Talk:Ham's tissue culture medium

Ham?

Who is actually Ham? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.171.98.134 (talk) 11:15, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Accurate sourced relevant information deleted from article

Now restored, see discussion below. Sandstein 17:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Ham's tissue culture medium is a growth medium for mammalian cells containing in amounts dissolved in 1 liter of triple distilled water:

L-Arginine  211 mg  
Biotin  0.024 mg
L-Histidine  21 mg  
Calcium pantothenate  0.7 mg
L-Lysine  29.3 mg  
Choline chloride  0.69 mg
L-Methionine  4.48 mg  
i-inositol  0.54 mg
L-Phenylalanine  4.96 mg  
Niacinamide  0.6 mg
L-Tryptophan  0.6 mg  
Pyridoxine hydrochloride  0.2 mg
L-Tyrosine  1.81 mg  
Riboflavin  0.37 mg
L-Alanine  8.91 mg  
Thymidine  0.7 mg
Glycine  7.51 mg   
Cyanocobalamin  1.3 mg
L-Serine  10.5 mg  
Sodium pyruvate  110 mg
L-Threonine  3.57 mg  
Lipoic acid  0.2 mg
L-Aspartic acid  13.3 mg  
CaCl2  44 mg
L-Glutamic acid  14.7 mg  
MgSO4.7H2O  153 mg
L-Asparagine  15 mg  
Glucose  1.1 g
L-Glutamine  146.2 mg  
NaCl  7.4 g
L-Isoleucine  2.6 mg  
KCl  285 mg
L-Leucine  13.1 mg  
Na2HPO4  290 mg
L-Proline  11.5 mg  
KH2PO4  83 mg
L-Valine  3.5 mg  
Phenol red  1.2 mg
L-Cysteine  31.5 mg  
FeSO4  0.83 mg
Thiamine hydrochloride  1 mg  
CuSO4.5H2O  0.0025 mg
Hypoxanthine  4 mg  
ZnSO4.7H2O  0.028 mg
Folic acid  1.3 mg  
NaHCO3  1.2 g

Discussion from User talk:Sandstein

Ham and eggs cells

You asked me:

Would you consider adding encyclopedic information to the article, e.g. what this solution is and what it is being used for (apart from growing cells in general)?" WAS 4.250 06:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

My response is that I did put in the article "what this solution is" and you deleted it as not encyclopedic. WAS 4.250 06:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. Well, what I deleted was dozens of lines of the following:

L-Arginine 211 mg

Biotin 0.024 mg

L-Histidine 21 mg

Calcium pantothenate 0.7 mg

which I think doesn't really help anyone except microbiologists trying to recreate the solution. But there is consensus that WP:NOT a repository for recipes (whether for sandwiches or growth solutions). What I meant was: is there information about the solution? Who invented it? For what uses is it better than other solutions? Now that would be useful encyclopedic information. Best regards, Sandstein 07:00, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

We agree on what you deleted. We disagree on whether an encyclopedia with over a million articles should be allowed to have articles in which part of some articles is only useful to a minority of readers. I would like you to seriously compare what you deleted with Monoidal category and rethink your deletion. For example: you deleted "Biotin 0.024 mg" which I find an interesting informative piece of information even though I am not a microbiologist. On the other hand

Given a field or commutative ring $R$, the category $R$-Mod of $R$-modules (in the case of a field, vector spaces) is a symmetric monoidal category with product ⊗ and identity $R$.

is mumbo jumbo to me. It would be wrong for me to delete that just because only a very very small minority of readers will find it useful. I suspect the majority of those who understand it, already know it, so who is it for. Let's delete it. we are not a place for people to store just any old thing. Um .. on the other hand, maybe an encyclopedia with room for articles on minor characters in minor TV shows can find room for other things too. I hope you will change your mind on what is fit for Wikipedia. By the way, this is not a food recipe even though it is dinner for the cells that grow in it. I find it very interesting to know exactly what substances are in the intercellular fluid of mammals and thus also have to be in this cell growth medium in order for them to multiply. I am saddened you do not share that. WAS 4.250 17:24, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes, "we are not a place for people to store just any old thing" in that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. But since you feel that this information is useful to our readers, and I'm not the one to dispute its notability, I'll revert the deletion and slap a {{context}} tag on it. My suggestion to add some information that is useful to the layman still stands (I can't do it since I have no clue about microbiology...). Best, Sandstein 17:43, 26 March 2006 (UTC)