I wonder if any of the more scientifically minded people on here could help me, please.

[Horsa]

I don't know much about these particular birds but I note they belong to different families (Muscicapidae and Turdidae), so the common name "Robin" for both is just coincidence and more precisely ignorance of early taxonomists describing American wildlife.
Identical case in my part of the world is a common name "Australian Magpie" (Gymnorhina tibicen) which belongs to Artamidae family (i.e. butcherbird) & has nothing to do with European magpie (Pica pica) belonging to corvidae family (i.e. raven).

Thank you very much for the information.

This is the American robin. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/a/american-robin/

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Thank you very much for the information. It is fascinating.

I do use the new measurements sometimes but was taught in some old measurements & my friends & family use old measurements. I love antiques including books & read the antique books I've got. I don't do research on the internet unless forced but I read a lot. Most of what I say comes straight off the top of my head & I ask questions before looking things up using research as a last resort but if I'm doing research I normally do it the old way which means if I get my information from old books I use old measurements. I can read books for longer without taking a break as Health & Safety advises only being on a P.C. for 2 hours at a time + my internet is quite slow so I prefer to research the old way though sometimes I give myself a bit of a bit of a break & watch T.V. series I've got on D.V.D.'s with the answer on. It's the lazy way I know but I work myself so hard I need to give myself a bit of a break sometimes. Mind you, I remember doing dictation class at school & when I do research from T.V. series I've got on D.V.D. I dictate then I look through, pick out what I really need to know & copy that out then re-read to make sense of it before paraphrasing it & putting a bit of me into it. I don't just quote without acknowledging & using quotation marks.

Now I know where your use of miles comes from. I should have remembered that you don't use inet as your primary resource because you've asserted that. Thanks for that reminder and of course no worries.
The units you use also depends what culture you're immersed in. While living in US, I was forced to use Fahrenheits because otherwise I would not be understood (by co-workers, at parties, by docs etc.). On NASA webpages about astronomy, that I read sometimes, they use feet & miles & finally parsecs. I'm comfortable with only the latest while I have to keep miles to km converter handy. But not all Americans use imperial units. Example most climate scientists there use Celsius & km. Why? Because CS is a global science (as it should be according to the climate impacts) so they must unify their measurements with their friends & colleges across the world, and the only reasonable unification is to use SI units. However they explain their work to American audiences (when delivering public speeches) in both SI & imperial units. And they are very good at e.g. translating F to C (as I was when I lived there).
We are living in different era now when everything is on inet so easily accessible. With such ease of access to knowledge, comes the responsibility: when you're talking about something & if you find a piece of knowledge on the net, it's always better to put a link to it rather than copy bits of text with paraphrasing, as you described above. Even if you decide to copy and paraphrase to add your bit, you'd better include the link to the original to let the audience know the information is not completely yours. You can add a piece of explanation, e.g. this link is the best information, IMO about the topic, I'm explaining it here in my own words. That way you show that you understand the issue and agree with the original authors. That way, your work cannot be interpreted as plagiarism. And there is nothing bad about such style, in fact your own words you've added can be valuable if they better communicate the complex information to your audience.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Thank you very much for the information.

This is the American robin. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/a/american-robin/

So you can see the difference in your link, right? American bird looks like a thrush: powerful hooked beak, strong talons.
While robin, which must be very familiar to you, is like a sparrow: small beak and small legs. Former can run and catch bigger worms and destroy them with his hook, while the latter can catch small insects and on the ground just hop around; if he catches any worms, it will be much smaller prey. Calling those birds by the same name, just because they happen to have similar colours is a big mistake.

 

[Horsa]

Now I know where your use of miles comes from. I should have remembered that you don't use inet as your primary resource because you've asserted that. Thanks for that reminder and of course no worries.
The units you use also depends what culture you're immersed in. While living in US, I was forced to use Fahrenheits because otherwise I would not be understood (by co-workers, at parties, by docs etc.). On NASA webpages about astronomy, that I read sometimes, they use feet & miles & finally parsecs. I'm comfortable with only the latest while I have to keep miles to km converter handy. But not all Americans use imperial units. Example most climate scientists there use Celsius & km. Why? Because CS is a global science (as it should be according to the climate impacts) so they must unify their measurements with their friends & colleges across the world, and the only reasonable unification is to use SI units. However they explain their work to American audiences (when delivering public speeches) in both SI & imperial units. And they are very good at e.g. translating F to C (as I was when I lived there).
We are living in different era now when everything is on inet so easily accessible. With such ease of access to knowledge, comes the responsibility: when you're talking about something & if you find a piece of knowledge on the net, it's always better to put a link to it rather than copy bits of text with paraphrasing, as you described above. Even if you decide to copy and paraphrase to add your bit, you'd better include the link to the original to let the audience know the information is not completely yours. You can add a piece of explanation, e.g. this link is the best information, IMO about the topic, I'm explaining it here in my own words. That way you show that you understand the issue and agree with the original authors. That way, your work cannot be interpreted as plagiarism. And there is nothing bad about such style, in fact your own words you've added can be valuable if they better communicate the complex information to your audience.

You're welcome.

I think you mis-read me here. I copy into hand-writing 1st then paraphrase after not just copy out of books. I'm not stupid. I always show I understand & nothing I write can ever be seen as plagiarism nor has it ever been. There are limited ways of saying some things though. The information you pulled me up over "the sun is 91-94 million miles away depending on earth's orbit at the time as the earth doesn't travel round the sun in a circular but an elliptical motion" only has so many ways of being rephrased but I did use my own words as usual. Remember when I said that according to a book I was reading & I stated the name of the book later. See that proves what I said! Most of the time I write spontaneously anyway. I know. I simplify everything for everyone because I'm used to having to do that for people. I'm the most original & creative person you could ever wish to meet. I've told you before that I'm no google-brain who just looks things up to have something to say. I am who I am. I admit who I am & I admit when I don't know something. If other people think I'm thick because of it that's up to them.

 

[Horsa]

So you can see the difference in your link, right? American bird looks like a thrush: powerful hooked beak, strong talons.
While robin, which must be very familiar to you, is like a sparrow: small beak and small legs. Former can run and catch bigger worms and destroy them with his hook, while the latter can catch small insects and on the ground just hop around; if he catches any worms, it will be much smaller prey. Calling those birds by the same name, just because they happen to have similar colours is a big mistake.

I can indeed. I agree. I don't get how ornithologists do things myself at times. E.g. the scientific name for the European magpie is the pica pica & the scientific name for the grey partridge is the perdix perdix. The scientific names for these birds have words repeated twice while the normal name isn't. Why is this? The word peregrinations means travels & can be used to mean travels of anyone or anything though the peregrinations of peregrine falcons sounds lovely. Why isn't the word peregrinations restricted to peregrine falcons only or were peregrine falcons named after the word peregrinations because they travel a lot?

 

[Chris Koziarz]

You're welcome.

I think you mis-read me here. I copy into hand-writing 1st then paraphrase after not just copy out of books. I'm not stupid. I always show I understand & nothing I write can ever be seen as plagiarism nor has it ever been. There are limited ways of saying some things though. The information you pulled me up over "the sun is 91-94 million miles away depending on earth's orbit at the time as the earth doesn't travel round the sun in a circular but an elliptical motion" only has so many ways of being rephrased but I did use my own words as usual. Remember when I said that according to a book I was reading & I stated the name of the book later. See that proves what I said! Most of the time I write spontaneously anyway. I know. I simplify everything for everyone because I'm used to having to do that for people. I'm the most original & creative person you could ever wish to meet. I've told you before that I'm no google-brain who just looks things up to have something to say. I am who I am. I admit who I am & I admit when I don't know something. If other people think I'm thick because of it that's up to them.

I know you're far from plagiarism. Thanks for your clarification. I was thinking more of myself, or in general how in these days, we should quote the inet resources we base our knowledge on, even though I use pronoun "you". Also, if i decide to quote anything, i always bring the quoted text unchanged, including emphasis, even if badly written (with 'sic'), so that no one can accuse me of distorting the meaning of what the original author said. My interpretation of the original text might be wrong but such mistake is simple to correct, but misquoting others is much worse practice, especially in scientific community.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

I can indeed. I agree. I don't get how ornithologists do things myself at times. E.g. the scientific name for the European magpie is the pica pica & the scientific name for the grey partridge is the perdix perdix. The scientific names for these birds have words repeated twice while the normal name isn't. Why is this? The word peregrinations means travels & can be used to mean travels of anyone or anything though the peregrinations of peregrine falcons sounds lovely. Why isn't the word peregrinations restricted to peregrine falcons only or were peregrine falcons named after the word peregrinations because they travel a lot?

I am not an ornithologist. But I think ornithological names follow botanical names, in a sense that that they are always two-parts: first is the genus and second is the word discriminating the species. A botanical example where I'm more familiar:
Lonicera Japonica Lonicera means honeysuckle genus (there are many plants therein) and the plant from Japan.
I just looked up at your magpie (pica pica) example and found that the genus pica contains all magpies throughout the world. Of course with an exception of Australian Magpie: a common misnomer. I don't know why they gave the European magpie a species discriminator identical to its genus, maybe they wanted to stress that this is the "main" or best known representative of the genus.
I hope it clears species scientific naming for you a bit.
WRT peregrine falcons, the emphasised is true: the species name comes from its travel. And peregrinations is indeed an English word used mainly by experts but not only in relation to falcons, rather all migrating birds. This species is one of the rare occasions when the common name makes as much sense as the scientific one (Falco peregrinus); they are in fact identical in verbatim sense. I happen to know that many other languages do name this species in exact careful way:
French: faucon pèlerin [En. pilgrim]
Spanish: Halcón peregrino
Polish: Sokol wedrowny [En. traveling]
Such unique species it is that people have been so careful in naming it!

 

[Horsa]

I know you're far from plagiarism. Thanks for your clarification. I was thinking more of myself, or in general how in these days, we should quote the inet resources we base our knowledge on, even though I use pronoun "you". Also, if i decide to quote anything, i always bring the quoted text unchanged, including emphasis, even if badly written (with 'sic'), so that no one can accuse me of distorting the meaning of what the original author said. My interpretation of the original text might be wrong but such mistake is simple to correct, but misquoting others is much worse practice, especially in scientific community.

You're welcome. I understand. Links are good for the reasons you state. Internet research can be good because it's quick & easy but it's so easy for people to just copy & paste from 1 page to another. I get you. It is indeed. As our Mother-tongues are different some misunderstanding is forced to happen at times even though your English is very good. Although my communication skills are excellent sometimes I don't use them as well as I should especially if I get flustered.

 

[Horsa]

I am not an ornithologist. But I think ornithological names follow botanical names, in a sense that that they are always two-parts: first is the genus and second is the word discriminating the species. A botanical example where I'm more familiar:
Lonicera Japonica Lonicera means honeysuckle genus (there are many plants therein) and the plant from Japan.
I just looked up at your magpie (pica pica) example and found that the genus pica contains all magpies throughout the world. Of course with an exception of Australian Magpie: a common misnomer. I don't know why they gave the European magpie a species discriminator identical to its genus, maybe they wanted to stress that this is the "main" or best known representative of the genus.
I hope it clears species scientific naming for you a bit.
WRT peregrine falcons, the emphasised is true: the species name comes from its travel. And peregrinations is indeed an English word used mainly by experts but not only in relation to falcons, rather all migrating birds. This species is one of the rare occasions when the common name makes as much sense as the scientific one (Falco peregrinus); they are in fact identical in verbatim sense. I happen to know that many other languages do name this species in exact careful way:
French: faucon pèlerin [En. pilgrim]
Spanish: Halcón peregrino
Polish: Sokol wedrowny [En. traveling]
Such unique species it is that people have been so careful in naming it!

Thank you very much for the information. That's fascinating. Maybe so. I know. Peregrinations is used to describe many travels but mainly by birds.

 

[Horsa]

Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile in 1800 which he later improved & was called the voltaic cell which was the 1st ever battery. I've got 2 questions following on from this.

1. How different is the modern battery from Volta's?
2. Is this where we get the electric measurement of Volts from?

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile in 1800 which he later improved & was called the voltaic cell which was the 1st ever battery. I've got 2 questions following on from this.

1. How different is the modern battery from Volta's?
2. Is this where we get the electric measurement of Volts from?

1. I don't remember from school but I found here that Volta pile was simply a series of copper and zinc discs separated by piece of cloth soaked in brine. A very primitive and inefficient setup, although it looked as Volta knew to connect the cells in series to add the electric potentials. Today's batteries are in principle the same, only more efficient. Which means different electrolytes and different electrode materials, electrodes placed close together, separated by thin porous material, everything enclosed in usually sealed compartment. All of it to increase the efficiency of ion flow (i.e. the current we can draw), amount of energy we can store and safety. There are 3 main types of betteries: lead/acid (car starters or deep cycle betteries to store solar energy), lithium-ion and & nickel-cadmium (for electronics).
2. Not in a sense you might think. Volt is defined as the electric potential energy per unit of charge, i.e.: 1V is the electric potential you get when you charge an ideal electric system with 1 Coulomb of charge, with 1 Joule of energy. Conversely, when you discharge 1Coulomb and you get from the resulting current 1 Joule of energy, the discharge was occurring at the potential of 1 Volt. Another way to remember what is Volt as a unit is to recall a simple equation from the school
1W = 1A*1V or eqivalent: 1V=1W/1A
So 1 Volt is the electric potential which produces 1 Watt of power when it forces a flow of 1 Ampere of current. Because 1 Ampere is defined as a flow of 1 Coulomb per 1 sec, while 1 Joule is 1 W * 1 sec, both definitions are equivalent.
Said abstract electric system we are talking about does not need to be a chemical battery, it can be can be e.g. a magnetic force where electricity is generated by induction, This is the most common way of generating voltage in electric power plants.

 

[Horsa]

1. I don't remember from school but I found here that Volta pile was simply a series of copper and zinc discs separated by piece of cloth soaked in brine. A very primitive and inefficient setup, although it looked as Volta knew to connect the cells in series to add the electric potentials. Today's batteries are in principle the same, only more efficient. Which means different electrolytes and different electrode materials, electrodes placed close together, separated by thin porous material, everything enclosed in usually sealed compartment. All of it to increase the efficiency of ion flow (i.e. the current we can draw), amount of energy we can store and safety. There are 3 main types of betteries: lead/acid (car starters or deep cycle betteries to store solar energy), lithium-ion and & nickel-cadmium (for electronics).
2. Not in a sense you might think. Volt is defined as the electric potential energy per unit of charge, i.e.: 1V is the electric potential you get when you charge an ideal electric system with 1 Coulomb of charge, with 1 Joule of energy. Conversely, when you discharge 1Coulomb and you get from the resulting current 1 Joule of energy, the discharge was occurring at the potential of 1 Volt. Another way to remember what is Volt as a unit is to recall a simple equation from the school
1W = 1A*1V or eqivalent: 1V=1W/1A
So 1 Volt is the electric potential which produces 1 Watt of power when it forces a flow of 1 Ampere of current. Because 1 Ampere is defined as a flow of 1 Coulomb per 1 sec, while 1 Joule is 1 W * 1 sec, both definitions are equivalent.
Said abstract electric system we are talking about does not need to be a chemical battery, it can be can be e.g. a magnetic force where electricity is generated by induction, This is the most common way of generating voltage in electric power plants.

Thank you very much for the information. When I asked question 2 I meant is that where we got the name volt from.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Thank you very much for the information. When I asked question 2 I meant is that where we got the name volt from.

You're welcome. The Volt name origin is rather obvious.

 

[Horsa]

You're welcome. The Volt name origin is rather obvious.

Not really. If you think about it, it could have been named after Voltaire. :0)

 

[Chris Koziarz]

I've read one of your links. Truly fascinating science. It's rather obvious why such non-invasive ground mapping techniques are important in e.g. road construction, dam safety, forensics and groundwater exploration to name just a few. The variety of techniques are the most interesting for me. The most obvious is electromagnetic induction both high and low frequency (lateral coils as in popular metal detectors) but also ground penetrating radar, seismic refractions resistivity, polarisation etc.
No surprise archaeologists use such services before they dig. It's more than obvious you want to know as much as possible about the type of the ground and its contamination before you start to dig.
Geophysics just remind me an old and mysterious job of a dowser. Believe it or not, those guys still exists, e.g. in my backyard http://www.dowsingaustralia.com/ I met one guy who tried to show me how to find water with his little pendulum. He found it quickly and surely and encouraged me to "feel" this big stream flowing some 5m under our feet but I felt nothing. Oh well, dowsers were very revered in my native town before the age of water piping: everybody used the dowsers to figure out where to dig a well. Now, dowsers are replaced by geophysicists because a machine that sends seismic signals and reads the ground conductivity and micro-sounds of water flows, can map all underground water much better.

I squeeze this archaeology news herein (following the discussion of the GPR and other archaeological tools and science behind them) because it's an interesting case.
One of the most famous Brit explorers (Matthew Flinders) well known down under here, grand-father of Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, who invented archaeology as we know it today, was a poor ex-convict who died young and was buried in literally a common graveyard. The graveyard was sitting virtually intact as an open public land and thought of as a memorial, and everything looked OK.
Sadly, someone came in and decided the park and the graveyard below it must be annihilated by a rail development project (paradoxically led by an Australian group Lendlease). So the brit archs are scrambling to find Matthew Flinders' remains, because the remains represent invaluable cultural heritage for both countries. Despite all the technology his grand-son helped to build, Matthew Flinders' body is difficult to find and may not be timely found.

 

[Horsa]

I squeeze this archaeology news herein (following the discussion of the GPR and other archaeological tools and science behind them) because it's an interesting case.
One of the most famous Brit explorers (Matthew Flinders) well known down under here, grand-father of Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, who invented archaeology as we know it today, was a poor ex-convict who died young and was buried in literally a common graveyard. The graveyard was sitting virtually intact as an open public land and thought of as a memorial, and everything looked OK.
Sadly, someone came in and decided the park and the graveyard below it must be annihilated by a rail development project (paradoxically led by an Australian group Lendlease). So the brit archs are scrambling to find Matthew Flinders' remains, because the remains represent invaluable cultural heritage for both countries. Despite all the technology his grand-son helped to build, Matthew Flinders' body is difficult to find and may not be timely found.

Thank you very much for sharing this news. Archaeology is fascinating. I knew who the 2 archaeologists were & think that it's disgusting that his grave could just be dug up & his remains put in an unmarked grave when he did so much for archaeology just so Londoners can have high-speed rail. (H.S.2 is going to go through our area too & a lot of us are protesting about it because we're going to have the mess & noise but none of the benefits as it's just going to pass us not stop here.)

 

[Horsa]

Why does natural history have the name it does when history hardly ever features as in it's not really a history but a science? Why are there so many sciences dedicated to life (animals & plants)? I mean you have biology (the science of life), then there's natural history, zoology (the study of animals) & botany (which deals with plants) to name but a few.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Why does natural history have the name it does when history hardly ever features as in it's not really a history but a science? Why are there so many sciences dedicated to life (animals & plants)? I mean you have biology (the science of life), then there's natural history, zoology (the study of animals) & botany (which deals with plants) to name but a few.

I'm also puzzled. IMO, it looks like a misnomer. Maybe its meaning changed overtime. Say, it meant to be an observation of plant/animal fossils, like some historians observe human artefacts dug by archaeologists... But that's just my guess.

 

[Horsa]

I'm also puzzled. IMO, it looks like a misnomer. Maybe its meaning changed overtime. Say, it meant to be an observation of plant/animal fossils, like some historians observe human artefacts dug by archaeologists... But that's just my guess.

Maybe. The mind still boggles. Thank you very much.

 

[Horsa]

Hello guys!

Did you know a new organ has been discovered in the human body in a place where they never realised there was an organ before because it was seen as tissue with lots of liquid-filled compartments in? Scientists hope that this discovery could bring to light more information about how cancer is spread.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...n-scientists-discovery-new-york-a8275851.html

I found this fascinating. I hope you do too.