CharonY

Hmm that is odd. Most ferric compounds are somewhere in the spectrum between black and yellow. The only whitish ones I can think of are some form of ferric sulfates as powder (white-yellow) but in solution it turns reddish brown or at least yellow. Does something precipitate at all?

I wonder if it could be another metal...

That certainly looks compelling.

Could be this:

In turn, I couldn't find a good picture, but in my memory it was less a bright green but more brown/grey-green-ish. But entirely possible that I am confusing compounds, it has been a minute.

To make things really visible you can also shift the pH (e.g. using NaOH or if not available baking soda). In presence of oxygen and pH >7 iron precipitates rapidly in form of insoluble ferric oxyhydroxides that should settle quite nicely.

Edit: I may be wrong, upon reflection I think I likely only have seen ferrous citrate.

6 hours ago, studiot said:

Indeed I haven't but then I didn't set out to prove this.

There definitely was a time when human custom and practice was more like that of other animals.

I am just trying to consider the differences, bearing in mind the adaptability of humans has led to them doing different things at differnt times in different places and different circumstances.

Upon reflection, I actually don't think that regular meal times are that unusual. I recall a practicum that I had where we looked into feeding patterns in birds, based on dominance patterns. IIRC, the birds we investigated typically had two major feeding cycles, a bit early in the day and late before sleep time. The assumption was that they kept lean most of the day to avoid being too sluggish, but less dominant birds in a group would feed more frequently as they were less certain to get something from the feeder.

Considering that in most animal species feeding patterns are driven by the circadian clock (there exceptions, like predators who digest their prey over prolonged periods) it is likely that for the most part their feeding pattern has some regularity.

In general, the pattern would match their activity periods (e.g. nocturnal vs diurnal), ability to store or acquire food and so on. Evolutionary speaking, it makes most sense the molecular mechanisms regulating hunger (and drive feeding patterns) are in line with the environmental pressures and opportunities that would allow food acquisition and there are strong interconnections in prey-hunter relationship of these patterns (which is what the practicum was based on).

I think humans are not so special in that regard, except that in industrialized nations the food supply is not a limiting factor anymore. Instead food patterns are a compromise between natural predilections (i.e. feeding at least once a day, and usually during the day) and the requirements of job patterns.

I am a bit rusty but from memory, ferrous citrate was gray-green, but more on the dark grey side. Ferric citrate would be more on the brownish side. That level of green does remind me a bit on ferrous sulfate.

5 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Though perhaps @exchemist or @CharonY might be able to explain the striking overnight colour change in my brew:

Fermentation appears to be progressing normally.

Ingredients are filtered borehole water, fresh root ginger, natural (non-centrifugal) cane sugar, champagne yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae ex-bayanus) and, as of yesterday, juice of two lemons.

Hard to tell from the picture, unfortunately. I'd expect Cyanobacteria growth to be gradual and this looks like too much to happen overnight. Plus, generally they need a pH of > 6.5 to grow well. Is it settling on the bottom?

19 hours ago, studiot said:

Thank you for noticing my typo.

Try as I might they always seem to creep in.

As to 3 meals or any other number.

The explanatory text did say (or was meant to say) simply 'regular meals' without specifying a number of meals.

The 3 was just a common expression.

I am also aware that some people also have deliberate fast days.

But the point I was trying to make is 'regular'

As opposed to 3 meals Monday, 2 Tuesday, 3 Wednesday, 1 Thursday and so on.

Many also have only 2 on a Sunday on account of a large Sunday Lunch.

But the Daily and Weekly pattern repeats.

Also yes the workplace also has shaped in the past and continues to shape in the present the nature and timing of meals.

To be honest, I did not notice any typos. I frequently don't find my own to begin with. Regarding regularity, I don't think that this is universal in humans, either. In many cultures, it is heavily determined by seasonal activities. Those dependent on hunting, would often have meals after a catch, which can vary. And in a meeting with First Nations Elders, the typical meal times were described as one element of colonization, as traditional in some First Nation cultures, their mealtimes were more flexible and dependent on hunger. I strongly suspect that some of these patterns were dependent on how regular they have access to food. Seasonality was a bit thing too, as it determined what food was available and how long it would take to acquire it.

Nomadic cultures can have communal meals in correspondence with their traveling patterns, whereas groups with a more agricultural component might have more regular patterns. Depending on time and place there are various constraints, e.g. availability of natural light, how easy it was to make fire or other meal preparation methods and so on, that I find it hard to believe that regularity was very common or even easily achievable until a number of developments happened, such as settlements of a certain size, predictable availability of food, improved food preparation methods and so on.

19 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

A little earlier. An early breakfast became the norm in England around the turn of the 16th century.

So only off by 200 years or so ;).

23 hours ago, studiot said:

So far as I know Man is the only animal that goes in forregular 'meals'.

Other species eat opportunistically or more or less continuously. Whilst some store food, they do not 'plan' regular meals ahead, human style.

So what is the evolution and development of this trait and what is the relationship with our overall evolution and development ?

Has it helped or hindered us ?

I think it is way more likely that it is a behavioural pattern which developed when cooking and other forms of food processing became a key element of human dietary habits. Creating a cooking place make things less flexible and more efficient to do it more centralized with fewer times a day used for feeding. Many groups which rely on hunting tend to have 1-2 meals a day, but there is also eating throughout the day when they have plentiful access to preserved food. Also, it should be noted that while feeding might be regular, the timing might not be and depend highly on food source and related to e.g. hunting patterns, seasons and so on.

I think that specifically three meals a day is a rather modern development and I wouldn't be surprised if it was linked to the rhythms created by the industrial revolution.

18 hours ago, TheVat said:

True, though I'm still a bit puzzled, given that milk used in infant formulae has to be pasteurized. So I wouldn't think there would be much of a starter colony going into the dehydrator, let alone afterward. It could slip in from somewhere else, maybe with an additive. Will be disturbing if this does turn out to be the source of the botulism. Infant food companies usually don't feck around when it comes to sterilization. Given the rudimentary immune system, the liability issues are massive.

Most likely the formulation contained spores. The toxin itself can be deactivated by cooking, and Clostridium botulinum itself is not terribly hardy and it is an obligate anaerobe (i.e. does not survive oxygen). Spores, however are fairly hardy and can survive drying very well and are fairly heat resistant. They can be inactivated by prolonged autoclaving and potentially heating for an extended amount of time. However they usual inactivation times typical for bacteria which are required for food preparation, will be insufficient.

Most likely, sufficient spores survived the process to cause infections in infant guts (but I would need to read up the reports to see what was actually found).

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

The formula uses 'organic' sources. I wonder if that might be a clue?

Unlikely, the production requirements should be identical.

4 hours ago, swansont said:

If the location were profitable it probably wouldn’t be a food desert.

I think one of the original ideas is that if set up as non-profit, they would be sustainable, but not profitable. But from what I remember they made significant losses. What I don't remember if whether they managed to address the challenges of food deserts. I.e. whether e.g. local and especially low-income folks were using them (or could use them).

Somewhat independent of that some food banks have started to set up grocery hubs, essentially free grocery stores like other food banks, but giving folks more of a grocery experience in order to promote agency and reduce stigma. But of course, it is an entirely different idea.

4 hours ago, swansont said:

The commentary was that they were opposed because their money would no longer grant them access and influence, which seems spot-on. It’s less about him being socialist, and more about the lack of corruption that a true public servant represents. Let’s hope he lives up to that billing.

That is one of the things I am looking most forward to. That is, an alternative to a system where unlimited money provides unchecked power.

32 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Congratulations, Mayor Mamdani! It will be interesting to follow how this proposal develops. Most of what I've read is opposed to city-run groceries for capitalist reasons, which mostly seem like extreme wealth sneering at anything that threatens their investments. The only reasonable arguments in that vein are about the impact on small businesses and gig workers. The bodegas may end up as part of the taxpayer funding strategy, but gig workers are currently filling a void that hopefully won't exist soon.

A more neutral and meaningful argument is the historic rate of failure such ventures have in larger cities. I hope Mamdani has studied what not to do in those instances. Getting the wealthy to pay for this should help. My state just passed a measure to feed public schoolchildren by taxing households making over US$300K.

Yeah, I was curious about that and there are reports of a fairly wide range of issues. But essentially in all cases they need significant subsidies. But assuming that there are indeed addressing issues, these might be worth it.

1 hour ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

In Norway a leftist coalition won elections a few weeks ago and Geert Wilders just lost in the Netherlands, there are signs of hope at least in a handful of places.

The slide is not inevitable, but Norway is not a particular good example as the far right Progress party had the highest vote count ever. While Geert Wilder's party lost seats, they were still tied. Granted it suggests that in the respective parlamentarian system shifts are possible (though the PVV remains in second place). Another example could be Poland, where the the opposition managed to form a government coalition pushing the right-populist PiS out of power (which still holds the most seats, just not the majority). But in the presidential election, a PiS-backed candidate won.

I think the one thing that typically happens is that once populist parties are in power, they generally mess things up as most are just not very competent and are driven by ideology, rather than good policy ideas. In parallel, they are also often ignored by moderate parties. I think only within the last 10-15 years did they get enough votes in at least some countries so that they were impossible to ignore. Moreover, they have started to dismantle accountability measures and have been better at using propaganda (especially via social media) to distort reality to such a degree that voters somehow become unable to see the failures as what they are. The US is a highly visible variation of it and I think to some degree, because it is a different country some folks have an easier time spotting that than within their own.

1 hour ago, MigL said:

The few, powerful, rich and popular, lording it over, while being supported by, the multitudes of poor, uneducated and disadvantaged.

God ( or revolution/civil war ) help us all.

And another point on the super-rich. In some cases their wealth is now larger than that of many nations, resulting in massive powers without control. Add to that those folks also control, directly or indirectly, modern information consumption and public discourse, it sure looks dystopian.

Edit: another thought. Public discourse and how most folks nowadays think, it has become easier to identify and disseminate thoughts on how things are going wrong (whether justified or not) and create unrest. However, at the same time we have not gotten any better regarding thinking and talking about complex solutions to complex problems. This creates a situation where folks want change (which is bad for moderates and the status quo) but do not quite understand (or are willing to learn) what the alternatives are. This makes them more amenable to simple, populist solutions. Those generally won't work (surprisingly, kidnapping ill children and delivery guys did not bring food prices down). But I am uncertain if folks really notice. I guess we will see in the next couple of years.

2 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Without these the post war Keynesian consensus could have lasted decades longer, possibly until today, blunting ideological radicalism.

I am a bit less optimistic. If not that, folks would have weaponized other elements. While neoliberalism also got a hold of Europe, radicalization also happened. There is always disenfranchisement that can be leveraged and I just think folks got better at doing that. Or conversely, population resilience against such movements have diminished.

After all, a population that cannot agree on a common set of fact can be easily swayed one way or another.

5 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

US situation is the outcome of decades of both rising inequality and propaganda (from the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and other similar NGOs). The post war compromise started collapsing in the 1970s already.

They worked a long time on in, but the progress was slow. It feels that in the last decade or so, things accelerated. Whether due to accumulated power or just something else happening is not quite certain to me,

But, it is important to note that this is not just an US thing. Brexit was already mentioned and in addition, there are a lot of countries that have slid into autocracies in Europe and elsewhere. I am not saying that they can all be tracked to the same reason, but collectively they are part of a larger trend.

52 minutes ago, studiot said:

I'm glad to say that this seems to be a popular thread however.

I think this thread hits certain notes that are both, silly and dead serious. The world is changing at the whims of folks who are not masterminds but for the most part horrible manchildren. As a result, the premise of OP should be ridiculous, but given that rationality is bleeding out of the world, the likelihood seems nonzero, as it otherwise should be.

To quote the mightiest British King (but referring to the world as a whole): "It is a silly place".

1 hour ago, pinball1970 said:

If you would have let us keep running the show you would not be having these problems.

Resulting in Quebec detaching itself from the continent. And mandating that English languages is only allowed to be printed in Braille.

BC will take in refugees, but only hipsters. Alberta will try to join the red states, First Nations in Alberta will let them join but keep the land beneath them. Saskatchewan will try to announce that they will join, but get too drunk to remember which side, but to be fair, no one remembers Saskatchewan. Or Manitoba.

Ontario will write a stern letter to both sides, asking them to cut it out, and Doug will post a mean meme. But they are too busy fighting their own war against bicycles, speed cameras, and Toronto. Quebec will use that as an excuse to cut themselves from English-speaking Canada. According to a study New Brunswick is too busy hating itself. PEI will get ready for war, all three of them. But they have to go fishing on the weekend.

Newfoundland and Labrador: they made an oral commitment. But since no one can understand them it is unclear what it was. The territories send the most ferocious moose and bear-mounted force but they will not arrive before the end of the war.

But realistically, Canada would likely close the borders and hunker down, like everyone else. Either that, or just burn down the White House again. Trump has already started.

On 10/24/2025 at 7:32 PM, MigL said:

I would think this is obvious, as any belief system can be likened to a religion.

Also, a lot of of weird things can be made into belief systems. While cults are probably the most obvious examples, there are a lot of movements (anti-vaccination, diets, various pyramid schemes and so on) which build a whole belief system based on little to no data, a lot of assumptions and, inevitably, some sort of grift.

(The number of podcasters selling their protein powder is too darn high!).

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Definitely a weapon, in the wrong hands.

Also, right hands.

1 hour ago, MigL said:

D Trump seems to be extremely envious of B Obama receiving a Nobel.
He stooped as low as begging for one and asking ( extorting ) Heads of State to nominate him.

So maybe he's just jealous.

I am fairly sure that it breaks his mind a bit that people of colour can get a Nobel but he doesn't get one.

37 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I'm sorry...did you say freeze dryer? Not that I expect anything to make sense anymore but how does that associate with a threat?

The way it is explained to me is that there is a list somewhere associated with security risks. I forgot the details but in the list for biosecurity there were things like knowledge about certain pathogens, use of fermenters, freeze dryers and a couple of random other things. The reasoning is that this knowledge is useful for building bioweapons (and kimchi).

3 minutes ago, Externet said:

😀 Hi. Languages do not evolve, they are degenerated and contaminated by mostly lazyness. 😀

That is just not true. That would somewhat require all languages came into existence fully formed

1 hour ago, sethoflagos said:

Lectures and occasional teaching at Harvard and Cornell; speeches on stuff like slavery to the UN; that's his usual sort of itinerary. Nothing any reasonable person could possibly take exception to.

I think expecting reason from an administration that not only a non-existing white holocaust in SA and then trying to make it reality by inviting refugees is a bit of a tall order.

Also, I would not be surprised if they use AI or some other stupid pattern-based method to flag folks from certain "undesired" countries where they assume some risk of overstaying. But one would only really see that if one looks at broader patterns, a Nobel Laureate is of course a special consideration.

If it is targeted, one possibility is that Soyinka was incarcerated in the wake of the civil war. Even before this administration, the US does flag individuals in some cases often without further understanding of the situation. For example, a microbiologist who has ever used a freeze dryer (a very standard piece of equipment) could add a few flags already.

Yeah, what a mystery. In all seriousness, I suspect that they are starting to flag repeat visits from countries where folks do not have the right shade of mayonnaise.

It seems to be part of a larger effort of ehm, "diversity" efforts by the administration.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/us/politics/trump-refugee-white-people.html

3 hours ago, geordief said:

When the mind makes a "mistake" is there some kind of a mechanism that "misfires" and that vould ,in throry be shown to have so done?

I know that this is in the philosophy section, but it sounds more like you are talking about pattern recognition in the brain. And fundamentally it is constructive process, in a way it tries to create an output based on sensory inputs, but also what is present in memory as well as the current state of mind.

If afraid, for example cues are more likely to be interpreted as dangerous, for example. But there is no right or wrong at that point as only in hindsight (which means following a corrective pattern matching process) can the brain figure out whether something was identified rightly or wrongly.

The interview situation seems to be rather different to the scenario outlined in OP, though (and is more philosophical in nature).

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

Would James Lovelock qualify? He's been self-funding since 1964 with money he got from his electron capture detector. Obviously, he's written quite a few well selling books over the years.

I think it depends on the context and time a fair bit. Independent scientists outside of academia or industry are very rare and were probably more common until sometime around the 19th century but Lovelock could be such a rare example. At least considering the period where he was self-funded. Before that he did consultant work, IIRC where it would be considered a private entity but not entirely independent as such.

I think this sort of independence is predominantly one of fiscal nature, perhaps similar to certain gentlmen scholars. I.e. filthy rich scientists, which I feel are rather rare.

Most folks would rather fall into externally funded, but usually academia-affiliated group. One of the reasons being that most public funds require some sort of affiliation (to reduce risk of money funneled to grifters, for example).

In academia an independent researcher is a specific designation for a PhD-level person not on a traditional faculty track (which is usually a mix of some sort with teaching and research duties), but which is not associated to someone who is (like a postdoc).

They are not terribly common, but can include folks leading core facilities, or so-called research professor positions. They often are soft-money based, (i.e., externally or service funded), but there are exceptions.

In the online world this designation takes a different meaning, usually referring to folks to lazy to understand the basics and diving right into WAG. Doing "a research" here often means casually watching random videos until they consider themselves an expert.