Glossary questions and requests

Post by **Silurus** » Fri May 26, 2006 3:26 pm

A base is a water soluble compound that reacts with an acid to form salt and water, to put it simply.

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » Fri May 26, 2006 3:29 pm

Jools wrote:
bronzefry wrote:How about this:
Neutral: A substance that is neither acid nor base.
What does base mean?

Jools

Neutral: A substance which is neither acid nor alkali.
Must be another one of those Americanizzzzzzations. By the way, TFH magazine refers to them as "Bushynoses", too. The first time I ever saw a reference to a "Bristlenose" was this website. No wonder there are so many misunderstandings in the world. Nobody speaks the same English language!

Amanda

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » Fri May 26, 2006 4:17 pm

Silurus wrote:A base is a water soluble compound that reacts with an acid to form salt and water, to put it simply.

Sorry, yes, I was a bit short with my previous reply. What I meant to say was, why use the word base when all you're going to have to do is define it in context. I think the defn water that is refered to a netural is neither acid or alkaline would suffice.

I was just trying to stuff going into the glossary becuase of other glossary definitions.

Jools

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » Fri May 26, 2006 4:31 pm

bronzefry wrote:Neutral: A substance which is neither acid nor alkali.

Make that "alkaline", as "alkali" is the name of the metals in the group of Lithium, Sodium, Potassium etc, whilst alkaline would be a compound with a "high pH" value.

--
Mats

racoll · Post by **racoll** » Fri May 26, 2006 5:28 pm

Neutral: A substance which is neither acid nor alkali.

I think it needs to be more fishkeeping related.

How about...

Neutral: Water which is of pH 7.0. The point where the concentration of acids and alkalis are equal.

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » Fri May 26, 2006 6:15 pm

racoll wrote:
Neutral: A substance which is neither acid nor alkali.
I think it needs to be more fishkeeping related.

How about...

Neutral: Water which is of pH 7.0. The point where the concentration of acids and alkalis are equal.

Agreed, I would also add a "see also pH"?

Jools

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » Sat May 27, 2006 11:33 am

Anastomoses!

Jools

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » Sat May 27, 2006 3:08 pm

racoll wrote:
Neutral: A substance which is neither acid nor alkali.
I think it needs to be more fishkeeping related.

How about...

Neutral: Water which is of pH 7.0. The point where the concentration of acids and alkalis are equal.

If we want to be fussy, Stefan correctly pointed out that we need to say the following:
Neutral: Water which is of a pH of 7.0 at a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. The point where the concentration of an acid and an alkali are equal.

Why are the easy words so difficult to define?

Should it be Buffer or Buffering Capacity?

Anastamosis: The joining of multiple structures into a single network. May apply to anatomy (blood vessels) and geography (rivers). Plural: Anastamoses.

I'll put in Bycatch and Contaminant today.

Jools, are the HTML entities working?
Amanda

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » Sat May 27, 2006 3:39 pm

Amanda,

Yes, I tried a couple of the links and they worked fine, well done!

I meant Anastomoses not Anastomosis!!!

Jools

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » Sat May 27, 2006 3:51 pm

You mean like <a href='http://physrev.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/85/1/97' target='_blank'>this</a>? I think I need to print it out and have a look.

Amanda
(just a few pages...not all 214 pages)

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » Sat May 27, 2006 4:08 pm

bronzefry wrote:You mean like <a href='http://physrev.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/85/1/97' target='_blank'>this</a>? I think I need to print it out and have a look.
Amanda
(just a few pages...not all 214 pages)

Ah, it has two meanings then, I was refering to the one that means a river crisscrossed with islands. It is used as such in the description of Hypancistrus zebra. Perhaps it just generally means something crisscrossed with something else in which case I could leave it!

Jools

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » Sat May 27, 2006 4:15 pm

Thanks, Jools. The first search I did turned up articles about human surgical procedures: intestinal and coronary bypass. Plenty of Anastamoses going on there.
Amanda

racoll · Post by **racoll** » Sat May 27, 2006 5:04 pm

If we want to be fussy, Stefan correctly pointed out that we need to say the following:
Neutral: Water which is of a pH of 7.0 at a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. The point where the concentration of an acid and an alkali are equal.

Although correct, I think the 20C bit just makes it a bit too complicated. For fishkeeping, I don't think it needs to be mentioned. I think it will confuse people who's aquarium isn't at 20C.

It's a fine line between being accurate and anal.

I'm also not sure about using the singular for the acids and alkalis. It implies that there is only one kind of acid or alkali.

I maintain that this is enough.

Neutral: Water which is of pH 7.0. The point where the concentration of acids and alkalis are equal.

Amanda, Jools mentioned linking relavent parts the glossary to my article. I don't know if that would be possible?

P.S. Sorry about using the word anal. I hope we don't get the wrong kind of traffic to PC!

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » Sun May 28, 2006 8:12 am

I agree about the linking (there are also links into the glossary from the new version of the Cat-eLog) but would advise that the page you link to in Shane's World will change its URL. I don't know what it will look like yet, but probably something like http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworl ... cle_id=332

However this is a few weeks off at the earliest and will be one of the final jobs in the whole cat-elog v2 migration.

Jools

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » Sun May 28, 2006 6:27 pm

Nice article, Racoll!

Amanda

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:16 pm

Been a bit quiet here, so I thought I'd liven it up a bit:

Xylophagus - A creature that eats wood, e.g. Panaque spp.
Genus - The genus is used in taxonomy to group several species that are similar. pl. genera.
Species - A group of organisms of the same sort, as determined by taxonomy.

A minor typo:
Casque Helmut shaped. - should be "Helmet" shaped, right? Not shaped like a (German?) person by the name of Helmut(h) - do those have a special shape?

Finally: I was looking at "Monophylitic", but I couldn't find a definition, although a Google-search finds a few references to it, including PC.

--
Mats

bedwetter · Post by **bedwetter** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:06 pm

Monophyletic: sharing a common ancestor.

Regarding a definition of species: people have been debating what a species is for a long, long time, and there has never been any consensus. In my opinon, there ISN'T one good definition of species because each group of organisms has a different evolutionary history. I generally follow G.G. Simpson's definition: a species is what a good taxonomist says it is

I guess that is really what Mats' definition says too.

Jeff

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:25 pm

I got two hits when I did a PC search on this word.(Cat-eLog, Pseudobagrus crassilabris) I'll come up with a definition and run it by folks. Thanks.

Mats, you are correct. I'll make that change.
Amanda

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:29 pm

Jeff, yes, I was trying to avoid getting into the technicalities of "What constitutes a species" and the effects of lumping vs. splitting, etc, etc. Clearly, the concept of "if they can produce fertile offspring" doesn't quite work for Hypancistrus and some similar fish - unless you believe that msot Hypancistrus are actually a single species - which if you compare with a domestic dog may have some credit...

Of course, if someone like HH has a good definition that conforms to:
1. Short.
2. Relatively accurate.
3. Doesn't require a complete understanding of ALL of the glossary and some more...

I'd be happy for anyone elses suggestions or comments.

--
Mats

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 5:41 pm

Monophyletic: Having a single, common ancestor or line of evolution.
Amanda