The Dumb Questions Thread

[David B]

Which I start because I have two, one science related, the other to linguistics, but I'll stick it in here anyway.

The first one was inspired by seeing the flares off an oil refinery today, and the question concerns why they don't use this combustible material to do something instead of just burning it off?

And the second one - the word 'stitch', referring to a pain in the side during excercise. Why is it called a stitch?

David

[ofro]

First question:
a) It may not be enough material (methane?) that is burned off to warrant the equipment to capture it. It would also require an infrastructure to distribute it.
b) What is blown off may be a mixture of gasses that are too costly to separate and capture.
Also, in the big oil-producing fields - but you also see that in oil rigs in the Gulf - methane is often a by product of pumping oil. In the past, there was no financial incentive to capture it because natural gas was to cheap. Burning it off under controlled conditions prevents explosive build-up of the gas. If I remember correctly, the Russians would burn off huge amounts of methane until the pipelines were eventually built to ship it to Western Europe.

Hopefully this will slowly change as natural gas got more valuable and shippable as liquid gas.

Seconf question:
It is most likely related to the German noun or verb "stechen", meaning stab or stabbing. In fact "Seitenstechen" (side stabbing) is the German term for just that pain you describe.

[Brianna]

What do spiders taste like?

(sorry, you asked for dumb questions)

[Berthold]

What do spiders taste like?

(sorry, you asked for dumb questions)
Some hints here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_spider). :wave:

Once I also saw a film about Mesoamericans who eat a big species.

[David B]

First question:
a) It may not be enough material (methane?) that is burned off to warrant the equipment to capture it. It would also require an infrastructure to distribute it.
b) What is blown off may be a mixture of gasses that are too costly to separate and capture.
Also, in the big oil-producing fields - but you also see that in oil rigs in the Gulf - methane is often a by product of pumping oil. In the past, there was no financial incentive to capture it because natural gas was to cheap. Burning it off under controlled conditions prevents explosive build-up of the gas. If I remember correctly, the Russians would burn off huge amounts of methane until the pipelines were eventually built to ship it to Western Europe.

Hopefully this will slowly change as natural gas got more valuable and shippable as liquid gas.

Seconf question:
It is most likely related to the German noun or verb "stechen", meaning stab or stabbing. In fact "Seitenstechen" (side stabbing) is the German term for just that pain you describe.

Thanks, looks good

David

[Peez]

What is this thread about?

Peez

[Berthold]

The ancestor is this one (http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=157762). :)

[Brianna]

What is this thread about?

Peez

HHAHAHAHAH. that wins the dumb question :D

[Anne]

Where should the dumb answers go?

no seriously?

[Ray Moscow]

Which I start because I have two, one science related, the other to linguistics, but I'll stick it in here anyway.

The first one was inspired by seeing the flares off an oil refinery today, and the question concerns why they don't use this combustible material to do something instead of just burning it off?

SNIP
David

Most of the waste combustible gases in a well-run refinery are burned in the process heaters and boilers. However, there is always a bit that is too low pressure to use that way without recompression, which is expensive and consumes energy.

Also, the flare system is for safe relief of combustibles in the event of an upset or accident. It can make a big flare fire temporarily but does no harm otherwise.

However, poorly managed refineries can have big flares -- which is wasteful.

[Preno]

Does 0.999... = 1????

[ofro]

Tryin' to trick us, aren't you?

[Preno]

Well, does it? Does it?

[David B]

Does 0.999... = 1????

Does 1/2 + 1/4 +1/8....=0.999.....?

David (notes that Achilles does catch the tortoise)

[ofro]

How about: No, not the way you wrote it .....

[Oolon Colluphid]

What do spiders taste like?

(sorry, you asked for dumb questions)
According to Bruce Parry, who got to eat tarantula in an episode of Tribe, they taste rather like prawns. Which makes sense, since they're both arthropods, albeit very distantly related.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Does 0.999... = 1????

As near as makes no odds.

[Oolon Colluphid]

Okay, I can't get my head around this:

How can we see a new Moon at night? (Can we? I thought I had but the logic of the following makes me doubt it!)

In order for the Moon to be entirely lit on its not-facing-us side, it's got to be between us and the Sun. So for us to see it, we've got to be looking towards it, which means it must be daytime -- night time being when the bit of Earth we're on is turned away from the Sun. You can't get a solar eclipse at night (can you? :eek:), and an eclipse is just a nicely aligned new Moon...

[Barefoot Bree]

No, you would not be able to see a new moon in the middle of the night. Just at sunrise or sunset (which would also be moonrise and moonset) maybe.

A solar eclipse could happen on the other side of the earth during your night, but then you'd obviously not see it.

[Matty]

It is most likely related to the German noun or verb "stechen", meaning stab or stabbing. Cool thats my new fact for the day.

[Berthold]

Coming back to the culinary qualities (or not ;)) of non-aquatic arthropods:

William Buckland (http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/learning/pdfs/buckland.pdf), great clergyman/naturalist, tried a lot in this field. He is reputed to have said, with some regret, that not even he succeeded in finding a satisfactory way of cooking common houseflies :eek:. I don't know, however, if he left a recipe collection. :D

[Marduk]

Faster than light question:

If I had a light bulb connected to an extension cord a billion miles long and the bulb was lit and I pulled the plug, would the light go out instantly or would there be a delay? The circuit was broken so won’t it go out right away? Does this not transmit information “someone pulled the plug” faster than light???????

[Preno]

There would be a delay of (billion miles / c). It takes time for the "stop" signal to reach the bulb. (Same with "rigid" objects in relativity.)

[David B]

No, you would not be able to see a new moon in the middle of the night. Just at sunrise or sunset (which would also be moonrise and moonset) maybe.

A solar eclipse could happen on the other side of the earth during your night, but then you'd obviously not see it.

I've often seen a full outline of a new moon, not in the middle of night, but close to dawn or dusk, when the moon is lit dimly by sunlight reflected from what would be a crescent earth from the moon's POV.

David

[David M]

What do spiders taste like?

(sorry, you asked for dumb questions)

Crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

[ericmurphy]

ericmurphy (age 2) to mom: "Where are a spider's bones?"

Mom: "Why do you care?"

(True story.)

[epepke]

Faster than light question:

If I had a light bulb connected to an extension cord a billion miles long and the bulb was lit and I pulled the plug, would the light go out instantly or would there be a delay? The circuit was broken so won’t it go out right away? Does this not transmit information “someone pulled the plug” faster than light???????

There would be a delay, but it wouldn't be the same as if you assumed that the information traveled at c. Different cords work differently. You have to get a very expensive cord even to get to 0.95 c.

[Marduk]

There would be a delay of (billion miles / c). It takes time for the "stop" signal to reach the bulb. (Same with "rigid" objects in relativity.)


I guess that’s the part I don’t get, there is a circuit, all the electrons should stop moving when the circuit is broken, anywhere along the path, no?

[David B]

Faster than light question:

If I had a light bulb connected to an extension cord a billion miles long and the bulb was lit and I pulled the plug, would the light go out instantly or would there be a delay? The circuit was broken so won’t it go out right away? Does this not transmit information “someone pulled the plug” faster than light???????

There would be a delay, but it wouldn't be the same as if you assumed that the information traveled at c. Different cords work differently. You have to get a very expensive cord even to get to 0.95 c.

I'd suggest that no billion mile long cord would come cheap:p

David

[Preno]

I guess that’s the part I don’t get, there is a circuit, all the electrons should stop moving when the circuit is broken, anywhere along the path, no?For small circuits, in practice yes. For a billion-mile long circuit, no. It takes time for the change in the electromagnetic field to propagate all the way through the circuit (epepke is right that the speed isn't exactly c, though).

[hecaterin]

Okay, I can't get my head around this:

How can we see a new Moon at night? (Can we? I thought I had but the logic of the following makes me doubt it!)

In order for the Moon to be entirely lit on its not-facing-us side, it's got to be between us and the Sun. So for us to see it, we've got to be looking towards it, which means it must be daytime -- night time being when the bit of Earth we're on is turned away from the Sun. You can't get a solar eclipse at night (can you? :eek:), and an eclipse is just a nicely aligned new Moon...You *can* see a new moon at pretty much any time of day or night, as long as you've got the right latitude :)

For people in mid-latitudes, the moon can be visible in the dark up to a latish evening, or from early pre-dawn. You've got about 12 hours to look moonwards, and if your daylight is only 6 hours like North Scotland or Norway in winter, that leaves 6 hours of dark for your new-moon viewing pleasure. If it's very dark, you can see the new moon glowing faintly in the earthlight, which is very cool. For people on the equator, it's just visible at dawn & dusk, so they miss out.

The thing is, that the phases of the moon last for some time. A new moon or full moon is generally considered to last about 3 days. Unlike a solar eclipse, which is only about ten minutes. So imagine the moon just sitting there roughly between us and the sun, but not exactly 100% linear, while the earth is spinning away, and imagine looking at it at an angle. Remember that the earth is tilted on its axis, and maybe the picture will make more sense. (This is hard without diagrams, sorry.)

[ofro]

I guess that’s the part I don’t get, there is a circuit, all the electrons should stop moving when the circuit is broken, anywhere along the path, no?For small circuits, in practice yes. For a billion-mile long circuit, no. It takes time for the change in the electromagnetic field to propagate all the way through the circuit (epepke is right that the speed isn't exactly c, though).

I imagine that billion-mile long cable also has a significant capacitance and resistance and therefore has a slow RC time constant....

[Brother Daniel]

I guess that’s the part I don’t get, there is a circuit, all the electrons should stop moving when the circuit is broken, anywhere along the path, no?
Nope. Even in a small table-top-sized circuit, there can be a brief but measureable wobble in the current after you cut the circuit but before everything completely settles.

[Barefoot Bree]

I didn't get an answer to my question in the original thread, so I'm reposting it here to avoid disrupting that one with my little sideline.

Ignoring the possibility of reality checks, he pounced on the idea that memetics showed that Darwinism was just another meme, silly sod.
Does scientific verifiability or reality checks have anything to do with the "memeness" of an idea? Are scientific theories memes, too?

Or is "just another" the operative phrase in your sentence?

No philosophy please, this is simply a memetics question.

[Barefoot Bree]

Could this thread be stickied, please? I believe it has continuing value.

[Brother Daniel]

[QUOTE=David B]Ignoring the possibility of reality checks, he pounced on the idea that memetics showed that Darwinism was just another meme, silly sod.
Does scientific verifiability or reality checks have anything to do with the "memeness" of an idea? Are scientific theories memes, too?

Or is "just another" the operative phrase in your sentence?
No, yes, and yes, respectively. I think.

[Berthold]

Ah, such as "Origin of Species" isn't "just another old book". :)

[Marduk]

Big Bang question; If we follow cause & effect all the way back to the BB does this mean any time there is a BB it will be EXACTLY like this one? Will we then have this discussion an infinite number of times? Did we already have this discussion an infinite number of times? How could we complete an infinite number of anything? Is there any reason to think the BB is a once and only event? If not, we seem doomed to repeat this forever.
I tried something like this with my boss once when he asked the status of my ‘to do’ list. I told him it had become infinitely long and therefore I could accomplish just as much by doing nothing as I could by removing one item from an infinite list. He didn’t buy it, he claimed my list simply contained a very large but finite number of items, the bastard! :)

[Berthold]

Consider how many turbulent* events were between the BB and us! :)

*Meaning: an arbitrarily small difference in conditions can cause an arbitrarily great effect.

[Christina]

I have an older neutered male cat that seems to have some breeding instincts or something left that I don't understand. When our feral cat was in heat he spent hours trying and rolling around with her on the floor even though he was neutered over a decade ago. Now he's doing it with the little female kitten that was spayed as soon as she was old enough. Why are they still doing this?

[Notta]

I had a neutered male cat that still sprayed things, even though it had almost no scent. The new couch, my bookbag, my son's jacket, etc. It drove me crazy! I thought neutered males were rather sedate and didn't do all that mating & marking territory crap.

I know that some human males have 3 vas deferens instead of the regular 2 (the ducts that take sperm from the testicles to the urethra), so maybe some other male mammals have some regular genetic abnormality that renders the neutering surgery ineffective. All I know is my neutered male cat certainly never acted like he was neutered - fights, trying to mate with a pillow, spraying, etc.

[Christina]

Mine showed no other signs of it other than when the feral cat really was in heat and sticking her butt in his face all day,and now with the little female cat. She doesn't seem to mind but she looks kind of baffled. At first I thought it was some sort of dominance thing but I'm not sure.

[frazier]

Someone asked this same question (r.e. neutered male cats) on Wisconsin Public Radio's Calling All Pets program.

The expert's answer was that when neutering the male, you have to be sure to get all the surrounding testicular tissue, not just the nads. If the animal is neutered fairly young, this can be tricky. If you leave some tissue behind, it can lead to behaviors such as you describe. IIRC, of course.

[Berthold]

So that would be quite similar to many historic eunuchs who were able of sex but not reproduction.

[4321lynx]

So that would be quite similar to many historic eunuchs who were able of sex but not reproduction.

That's why the harem eunuchs are said to have had their penises amputated as well. Anyone interested in the job? :eek:

[Notta]

So that would be quite similar to many historic eunuchs who were able of sex but not reproduction.

That's why the harem eunuchs are said to have had their penises amputated as well. Anyone interested in the job? :eek:
There are a handful of people I may be interesting in performing penile amputations upon.

The information about the cats sounds like the answer to my cat's behavior. He was neutered before he was 4 months old.

[MadMez]

........Why are they still doing this?

Just put them through a little cat marriage ceremony. They'll soon (in quick cat years) lose interest.

Anyhoo..

If time goes faster when you're having fun. Light must go much, much faster too. Right? So is this why disco balls flicker faster with happy tunes?

[Christina]

........Why are they still doing this?

Just put them through a little cat marriage ceremony. They'll soon (in quick cat years) lose interest.

Anyhoo..

If time goes faster when you're having fun. Light must go much, much faster too. Right? So is this why disco balls flicker faster with happy tunes?

This is my favorite answer :D

The saga of these cats has been going on so long that there's even a video clip posted on IIDB of their futile efforts and long discussions of alternative means of silencing her. They had all of us flickering with happy laughs for a while.

[Brother Daniel]

Big Bang question; If we follow cause & effect all the way back to the BB does this mean any time there is a BB it will be EXACTLY like this one? Will we then have this discussion an infinite number of times? Did we already have this discussion an infinite number of times? How could we complete an infinite number of anything? Is there any reason to think the BB is a once and only event? If not, we seem doomed to repeat this forever.

This thread is for dumb questions. Take your smart questions and go away.

(Seriously, you're touching on stuff that no one really knows how to deal with. :) )

[David B]

Big Bang question; If we follow cause & effect all the way back to the BB does this mean any time there is a BB it will be EXACTLY like this one? Will we then have this discussion an infinite number of times? Did we already have this discussion an infinite number of times? How could we complete an infinite number of anything? Is there any reason to think the BB is a once and only event? If not, we seem doomed to repeat this forever.
I tried something like this with my boss once when he asked the status of my ‘to do’ list. I told him it had become infinitely long and therefore I could accomplish just as much by doing nothing as I could by removing one item from an infinite list. He didn’t buy it, he claimed my list simply contained a very large but finite number of items, the bastard! :)

From what I've read in the past, I've gathered that physicists who have looked at the math of scenarios where the universe expands and then contracts again to a big crunch, the physics of a subsequent BB would be different.

But I'm beginning to gather that opinion is now leaning towards the view that we don't inhabit a bouncing universe.

David

[Garrett]

deodorant soap

if the soap were any good, wouldn't it remove the deodorant from your skin?

[Christina]

Why do some people have terrible body odor and others have no noticeable one at all? I've been with my partner for 15 years, he sweats a lot like anyone else when he does hard work and I've never smelled even the slightest whiff of BO. He can go days without a shower when we're camping and he still doesn't smell. He eats all of the same junk food as most other Americans so I doubt that it's his diet. He's almost pure Native American but I don't know what that would have to do with anything.

[Matty]

Big Bang question; If we follow cause & effect all the way back to the BB does this mean any time there is a BB it will be EXACTLY like this one? Will we then have this discussion an infinite number of times? Did we already have this discussion an infinite number of times? How could we complete an infinite number of anything? Is there any reason to think the BB is a once and only event? If not, we seem doomed to repeat this forever.
I tried something like this with my boss once when he asked the status of my ‘to do’ list. I told him it had become infinitely long and therefore I could accomplish just as much by doing nothing as I could by removing one item from an infinite list. He didn’t buy it, he claimed my list simply contained a very large but finite number of items, the bastard! :)

From what I've read in the past, I've gathered that physicists who have looked at the math of scenarios where the universe expands and then contracts again to a big crunch, the physics of a subsequent BB would be different.

But I'm beginning to gather that opinion is now leaning towards the view that we don't inhabit a bouncing universe.

Davidyeah i thought current models indicated that the expansion is still accelerating and that it would continue doing so indefinitely.
I like the smolian model, its a comfy fit for a biologist even if it is all conjecture like a lot of such physics :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Smolin

Fecund universes
The fecund universes theory (also called cosmological natural selection theory) of cosmology advanced by Lee Smolin suggests that the rules of biology apply on the grandest scales, and is often referred to as "cosmological natural selection". Smolin summarized the idea in a book aimed at a lay audience called The Life of the Cosmos.
The theory surmises that a collapsing black hole causes the emergence of a new universe on the "other side", whose fundamental constant parameters (speed of light, Planck length and so forth) may differ slightly from those of the universe where the black hole collapsed. Each universe therefore gives rise to as many new universes as it has black holes. Thus the theory contains the evolutionary ideas of "reproduction" and "mutation" of universes, but has no direct analogue of natural selection. However, given any universe that can produce black holes that successfully spawn new universes, it is possible that some number of those universes will reach heat death with unsuccessful parameters. So, in a sense, fecundity cosmological natural selection is one where universes could die off before successfully reproducing, just as any biological being can die without having children.
Leonard Susskind who now promotes a similar string theory landscape, stated:
"I'm not sure why Smolin's idea didn't attract much attention. I actually think it deserved far more than it got."[3]

[nygreenguy]

Why do some people have terrible body odor and others have no noticeable one at all? I've been with my partner for 15 years, he sweats a lot like anyone else when he does hard work and I've never smelled even the slightest whiff of BO. He can go days without a shower when we're camping and he still doesn't smell. He eats all of the same junk food as most other Americans so I doubt that it's his diet. He's almost pure Native American but I don't know what that would have to do with anything.

Genetics and diet. Its bacteria that make the smell and some people are just better at culturing it than others.

[David B]

Why do some people have terrible body odor and others have no noticeable one at all? I've been with my partner for 15 years, he sweats a lot like anyone else when he does hard work and I've never smelled even the slightest whiff of BO. He can go days without a shower when we're camping and he still doesn't smell. He eats all of the same junk food as most other Americans so I doubt that it's his diet. He's almost pure Native American but I don't know what that would have to do with anything.

Genetics and diet. Its bacteria that make the smell and some people are just better at culturing it than others.

And then again, you might find his particular smell more attractive than repulsive.

David

[Notta]

Why do some people have terrible body odor and others have no noticeable one at all? I've been with my partner for 15 years, he sweats a lot like anyone else when he does hard work and I've never smelled even the slightest whiff of BO. He can go days without a shower when we're camping and he still doesn't smell. He eats all of the same junk food as most other Americans so I doubt that it's his diet. He's almost pure Native American but I don't know what that would have to do with anything.
I've also heard that body odor can have a pheromonal effect on people and may have a genetic basis. If you are repelled by someone's body odor, chances are they are genetically incompatible with you.

[Christina]

I've also heard that body odor can have a pheromonal effect on people and may have a genetic basis. If you are repelled by someone's body odor, chances are they are genetically incompatible with you.

That's interesting. I wonder how much if anything that has to do with what most of us refer to casually as 'that chemistry' between 2 people when they meet. I assume that's a combination of all sorts of surface impressions.

I don't know about being genetically repelled but I've certainly been hygienically repelled by some men I might otherwise been interested in.

[David B]

I've also heard that body odor can have a pheromonal effect on people and may have a genetic basis. If you are repelled by someone's body odor, chances are they are genetically incompatible with you.

That's interesting. I wonder how much if anything that has to do with what most of us refer to casually as 'that chemistry' between 2 people when they meet. I assume that's a combination of all sorts of surface impressions.

I don't know about being genetically repelled but I've certainly been hygienically repelled by some men I might otherwise been interested in.

The hypothesis is that people who find each others body odours mutually attractive have immune systems which complement each other.

As far as I recall, most of the work on this has been done on mice, but it does seem that smell is something of a factor for attraction among mice, and, further, that complementary immune systems are a factor.

But, hey, it might be a mammalian trait, going back way before humans and mice split their evolutionary paths. Or not.

However, I've tended to like the smells of the ladies I've been most closely involved with, and most of them have not used a lot of masking agents, like strongly smelling cosmetics and scents.

It's an idea I take seriously - even to the point of wondering if increasing divorce rates in the 20th century did not have something to do with the greater availability of baths, showers and smelly things that people use to mask their own particular odour.

David

[Notta]

My mother famously said of my sister's husband (whom my family finds hard to warm up to, even after 28 years), "He smells wrong."

I've never found my husband's body odor 'bad', just 'musty', even at its worst. I agree with David -- there must be something about compatible people (immunologically/genetically) when you don't find the other smells 'wrong.'

[Marduk]

Big Bang question; If we follow cause & effect all the way back to the BB does this mean any time there is a BB it will be EXACTLY like this one? Will we then have this discussion an infinite number of times? Did we already have this discussion an infinite number of times? How could we complete an infinite number of anything? Is there any reason to think the BB is a once and only event? If not, we seem doomed to repeat this forever.

This thread is for dumb questions. Take your smart questions and go away.

(Seriously, you're touching on stuff that no one really knows how to deal with. :) )


OK OK
Where does the Flu go in the off season, how does it know when flu season starts and to start making people sick again?

[ofro]

I think that the flu never goes away completely. For one thing, flu may not be diagnosed as readily in the summer because "that's not typical" and the symptoms may not be as severe. And it does not take many sick individuals to re-start an epidemic when the conditions are ripe.

Also, there may be regions where the flu is not "seasonal", in places such as Alaska. Check here (http://www.epi.alaska.gov/bulletins/docs/b2003_23.pdf) for a brief discussion. Again, a few flu-infected travelers to the south can restart the flu there.

[nygreenguy]

I've also heard that body odor can have a pheromonal effect on people and may have a genetic basis. If you are repelled by someone's body odor, chances are they are genetically incompatible with you.

Actually, its not the odor. The odor come from bacteria, so unless you are a freak, you should like that smell. HOWEVER, I did a study on human individual distance and the chemistry of sweat. I took a subject with no scent (scent free soap, no deodorant, etc.) and had him stand in an elevator while I measured females distance (n=350) I then had him run just enough to break a sweat. We then dabbed the sweat off, just so the appearance wouldnt have an effect. We then repeated the experiment (n=355). The was a significant difference (p=0.0076) in how close the women stood. They actually stood closer with the sweat.

So, its not the visible, noticeable "smell" that attracts women.

[SallyAnne]

what do spiders taste like?

(sorry, you asked for dumb questions)

lol!:D

[SallyAnne]

It's an idea I take seriously - even to the point of wondering if increasing divorce rates in the 20th century did not have something to do with the greater availability of baths, showers and smelly things that people use to mask their own particular odour.

David


I don't know, the 20th century was probably the most upheavily (is that even a word? lol:o) in history, two world wars, mass immigration with flight travel, people migrating all over the place, etc and so forth. I think all of that has had an affect on and put a strain on many human relationships....

But I'm intrigued by your thinking about body odour, I never thought about that before. I personally love the smell of lots of after-shave, so, LOL, I may not know who am compatible with because they can mask themselves with that lovely after-shave and I really like it.:p

[Febble]

Does 0.999... = 1????

You told me it didn't, and I believed you.

[Brother Daniel]

Did he really?

[Berthold]

I think that the flu never goes away completely.
Humans share the family of flu viruses with quite a few of their domestic animals, and wild animals, too. The flu DNA is continually regrouped and recombined between various strains. That's why vaccines have to be readapted nearly every year.

[ofro]

Oops, how could I forgot about that. It's probably a much more important reservoir for restarting the flu.

[4321lynx]

It's an idea I take seriously - even to the point of wondering if increasing divorce rates in the 20th century did not have something to do with the greater availability of baths, showers and smelly things that people use to mask their own particular odour.

David


I don't know, the 20th century was probably the most upheavily (is that even a word? lol:o) in history, two world wars, mass immigration with flight travel, people migrating all over the place, etc and so forth. I think all of that has had an affect on and put a strain on many human relationships....

But I'm intrigued by your thinking about body odour, I never thought about that before. I personally love the smell of lots of after-shave, so, LOL, I may not know who am compatible with because they can mask themselves with that lovely after-shave and I really like it.:p

OK. Now tell me: WHICH aftershave do you want me to wear tonight then????? :evil::D

[Notta]

I've also heard that body odor can have a pheromonal effect on people and may have a genetic basis. If you are repelled by someone's body odor, chances are they are genetically incompatible with you.

Actually, its not the odor. The odor come from bacteria, so unless you are a freak, you should like that smell. HOWEVER, I did a study on human individual distance and the chemistry of sweat. I took a subject with no scent (scent free soap, no deodorant, etc.) and had him stand in an elevator while I measured females distance (n=350) I then had him run just enough to break a sweat. We then dabbed the sweat off, just so the appearance wouldnt have an effect. We then repeated the experiment (n=355). The was a significant difference (p=0.0076) in how close the women stood. They actually stood closer with the sweat.

So, its not the visible, noticeable "smell" that attracts women.That's awesome! What class did you do this for?

And I, personally, would rather have a man who smelled like a man than one with no or a perfume-y scent.

[Notta]

what do spiders taste like?

(sorry, you asked for dumb questions)

like baby bald eagles -- yum!!

[Brianna]

what do spiders taste like?

(sorry, you asked for dumb questions)

like baby bald eagles -- yum!!

:D that is a new one. No one likes a mouth full of fluff though.

[hecaterin]

So that would be quite similar to many historic eunuchs who were able of sex but not reproduction.

That's why the harem eunuchs are said to have had their penises amputated as well. Anyone interested in the job? :eek:
There are a handful of people I may be interesting in performing penile amputations upon.

The information about the cats sounds like the answer to my cat's behavior. He was neutered before he was 4 months old.My cats too. Both of them do the spray behaviour, especially the more dominant one, but nothing actually comes out. Win! They have also grown very large, which I believe is also connected to early neutering.

[PostMortem]

Why do people (especially me) get dark circles under their eyes when they have a lack of sleep?

I know there are other possible causes (liver disease etc.) but for me it is definitely connected to not getting enough sleep because as soon as I get a solid 8 hours the dark areas are gone.

[4321lynx]

Why do people (especially me) get dark circles under their eyes when they have a lack of sleep?

I know there are other possible causes (liver disease etc.) but for me it is definitely connected to not getting enough sleep because as soon as I get a solid 8 hours the dark areas are gone.

Didn't know so Googled "Insomnia & dark circles under eyes" -- 11,000 answers. Looked at first 20-30, most talk of skin going pale when fatigued or suffering lack of sleep & thus normal small veins become more obvious & blood in veins is blue...
Most try to sell you something to hide it.
No good medical site in first 3 pages & I got fatigued & blue circles appeared... & I quit.
Hope someone will be more helpful.