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June 8

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Relations between Scientology and Science

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June 10

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Oxidisation states

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Which element has the most oxidation states? ~2026-34127-16 (talk) 00:01, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Please make at least an effort to find the answer before asking it here. Googling "Which element has the most oxidation states" brings up the Wikipedia page Oxidation state which clearly shows that Iridium has the highest number (13). --Guy Macon (talk) 05:37, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It’s not Magnesium (7 states)? ~2026-34127-16 (talk) 06:31, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You may be thinking of manganese there with 9. Magnesium has 3 states in the table. Gallium is listed with 9. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:53, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I count 11 states for manganese, 3 for Magnesium, and 13 for Iridium. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:50, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of entries in the table are pretty exotic, to be fair. Double sharp (talk) 16:37, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Criminals and lead poisoning

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In the United States and elsewhere, are those who are inmates or convicted criminals checked or researched for the possibility of lead poisoning?Rich (talk) 05:16, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Why would they be? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:37, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly a confusion between Lead poisoning and the Lead–crime hypothesis. The latter is statistical. There are many such statistical correlations. For example, males commit approximately 88% to 90% of all murders where the gender of the perpetrator is known. Also 35% to 38% of murderers are between 18 and 24 years old, compared to 7% to 10% for ages 40 to 49. The statistics tell the police nothing about whether an individual has committed a crime. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:52, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see what the confusion would be. I just asked if this is something that is done. Rich (talk) 09:06, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
...and I answered Baseball Bugs question, "Why would they be?" Which you didn't answer. What do you imaging the police would do with that information? They already have information (age and gender) which has a far larger effect, and (rightly) do nothing with it. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:37, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I took what you said all wrong, sorry.Rich (talk) 08:37, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Even supposing there's no good reason they would be, I just asked if it was done. Anyway criminologists might want to know what the results would be.Rich (talk) 09:16, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
No. It isn't done. Besides the obvious fact that cops don't gather data to help criminologists unless the criminologists pay them to do so, it would be a clear violation of the US constitution to take blood samples without probable cause. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:37, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Some of them might consent.Rich (talk) 03:11, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see that as an obvious fact at all. I don't think it's a fact. You should research before you answer.Rich (talk) 03:18, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Who said anything about cops gathering data? --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 23:22, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
See also Correlation does not imply causation. Shantavira|feed me 06:39, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I never said it did.And I never asked about correlation, and I never asked about causation. Rich (talk) 09:06, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What triggered your question? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:20, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is yes, there have been numerous studies addressing the issue; see this Google Scholar search. Alansplodge (talk) 11:39, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
thank you for the direct answer!Rich (talk) 05:42, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There's some very good studies showing there almost certainly is a link between lead poisoning from cars and crime. However I don't really see how a study of criminals would help, we already know poor neighbourhoods are more exposed to car fumes and criminals tend to come more from poor neighbourhoods. You'd need a lot more in there before you could produce a decent study showing anything more. NadVolum (talk) 11:56, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
But since the sale of leaded gasolene for ordinary cars was banned in the USA in 1996 (after being phased out for some years previously), this should be a declining issue. Alansplodge (talk) 12:46, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And it is, in fact the consistent time scale because different places banned it at different times is a strong indicator of the effect. NadVolum (talk) 13:31, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone is trying to put words in my mouth. Rich (talk) 03:12, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Are you opposed on principle to research?Rich (talk) 03:15, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Your behavior is coming dangerously close to violating WP:NPA, and it is starting to look like you didn't come to the reference desk with a good faith question, but rather to push a particular POV. You haven't reached the point where you should be reported for WP:NOTHERE, but that's the way it appears thjat you are going. Please stop this behavior now. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:09, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Guy, I think you need to disengage. If anyone's behaviour is out of line, it is yours. The OP clearly specified they're asking whether convicts get tested for lead levels. You seem to have confused "convict" with "suspect" and based your answers around that misapprehension. I can't formulate another reason why you keep invoking the role of the police, when they would not be involved in such testing in any way. Matt Deres (talk) 17:52, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Why would inmates or convicts be tested for lead poisoning? What would be the point? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:13, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A conjecture: if a convict/inmate learned that they had been affected by lead exposure that contributed in some way to their criminal behaviour (rather than their just being 'a bad person'), it might help their psychological resolve to rehabilitate. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-27434-43 (talk) 15:12, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A clever defense attorney might be interested. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:43, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed they would. If you have been arrested, your defense attorney is your friend and will use anything they can -- including the results of a blood test -- to help you. The police are not your friends. They will use it if it hurts you and ignore it if it helps you. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:09, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Police officers are not social workers or doctors. They have an important and vital job, but "helping your psychological resolve to rehabilitate" isn't part of it. Nor do interactions with the police give you the legal protection of your medical privacy that you get when talking to social workers or doctors.
If you are really interested in learning about whether you should give information to a police officer, I highly recommend joining the 21 million people who have watched this video:[1] --Guy Macon (talk) 16:09, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Neither the OP nor any other poster here has said anything about "giving information to a police office", or about involving police officers in any way in a putative study of lead pollution's effects on convicted criminals' behaviour individually or collectively.
Drop your stick and back away from the deceased equine that you yourself dragged in here.
Maybe also take on board that worldwide, police training and police behaviour differs from country to country. 95% of the World's population and its police officers are not American. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-27434-43 (talk) 01:27, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I got overly defensive, for which I'm sorry!Rich (talk) 05:56, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You were attacked, IMO for no good reason.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:50, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It's to Guy's credit that he is passionate about civil rights...I felt you unfairly attacked my pollution question as mistaken and didn't admit your own mistake, then you later said I had some kind of beef with you.Rich (talk) 13:13, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Looking back, you were correct that I had some kind of beef with you, (Lambiam). But I hope we can agree to drop all beefs whether you were wrong or if it was me who was wrong.Rich (talk) 02:38, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Meanwhile, you still haven't answered my original question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:20, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Scientific knowledge is in general good to have. Scientific knowledge about criminology can help public policies that tend to prevent criminality and can help criminals reform, and in this case might help victims of crimes sometimes forgive the perpetrators.Rich (talk) 13:08, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe. Or it could be used as an excuse by perps. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:15, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Your many questions about why I want to know made, and make, me wonder if you value scientific research.Rich (talk) Rich (talk) 13:25, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
your many questions about why I want to know made, and still make, me wonder if you value scientific research, or ar even opposed to scientific research on principle.Rich (talk) 13:28, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with research. I don't always agree with how it's used. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:47, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Just gathering statistics in general without a clear target can be very useful and I can see there possibly being statistics about lead in blood for prisoners being around from something like that - but as I said I don't think it would help show much about such a link. For a directed research topic one needs a clear idea of how the hypothesis would be shown or not. Ingenious studies have clearly shown a link, but they have gone about it quite differently. NadVolum (talk) 16:05, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This review gives you an idea of the various kinds of observational studies that have been carried out. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:08, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I've always wondered about that lead pipe... Martinevans123 (talk) 17:39, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it was quite chewy. Also worked well as a tiny pencil to make notes in your small unventilated bedroom about things like your mercury collection from broken thermometers or for playing with molten solder. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:27, 13 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Theodore Roethke was onto this: I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:18, 15 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 11

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Louth and Korolev crater locations on Mars

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To help readers of Korolev (Martian crater) and Louth (crater) get an idea of where they are located, can someone please point out the craters on a full-planet photo of Mars? Thanks, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 11:56, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If you click on the coordinates in the info box you get a map of Mars with the crated marked as a yellow dot. --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:24, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 15

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Types of long-term memory

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In established theory, is long-term memory ever divided into "segments" of shorter-long-term, longer-long-term, etc? I think of people I've known who have lost more recent memories but remember distant ones — thanks to vascular dementia, my grandfather remembered my father for years after he forgot who I was; thanks to cardiac arrest last week, an acquaintance has had to be told about his knee replacement last year, but when I visited he immediately asked about my two-year-old child; etc — but the Long-term memory article doesn't distinguish between more- and less-recent memories. I figured either Retrograde amnesia or Long-term memory would explain theory on segments of long-term memory, but as far as I'm seeing, no such division is mentioned in those articles. Is there such a division, or does standard theory account for this kind of thing in some other way? Note that I'm strictly discussing duration; the non-duration subsections of Long-term memory#Divisions (explicit, episodic, etc) aren't what I mean. Nyttend (talk) 10:01, 15 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Some researchers use the term "very long-term memory", for which I'm not sure there is a precise definition. In spite of countless experimental studies, there is no satisfactory theory of memory, or in fact of any aspect of higher human cognition.
Most people eventually forget almost everything they once knew well if the specific memory is not refreshed in some way every now and then. A subject's ability to recall a memory from a long time ago may have been mediated by an intermediary recall. Also, memory appears to be multimodal and have some redundancy; bits that are forgotten can often be reconstructed after recalling bits that were remembered. Some very old memories may as it were be protected by much higher redundancy than some more recent memories, and vice versa.
All in all, I don't think existing theory is up to giving a clear answer, partly because the theory is lacking, and partly because the phenomenon itself is not clear-cut.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:51, 15 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's a good assessment. Our article on the related concept of terminal lucidity is not in ideal shape, but you can see the struggles in the article somewhat mirror the struggles researchers have in studying the phenomenon: nobody denies that it happens, but there is no agreement at all on even on how to define it, let alone measure it (and, least of all, explain it). Any conjectures on these topics should be taken with a large amount of skepticism. Matt Deres (talk) 20:36, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 19

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Do any radio stations in the world ≤30MHz have '26 World Cup rights?

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AI says yes Woofferton, Ascension Island etc another session says no shortwave no longwave, intentionally weak mediumwave to minimize out of rights zone listeners. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:54, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Reddit's shortwave discussion groups says no.
In case you decide to try the Internet, read this:
--Guy Macon (talk) 03:52, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 21

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Plot with change in scale of axis

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(moved from Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Mathematics#Plot_with_change_in_scale_of_axis as recommended)
Note axes

I'd been corresponding with PJRay (talk · contribs) about File:Timeline_of_Superconductivity_from_1900_to_2015.svg which has the axis scales switching from 10 K to 50 K, and 40 years to 5 years per tick, though there are double dashes implying a broken axis. Is it considered acceptable, or is there a better way to indicate this?

An alternative using an inset

An alternative might be to draw the whole plot at a fixed scale, and add an inset magnifying the crammed area.

Thanks, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 22:33, 17 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The science section is a more appropriate venue for what is considered good practice in presenting scientific plots.
One thing I can say is that the axis breaks are not visually prominent and that I wouldn't have noticed them without explicit warning; also, I think that they normally represent a gap and that a discontinuous change of scale is highly unusual.
It would make sense to use a logarithmic scale for the temperature scale.  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:42, 18 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with a logarithmic scale for temperature and a (wider) linear scale for time in a single graph. JRSpriggs (talk) 13:24, 18 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the classic text in the field is Edward R. Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. (You can check this out on archive.org btw.) My point here is that this is not a field of study you can master in an hour, and I certainly don't claim to be an expert. That said, the broken axes in the original version do seem sketchy to me and the consensus seems to be that they are rarely a good idea. I'd also question whether you need all the information in the chart; perhaps leaving out all the points except "record holders" and leaving out the labels would remove the clutter without seriously affecting what the chart is trying to say. The details might be better presented in a table. Lambiam makes a good point here; scientists, who deal with this kind of issue all the time, might be better able to answer this question more easily than mathematicians. It's really a question of effective communication rather than mathematics. --RDBury (talk) 08:36, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
PS. On using broken axes in charts, this addtwodigital post seems to cover the main criticisms and discusses different alternatives. Again, it's a question of communication. What point is the chart trying to make? What is the target audience for the chart? You have to answer this questions before asking that is the "best" format. --RDBury (talk) 08:59, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, everyone. I'll move the question to the Science Desk. cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 15:06, 19 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia should not use the version with axis breaks. It is marginal for technical readers and completely misleading for the average Wikipedia user. Replace the chart with multiple charts if you can't fit the data into one consistent chart. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:57, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 23

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Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science&oldid=1360683948"