Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2024 September 30

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

September 30

Electron capture cross-sections for hydrogen

Is there any publication out there that discusses what the cross-section for energetic electrons converting free protons into neutrons is? It's energetically unfavourable but with sufficient electron energy it should be possible. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I have no publications. It is probably so small that it does have any practical significance. Ruslik_Zero 20:17, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

See Deep inelastic scattering and its references. —Wasell^(T) 13:10, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Biotransformation of TFA

Reference 22 (Kirschner, E., Chemical and Engineering News 1994, 8) does not seem to be appropriate for the statement "Biotransformation by decarboxylation to fluoroform has been discussed." In https://pubs.acs.org/toc/cenear/72/32, there is only one article by Kirschner, but about an entirely different subject. Could somebody please advise what to do? 162.23.30.16 (talk) 17:51, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

The simplest is to slap a template {{failed verification}} on the citation. But the statement itself may be true. Quoting this secondary source:

Visscher et al. [44] showed that trifluoroacetic acid could be microbially metabolized to fluoroform and consecutively defluorinated to acetate under aerobic and anaerobic conditions, respectively.
...
[44] Visscher, P.T., Culbertson, C.W. and Oremland, R.S. (1994) "Degradation of trifluoroacetate in oxic anoxic sediments". Nature (Land.) 369, 729-731.

I have not inspected the primary source, though, which has many citations ([1]).  --Lambiam 04:44, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks I replaced the ref [2] 162.23.30.16 (talk) 14:44, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Parasites

Do parasites that feed off other parasites exist? ―Panamitsu (talk) 23:13, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Do you consider bacteriophages to be parasites? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:19, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

See Hyperparasite. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 02:14, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Big fleas have little fleas... (about halfway down). The overall text doesn't specifically mention any cases of recursive parasitism that I could see, nor does it cite a source for the rhyme. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 16:41, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

From Jonathan Swift's poem On Poetry: a Rhapsody (1733).  --Lambiam 08:31, 2 October 2024 (UTC)