English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

01:38

@Robusto There's no end to them.

M.A.R.

02:39

@Mitch okay, this is a bit complicated. I'm tying a knot to explain it well later

CowperKettle

I was thinking of replacing all door handles with copper/brass ones.

I wonder if copper spoons/cups are safe though.

Cerberus

Why?

CowperKettle

I have a big copper (brass?) kettle my father found in the 1980s in taiga, left by some geologists in an encampment.

When he brought it home, it was all green from copper rust.

Cerberus

We have copper kettles, too.

CowperKettle

We are not using it, it just stands in the kitchen

Cerberus

02:44

I never know how wholesome those are.

CowperKettle

> Old and truly antique copper tea kettles are often made of solid copper and don't have any kind of protective lining. This can be dangerous when used to boil water.

housetipster.com/housetips/1632/….

Although it's just a random website.

tchrist

Nobody knows this, but technically, copper does not "rust". Because it doesn't have iron in it. But it certainly corrodes.

> Copper will never rust for the same reason as bronze — it contains too little iron. Though it will not rust, copper can form a green film, or patina, on its surface over time. However, this patina will not flake the way rust does. Instead, it creates an even, thick coating on top of the copper itself. Many people actually prefer the look of oxidized copper to its original state.

Just think of the Statue of Liberty. Her copper skin originally looked brown, but it has turned green over time due to the copper's oxidation. This green film is as thick as the original layer of copper and actua…

CowperKettle

Yes, the green patina

tchrist

It's called verdigris, being green-grey.

verdigris

Noun: verdigris (countable and uncountable, plural verdigrises)

A blue-green patina or rust that forms on copper-containing metals.
Synonym: aerugo
(chemistry, dated) Copper acetate.
Synonym: Spanish green
(color) The colour of this patina or material.
Synonym: Spanish green

Verb: verdigris (third-person singular simple present verdigrises, present participle verdigrising, simple past and past participle verdigrised)

To cover, or coat, with verdigris.

CowperKettle

Verdigris sounds unquotidian.

tchrist

02:47

Well, it's Latino-French, not Germano-English.

CowperKettle

> From French vert-de-gris (literally “green of Greece”).

tchrist

Oh Greece not grey!

Savais pas.

CowperKettle

Sille vou play

tchrist

You can't win if you don't play.

CowperKettle

s'il vous plaît

== French == === Alternative forms === s'il vous plait (post-1990 spelling) === Etymology === Literally, “if it pleases you”. From Middle French s'il vous plaist. Compare Catalan si us plau. === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /s‿il vu plɛ/, (contracted) /sju.plɛ/ === Phrase === s’il vous plaît (formal) please, if you please (Belgium, formal) you're welcome ==== Usage notes ==== S’il vous plaît is used to address someone formally (being polite or speaking with elders), using vous, or to address more than one person; when using the phrase informally (with friends and family), one wo...

tchrist

02:48

Et même s'il ne te plaît pas. :)

Sorry, I've just thou'd you. Hope you don't mind. :)

CowperKettle

No problem ))

Spaceship engines

tchrist

Oh boy.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hmm I would never call oxidised copper "rust".

Rust must be brown.

tchrist

Like old blood, with which it shares key componentry. :)

Cerberus

Indeed.

tchrist

02:56

@Cerberus People do, but these are the people who know neither patina nor verdigris. They probably call the tarnish on silver rust as well. :)

Cerberus

Hmm I suspect Dutchmen would not.

tchrist

Rust is supposed to be iron oxide only.

But people are not always good with these things.

When copper corrodes, do you have a specific word for the result or a generic one?

Cerberus

I think people would call it aanslag or some generic word.

tchrist

STOP WATCHING ME TYPE!

Cerberus

Heh.

CowperKettle

02:58

Aanslag (misdrijf)

Een aanslag wordt in het Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (WNT) omschreven als "Onverhoedsche verraderlijke of althans boosaardige aanval op iemands leven of zijn belang". De Van Dale geeft twee relevante betekenissen, namelijk "poging tot moord of overrompeling" en "misdrijf tegen de veiligheid van de staat of tegen leven en vrijheid van een belangrijk persoon, waaronder zowel het voltooide delict als de strafbare poging daartoe worden verstaan". De betekenis uit het WNT is de gangbare betekenis in het dagelijkse spraakgebruik. Deze betekenis komt ook terug in woorden als bomaanslag, ter...

Cerberus

It would translate to scale or deposit.

@CowperKettle Yeah, that's a very different aanslag!

Patina/patijn exists, but I think it is not widely known.

CowperKettle

The Russian language has the word anshlag (аншлаг). It denotes the situation in which all tickets for a theater performance have been sold.

Cerberus

Interesting.

CowperKettle

Thus, a really good theater play "gathers one anshlag after another"

Cerberus

Related?

I cannot connect this sense to any of the various senses of the Dutch word.

CowperKettle

03:01

Wikipedia says it's a borrowing from German Anschlag

> poster, notice, bulletin (printed or written note hanging on the wall, a pinboard etc.)

Cerberus

I see.

Hmm.

tchrist

> Le vert de gris est toxique pour tous les organismes vivants.

But apparently only in French. The English page doesn't mention it.

Cerberus

That could be related to aanslag "tax assessment".

tchrist

> El cardenillo, verdín o verdete, también conocido como verdigrís, es una pátina de color azul verde semisaturado similar al turquesa que se forma sobre superficies de cobre o de alguna de sus aleaciones, como bronce o latón.

Verdín is kind of cute.

CowperKettle

In Uzbekistan, the local president decided to remove a large region's right to autonomy, leading to protests. They have been violently suppressed. A video surfaced of the Uzbek police advancing along a road which is literally red, a big stretch of red. Probably blood mixed with water sprayed by water cannons.

Karakalpakstan

Karakalpakstan, officially the Republic of Karakalpakstan, is an autonomous republic within Uzbekistan. It occupies the whole northwestern part of Uzbekistan. The capital is Nukus (Noʻkis / Нөкис). The Republic of Karakalpakstan has an area of 166,590 km2 (64,320 sq mi). Its territory covers the classical land of Khwarezm, which in classical Persian literature was known as کات (Kāt). == History == From about 500 BC to 500 AD, the region of what is now Karakalpakstan was a thriving agricultural area supported by extensive irrigation. It was strategically important territory and fiercely contested...

tchrist

03:06

I don't really understand these enclave countries.

Cerberus

@tchrist Quite readable.

CowperKettle

Uzbekistan has a Stalinist regime. We helped an Uzbek woman to obtain Russian citizenship. I helped her fill out the documents. When on the phone with her Uzbek relatives, she was careful not to mention any politics. Phones are tapped.

Cerberus

I didn't know they called those cobre and bronce!

tchrist

Ah. Yes.

Cerberus

I don't know what latón is.

CowperKettle

03:08

She was afraid even to visit Uzbekistan, lest she be forced to pick cotton, because it was the cotton gathering season, and people of all walks of life are forced to go to the fields and work.

tchrist

It's like lata but bigger. :)

Lata is a tin. Of something.

So cobre + lata = ....?

Brass.

Cerberus

Makes sense.

I thought copper + tin was bronze?

tchrist

Oh brass is with zinc and bronze with tin? I know nothing.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle I read about this, but I thought the change in the constitution revoking its autonomy had been revoked?

tchrist

Then I don't know why they called it latón, which is the augmentative of lata.

Damned ay-rabs strike again:

> latón1
Del ár. lāṭūn, y este del turco altɩn 'oro'.

1. m. Aleación de cobre y zinc, de color amarillo pálido y susceptible de gran brillo y pulimento.

CowperKettle

03:10

@Cerberus Yes, I think yes

tchrist

It just looks like Spanish morphology. It's not.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Is it related to tin?

tchrist

No, it says it's from Arabic latun, which was from Turkish altin meaning gold.

Zinc is impossible to say in Spanish because they can't have syllable final /k/.

It just comes out sounding like something spelled theen would in English.

Cerberus

> ‘tin’, < pgm. *tina-.
Verdere herkomst onduidelijk.

tchrist

pa tin a ?

Cerberus

03:13

Could the Germanic word be from Arabic/Turkish?

That would be an awfully late borrowing.

tchrist

> From Middle English tin, from Old English tin, from Proto-West Germanic *tin, from Proto-Germanic *tiną.

Cerberus

Yes.

tchrist

Tina.

Cerberus

But verdere herkomst onduidelijk.

> Os. tin (mnd. ten, tin); ohd. zin (nhd. Zinn); ofri. tin (nfri. tin); oe. tin (ne. tin); on. tin (nzw. tenn); alle ‘tin’, < pgm. *tina-.
Verdere herkomst onduidelijk. Er zijn geen zekere verwante woorden buiten de Germaanse talen. Maar al sinds de 16e eeuw wordt tin binnen het Germaans in verband gebracht met het ablautende → teen 2 < pgm. *taina- ‘twijg, staf’. Dit kan namelijk ook ‘metalen staaf’ betekenen, zo bijv. in te doen smelten en gieten quantiteit staven of teenen [1684; iWNT teen II]. Het benoemingsmotief van tin zou dan de staafjesvorm zijn, waarin tin blijkens prehistorische …

tchrist

They're just guessing. :)

Cerberus

03:15

Some speculation.

Not very useful.

tchrist

Stannis Baratheon was the tin brother.

Renly was shiny brass. Robert was iron.

Vikas

@Mitch Oh

Cerberus

Game of Thrones?

tchrist

Yes. But I was thinking of the obvious word.

> Of Celtic origin, from Proto-Celtic *stagnos; see also Irish stán.

That's a surprise.

Latin took something from Celtic not the other way around.

Oh, because of Cornwall!!

The tin mines they needed for making bronze were there.

stannum

Noun: stannum (uncountable)

(chemistry, rare) tin
stannum n (genitive stannī); second declension
an alloy of silver and lead
tin (the metal)

Cerberus

> II. Tin (late Lat. for plumbum album or candidum)

tchrist

03:21

Stannum

Stannum (-i, n.), Latinitate classica plumbum album, est metallum post-transitionale coloris argenti, elementum cuius numerus atomicus 50, et symbolum chemicum Sn est. Stannum est elementum gregis principalis in grege 14 systematis periodici, proprietatibus simile amborum gregis 14 elementorum propinquorum, germanii et plumbi, sicut in duobus oxydationis statibus +2 et +4. Mixtura stanni cum cupro aes nominatur. Olim stannum ex Britannia in terras mediterraneas importabatur. Proprietates: liquidum est super temperaturam 505 K liquidum est sub temperaturam 2.533 K massa specifica: 7,29 g/cm3...

Reading the Latin Wikipedia is much more like reading the required Latin descriptions of newly described botanical species.

It's Latin of a sort, but Caesar would have a stroke trying to figure it out.

Actually, the botanists only very recently changed the Rule and said that no longer would descriptions be mandatorily in Latin.

They are now also allowed to be in English. But that's it. Latin or English, or bust.

Cerberus

Bad!

Latin good.

tchrist

The Chinese complained, apparently.

They found it hard it enough to have to learn English. But to have to learn Latin just to publish a species nova pissed them off.

Cerberus

Just ask someone knowledgeable to do it.

tchrist

That was my opinion.

seamussweeney.net/2019/01/11/…

CowperKettle

Word of the day: unknome

tchrist

03:29

> As is traditional, the description is repeated in English translation: ‘Hyphae hyaline, internal in the body of the host, composed of disjointed cells 20–40 x 10–12 µm diam. Sporangiophores growing through the dorsal surface of the host, 50–150 µm high x 5–7 µm diam, septate only at the base.’

What Mike provides is a ‘description’, but he could have given us a description and something called a ‘diagnosis’, or even just a diagnosis. Diagnoses explain what is sufficiently different about the species in question to qualify it for species status. They can be extremely short. For example, if…

> The next part of the description begins: ‘Hyphae hyalinae, inclusae in corpore hospitis, constantes de cellis secedentibus 20-40 x 10-12 µm diam. Sporangiophora crescentia per superficiem dorsi hospitalis, 50-150 µm alta x 5-7 µm diam, septata solum AD basem.

Vikas

> Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko says his military shot down missiles fired from Ukraine, warns of ‘instant’ response to enemy attacks.

tchrist

That's out of order, but it shows you what botanical descriptions in protologues look like.

Vikas

@CowperKettle he is waiting for an excuse.

CowperKettle

@Vikas Who knows what his goal is.

Cerberus

Hmm.

tchrist

03:30

@Vikas No. He's waiting to make an excuse.

CowperKettle

To drag Belarus into a conflict would be suicidal. Belarus has no oil and gas reserves.

Cerberus

He has so little to gain from sending his troops into Ukraine.

Vikas

@tchrist Yeah, rather.

Cerberus

Putin has power over him, but...

tchrist

@CowperKettle It would show his power over his vassals.

> This is the beginning of the Latin description, which is one hundred words in this case but could be shorter or longer. For a mycologist, even one whose Latin is a hazy memory from school, this description is not too difficult to understand. The Latin of biology is quite different from that of Ancient Rome and different again from Church Latin.

It is a highly stylised language all of its own, brimming with specialist Latinised terms that would make Mike’s description almost completely incomprehensible to Cicero.

@Cerberus I still think you would enjoy that book.

seamussweeney.net/2019/01/04/…

CowperKettle

03:35

Belarus has been dependent on Russia ever since Lukashenko lost the reelection 2 years ago. I've lost count of billions of dollars of "loans" provided since that moment by Putin.

Every now and then Lukashenko comes to Moscow for a new financial aid package.

tchrist

> Latin names – frequently unpronounceable, all too often wrong and always a tiny puzzle to unravel – have been annoying the layman since they first became formalised as scientific terms in the eighteenth century.

Why on earth has the entirely land-loving Eastern Mole been named Scalopus aquaticus, or the Oxford Ragwort been called Senecio squalidus – 'dirty old man'? What were naturalists thinking when they called a beetle Agra katewinsletae, a genus of fish Batman, and a Trilobite Han solo? Why is zoology replete with names such as Chloris chloris chloris (the greenfinch), and Gorilla go…

CowperKettle

tchrist

Tight leash.

CowperKettle

How Russian money keeps Belarus afloat

tchrist

Bet it's not a "loan".

CowperKettle

03:39

> Three weeks ago: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday said Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to provide Belarus with $1.5 billion

So it's several billions of dollars. For a country with a population the size of Moscow, that's a lot.

Thousands of IT specialists have fled Belarus. It had a lucrative software industry before the coup.

tchrist

It's like Russia is a rich nation to be doling out lavish gifts.

Cerberus

I'm not sure I'd call it a coup, though.

tchrist

But it's not.

CowperKettle

I mean the lost reelection.

Cerberus

Repression of attempted democratisation, perhaps?

tchrist

03:41

Russia calls everything a coup.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus Yes

tchrist

Revolution of Dignity

The Revolution of Dignity (Ukrainian: Революція гідності, romanized: Revoliutsiia hidnosti), also known as the Euro-Maidan Revolution, took place in Ukraine in February 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests, when deadly clashes between protesters and the security forces in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of elected President Viktor Yanukovych and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government.In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests (known as Euromaidan) erupted in response to President Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign a political association and free trade...

One man's dignified overturn is the next man's evil coup.

CowperKettle

> Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, a headline: Ukrainian authorities paid to children in Odessa to make them pose as dead and wounded.

tchrist

Credulousness springs eternal.

Cerberus

I think Cowper meant the way Lukashenko acted after the election, not the election itself.

@CowperKettle What a lovely, normal face.

CowperKettle

03:43

This newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, is very popular in Russia. I can see it on the stands in the local store. People do buy it and read it.

tchrist

3

A: What did Putin do to ensure that he doesn't get overthrown by a military coup or to reduce the likelihood of it?

Russia has almost no history of coups, only a few over the course of hundreds of years. And those happened when the army had decided that the leader was too weak. Back in 2014 when Putin rejected supporting the rebels in Ukraine after a coup in that country and there were people demanding that he...

CowperKettle

The headlines in it.. are always out of this world.

tchrist

He does make an interesting point.

> So nowadays any idea of chaos within the country of Russia (a coup necessarily always means widespread chaos) is perceived by its citizens as nothing less than a personal assassination attempt (because it is clear that any coup would result in the deaths of millions), and all former coups in the country’s history are condemned.

As example popular idea is that if the February 1917 coup (when the Army and the nationalists overthrew the tsar) had not taken place, nowadays there could have been over 500 million Russians. With people having now the idea of such an experience, it is impossible…

CowperKettle

Nikita Khruschev was ousted in a coup after he cut military spending.

tchrist

I tidied up the rough English a bit, but those are still his words. It's an interesting perspective.

@CowperKettle I had heard that. Or at least, that that was one interpretation.

> In reality there exists in Russian society a global consensus that the coup of 1917 and the exit from the USSR in 1991 both cost Russia too much: dozens of millions of lives.

CowperKettle

03:47

To avoid a revolution starting with Lenin, leaders have made sure that Moscow and St. Petersburg are better supplied with food and goods.

tchrist

That the common Russian counts the people who are now living under a different country's regime as something that cost it lives is very strange to me. Those people did not die.

CowperKettle

Which people?

tchrist

The ones who were part of the USSR but are not now part of Russia.

CowperKettle

The urban legend that Russia would have had 500 mn of people is bonkers. Russia is a cold country, and urbanization has lead to a decrease in birth rates.

tchrist

The dissolution of the USSR did not cost millions of lives.

@CowperKettle I think to reach that figure there would have to be serious territorial gains.

@CowperKettle But is it really a persistent myth among common Russians? If so, where does it come from?

CowperKettle

03:52

@tchrist It comes from some preditictions made in the early 1900s

tchrist

Cui bono, and all that.

CowperKettle

By the year 1913, Russia was growing by leaps and bounds.

And people predicted a lot of things

Germany, by the way, insisted on a war in 1914 partly because of the fear of a stronger Russia.

tchrist

Why the hell would this be desirable, this super-over-population that the land could not feed?

CowperKettle

It's not desirable. But urban myths are not logical.

The revolutions of 1905 and 1917 were supported by a peasant myth that Russia's land is hoarded by capitalists, and should be divided. Once it's divided, there will be no scarcity of land.

Myths do contribute to revolutions and conflicts.

tchrist

I seem to have come down with a sore throat today. I haven't had a cold in years. I'm somewhat concerned. The rapid covid test was negative. If this gets worse, I'll need to insist on a PCR test, and soon.

CowperKettle

03:55

In reality, there was not enough land for a fast-growing population.

@tchrist Sorry to hear that! Take care!

tchrist

@CowperKettle Much less if one has to make do without Ukrainian wheat, I imagine.

CowperKettle

My brother has also gotten ill with cold.

Could be his second case of covid.

> One is, of course, the increasingly repressive environment (the entire internal army, Rosgvardiya, was created specifically to quash any internal dissent).

(from a different answer)

tchrist

I haven't had covid. The boyhood friend I went camping with a little more than a week ago also has come down with something like a cold, at the same time. But he too has tested negative. So far.

CowperKettle

The Russian Guard, the Rosgvardia, are really numerous.

tchrist

I've heard that.

Cerberus

03:57

@tchrist Oh, dear. Are common colds common, currently?

tchrist

@Cerberus Perversely enough, they are indeed.

Cerberus

I see.

tchrist

But Boulder County had 300 new covid cases yesterday.

CowperKettle

My friend said that a former classmate of hers, a "c-grade" schoolboy, now earns more than her after being recruited in Rosgvardia. She has s higher education, he has not. And he will be retired with a state pention a lot earlier than she, if he continues to serve.

Cerberus

We're in some kind of summer wave, too.

tchrist

03:58

Don't go to Luxembourg.

Damn, the exploding rockets are loud!!

Cerberus

@CowperKettle I think this happens in various countries.

tchrist

At least they don't freak out the cats like they do the dogs.

Cerberus

Rockets?

tchrist

Pyrotechnics. Premature fireworks. Illegals.

They go down to my lake and shoot them off every night about 10pm the whole week before Independence Day. They scamper off before they can be caught.

I guess if they're shooting them over the lake, there's little danger. I'm just fire-shy.

Cerberus

Ah, I see.

tchrist

04:01

A week ago last night I stayed up till 2am watching them put out a fire in the hillsides behind me. From my bed.

Many places have cancelled their large civic fireworks displays again this year. But it's not QUITE so bad as in previous years.

My cat just brought in a dead rabbit. Sigh. I have to go clean this up.

Cerberus

Good luck.

CowperKettle

04:29

Word of the day: laccolith (a body of intrusive rock with a dome-shaped upper surface and a level base, fed by a conduit from below.)

@tchrist I hope it does not catch any disease from other animals

I always feel weird calling a cat "it", instead of "he" or "she"

Dmitry Kolker died in police custody. An old scientist from Novosibirsk who was recently arrested under fake charges of "state treason".

Over the last several years, several scientists, some old and frail, have been charged with state treason for publishing un-classified information or giving lectures abroad, or compiling reviews based on un-classified, openly available information.

Dmitry Kolker was at the final state of pancreatic cancer, and his arrest was seen as utterly barbaric.

Days after him, a different scientist, also old, was arrested for state treason.

The machine of terror was launched and it will operate because its component parts need salaries and promotins.

CowperKettle

05:10

> SS Princess May was a steamship built in 1888. Her engines were so powerful that she managed to run on the rocks in this way.

CowperKettle

10:27

Did China Really Create a Human Brain Level AI Supercomputer? Here's What They Did

►

ConGovDeIn

@CowperKettle

Do you have any experience with Arthritis?

CowperKettle

10:45

@ConGovDeIn Thankfully, no. I have met a guy who loved long-distance running, but now has arthritis and is unable to run. He looked pale, I guess from the methotrexate

He still visits long runs, but as a fotographer, and to chat with friends.

I know very little of this disease, although I translated some technical documents related to the production of anti-arthritis drugs.

ConGovDeIn

11:13

@CowperKettle Oh that’s awesome

Faheem Mitha

11:28

@tchrist I'm confused by this statement. Copper is an element, like iron. It doesn't contain any iron, let alone "too little" iron. Is this a quote from somewhere?

Possibly from apx-enclosures.com/apx-blog/metals-that-dont-rust

Unless that's itself copied from somewhere else.

CowperKettle

11:58

@Cerberus I was talking about the coup performed by Lukashenko when he rewrote the results of elections and kept himself in power.

Robusto

#Worldle #163 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Mitch

@CowperKettle OMG

He said 'in our noggins'

Robusto

@CowperKettle Interesting that the Chinese characters for that computer (天河) mean "sky river" which is the Chinese and Japanese term for the Milky Way galaxy.

Mitch

12:14

But that video was for once sane, and not credulous like the other stuff that comes out of the general media

CowperKettle

@Mitch Because that guy seems to be a very good science reporter

Mitch

And note that he points out that the site we've been using for fun is is DALL E mini which is a poorer version of openAI's

Robusto

Wordle 379 5/6

🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Mitch

@CowperKettle 'noggin' is denotationally correct, but very informal, and his prose is mostly very formal so it stood out.

M.A.R.

@Mitch okay, I suspect the case with gold and silver nanoparticles is that scientists made them, but the public was not gonna understand why it's exciting to develop a technology that allows you to produce nanoparticles of controlled size, so they then studied them and found that they have antimicrobial properties, and they were used in socks to kill bacteria.

CowperKettle

12:23

> Dykens and Rosner (1999) found that 100% of those with Williams syndrome were kind-spirited, 90% sought the company of others, 87% empathize with others' pain, 84% are caring, 83% are unselfish/forgiving, 75% never go unnoticed in a group, and 75% are happy when others do well.

Mitch

I like the idea of luxury socks

@CowperKettle those people are sick. Very sick

CowperKettle

We urgently need a cure for this horrible syndrome.

Mitch

They should be fixed

Haha jinx

CowperKettle

Living with Williams Syndrome (A Condition that Makes You Friendly)

►

> In one experiment, a group of children with Williams syndrome showed no signs of racial bias, unlike children without the syndrome. They did show gender bias, however, to a similar degree to children without the syndrome, suggesting separate mechanisms for these biases.

M.A.R.

I admit I know very little of the biochemistry of the bactericidal properties of heavy metals, but what I'm saying is, they were not selected for their antimicrobial properties. Rather, we found cheap ways to make nanoparticles, and came up with uses for that.

Mitch

12:26

@CowperKettle that's an interesting scientific question, how to distinguish by meachanism different biases

M.A.R.

The mechanism I suspect has to do with the fact that they're really strong catalysts for radical-forming reactions. Radicals are reactive and wreak havoc on living organisms. (Same reason UV is harmful)

Mitch

@M.A.R. the tail wagging the dog

I mean some dogs are very enthusiastic with their tail wagging

Maybe they have Williams syndrome for dogs

@M.A.R. so it wouldn't be great for the host organism either?

Or, why don't you get say foot rash with these socks?

M.A.R.

Which brings me to the next topic, which is selective toxicity. Chemotherapeutic agents (i.e. anything that kills cells, not just cancer drugs) are classified based on what they're toxic to. "Antibiotics" need to be toxic to bacteria but not to human cells.

CowperKettle

Embankment in Torzhok, a town in Russia, a photo made in 1910.

M.A.R.

Most bacteria have a peptidoglycan wall. You stop that from forming, they absorb water osmotically until they explode. Bacteria can make folic acid from p-aminobenzoic acid, but mammalian cells cannot. So you make a drug that looks like PABA, it stops bacteria from making folic acid, and it stops their growth, or kills them. That's selective toxicity

CowperKettle

12:31

The same location, July 2022.

M.A.R.

Gold is not selectively toxic, so it's not an antibiotic. You can maybe call it an antiseptic.

CowperKettle

Antifolates are also used to kill tumors.

And to find tumors, special fluorescent agents latching onto the folate receptors are used.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle yeah, and those antifolates have a much higher affinity for the human enzyme that makes folate, so they can't kill bacteria

The third aspect is particle size. If you ingest gold, you'd probably get a terrible diarrhea, I dunno, and maybe some extra complications in the intestines. But it will almost be undetectable in your blood.

CowperKettle

What is Edible Gold Leaf [ Cake Decorating For Beginners ]

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M.A.R.

That's because what's absorbed from the intestinal mucosa needs to have certain properties, most important of which is to dissolve in the juice. So normal gold will just ruin your intestinal flora, depending on the dose

Mitch

12:37

@M.A.R. excellent

puts away gold leaf

M.A.R.

Gold and silver nanoparticles used in socks have a defined size range, largely depending on the method of manufacture and how you're keeping them. It's very unlikely that this size range significantly overlaps with the size range for ingestible nanoparticles, but because they're nanoparticles, they'd still have more than the usual number of the particles in the size distribution to pass through the gap junctions in the intestinal brush border

So they will probably cause much higher serum levels and more serious toxicity

They will probably elicit immune responses, so maybe some general flu-like malaise is to be expected. They may not be excreable, so they would accumulate in the body. And also in the fish.

@Mitch thing is most of us have unbalanced flora, because of low fiber consumption or other reasons, so if the rich add some gold to their food it may have a slight chance of making them feel better, and not just out of admitting "I'm so rich I'm shitting gold"

However, I've seen some traditional medicine, erm, gurus adding gold to their medicaments because "it's good for your body", and I'm very skeptical it does anything, or anything useful. So it's not therapeutically effective. At all.

Mitch

I'm still not sure given all you've said whether I should stop eating my socks

@M.A.R. indian restaurants here will sometimes put gold leaf or silver leaf on their rice pudding. It seems .... childish?

jlliagre

When Gold Doesn't Glitter: medicaldiscoverynews.com/shows/256-gold.html

M.A.R.

@Mitch it stimulates saliva secretion, which has known health benefits

Carry on

Mitch

Oh

@jlliagre also the gold in 1499 was probably not as good as nowadays?

Having said that it probably was just as good, just because gold doesn't really need to be refined

M.A.R.

12:57

@jlliagre hm, I think the mechanism I suggested may be right. When free radicals in the body are increased, three groups of cells are the most vulnerable: 1) Red blood cells, because they're basically a huge blob of hemoglobin, and they lack the extensive protective systems other cells have against radicals, 2) rapidly growing cells, because DNA is constantly being made and broken, and errors happen more often, like in the bone marrow and hair, and 3) cardiac cells, because 1

@Mitch also sounds like they do it because it's gold, not because it's good, but I can't say for certain.

Mitch

I heard that 'stopping free radicals' which really started off in the 90's and had a lot of promise, didn't pan out and therapies don't really work

M.A.R.

Well, I dunno what you're referring to, but you can't and shouldn't "stop free radicals". They're involved in some of the most important reactions in cells, such as certain reactions during respiration. It's just that something like 99% of the enzymes in cells work with two electrons, and radicals have that odd electron that screws things up

We're looking for ways to 'prevent' cancer by mitigating damage to tumor suppressor genes in the DNA, but I think only idly because treating cancer is far easier and anyway cancer treatment is far from perfect

Robusto

@M.A.R. Did you read about the recent cancer treatment study that got rid of tumors 100%? I don't recall the details, but it seemed too good to be true.

M.A.R.

BBL lunch at 6 p.m.

Cerberus

13:14

@CowperKettle Yeah, I figured.

CowperKettle

14:34

Journalist Maria Ponomarenko has been placed in a psychiatric clinic for a month, for "diagnostics". She had been earlier arrested for her comments on the special operation.

Mitch

14:50

Free-radical theory of aging

The free radical theory of aging (FRTA) states that organisms age because cells accumulate free radical damage over time. A free radical is any atom or molecule that has a single unpaired electron in an outer shell. While a few free radicals such as melanin are not chemically reactive, most biologically relevant free radicals are highly reactive. For most biological structures, free radical damage is closely associated with oxidative damage. Antioxidants are reducing agents, and limit oxidative damage to biological structures by passivating them from free radicals.Strictly speaking, the free radical...

What this says here mostly accords with what I've heard, that free radicals are 'bad' and treatments to reduce them should reduce the incidence of degenerative diseases. Along with this it seems that there is a substantial subindustry of 'medications' that claim to reduce free radicals. And I've also heard that these claims are close to charlatanism.

Which is to say that I don't doubt that free radicals are a contributing factor to degeneration. I also don't doubt what you say, that they are also necessary for some reactions.

What I do wonder is if attempts at reducing free radicals (as claimed charlatanistically) might still have some promise in staving off degenerative disease (as believed in the 80's). Maybe the tech isn't working out because it's just hard and they just need some more tech to break through? Or maybe it was all stupid to begin with?

So, is there something to reducing free radicals that could help or are you saying they're totally necessary and more of them is beneficial?

I think you're spot on John. Hopefully anyone looking for context with regard to the Chomsky-Harris discussion will find your response. This should be the accepted answer. — John Jun 6 at 19:47

That comment was written by ... John. Practically Trumpian in its audacity.

Faheem Mitha

15:48

@Robusto That was a very specific kind of cancer, and a very specific class of patient.

Why do you think it was too good to be true? It's not a general solution.

M.A.R.

@Mitch oh, that aging thing. My point is, free radicals are always generated and often completely gotten rid of in the body. Something that causes an uptick in radical production, or lowers the cells' ability to turn free radicals into harmless products will ultimately lead to cellular damage. When this happens in cells that are irreplaceable, like neurons, it eventually leads to certain neurodegenrative diseases.

If we interrupt this process at certain places, we could prevent or delay the undesirable overall outcome. One potential target would be to lower free radicals, although since these are supposed to be extremely short-lived anyway, I don't know how we're going to proceed towards that goal.

When we say a certain herbal compound or alkaloid prevents or delays these diseases, they simply enhance the cells' ability to deal with oxidative stress, so the excess chemical species that contain oxygen are more immediately gotten rid of, lowering the chance that radicals would be generated

This is a very general and vague overall scheme of things. There's no miracle going on, and in fact because you need a lot of these antioxidants to exert an important physiologic effect, they wouldn't make very good drugs either. They can't cure or treat anything, they're just beneficial in the long run if they're included in your diet

@Robusto fusion products and antibodies will revolutionize medicine. They're just entirely different things than conventional drugs. The few pitfalls that make the results seem less glamorous are:

As @Faheem mentioned, this is about a certain cancer, although I haven't checked which. Cancer etiologies can be quite varied. You have dangerous cancers that progress very rapidly, and are highly metastatic, but are easier to treatment, because cancer cells keep dividing and dividing and that's easy to prevent. You have cancers that might not even progress, but are also significantly harder to treat, because the cells have stabilized themselves and are not easily disrupted.

You also have hybrid cancers that are a mixture of both.

The other pitfall is that biological drugs are much more difficult to manufacture, isolate, store and even administer. They're very expensive, we're talking tens of thousands of dollars a vial. So even if we treat or cure cancers and other rare important diseases, right now it's not economically feasible to expand this technology for other treatments

Also, I'd wager 95 percent is as good as 100 for that trial, just not as glorious. Plus, the trial is quite small in scale, according to the news, so there is some time before anyone can be sure the drug is not just "promising"

Faheem Mitha

16:12

@M.A.R. The patients also had certain characteristics. Some gene was present in all of them, or something like that. I forget - I can never remember medical or biological stuff.

M.A.R.

All in all, this is not extraordinary. The most likely outcome is, even in patients that will be able to afford this drug in addition to cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy costs, it will be an adjunct to standard anti-cancer regimens for that particular cancer.

Some day we will come up with a single procedure involving safer agents that will replace the notoriously difficult cancer treatments we have today, but this is not it

@FaheemMitha it's possible that certain gene complicates treatment and lowers chances of success, so they were actually trying to treat the cases that were the hardest to tackle

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Perhaps. I didn't read carefully.

Vikas

17:40

@M.A.R. Reminds me of my past job where it was so hectic that I would have to lunch just before dinner time. Around 7 PM.

Faheem Mitha

17:58

@CowperKettle Is the special operation the invasion of Ukraine?

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha yes, he's being sarcastic

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. I thought maybe it was a quote.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha poor Cowp's been helplessly watching the decline of his country accelerate these past few months. He's probably feeling very embittered

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Yes, I can imagine it can't be much fun. Though we over here are in a not dissimilar position. Though 2014 in our case.

M.A.R.

And he can't seem to be able to stop following the news, and the news is ever more outrageous, in that provocative sort of way

Faheem Mitha

18:02

@M.A.R. We seem to get nothing but bad news here every day. Every day, a new outrage.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha sure, same thing here, but I feel like what happens in Iran just becomes my future talking points in an argument with a conservative. Just cheap ammunition for my cheap, ineffectual verbal gun.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. I don't follow.

M.A.R.

So even when things seem so despairing that I do that bitter laugh of mine, I have to remind myself that, in a way, they only matter if I had the ability to do something about them.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Do they also lock up journalists who say things the govt does not like in Iran?

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha of course. If Assange didn't stand a chance, I don't think conscientious journalists in Asian countries stand much of a chance either

Faheem Mitha

18:09

@M.A.R. Oh, sorry to hear that. It's been going on a while over here, but it seems to be escalating.

This isn't historically unusual, but the scale of it is.

I can't say I ever liked Ms. Gandhi for example, but it never seemed to occur to her to go after the press. Her attitude seemed to be that people could say what they liked.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha here it's becoming more inconsistent. On the one hand everyone is getting bolder, as that invisible pressure drives people to edge closer to the truth. On the other hand, quite a few journalists are bought off that make outlandish claims of the sort Cowp links from Russian journalists, and the crackdown has become both more erratic and more severe

Faheem Mitha

And the Assange thing is really appalling, but not at all surprising. Or only surprising if you are delusional about what the UK and the US are, and what they stand for. Of course, lots of people are delusional on that topic.

@M.A.R. Hmm. I suppose it's inconsistent here too. They can't go after everyone. Or at least, not yet. It's unclear how much of this sort of thing Indians will tolerate. I'm just hoping people will come to their senses before India is on fire.

Sometimes I wonder if, when the Red Army was advancing on Berlin in 1945, the morons who has voted for the Nazis thought: "perhaps we made a mistake".

M.A.R.

In other words, if you piss off some sadistic intelligence agent, you're a goner. If not, you can probably childishly yell and quote buzzwords that no one will pay much attention to

(That's a pet peeve of mine too. Even if the journalist's heart is in the right place, it seems we really don't have a medium for rational debate anymore. Everyone is yelling and being emotionally manipulative to get what they want)

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. In the press, or on "social media", or both?

M.A.R.

Both. Everywhere that I know of really

Faheem Mitha

18:17

@M.A.R. You mean in Iran, or generally internationally?

I read good journalism. Some of it is Indian. Some of it is written by Indians, but not in India. I know very little about what is going on in Iran, though.

M.A.R.

In Iran. Of course it's broadly true as well internationally.

I just think it's worse here.

And by that I mean news about Iran of course. Even when it's international news.

At least we don't have eco-terrorism, that I know of

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. News about Iran even when it's international news? That's confusingly worded.

M.A.R.

Right, sorry, I'm running out of English again. I mean often even when it's foreign media outlets that criticize a valid social or political issue in Iran, they tend to miss the mark a bit.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. That's not surprising. Though the international journalism about India that I'e read is often quite good. Though I don't read a lot of different periodicals.

For example, Counterpunch isn't much interested in India. But that they publish about India is generally at least reasonable, and usually on point.

For example in 2013-2015, their reaction to what was going on was pretty accurate, as it turns out. Though I wasn't reading Counterpunch at that time.

Also the Guardian coverage of India is reasonable in general, though generally not as insightful as Counterpunch. Then again, the Guardian is part of the British corporate media.

M.A.R.

My impression is the only few foreigners who know what's really going on here are people who I'd rather not read stuff from. Military staff, intelligence agents, that sort. Of course when, say, BBC so wisely indicate that Iran needs to work on women rights, they're vague enough to be right.

Faheem Mitha

18:25

@M.A.R. Why would you rather not read their stuff?

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha it'd be pretty boring, or maybe malicious.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Well, if it's accurate...

M.A.R.

Everyone else is stuck somewhere between "Iran is awesome but Mullahs ruined it" to "are Iranians less uncivilized than Iraqis and Afghans?"

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. I must admit that I know almost nothing about Iran myself. Except that I've always found Persian women very pretty.

I've not met many of them, though.

I used to hang out with an Iranian chap for a bit in the early 1990s. He was trying to study in Bombay. I wonder what happened to him.

I seem to remember he went back to Iran.

Mohsen, his name was. Or something like that.

M.A.R.

Nice name, I've always liked that name

I think others are clueless about Iranians the way I'm clueless about North Korea.

Faheem Mitha

18:32

Does Iran take any interest in anything that happens in the Indian subcontinent?

M.A.R.

You only hear what they can't or won't do, not what they will. So you can't imagine how they live, except it's probably not good.

@FaheemMitha nope, sorry, not enough Israel there

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Huh?

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha our foreign policy revolves around hiding behind Russia and China's back in global issues and despising Israel and America. Beyond that, sure, a meeting or two about selling oil

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. You mean your country has restricted interests? :-)

M.A.R.

If you look at the media, it's not so much "What is our disposition towards India?" as "How much should we hate India?" measured in the number of handshakes with American politicians per unit of time

Bhutan? Nepal? Sri Lanka? Well, maybe once a year we glance in that direction but we were looking for China and we slipped

Pakistan became momentarily important a while back because we were having an arms race (get it? You need arms to shake hands) with UAE and Saudi Arabia on who befriends the most Pakistani politicians

Faheem Mitha

18:46

@M.A.R. People should probably pay more attention to India. One out of every five people on Earth is Indian, approximately.

M.A.R.

19:04

@FaheemMitha people should pay more attention to China too, beyond the handful of conveniently detestable Chinese politicians, but it's true that they're not even paying attention to Indian politicians and what they stand for

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Yes, people should pay more attention to China as well.

Though I think in general China gets more attention than India.

Mitch

19:47

@M.A.R. well that last one is true

ducks and runs

@FaheemMitha wait what happened ~2013-2015 that you keep mentioning? I'm probably being dense I just can't remember

Faheem Mitha

@Mitch The (Indian) Nazi takeover.

Which was actually in 2013. But anyone who paid attention knew what was going on. That didn't apparently include the Indian media, though.

@Mitch And do I keep mentioning it?

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