat poison and Prozac According to Dr. Bill Osmunson, there's the same equivalence of fluoride in an 8 ounce glass of fluoridated tap water as there is in a "pea sized" amount needed to call the Poison Control Center, as recommended on the back of any fluoridated toothpaste. Is there fluoride in rat poison and Prozac? | "Fluoride" is fluoride-containing compounds, such as sodium fluoride or sodium monofluorophosphate . Prozac aka the fluoxetine molecule contains fluorine atoms . The first "rat poison" I thought of was warfarin which doesn't contain fluorine atoms , but looking through a list of other rat poisons there's at least one i.e. fluoroacetamide which does. Although it's true I think it is a slightly silly statement (perhaps analogous to saying that meat and broccoli contain carbon atoms which are an ingredient of the Ebola virus). Fluorine is chemically similar to chlorine (i.e. they are both halogens ). Chlorine too could be used to make dangerous substances, e.g. poison gas, but it's also a main ingredient of common table salt aka sea salt aka sodium chloride. One of the comments to/below this answer said that it's important to: Learn that the dose makes the poison Have a sense of proportion about the amount of fluorine being talked about The adage that the dose makes the poison has been known for at least 500 years . People can even die from having too much water , but that fact must not be used as an argument to stop ingesting water. That adage about 'the dose' happens to be true of an actual "rat poison" too, where for example warfarin (introduced in 1948 as a pesticide against rats and mice) is prescribed medicinally to humans (in carefully administered doses) as an anticoagulant e.g. to treat thrombosis. That's not to say though "that fluoride is a rat poison" is true. Fluorine is an atom, one the elements, which can be used to make diverse chemical compounds (most of which are not rat poison). It's probably better to view fluoride as a type of salt or mineral.
It is true that excessive fluoride is bad for you. This kind of 'excessive' fluoride can occur naturally in some water, or occur as a result of industrial contamination: but the amount of fluoride that's recommended when it's added to drinking water is not 'excessive'. Fluoride is a component of the human body : Fluoride anions are found in ivory, bones, teeth, blood, eggs, urine, and hair of organisms. Fluoride anions in very small amounts are essential for humans. There are 0.5 milligrams per liter of fluorine in human blood. Human bones contain 0.2 to 1.2% fluorine. Human tissue contains approximately 50 parts per billion of fluorine. A typical 70-kilogram human contains 3 to 6 grams of fluorine. Note the quantity that is usually in the human body: i.e. 3 to 6 grams . The amount of fluorine in fluoridated drinking water is relatively small : The World Health Organization recommends a guideline maximum fluoride value of 1.5 mg/L as a level at which fluorosis should be minimal. 1.5 mg/L is equivalent to 1.5 g/ton, (i.e. a ton of drinking water to get 1.5 grams of fluorine). One more comment -- even though original research and theoretical answers are not allowed I hope these (trivial) calculations may be allowed. Toothpaste typically contains less than 1,500 ppm F (I see mine contains 1,440 ppm). The Parts-per notation means by weight: Therefore, it is common to equate 1 gram of water with 1 mL of water. Consequently, ppm corresponds to 1 mg/L Therefore toothpaste has approximately 1000 times the concentration as the maximum recommended concentration in water (which was quoted as "1.5 mg/L" above). A "pea-sized" spot of toothpaste might be about 1 cubic centimetre i.e. 1 gram. An "eight-ounce" glass is water is about 200 grams. So the following statement seems to be to be true, within about a factor of 5: an 8 ounce glass of fluoridated tap water as there is in a "pea sized" amount (My calculation, which depends on the definition of "pea-sized", was that the toothpaste has about as much fluoride as 5 glasses of water). What I don't think is true is that these are a poisonous quantity. My fluoridated toothpaste (I'm in France) doesn't mention poison at all. If there's any poison warning label on toothpaste in North America, perhaps that's in case some child sucks down a whole tube of toothpaste as if it's candy. This Medscape article on Fluoride toxicity says, In 2011, the American Association of Poison Control Centers reported 20,977 exposures involving toothpaste with fluoride, 18,564 of them in children under the age of 6 years.[3] Only 376 cases were actually treated in the emergency department. Moderate effects were seen in 45 cases, and major effects were seen in one case. No deaths were reported. Death may result from ingesting as little as 2 g of fluoride in an adult and 16 mg/kg in children. Symptoms may appear with 3-5 mg/kg of fluoride. Estimated toxic dose for fluoride ingestion is 5-10 mg/kg. The estimated lethal dose is 5-10 g (32-64 mg/kg) in adults and 500 mg in small children. One death from ingestion of fluoride toothpaste was reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centers in 2002. No deaths were reported in 2011. Assuming that any 2-year-old child weighs more than 10 kg , then "Symptoms may appear" with 30 mg fluoride. If a tube of toothpaste contains 70 ml or 100g of toothpaste, then I think it contains: 1,500 ppm => 1,500 mg/L 100g => 0.1 L therefore 150 mg total per tube. So (you can double-check my calculation to verify that I haven't dropped a decimal place) a whole tube of toothpaste contains 150 mg which is enough to cause symptoms in a 2-year-old child.
"The estimated lethal dose is 500 mg in small children" implies that 4 whole tubes of toothpaste should be lethal in small children. "5-10 g (32-64 mg/kg)" means that the lethal dose for an adult is about 10 times higher than that. Getting back to the topic (i.e. Prozac), a common dosage for Prozac 20 mg/day . Estimating that a pea-sized spot of toothpaste contains 1.5 mg of fluoride, I think that means that even if fluoride were actually Prozac it isn't concentrated enough in toothpaste, even if you swallow it, for it to have any effect. | {
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27,056 | On this Saint Patrick's Day, I was pondering on this thought: It's a common belief that Saint Patrick rid Ireland of snakes - by chasing them into the sea. It's true that Ireland doesn't have native snakes . But snakes are renown for being cold blooded and Ireland is renown for being cold - making them incompatible (I would have thought). It's likely that Ireland never had snakes to begin with. Is there any physical evidence that Ireland ever had snakes? | It's likely that Ireland never had snakes. This article by national Geographic says that there is no evidence of them having ever been there. Monaghan, who has trawled through vast collections of fossil and other records of Irish animals, has found no evidence of snakes ever existing in Ireland. The most likely explanation is that Ireland has been cut off from the mainland since the last ice age, when it would have been too cold for them to exist. As the climate warmed, snakes were unable to migrate to Ireland as they did to Britain. | {
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27,123 | I've been shown this image a few times: Naturally, it's a little ridiculous, because there are surely at least a thousand pictures of him near an American flag. But it is making a claim that the yellowish curtain behind Obama is some kind of Muslim prayer related thing. Is that accurate? If someone can find the location of this photograph that will probably tell us exactly what, if any, meaning the curtain has, besides showing somebody's serious lack in decent decor tastes. | The claim that Obama is standing in front of a muslim prayer curtain is false. This meme has gone really viral and has been debunked on over 10 websites online. The picture that you see is taken in the East Room. The East Room , designed for "public audience", is an events and reception room in the White House, the home of the President of the United States. What you see behind Obama is simply: gold silk lampas curtains It is reported that those gold silk lampas curtains have been in the East Room since the John F. Kennedy administration. They were designed by noted ballet and theatrical designer Jo Mielziner: Mielziner crafted a stage which took up a full third of the East Room, and featured cream white-painted pilasters matching the room's architecture. Mileziner originally wanted the stage's curtains to have the same fabric used for the East Room drapes. But when he learned of the cost, he settled for American-made gold silk curtains instead. The larger stage took eight men three days to set up. (1) In September 2003, during the administration of George W. Bush, minor refurbishment were made to the East Room, and gold silks were replaced: The Committee for the Preservation of the White House had become dissatisfied with the golden silk swag valances installed during the Reagan presidency . The Kennedy-era Old World Weavers Empire-style gold draperies were replaced with nearly identical ones , but the swags were made 12 inches (30 cm) deeper to make them appear more substantial. The room was repainted in the same warm cream color it had for the last century. The refurbishment cost $200,000 , and was paid for by private donations to the White House Endowment Fund . (2) Here is a photo of Lyndon B. Johnson's daughter, Lynda Johnson, wedding in the East Room (source: celebritybrideguide.com ) back in 1967. Note the gold curtains in the background: Another picture of Gerald Ford, 38th U.S. President, being sworm as a preident in 1974, also clearly shows gold curtains: Also, a picture Bush standing in front of a gold silk: Reddit responded to the meme in its own way (with another meme): Additionally, according to members of islam.se , there is no such thing as a muslim prayer curtain . So, the claim that president Obama hold a so-called a Muslim prayer curtain is not only erroneous but ridiculous too. (1) West, J.B.; Kotz, Mary Lynn (1973). Upstairs at the White House: My Life With the First Ladies. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. ISBN 069810546X . (2) Koncius, Jura (September 25, 2003). "Open Door Policy At the White House". The Washington Post. | {
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27,141 | This video on Facebook shows someone using an "electromagnetic radiation detector" to show that the new energy-efficient light bulbs give off alarmingly dangerous amounts of radiation. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=802884819723892 Isn't "electromagnetic radiation" a fancy word for "light"? Wouldn't any light bulb give off electromagnetic radiation by definition? What does the "Alarm" in this video indicate? What would the detector show if used on an incandescent bulb? I understand that electromagnetic radiation includes not only visible light but also dangerous frequencies such as X-rays and microwaves. What frequencies are being detected here? I also understand that there may be any number of other reasons to believe that these bulbs are dangerous or ecologically unsound or inefficient. I'm not asking about that. Just about the evidence given by this video. | From watching the video (and pausing it at 15 seconds), I saw that the detector had the label DT-1130 printed on the front of it. Google turned up that this was an HDE product, product code HDE-S73, as seen for sale here: DT-1130 50Hz - 2000Hz Electromagnetic Radiation Detector EMF Nuclear Gamma Microwave Exposure Detector . The product description (which I also checked on eBay and Amazon) showed that the advertized frequency range detectable by the device ranges from 50Hz to 2GHz (2,000MHz). In short, the detector he is using is not capable of detecting gamma radiation, or even Ultra Violet radiation. Heck, it can't even detect visible light. The detector he is using detects electromagnetic radiation in frequencies ranging from 50Hz to 2GHz (2,000MHz). This ranges from 'Super Low Frequency' to 'Ultra High Frequency.' Don't let the names confuse you, 'Ultra High Frequency' is still a Radio Wave, which is lower frequency than visible light, or even the infrared light they use to keep food warm. If you are old enough to remember it... 'UHF' was a television carrier frequency range. Visible light ranges from 430 - 720 THz. We don't start getting into the really exciting (read: dangerous) forms of electromagnetic radiation until we get up above the PHz (PetaHertz) range. And the really, really nasty stuff has a frequency measured in ExaHertz. See...the device he is using is the same thing that ghost hunters use to look for 'EMF emissions.' And you don't see those guys walking around in radiation suits. If he stuck that detector inside of a nuclear reactor...it wouldn't be able to detect the dangerous radiation coming off of it. In short, there are other examples that show that a CFL bulb simply cannot produce enough Power to generate high frequency EM...but even if they did, this guy could prove nothing with his detector. It is important to remember that 'Electromagnetic Radiation' is not a bad thing until you get to the very, very high frequencies. (Information on EMF pulled from standing high-school-level knowledge of Physics, cross-checked with Wikipedia) ADDENDUM To clarify as to why low frequency radiation in the doses created by a lightbulb is non-harmful to the human body: EM Radiation is commonly divided into 'ionizing' and 'non-ionizing' radiation. This distinction is meant to clarify which forms of EM radiation have sufficient energy to ionize atoms (stripping off electrons) or break chemical bonds. The standard frequency limit at which EM Radiation is considered ionizing is anything higher than 2.39 Petahertz ( ref ). Ionizing radiation is hazardous, increasingly so the higher energy it has (higher frequency = higher energy). Our detector tops out at being able to detect low-frequency Microwave radiation. Microwave radiation is not capable of causing ionization...it simply doesn't have enough energy ( ref ). It is thought that prolonged exposure to higher energy microwave radiation (such as that used in RADAR) may cause long term issues. But our detector only picks up the lower edge of that radiation band ( ref ). Low energy microwave radiation and those of lower frequency are potentially harmful in that they are capable of causing heating within tissue (hence how a microwave heats food). Anything in the 'Radio' band is considered potentially harmful at heavy enough concentrations. See Specific Absorption Rate for details. As I do not possess the equipment to measure the variables I need for the SAR of a CFL bulb, I have to theorize a bit. A detailed reading of the FCC's policies on Radio Safety showed me that in order to get dangerous levels of Radio emission, you either need to be standing close to a very powerful radio broadcast antenna (like a radio station would use) or need to be pressed right up against something that is dedicated to throwing out radio waves for a prolonged period of time. In short, the amount of broadband radiation added by a lightbulb would be completely negligible compared to what is being broadcast by, say, your WiFi router, cell phone, and heating system. For further reading on the safety of Non-ionizing radiation in doses below what ANSI declares to be the SAR limit, please see the following... Non-ionizing radiation safety: radiofrequency radiation, electric and magnetic fields Exposure to extremely-low-frequency electromagnetic fields and radiofrequency radiation: cardiovascular effects in humans WHO Hub on EMF Research | {
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27,223 | A comic by artist Naoise Dolan published March 2015 has been circulating heavily on social media: The world according to the UK government: Men’s razors are taxed as necessities because you need to avoid stubble Women’s sanitary products are taxed as luxuries because you don’t need to avoid getting covered in your own blood I think the tax on tampons is true but the bit about razors being VAT-free as an essential strikes me as being unlikely. Googling it finds claims from both sides: I recognise that razors are zero-rated, and judging by many Conservative Members the opportunity to shave every day is a human right. —Stella Creasy MP , speaking in Parliament October 2015 A second MP made the same claim: It is absurd that while men's razors, children's nappies and even products like Jaffa Cakes, exotic meats and edible cake decorations are free from VAT. —Alison Thewliss MP Are razors (specifically men's razors if there's any difference) really VAT-free in the UK? | The Value Added Tax in the United Kingdom is based upon the standard rate of 20% as of 4 January 2011. This means that unless something falls into a listed category for a reduced rate or an exemption, then the VAT is 20%. Based upon a review of the United Kingdom's HM Revenue & Customs listings for VAT rates on different goods and services this claim appears to be false . Currently, women's sanitary protection products are covered by VAT Notice 701/18 which stipulates a VAT rate of 5%. Since there is no listing for razors in the exemption list that I was able to find we must assume that they would have a VAT rate of 20%. Additionally, safety razor blades are listed as a commodity subject to a trade tariff , with the following notes: The commodity code for importing is 8212200000. Importing from outside the EU is subject to a third country duty of
2.70 %. Goods are subject to VAT standard rate. This can be further born out by examining the cost of purchasing razor blades in the United Kingdom for which we see fees such as those with Edwin Jaggar which shows that 10 Personna Platinum DE Razor Blades cost £2.00 or £1.67 (ex. Tax) which corresponds to the VAT rate of 20%. | {
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27,352 | In a post by dotcommerce.ro called You think you had bad luck ? Think again! this story was mentioned: It’s either a case of the worst luck in history or the best: In 1829, a ship called The Mermaid was four days away from her destination of Sydney, Australia, when a massive storm struck and drove the ship into a reef. All twenty-two people on board survived and were able to swim to safety. Three days later, the Swiftsure rescued them. Five days later, the Swiftsure sank. Victims from both ships were rescued by the schooner Governor Ready. Three hours later, the Governor Ready caught fire. The Comet pulled everyone from lifeboats and brought them aboard. Five days later, the Comet sank. (The crew went for help in the longboat, leaving the passengers floating in the water.) Eighteen hours later, the mail boat Jupiter pulled everyone out of the ocean. In under twelve hours, the Jupiter sank. Everyone was rescued by the passenger vessel The City of Leeds. Four days later, The City of Leeds docked in Sydney, Australia. The bad luck was that five ships were lost—the good luck was that not a single person died. This tale is copied elsewhere on the web, but it's never backed up by references. As far as I'm concerned, it isn't true. Wrecksite.eu has a record of a ship called the Mermaid that sank in 1829, but it's a European site and Mermaid is a common ship name (as evidenced by the other results), so its bearing on the disaster is doubtful. Wikipedia's convenient list of shipwrecks in 1829 mentions Swiftsure , Governor Ready , Comet , and Jupiter , but they wrecked so far apart as to be implausible for the tale. | The HMS Mermaid The account is largely true. The Royal Navy's HMS Mermaid (after a distinguished career) did sink in 1829 . The Australian National Maritime Museum salvaged the wreck in 2009 and wrote about the ship (and the subsequent misfortune) in its quarterly magazine, Signals . Quoting from page 17 of the March-April-May issue : That afternoon at 1730, during another attempt to drive the vessel over the reef, Mermaid rolled over onto her beam ends and within a few minutes the hull was breeched. At 2000 hours the crew abandoned ship and took to the boats. On 24 June 1829, after 11 days in the open boats, the crew were rescued by the small schooner Admiral Gifford . On account of overcrowding, the survivors were transferred to the much larger wooden brig Swiftsure on 3 July – and on board this vessel they were promptly wrecked again off Cape Sidmouth, just 18 hours later! According to The Sydney Gazette of 26 November 1829, the crew of the Mermaid was to endure two further shipwrecks (on Governor Ready and Comet ) before being landed at Port Raffles. Here they embarked on the government brig Amity which sailed westwards for King George Sound, before finally returning some of the crew to Sydney five months later. An interview with the museum's curator reiterates this account. So, there's no mention in this write-up of the mail boat, Jupiter or the City of Leeds . But an Admiral Gifford is mentioned. Some other minor details are also in conflict. However, it is true that at least four of the ships involved were wrecked. A different source, a copy of The Australian from 25 November, 1829 does note that a ship named Jupiter did crash into reefs off Cairncross Island and suffer serious damage. It also notes the wrecks of the Mermaid , Comet , and Swiftsure . The Admiral Gifford also eventually had rudder problems :o The Australian National Shipwreck Database does not include any vessels named Jupiter either. The four wrecks mentioned in the National Maritime Museum account do have entries along with maps ( Mermaid , Swiftsure , Governor Ready , Comet ) pinpointing their wrecks (which are in relative proximity to each other). The crew abandon a sinking Governor Ready Update: The ANMM's article references a 26 November 1829 article in the Sydney Gazette (and New South Wales Advertiser) (an "official publication of the government of New South Wales") which reads as follows: Captain Nolbrow, who is well known here as an old commander, trading to our shores, arrived by the Calista. He has been singularly unfortunate, more so than we ever remember to have heard of in the instance of any surviving shipwrecked mariner. He sailed from Sydney in the Mermaid, Colonial Government cutter, for Port Raffles, which settlement, our readers are aware, the Government of the sister Colony has, by order from home, caused to be evacuated. On entering Torres' Straits, the Mermaid got a-shore and was lost. All on board saved, upon a rock. In three days the ship Swiftsure , which sailed from this port, hove in sight, and took on board Captain Nolbrow and his crew. In three days she got on shore and was wrecked, all on board saved. In a day or two the Governor Ready , also from this port, passing within sight, took the shipwrecked people onboard, and was in three days himself wrecked, but all the people saved. The ship Comet , also from this port, soon after took the whole of the collected crews of the lost ships on board, and was herself wrecked also in a day or two, but all the people saved. At last the ship Jupiter , also from this port, came in sight and taking all on board steered for Port Raffles, at the entrance of which harbour she got on shore and received so much damage that she may be said to half wrecked. There however, Captain Nolbrow found the Government brig Amity in which he embarked, and strange to say this vessel also was, as we have stated in the former part of this article, nearly wrecked in Gage's Roads. This piece published only a few months after the event does conform just about completely with the story as related in the OP. The Jupiter is stated to have "half-wrecked" and even the Amity , "nearly wrecked". | {
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27,555 | There are a lot of claims that there have only been 26 days of peace since 1945. For example: How many days peace has the world had since 1945? I believe none, because there has always been some form of war at sometime, in some place. No, in total 26 days of peace since 1945. A little sad. Is there evidence for this claim for only 26 days of peace since 1945. | It is difficult to give a straight answer to the question, because if we define peace as the absence of war ( example ), we still have the problem of the nebulous definition of war . Does war include guerilla wars, civil wars, insurgencies and other forms of conflict? Does war have a clearly defined start and end date? For example, when did World War II end? While the Japanese ceased-fire and announced surrender in August 1945, signed the paperwork in September 1945, signed the peace treaty in 1951, and were no longer occupied by the US in 1952. Some argue that some countries never signed a peace treaty, but just stopped fighting, so are technically still at war. [ Reference - not a strong source, but this isn't controversial.] Notwithstanding that, I am taking advantage of the looseness of the quote in the question, which uses a very broad "some sort of war", to include Civil Wars and Rebellions. The following conflicts overlapped each other, leaving no days where the entire world was at peace. 1942-1954, Hukbalahap Rebellion 1944-1947, Jewish Insurgency in Palestine 1942-1949, Ukrainian Insurgency 1944-1956, Guerilla war in the Baltic States 1948-1960, Malayan Emergency 1955-1975, Vietnam War 1960-1996, Guatemalan Civil War 1991-2002, Sierra Leone Civil War 2001-present, War in Afghanistan These are, by no means, the only conflicts during that time, but I picked some of the longer conflicts to cover the entire period. | {
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