Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2021 May 26

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May 26

At least the second publicized soccer player to die this way

[1] There was also a soccer player who drowned at an Italian lake this way. They slip under water and never come back up. How does it happen? Imagine Reason (talk) 01:40, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

There's too little known to speculate usefully here. Are you wondering how someone presumably athletic couldn't surface (how do we know she knew how to swim, or that someone whose body is so muscular might not float), or how come there was no visible struggle (there often isn't in sudden drowning), or what else may have happened (shallow-water blackout, medical emergency, intoxication, hit her head)? DMacks (talk) 02:00, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Shallow water blackout is interesting. This victim was observed to be hanging onto a swim board before entering the water. That physical exertion may have led her to breath more rapidly than she should've and built up CO2 while she exhausted herself. Both cases also occurred in cooler regions. Imagine Reason (talk) 17:34, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Many people every year die in drowning accidents. It is unsurprising that among the 236,000 accidental drowning deaths every year that two would be soccer players. --Jayron32 02:12, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Also there is the 'ran out of fuel' in the cold problem. People are basically completely inexperienced when it comes to recognizing and taking appropriate steps when they begin to suffer from hypothermia. The ultramarathon runners died like flies, presumably when they used up all their blood sugar. Abductive (reasoning) 11:14, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Cold shock response is another possible factor, depending on the conditions at the time, as is the Instinctive drowning response. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.217 (talk) 13:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

In addition to the above, I'd also be curious as to the makeup of the lake. My wife had an acquaintance who was a certified scuba diver who drowned swimming (no scuba) in a lake when her leg got tangled on underwater vegetation. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 14:33, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

• There are many drowning deaths throughout history involving notable people. Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt was a more than competent swimmer, and he disappeared while swimming, and was presumed dead. He was in the company of friends, swam out too far, and was witnessed to be caught by a rip current. Singer Jeff Buckley drowned while swimming in a channel of the Mississippi River in Memphis in the company of friends; he was likely caught up in the wake of a passing boat. Singer Whitney Houston drowned in her own bathtub. Truck driver and political activist Rodney King drowned in his swimming pool. Musician Brian Jones drowned in his swimming pool. Singer Dolores O'Riordan drowned in a hotel bathtub. Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson drowned in a marina after diving off his boat. These are just ones I remember off the top of my head. Several probably had intoxication of various sorts as complicating factors, but not all of them. It remains that drowning is a major source of accidental death (according to the source above, the third most common cause of accidental death). It happens often enough that two soccer players drowning in short succession, while an interesting coincidence, is not anything that needs further study nor explanation. --Jayron32 20:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Henry Way Kendall won the Nobel Prize in physics. He drowned in a scuba diving accident. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor #Death_and_burials might be the most famous person who died that way. A quick category intersection by PetScan suggests that the most famous sportsperson who drowned may indeed be Henry Way Kendall. Based on a similar search, the most famous person who drowned may be Whitney Houston, who drowned in a bathtub, and Pope Clement I, who was killed by throwing overboard from a boat while tied to an anchor. – b_jonas 14:35, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

About pricing of covid vaccines.

Why Indian medical companies selling Covaxin more price than COVISHIELD? Rizosome (talk) 15:31, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Where did you see the price difference? Does the source that told you about the price difference answer your own question? --OuroborosCobra (talk) 15:34, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Have you solved your problem of excessive spaces in Word documents? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:16, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

This should help you research the answer to your question. --Jayron32 20:21, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: Yes, word document problem solved Rizosome (talk) 00:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Very good. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:25, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: I able to find source here saying: Many hospitals are charging as much as ₹850 for Covishield, while Covaxin is priced at ₹1,250. Rizosome (talk) 15:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Your own article directly answers your question in the same paragraph that the prices are listed. Hospitals had been buying Covishield vaccines from the government, while they are buying Covaxin directly from the pharmaceutical manufacturers. The manufacturers are charging the hospitals more for the vaccine than the government had charged them. This is why I asked if your own source had answered your question; it did. You just didn't read even the same paragraph that the prices were listed. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 11:46, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Are East Asians more similar to prehistoric humans than Europeans?

As mentioned here, the longer Neanderthal DNA fragments in East Asians compared to West Eurasians implies a longer generation interval for East Asians, by about 20% since the split between East Asians and West Eurasians, about 40,000 years ago. This means that on a common family tree, East Asians living today would appear at the same level as an ancestor of West Eurasians who lived about 8000 years ago. Does this mean that East Asians today look more similar to Europeans who lived 10,000 years ago than modern Europeans? Count Iblis (talk) 20:55, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Phenotype is very hard to predict using these methods. What someone may have "looked like" millions of years ago, especially things like skin tone, eye shape, hair color, and other small (but noticeable) details of their appearance is basically impossible to determine from piecing together bits of fossil neanderthal DNA found in modern human populations. We can say things like "such and such of an ancient population may have shared X% of their genome with this other population" in VERY broad terms, but being able to say "Would so-and-so a person from such-and-such a population look like someone else from a different population" is way outside of the realm of what we can do with Human evolutionary genetics.--Jayron32 23:00, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The question seems to have an implied assumption that two lineages with a shared ancestor follow some kind of parallel course, such that descendants at the same generation number (along different lineages) will resemble each other (even more than they resemble their own descendants or shared ancestor). I don't see why that should be true. --Amble (talk) 23:26, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

And as a matter of fact, we know that all human lineages are becoming more gracile than our robust ancestors, and Asians are more gracile on average. Abductive (reasoning) 15:08, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Pyramids at centre of the Earth

I've often seen it claimed that the Great Pyramid of Giza is situated at the exact geographical centre of the Earth's land mass.

• Is this true?
• How is such a point determined? Would it not imply a knowledge of at least the Americas, Australia, Greenland, and Antarctica, which were supposedly unknown to ancient Egyptians? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

This is probably a reference to land hemisphere. Only a few thousand miles off! Blythwood (talk) 22:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

We have an article on that! Geographical centre of Earth --Amble (talk) 22:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:26, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

That article links to The First Rediscovery, 1864, about the calculations of Charles Piazzi Smyth which did indeed locate the geographical centre at Giza. However, Smyth also "claimed that the measurements he obtained from the Great Pyramid of Giza indicated a unit of length, the pyramid inch, equivalent to 1.001 British inches, that could have been the standard of measurement by the pyramid's architects... Smyth claimed that the pyramid inch was a God-given measure handed down through the centuries from the time of Shem (Noah's Son), and that the architects of the pyramid could only have been directed by the hand of God". So perhaps more wishful thinking than accurate science. Alansplodge (talk) 11:11, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Charles Piazzi Smyth is highly regraded for his work in the fields of meteorology and astronomy, not so much for his pyramidology. HiLo48 (talk) 07:42, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Brilliant typo ("regraded"). May I borrow it? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:07, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

LOL. Borrow? No. You can have it! But I'll leave it and your comment. Readers should mostly understand. HiLo48 (talk) 22:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)