Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 March 22

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 22

Cruel Nazi research

(No, this is not about making human-chimpanzee hybrids) Is it possible, in principle, to surgically alter a human brain so as to make the victim incapable of rebellion or defiance? I've re-read Isaac Asimov's History of I-Botics a couple nights ago, and it got me thinking, is it even possible to create something like the Iron Major? 24.23.196.85 (talk) 06:33, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

A frontal lobotomy can do that.

Also, there's the legend that a voudou zombie is created by feeding the victim some type of poison, including part of a puffer fish, which puts the victim in a coma, which can be mistaken for death in warm climates (in cold climates the body not cooling down would be a clue). When the victim awakes, the part of the brain responsible for making decisions and free-will is destroyed, leaving the victim highly susceptible to following orders "mindlessly". StuRat (talk) 06:54, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

If there's a "part" of the brain responsible for free will, nobody has a clue where it is. --140.180.249.152 (talk) 07:00, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

How about the frontal lobe ? As our article states, frontal lobotomies can result in a lack of initiative. StuRat (talk) 07:05, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

There's no question that it's possible. Just destroy the brain completely and he'll be incapable of anything, or destroy the hippocampus (like Henry Molaison) so that he can't form any long-term memories. The answer depends more on what abilities you still want him to have than on what abilities you don't want him to have. --140.180.249.152 (talk) 07:00, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Anyone would be pretty incapable of rebellion or defiance if you severed the spinal cord in the neck. By the way, what's the nazi connection here? 202.155.85.18 (talk) 07:53, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know but it sounds more like Jeffrey Dahmer to me. He injected hydrochloric acid or boiling water in his victims' frontal lobes to try to make a Voudou zombie. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Dictatorships don't want to harm brain functions of its subjects because in that case, the subjects will be incapable of serving the dictator. To make the victim incapable of rebellion or defiance, the only way to do that is to impair their critical thinking ability through the use of extensive propaganda and formal education. This is how the subjects are used to serve the dictator without altering their brain anatomy. --PlanetEditor (talk) 11:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Of course, nowadays pretty much everybody is neurologically materialist, i.e. the brain determines thought, so any kind of propaganda which prejudices the recipient to a certain kind of thought essentially by definition must be reflected as some sort of physical change in the brain, even if it's so subtle/complex that we can't detect it physically. Gzuckier (talk) 14:41, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

A low protein diet is another option, which results in "brain fog". StuRat (talk) 15:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone! To avoid any confusion, my question was about surgical procedures that destroy a person's ability to rebel against his/her master without impeding his/her ability to perform assigned tasks -- in effect, making the person a slave without any hope of becoming free. And the reason why I asked is, as I've already said, I've recently re-read an Isaac Asimov novel in which the Nazis build a robot that actually uses the brains of Holocaust victims as its CPU (the brains having first been processed to eliminate their ability to rebel), but I had doubts whether such a machine could actually use the brains of enemies, or whether it would instead have to use the brains of Nazi recruits who had been brainwashed into making the supreme sacrifice for the Reich. Judging by the responses I see here, it would indeed be possible to use the brains of enemies (assuming, of course, that one could build such a machine, which is another matter). Once again, thanks! 24.23.196.85 (talk) 04:26, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Not merely possible, but inevitable. The key invention in the process - already under development - is a prosthetic hippocampus. The victim's state can be recorded during a duped moment of genuine loyalty, or (with some adaptation) reworked from some other subject. In this way he can simply be "rebooted" periodically when he starts to stray, or higher-order processing used to eradicate undesired beliefs.

The world doesn't have much of a place for somebody who needs 20 years of expensive schooling to learn an advanced profession when they can simply hire someone with proven skills and a proven right attitude. The apparatus for updates with a laser array is left as an exercise to the reader. "And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." Wnt (talk) 14:55, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed possible with today's technology, but we're talking about the 1940s here. 24.23.196.85 (talk) 19:14, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

No way is it possible with today's science, or any science that we can forsee in a concrete way. The "prosthetic hippocampus" is a joke. It has about as much in common with a real hippocampus as a department store mannikin has in common with a real human. Looie496 (talk) 02:58, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Wnt's scenario, while intriguing, is highly speculative. No device capable of replicating the basic functions of a significant brain region/module is anywhere near reality, let alone one that would allow us to preserve specific functions while custom tailoring specific reactions with regard to others. For that matter, the elements of personal memory Wnt referenced are far from completely consolidated in the hippocampus; though again, this is all highly speculative, we can say with confidence if such a feat were to be accomplished with a human brain (as we know it today), you'd need a number of these implants. And arguably if you had reached this level of advancement with regard to integrated to the processing of a human brain with that of artificial processors, it would be easier for you to start from scratch and build a functioning artificial brain already designed to take orders without question for your helpless thrall. Unless of course enslaving a pre-existing mind was the end unto itself. This latter scenario is actually the plot to a movie, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence; in this film (spoiler alert, I am about to give away the movie's central mystery!), the minds unwilling abducted women and girls are dubbed on to otherwise mechanically responsive sexbots, even though perfectly functional automatons with advanced behavioral responses already exist -- the men who buy these robots get off on the idea that there is a "soul" trapped within their dolls and meanwhile the women (or a copy of their personality in any event as the Ghost in the Shell movies are always eager to put forward the question of whether the copy is still the original person or not without giving any definitive answer) are for the most part trapped entirely entirely within their new mechanical bodies, experiencing everything it does and that is done to it, but generally unable to influence their actions orresponses to commands, which are typically exactly the same as if they were the mindless machines they are supposed to be. Pretty dark, really. Snow (talk) 06:40, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Kind of like The Stepford Wives? 24.23.196.85 (talk) 04:18, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Electrical circuit that is 10 light minutes in length

If I have an electric wire that is 10 light minutes long (ignore resistance), with a battery on one end, and a place for a light bulb in the middle and I let the wire sit for 20 minutes, and then connect the light bulb. Will it go on immediately? After 5 minutes (each side only has to travel 5 minutes)? After 10 minutes (a complete circuit)? After 20 (first the message that a bulb has been inserted is sent to the battery, then another 10 minutes for the actual energy to arrive)? Or 10 minutes (the message and energy each take 5 minutes)?

What if it's already burning, and I remove the battery. I'm sure it will stay lit for either 5 or 10 minutes - but what is powering it for those minutes? Is the really long wire "storing" energy in some way? How does the wire know how much energy to store - the signal for the wattage of the bulb takes 5 or 10 minutes to travel to the battery. What if I remove the bulb while the energy is in transit? What if remove the bulb and the battery to really confuse the electricity? Where does that "stored" energy go? Ariel. (talk) 07:24, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

See Transmission line and Electrical length for our articles on the subject. To answer your specific questions, the bulb will light after approximately _15_ minutes (as the typical speed of a signal in a wire is 2/3 c). It's important to note that there isn't a mystical substance called "information" that is physically transferred in any system - any information has to have a physical carrier, electromagnetic energy in this case. The wire is indeed storing the energy in its intrinsic capacitance and inductance. If you remove the bulb before the battery, the pulse of energy will travel up and down the wire as a standing wave until it all dissipates as electromagnetic radiation. (In a real wire, the energy will all be dissipated by resistive heating). Tevildo (talk) 10:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The physical carrier is not electromagnetic energy, but the kinetic energy of the electrons in the current. If it was electromagnetic energy, then inforation would be transfered at the speed of light. Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:26, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

No it wouldn't. c is the speed of light in vacuo. In a physical medium (such as the inside of a transmission line), the speed of light (and all other forms of electrical energy) is less than c. Tevildo (talk) 10:48, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Reading the above, your statement is _literally_ correct - the information is transferred at the speed of light. But the speed of light is not c in a transmission line. One has to be pedantic sometimes. Tevildo (talk) 10:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

If the transmission line is bare conductors in a vacuum then the transmission speed will be the speed of light, but if it is encased in plastic. then it may be slower. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:17, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

No, that's a vacuum-dielectric twin-lead feeder, which (according to our article) will have a propagation speed of about 71%c. _Any_ transmission line will have significant amounts of reactance (mainly inductance for the twin-lead feeder), which will slow down the signal. Using a vacuum dielectric will reduce the reactance, but not eliminate it. Tevildo (talk) 11:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The effect would only take 7 minutes to reach the light. One could leave an end free and change the voltage at the other end and the light would light up for a few minutes, then go off and might come on again for a little while. Basically you're talking about sending a signal down a long transmission line and it would reflect off the far end. In the case where both ends were connected it all depends on the impedance at the ends but it would be possible for the light to go off again for a moment I think. Dmcq (talk) 14:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

so, back to the OQ, you can model the circuit reasonably well for these purposes as a waterwheel powered by a hose or similar. When you shut the water off, it's a while before the waterwheel loses power. If you turn the water back on, again it's a while before the waterwheel starts moving again. The energy put in in the beginning before the wheel starts turning, minus lossses and all that nonideal stuff, is the equal of the energy the wheel works off of when the water is turned off. As said above, that's the energy stored in the inductance of the circuit (analogous to the momentum of the water) and the capacitance (analogous to the sum of the stored up volume and pressure of water at all the points along the hose, if you see what I mean; independent of the momentum in the hose, you get some push out of the water draining from the hose, including the energy involved in inflating the elasticity of the hose by the water pressure that now pushes the water out) Gzuckier (talk) 14:51, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Unless I'm misreading the question, none of the answers above is correct. When you turn on a water tap it turns on immediately, not after some delay that depends on the distance between you and the nearest pump. Likewise, if a battery is already connected to an open circuit, there is already pressure in one half of the line and tension in the other, so the light will turn on immediately when you connect it. If you disconnect or reconnect the battery or light, the "signal" to the other half of the circuit travels both ways, so the delay is half the circuit length divided by the speed of electricity (so 7 minutes, not 15). I'm assuming that the battery is connected to both "ends" of the circuit. If only one end is connected, the light won't turn on at all. -- BenRG (talk) 17:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I am an electronics/control engineer who specializes in hydraulics and pneumatics. Your claim "When you turn on a water tap it turns on immediately, not after some delay that depends on the distance between you and the nearest pump." is factually incorrect. There is a delay, which may be calculated from the distance and the speed of sound in the working fluid. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:14, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, there will be a delay before the steady-state current starts. But some current will flow immediately. The wire in this problem should have a capacitance of around ε₀ℓ ~ 1 farad, which could power a bulb for a while depending on the details. -- BenRG (talk) 19:21, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Right. To expand on the above, some current will flow from the source immediately as it charges that capacitance, After, say, 10 seconds that initial part of the wire will be fully charged, the part of the wire that is 20 light-seconds away will still be discharged, and the transition between the two states will be moving down the wire at the propagation speed. To make this more predictable, surround the wire with a grounded conductive cylinder - a coaxial cable. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• Isn't there a confusion here between the speed of electromagnetic radiation, and the speed of electrons? They are not the same thing. μηδείς (talk) 21:20, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The speed of electrons has very little relevance to this problem. What is the confusion you see? Dmcq (talk) 23:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Put a bit of dye at the head of a 100-foot garden hose full of water and open the faucet. The water starts coming out the end almost immediately (there is actually a tiny delay of roughly 1500 meters per second). That is the equivalent of the speed of electromagnetic radiation. After some number of seconds the water at the end will turn color. That is the equivalent of the speed of electrons. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I vaguely remember College physics stating it works like a Newtons_cradle, and that the speed of electrons was very slow, something liek 1/3 m/s. 72.189.225.90 (talk) 00:15, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Given a copper wire 2 millimeters in diameter and a DC current of 1 Ampere, the time it takes for an electron to travel one meter is about 12 hours.[1] --Guy Macon (talk) 00:38, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, water flows from a quarter-mile of garden hose immediately you open the tap at the outlet end (I've tried it frequently). Conversely, it takes up to a minute after opening the source tap for the water to reach the outlet of an empty pipe (though this would be quicker at higher pressure). The analogy of die at the water source and "theoretically marked" electrons at the battery is not valid because there is a vast store of electrons in the wire. Dbfirs 07:27, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I thought the analogy with the electrons was good, but it might be better to think of a gas going down the pipe to get a idea of how the pressure travels down it. Dmcq (talk) 10:07, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Has everyone considered that there is no such thing as a perfectly rigid body? Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:54, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

That's certainly true for garden hose, and explains where the pressure is stored. Dbfirs 08:10, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Of course I am fully aware that a garden hose is made of rubber. The problem with using that as an argument for changes at the inlet of the long hose appearing faster at the outlet of the long hose than I predict is that a [surface wave] is much slower than a [P-Wave] (So is an [S-wave], but the rubber isn't rigid enough to propagate an S-wave]). --Guy Macon (talk) 08:48, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we agree that the minimum delay is that defined by the speed of sound in water. Dbfirs 11:31, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Recognizing Spider

What kind of spider (Tarantula?) is this? Picture raken in Costa Rica, near San Ramon

שנילי (talk) 15:39, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a variety of the venomous Brazilian wandering spider. Mikenorton (talk) 22:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

thanks, but mine is look less hairy and mor black. The yelow pattern on it's back is very distingiushed. see also http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g608739-i24653177-San_Ramon_Province_of_Alajuela.html#24653177

שנילי (talk) 08:36, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Many elements of its morphology make me suspect some variety of wolf spider, though I've never seen one quite that large before; I've seen specimens which have grown to have a leg-span a good 10-12mm across, but this one looks bigger still, though it's hard to say with any certainty from the frame of reference. Can you give a rough approximation of its size? Wolf spiders are present in virtually every habitable region on earth and if I'd expect a gargantuan version to develop or persist in any modern ecosystem Brazil's rainforests would certainly be at the top of the list. Note however that you may want to change the file name for your picture if you intend to leave it up for the project's uses; the spider is not simply by virtue of its size a "tarantula" as this a term which refers to a specific selection of related species. Unless there is some form of local common-use vernacular at use here that I am unaware of. Edited to add: the article I linked above suggests that the upper threshold for wolf spiders is around 30 mm, and the more I study the specimen, the more convinced I am that its in this family (Lycosidae).

Also, just out of curiosity, did there ever appear to be a point where the frog was considered potential dinner? Snow (talk) 06:16, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunatly I was not smart enugh to put a coin or other known-size artifact near it. However, comparing to the size of the frog, which I astimate, as far as i remember, was about 20-30 mm, I belive that the spider's leg span is like 30-50mm. The frog took the oprtunity and leaped during the shooting, so if it was on the menu the spider left hungry. שנילי (talk) 05:40, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Clearly a caring mother and not a denizen of the ninth circle...

Yeah, honestly, I think our article is in error in defining the upper limit in sizes for the family at 30mm; the more I reflect on it, the more certain I am that I've seen specimen's pushing this limit in some relatively arid environments. Wait until you come across one carrying scores of its young on its back. I tell you, I usually find chance encounters with all forms of life fascinating, but if a 2.5 inch long spider comes barreling at you with a writhing mass on its back (in other words, a gnarly spider that can drop gnarly spiders) and you don't back-peddle with a "Yeeeehh..." then you are seemingly made of sterner stuff than I! Snow (talk) 10:10, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

How do the first individual of a new species find mate?

This is what always made me curious. How do the first individual of a newly evolved species find mate? --PlanetEditor (talk) 17:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

There really is no "first" individual of a new species. Populations evolve gradually. The first individual with a particular mutation will mate with another member of its population, and that mutation may or may not get passed to their offspring. It's kind of like imagining who the "first" speaker of French spoke French to - there is no singular moment in time when people in what is now France stopped speaking Latin and started speaking French; the Latin they spoke gradually changed over generations until it was no longer mutually intelligible with the language people were speaking in Italy, which had also gradually changed into what we now call Italian. thx1138 (talk) 17:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

(Post WP:EC: similar answer to above, with relevant wikilinks) Well, sometimes they don't, and this also applies to the last few individuals of a species. See Allee effect. That being said, you are thinking about this very simplistically. There is seldom (if ever) any "first individual" of a "new species" (this is a general consequent of the species problem). Speciation is a gradual process (with respect to the generation time of the organism). You may be interested in allopatric speciation and sympatric speciation, which cover two of the more common routes to speciation. Finally, consider a hypothetical example. The first "chicken" was hatched from an egg (since there were egg-laying birds before there were chickens). Even if this bird alone has all the characteristics of "chicken", it could still likely interbreed with e.g. many of its cousins. Their offspring would consist of some "chickens" and some "non-chickens", but eventually there could be locally available chickens to form a growing population. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:21, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. --PlanetEditor (talk) 18:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I liked the analogy with the problem of the first person to speak French. Dmcq (talk) 20:21, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Did the first person to speak French make fun of the accent of the second person to speak French? Edison (talk) 22:35, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Comment?!? μηδείς (talk) 01:22, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Lol. Take that, athiests! 78.150.234.51 (talk) 00:32, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

What's an athiest and what are they taking?? Dauto (talk) 22:59, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Another name for a French person I'd guess from the above discussion and I suppose there must be some special way they're thinking of that French men and women can take advantage of being able to talk to each other. Though what it's all got to do with a new species finding a mate I don't know. ;-) Dmcq (talk) 00:36, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

That's not it - an atheist is someone who does not believe in the existence of any god or deity. See atheism. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 00:48, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

So athiests are French atheists? What's that got to do with finding a mate though? ;-)Dmcq (talk) 01:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

No one has yet considered ploidy. Plasmic Physics (talk) 00:44, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Urination!

Which creates more spray, pissing to hit the water or pissing to hit the inside of the bowl? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.96.113.87 (talk) 20:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

It all depends but a hard surface in general, but is that really the right question? Here may be something to answer the implied question [2] Dmcq (talk) 20:26, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

To minimize splash-back you want to strike a solid with a liquid stream at shallow angle. So, the side of the bowl will be best, as long as you can keep it inside the bowl. Some urinals have a ridge in them, which makes it easier to strike at a shallow angle, thus reducing splashing: [3]. StuRat (talk) 03:33, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

British Victorian-era urinals sometimes had a little picture of a bee for gentlemen to aim at, on the part of the porcelain that would cause the minimum splashback. The reason a bee was used, was a joke for the educated; the Latin for bee is apis ("a piss" gettit?). Alansplodge (talk) 12:01, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Some urinals still have those. I've seen them on occasion. I never figured that this was the reason why - in fact, I never really figured too much about it at all (just that it was something stuck on there as a booze promo or something). --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 00:33, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

skin

Is human skin color variation an example of micro-evolution? Pass a Method talk 21:47, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

No. "Evolution" implies that something is changing across time. Variation at a given moment in time is not evolution, micro or otherwise. It may however provide the raw material for micro-evolution, if the range of variation changes across time. Looie496 (talk) 22:51, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. Pale skin evolved in Europe and seems to have evolved as an adaptation to the environment. Sounds like microevolution to me. It's not the evolution of a new species or even subspecies, but it's still evolution. thx1138 (talk) 23:52, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps not an evolution so much as a suvival of the fittest. Without a DNA sample of generations across history, we cannot know either way. Since We are all realted with only a couple hundred generations, a micro-evolutions seems very unlikely given the extreme time lengths it takes to produce a single positive evoled trait. 72.189.225.90 (talk) 00:21, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that the microevolution/macroevolution distinction shows up mainly in arguments about intelligent design, and in that context you may as well define "microevolution" as the subset of evolutionary processes that ID proponents concede are real. I did a web search for "intelligent design skin color" and the first two hits were a page at ideacenter.org saying that skin color variations arose through microevolution and a page at intelligentdesigntheory.info saying that skin color variations are evidence that God made us (and implying that black people should go back to Africa since God put them there for a reason). Apparently there is disagreement over this issue within the intelligent design community. They should teach that controversy. -- BenRG (talk) 01:18, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Interesting the only links one sees here are to user pages. μηδείς (talk) 01:20, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I didn't want to give the intelligent design sites even more free publicity by linking to them from Wikipedia. I don't think WP's microevolution and macroevolution articles are very good, or clearly answer this question, or should be trusted to give a correct answer to this question, but there they are for what it's worth. -- BenRG (talk) 01:51, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

A more well-formed question is "is human skin color an adaptive trait?" It might be, but it might be a polymorphism that is neutral, and maintained by genetic drift. See also background selection. Even if the question is formulated more precisely, experts still disagree. Perusing these links will give you some idea of the subtleties involved. If you want to read some of the scientific literature, you might check out "The evolution of human skin coloration" [4], or "Does the Melanin Pigment of Human Skin Have Adaptive Value?: An Essay in Human Ecology and the Evolution of Race" [5]. (You may need to get access through a library or search for alternate sources for the last two.) SemanticMantis (talk) 04:06, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I would be suspicious about whether there could be other factors at work here besides just evolution. The correlation of skin color and sunlight is usually (properly) attributed to natural selection, but I would wonder if there could also be heritable, epigenetic factors that enter into it, as might also be true with body weight. I found one abstract [6] pointing to regulation by methylation of POMC, but that doesn't prove it is heritable, which is less often pursued. Because hormones like MSH do circulate, and do respond to the environment, and can affect gene regulatory elements, it is not impossible that their targets could acquire heritable alterations... Wnt (talk) 04:09, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it's not all that proper to attribute skin color to natural selection; modern research has found no particularly strong correlation with skin tone and exposure to UV light or any other obvious environmental factor. Rather it seems that skin color is instead a result of that other Darwinian force everyone seems to forget about, sexual selection. Jared Diamond treats this subject at some length in The Third Chimpanzee, but if you or the OP prefer it, I'm sure I can scare together some peer-review on the matter too. Snow (talk) 06:49, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, PMID 23415504 PMID 23274340 PMID 22923467 PMID 16685728 PMID 10896812 seem to favor the impression I had. I don't deny the possibility of sexual selection, but ... why would it be different in Europe vs. Africa? Of course sexual selection is a kind of natural selection and a kind of evolution. (The preferential mutation of methylated cytosine may also be a kind of evolution, a sort of "Lamarckian" evolution to be precise, but not a kind of natural selection) Wnt (talk) 19:14, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

As others have pointed out, it is indeed evolution. Asking whether it's "micro" or "macro" is like asking whether a 2 km journey is long or short. Obviously, it depends on what you call long or short. --140.180.249.152 (talk) 18:20, 23 March 2013 (UTC)