Comments by "EebstertheGreat" (@EebstertheGreat) on "Adam Ragusea"
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2:37 For those wondering, there are at least three commonly-used definitions of "plant" that include or exclude various types of algae. The strictest sense of the word "plant" (Plantae sensu strictissimo ) applies only to the land plants (Embryophyta), which are what we all normally think of as plants, even the simple plants like mosses and ferns, but none of what we would call "algae." A slightly less-strict sense of "plant" (Plantae sensu stricto ) applies not just to land plants but to all green algae (Viridiplantae), including stoneworts and a variety of (mostly single-celled) marine and freshwater algae. A broad sense of the word "plant" (Plantae sensu lato ) applies to not only green algae but also red algae and possibly glaucophytes (Archaeplastida). It's hard to find a well-known red alga, but basically, they are red in color, either single- or multicellular, alternate generations like plants, mostly live in the ocean, and generally don't form lichens with fungi. But most algae isn't plants in any sense! For instance, kelp is a brown alga from the SAR supergroup, only very distantly related to plants. And cyanobacteria are sometimes called " blue-green algae" even though they are prokaryotes.
The undifferentiated plant tissue he is referring to is called a "thallus," or "thalloid tissue." Even some non-plants have thalli, like the kelp I just mentioned. But many simple plants do too, and even a a few ore complex plants like duckweeds have thalloid structure.
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It's not really true that pigs are particularly closely related to humans. Pigs are artiodactyls, like deer, sheep, cattle, goats, camels, giraffes, and whales. Humans are euarchontaglires, like rodents, rabbits, and treeshrews. The difference is that pigs have short guts like humans, which makes them good models for some disorders related to the gut, and they are simply cheaper and easier to keep as lab animals than other large livestock. But it's definitely true that they can transmit H1N1 flu (and a few other types that occasionally infect humans), which was a big deal in 2009.
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"Zucchini" comes from the plural of zucchina (originally m zucchino), even though in English, we use -i for both the singular and plural. Zucchino is a diminutive form of zucca, meaning "the mature fruit of the marrow plant" (aka "marrow squash") . . . or also "pumpkin" or "squash." Zuchinni/courgettes are harvested early in the summer long before they are ripe, whereas when they are harvested in the fall, they are called "marrow." "Courgette" comes from the French, a diminutive of courge, which also means "marrow squash." Both these words (along with "gourd," "cucumber," and many others) ultimately come from Latin cucurbita meaning "gourd."
So in the end, both "zucchini" and "courgette" just mean "little gourd," but they came from Latin through different languages (Italian and French, resp.), making them a linguistic doublet.
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@oyuyuy I didn't say that evolutionary pressure wasn't real, I said that it didn't work the way you imagined. You are correct that in the past, food shortage and bacterial infection were major sources of mortality, and now they are not. That is why the selective pressures have changed. But other things, like viral infections, allergies, and low testosterone, certainly affect fitness. Instead of starvation, we now face obesity. Since obese people are less successful, that is a new evolutionary pressure.
Again, as long as some genotypes are more successful than others, we will continue to evolve. That remains the case. And as long as the environment is rapidly changing, we can expect rapid evolution. That is also the case.
And for what it's worth, people do still die from disease, famine, war, etc. Maybe they don't in your country, but that isn't the whole world. Moreover, since most of my discussion has been about the past ten thousand years, all of these in fact became far greater problems over this period than they had been in the past. Epidemics barely existed before dense civilizations, war was provincial at best, and famines were more common in some areas (places which eventually stored grain) but less common in others (places where monocultures were periodically ravaged by pests).
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@ewthmatth It's still acetic acid, but the acetic acid isn't made from fermented alcohol. Real malt vinegar is made by fermenting ale, while the "non-brewed condiment" is made by taking acetic acid and its other principle flavors and adding them separately, along with caramel color. It's an artificial malt vinegar substitute, sort of like how pure vanillin isn't real vanilla but tastes similar, because vanillin is the main flavor component of vanilla.
No one cares that it isn't technically malt vinegar, because they're just pouring it on chips at a cheap shop and aren't expecting some aged fancy vinegar anyway. But legally, it can't be called vinegar.
EDIT: One possible source for the acetic acid is fermentation of glucose by the anaerobic Acetobacter bacteria. Also, while I can't recall seeing this product in the US, the FDA has clarified that the law here is similar (though with Chevron overturned, who knows).
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@justaweeb1884 Microplastics are sizable particles of solid plastic. They do not dissolve in water, so they cannot possibly be excreted in any meaningful quantity in sweat. People confuse microplastics for their monomeric components like BPA, which is not the same thing. Just like solid chunks of cellulose are not the same as some dissolved glucose, microplastics are not the same as dissolved BPA. Moreover, microplastics are present in the water supply. If you sweat, that requires you to drink more water, meaning you will actually increase the microplastic concentration using this method (at least briefly).
As for metals, these are eliminated from the blood by the liver or kidneys (depending on the metal). They will be present in tiny quantities in sweat because they are slightly soluble in water, but they will also be present everywhere else in your body. You will eliminate hundreds of times more of the metals by just urinating, which is the other way that water is going to get out of your body anyway. Drinking a lot of water may slightly help remove metals, but that will be true whether you sweat or not. And of course, there are heavy metals in your water too (and no, you cannot filter those out).
The one thing that is proven to reduce heavy metal concentration is to avoid exposure, i.e. don't eat or drink things high in heavy metals. No matter what "detox" plan you try to follow, it will do basically nothing compared to just avoiding it in the first place. The one plate of fish you ate this week will have far more mercury than you will sweat out in your sauna detox or whatever.
And yes, this is backed up by every expert you consult. I don't mean SaunaHealthAndRealWellnessWithDrJimbo dot org, I mean actual credentialed experts. They aren't all in on a big conspiracy to keep lead in your blood or whatever, just saying what the research shows.
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@oyuyuy It's not about "more" or "less" pressure. That's not how evolution works. 50,000 years ago, humans were roughly in equilibrium with their environment. There was strong stabilizing pressure, meaning that any changes to the genome were selected against. So we barely evolved. Then, our environment changed dramatically, especially with the end of the last glaciation and the rise of farming and dense settlements. Suddenly, it was no longer important to be able to digest fibrous plants and much more important to be able to digest cereal and milk. So suddenly, there was destabilizing selection, and particular changes were selected for. So evolution picked up rapidly.
Evolution isn't about how hard life is. It's about whether some genotypes are more likely to reproduce than others. If everyone has similar genotypes and new mutations are selected against, then there is little evolution. If there is high genetic diversity or new mutations are selected for, then there is rapid evolution. That's true even if everyone lives to 150. It is simply a fact that some people reproduce more than others, so their genes by definition will be selected for. And if our society changes very quickly, than the genotype which is most successful will also change very quickly.
This isn't my opinion man. There are multiple articles about it. I recommend the paper by Hawks, Wang, Cochran, Harpending, and Moyzis titled "Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution."
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Feed corn is just corn grown for use as animal feed. Similarly, fuel corn is grown for fuel. Field corn is any corn left to drop on the field before harvesting. Dent corn (aka grain corn), and flint corn are varieties of corn (distinguished genetically). Varieties and subvarieties of corn are also categorized by their intended use (rather than strictly cladistically). Wikipedia lists the "types" of corn as dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, and sweet corn, even though some of these are technically subvarieties of others (e.g. most popcorn comes from a subvariety of flint corn).
All of the varieties except sweet corn are called "field corn" because that is how they are harvested in practice. Sweet corn, however, is harvested early, as explained in the video. Feed corn is usually dent or flint corn. Corn sold at supermarkets is always sweet corn. Popcorn and flour corn speak for themselves. Pod corn is not grown at a commercial scale. And any kind of corn can be used for making spirits or fuel-grade ethanol.
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And incidentally, I couldn't find any examples of animals with true blue pigments that produced visibly blue coloration. Although hemocyanin is blue, it is rarely present in large enough quantities to make the animal itself blue. (Similarly, hemoglobin can appear blue through your skin, but I wouldn't call people "blue animals".) Some animals do produce blue coloration in integumental pigment cells, like tree frogs or birds, but those are structural colors produced by the microscopic arrangement of the molecules, not by the pigments themselves. If you crushed up a bunch of blue tree frog skin, it would not look blue. The same applies to most blue invertebrates like butterflies. But I haven't seen a satisfactory explanation for why in practice, organic blue pigments are so rare.
Inorganic blue is not all that rare. Natural pigments and dyes are made from minerals with certain ions like trisulfide or copper(II). Unlike the large structural colors of animals, you can grind lapis lazuli into a fine powder and suspend it in a liquid without losing any blue color. So the claims that pigments which absorb red must be "large and complicated" does not appear to be true. All that is necessary is the appropriate energy gap, just like with any other pigment.
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An annoying historical fact is that the U.S. fluid ounce is somewhat but not too close to the imperial fluid ounce. One imperial fluid ounce of water at 4 C at atmospheric pressure weighs about 1 ounce, as you would expect. But one U.S. fluid ounce is about 4% bigger, so it weighs more like 1.04 ounces. At other temperatures, it will weigh less, but generally still more than an actual ounce. Thus, a pint is not a pound the world around. A pint of water is usually more like 16.5-16.6 ounces, or about 1.03-1.04 pounds. And of course in England, a pint is 20 imperial fluid ounces, not 16, so it isn't a pound there either.
I know a difference of a few percent doesn't really matter for most cooking, but it is still slightly irritating.
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@martinbudinsky8912 It is not remotely the same as cold at altitude. The average temperature underground is not colder than the average temperature at the surface. It's usually about the same, varying a few degrees one way or the other. You only get a significant difference if you dig super deep, where it is hotter.
It has to be that way, because the ground is only exchanging energy with the air and ground around it. If the ground were perpetually colder than the air, the air (and warm ground below) would warm it up and eventually the ground would be warmer again. There is no physical way it could stay always colder.
At high altitude, it really is always colder than at the ground below (or rather, it's colder on average). This is because most of the Sun's energy is absorbed by the ground, not the air, and thus the air is heated from below. Heated air rises and expands, and adiabatic expansion causes it to cool. Thus, higher layers of atmosphere are almost always colder than lower ones (at least up to the middle of the stratosphere, where other effects related to ozone absorption of UV become significant).
A cellar will reduce the variability in temperature due to time of day, season, weather, etc. But it won't reduce the average temperature, at least by much, and it could just as well increase it slightly.
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The idea that salt could ever fail to be kosher seemed bizarre to me, so I had to look it up. It turns out there are a lot of caveats.
First of all, practically any salt you find on the market is considered kosher the vast majority of the time. The only actual issue here is whether the salt is kosher for Passover. Just prior to Passover, observant Jews rid their house of all chametz, that is, leavened bread or ingredients to make it. In fact, any wheat, barley, rye, oat, or spelt flour that has been sitting in water for more than 18 minutes is chametz. The reasoning is that any dough that sits out in the air inevitably catches yeast which will begin fermentation. But salt never contains flour either, so what's the issue?
Well, most Ashkenazim also rid their house of kitniyot for Passover. This includes a long list of grains, legumes, and other foods which were traditionally used to make flour (though not all, as some foods like peanuts are excluded), but not including most New World foods like potatoes. But for some reason, maize is often considered kitniyot, and I don't have the patience to figure out why. This turns out to be the issue. Iodizing salt involves using a starch carrying iodine to the salt, and traces of this starch carrier remain after washing. Since this starch is almost always kitniyot (usually corn), most Ashkenazim do not consider iodized salt to be kosher for Passover. (But again, it is still kosher at other times of the year.)
This is rarely an issue for New Yorkers, since few Jews in New York avoid kitniyot on Passover, but I guess some do, hence the list.
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The more land you have to plough for your farm, the more wild grassland or forest is destroyed. That's directly harming the environment. Moreover, organic farms have to use more water than conventional farms. They are less sustainable in almost every relevant way. Sustainability is not a goal of the certified organic program, despite claims to the contrary. Rather, it focuses on not using synthetic materials, GMOs, hormones, antibiotics, or growth regulators. Those are not sensible things to be avoiding in general. In particular, synthetic pesticides are used in lesser and less toxic quantities than organic pesticides, and GMOs require less pesticides and herbicides and produce higher yields. The issue of antibiotics was sort of addressed here, but the bigger point is that organically-farmed animals must be allowed to die if they get sick, which clearly harms sustainability.
There are some organic practices that probably are beneficial. The use of covering crops for rotation has some positive effect on carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling (except nitrogen). Some organically-raised crops use less total energy and fewer pesticides per unit produced (though this doesn't seem to be true for all crops, and some organic pesticides may be more toxic). The use of hormones in raising beef has led to some public health concerns (though these are still poorly understood). It's possible that some of these practices should be adopted more broadly. But there is no reason to jump onto a label that combines a bunch of arbitrarily chosen standards, most of which are actively harmful to both the farmer and the environment.
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FWIW, some Americans pronounce "fillet" with a T too, particularly people in food service. Not filet mignon of course, which has both the French spelling and French pronunciation, but the double-l "fillet," which comes from Anglo-Norman. There is some evidence that "fillet" used to be standard for a long while before the modern "filet" started to dominate, suggesting this was reacquired from modern French. This makes sense, since many restaurants did and still do put names of dishes in French for perceived prestige. Certainly by the 40s, the French pronunciation was common (hence Chick Fil-A), but it seems at that time there were two competing standards.
Of course, these things are never really consistent, even with closely-related words. Why is the T pronounced in "claret" but not "Cabernet"? There isn't really a good reason.
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