Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology/Archive 1

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Template

Is or was there a biology template to add to talk pages? If not, perhaps one could be created e.g. at Template:Biology. This could be used for articles that cover many areas of biology, and are a concern to the whole of biology itself (e.g. organism, death etc). Richard001 23:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Scientific peer review

It is nearly 11 months since we established this review process as a minimal process after we failed to reach consensus about a number of matters. During that time it has been largely left alone with nobody really keeping a close watch on it. A couple days ago I cleaned everything up. I archived old reviews, corrected the tags on talk pages and made minimal changes to the process based on what I had learnt. I also reviewed how it had operated. There were some reasonable reviews and some that attracted no interest what so ever, but I guess that is the case even with Wikipedia:Peer review. Some entries may have missed some attention since they were not properly formatted, or had no tag on the article's talk page and hence did not appear in the category. See Wikipedia talk:Scientific peer review for my review and report on the clean up.

Of course, in hindsight, I wonder whether we, and particularly I, could have done better a year ago. In hindsight, does anyone have ideas how we progress this review process. To be worthwhile, it must attract reviews that perhaps would not go elsewhere such as Wikipedia:Peer review and it must attract expert reviewers to add to what might be achieved by the general Wikipedia:Peer review. If it can not do either, perhaps we should close it down and just encourage articles to go to Wikipedia:Peer review. Articles for review are listed on the science WikiProjects such as this one, but they are transcluded in so changes do not appear on watchlists. I have also added recent reviews to Wikipedia:Peer review in the same way that WikiProject reviews such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry/Peer review are added. In this way both review pages refer to the same page for the review discussion and hopefully more editors will be attracted. The key point is attracting expert reviewers who might look at Wikipedia:Scientific peer review but not look at Wikipedia:Peer review.

If you have any ideas on this, please add your views at Wikipedia talk:Scientific peer review. --Bduke 03:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for expert

Can someone check that the content of single cell protein makes sense, and improve its presentation? Note: I did not write it. YechielMan 07:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


I redid the entire article. --Stylus881 (talk) 02:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I tagged it as unreferenced. Sorry about that.
Also, I was wondering if the name of the page could be changed (pagemove) so that it was hyphenated thus Single-cell protein which would do a better job of making it clear that it is "protein from a single-celled lifeform" as opposed to "a cell with a single protein in it", as absurd as that sounds. EatYerGreens (talk) 04:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

article help please

I recently made some major cleanup and reconstruction on the formerly inaccurate and POV social construction article. Please help me add scientific and cultural research to this article. Gender role needs similar help, by the way.--Urthogie 19:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Project Banner

There now is a project banner at Template:WikiProject Biology which can be used on the talk pages of articles relevant to this project. For what little it might be worth, I notice that many of the WikiProjects that deal with matters related to biology do not yet have banners which allow them to engage in assessments. It might well be possible to modify this banner similar to the {{WPMILHIST}}, which is used by a whole group of related projects, and allows the display of "drop-down" tabs whenever such is indicated and also individualized assessment for each participating group or Project. If the individuals who watch this page believe that these other projects would like to use such a multi-fuction banner, please contact me and I will try to change this banner accordingly. Oh, and there now is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology/Assessment page, which indicates precisely how assessments can be informed. I may be able to reach a few people to assist in such assessments, if you so desire. John Carter 19:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Great stuff. Having a field for smaller projects without a current banner would help too. Richard001 07:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Joining

How do I join? I saw something on WikiProject: Roleplaying games that said you could just add your name to the list of participants. Does that work for all projects? Should I involve myself in another biology related project first? I know I should probably know this by now, since I've been around here since January, but I'd like some help. Supernerd 10 12:28, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Just add your name to the list, and it might help if you mark to "watch" this particular page. That's the way it generally works with all projects. John Carter 15:34, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Update and request for advice.

Hello all. I would like a some advice on the article glans. When it first came to my attention, it was listed by the sexuality task project as being a stub of "high" importance. Over the last month, I have spent considerable time expanding the article into a comparative biologically-oriented (rather than completely anthropocentric) article, with references. Although I have sought input on the changes, few were forthcoming. Recently, an individual who apparently vehemently disagrees with my input reverted the article back to the original stub. Thus, I have sought advice from other specific editors, and am seeking advice here. Perhaps the members of this group could provide input on the changes made and recent revert, as well as the exchanges on talk:glans. It would be most appreciated. As the article is also relevant to the Sexuality and Anatomy projects, I am posting this request to those projects as well. Thanks, and look forward to hearing from you. Esseh 14:17, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Genetics

Why is there a wikiproject for evolutionary biology, and one for medical genetics, but there isn't one for just "genetics"? The structure of these wikiprojects seems weird to me. I'd like to contribute to wikipedia (well, I already am), but I'd also like to do it in a collaborative way, and I just don't know where to go most of the time. Some examples of my confusion: I'm working on Genetics right now, where do I go to get advice on what to add? I've tried to solicit advice, but it doesn't seem to be working, so I'm flying blind right now. Also, there's a number of genetics articles that need improvement, and images I think are needed, is there some page where people can contribute requests to a list with comments about what sort of improvement is needed? (The generated "articles needing attention" lists are confusing, aren't sorted by date and are lacking comments.) Thanks... Madeleine 18:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Madeleine. I've been having a heck of a time getting advice, myself. I can help with the requested images, though. You can post a request at Wikipedia:Requested pictures (scroll down to "Biology"), or try to contact individual artists. I know I've had no luck doing that, but others have. I'll take a look at genetics for you. Esseh 19:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Genetics is one of the major WikiProjects we are lacking at the moment. You could start one yourself if you wish, though for the time being the biology project is probably the closest thing. The whole WikiProject system is still a little disorganized and needs to be somewhat standardized, especially with regard to hierarchical issues. Richard001 21:22, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I generally think there are too many insufficiently broad WikiProject. The "Task Force" systems that have been implemented by the big ones (like WikiProject Military History and WikiProject Novels) have been effective in keeping communities active (the big problem with most WikiProjects) while still having room for fine-grained interests. If we could take some of the less active projects and turn them into task forces of broader projects without making people feel that "their" project is being usurped, it would probably be beneficial.--ragesoss 21:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Peer-review of Evolution

Hi everybody, comments and suggestions on this core topic are welcome. Wikipedia:Peer review/Evolution/archive1. Thank you. TimVickers 22:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

POLICY DEBATE: Use of source code, mathematical examples and other examples in articles

I have opened a debate on the use of examples in Wikipedia articles (mainly focusing on computer source code and mathematical formulas, proofs, etc.). It seems to me that many examples currently in Wikipedia violate Wikipedia policy, so I believe we need to either clarify or change the situation. Depending on the result of the discussion, this may result in a number of examples being summarily removed from articles!

Please reply there, not here, if you wish to contribute.—greenrd 11:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Future WikiProjects

What are some of the projects we need to most within biology? Two that come to mind are Wikipedia:WikiProject Genetics and Wikipedia:WikiProject Zoology. Are there any other major areas that aren't covered by at least one WikiProject? Richard001 08:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested in Genetics stuff, but I'm not very familiar with setting up projects. I think I'd like to help get this started, though. How can I help? Is there a guide to making wikiprojects? -- Madeleine 03:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
It's mostly just a cut-and-paste operation. Browse some WikiProjects, look for the elements you think will be useful, and modify them as appropriate. Then, start advertising: post notes on the talk pages of all the related WikiProjects, and put up a link at Wikipedia:Community Portal.--ragesoss 04:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Now that I'm thinking about it, though, it seems like the MCB wikiproject covers all the genetics stuff, it seems silly to create a fork when there's already a strong community that covers the material. Do people think it would be useful? -- Madeleine 05:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that organizing "task forces" within projects, especially highly active ones, has worked well (e.g., for WikiProjects Novels and Military History); it doesn't fragment the community of editors with similar interests, but still provides a separate space to focus in on certain issues.--ragesoss 06:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Categorization of biomolecule articles

Hello. I'm in the middle of a clearout of Category:Biochemistry, as requested at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology#Category maintenance.

While cat-sorting, I noticed that there wasn't a Category:Biomolecules on the English WP, but instead, Category:Biochemicals already had Category:Proteins beneath it, Category:Enzymes beneath that and so on. So I assumed all biomolecules were deliberately included by WP convention under the single hierarchy, perhaps after some long-archived debate on categorization.

Also, in Category:Biochemicals, the intro states: 

The main article for this category is Biomolecule.
See list of biomolecules for a listing of compounds of biochemical interest.

It almost looks as if two categories were merged, but all I can find in the edit history is a category created on 10 June 2004, with nothing in the deletion log for Category:Biomolecules. So it seems to have been created that way deliberately.

Consequently, in a few of the cat sorts I've done so for, I've moved biomolecule articles from Category:Biochemistry to Category:Biochemicals, in cases where I wasn't entirely sure which child or grandchild category to move it to. It seemed a better place to park them than Category:Biochemistry.

Dividing it in two might require a fairly lengthy recategorization, and a bit of thought about guidelines for division. It might also make searches for biochem articles (and future categorizations) more complex.

User:TimVickers has just tapped me politely on the shoulder about this, so I'm pausing to get some guidance on the right approach from more experienced wikipedians here. Has this already been discussed and agreed somewhere? I'll refrain from moving biomolecule articles into Category:Biochemicals for now though, until I find what the consensus is on this. Thanks, Clicketyclack 18:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

On second thought there's a very simple solution for this, and that's to rename Category:Biochemicals to Category:Biomolecules, the superset name for both. It would also bring this categorization on English WP in line with all the European WPs I can find. Any objections? Clicketyclack 09:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Unsolved problems in biology nominated for deletion

The article Unsolved problems in biology has been nominated for deletion. Your opinion is welcomed at the discussion under Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unsolved problems in biology (2nd nomination). Cacycle 00:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Photogeno

Could somebody with some knowledge please review the Photogeno article? I'm on the verge of nominating it for deletion as original research. Corvus cornix 21:51, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Creationism

Hi. I'm not active in this Wikipedia section, just accidentally noticed that Thelordsavenger (talk · contribs) inserts creationist nonsense into articles. So far, this is on very low scale, but presumably it is better if someone more active here and familiar with procedures tracks his "contribution". -- Paul Pogonyshev 21:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I think he has given up now. Richard001 06:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Animals project

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of life#Animals project for discussion of a new project. Richard001 06:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Embryo/Fetus/prenatal development etc

Currently, the state of articles dealing with developmental biology is a mess. We have some articles dealing strictly with humans (human embryogenesis, Prenatal development, Human fertilization, timeline of prenatal development), then we have articles that cover just mammals Mammalian embryogenesis, and articles that are more inclusive (fetus, embryo, embryogenesis. We also have Template:Embryology, which claims to be about humans, but most of the links are ambiguously about humans. Anyway, I figure we need some sort of centralized discussion to give some sort of outline or hierarchy to these articles. This discussion began at Talk:Timeline of prenatal development, with a proposal to (re-)create fetal development to be what embryogenesis is to the embryo article (only for the fetus instead). Anyway, any thoughts, ideas, proposals, or general comments would be great. How should we organize these articles? Do any existing articles need to be merged? What articles need to be created? and how should we deal with the human/obstetrics aspects in relation to the developmental biology aspect. Thanks.-Andrew c [talk] 14:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding titles of articles, I think the title "prenatal development" is better than the title "fetal development", because the latter would be confusing to many readers; usually medical texts use the term "fetal development" to include development of both an embryo and fetus, even though the fetal stage comes after the embryonic stage, which makes the term "fetal development" confusing.[1] Right now, "fetal development" redirects to "prenatal development" which makes good sense.
Regarding organization of our articles, I pretty much agree with the following comment from another editor:

"I'd suggest developing Zygote, Embryo, and Fetus to include more detailed information on these stages, and then using fetal [i.e. prenatal] development as a top-tier hub to summarize those sub-articles (in this case, placing all the 'eggs' in one basket would be a good thing)."

My only caveat is that I think zygote should not be treated separately from embryo (our article on embryo says that an embryo exists from the moment of fertilization).
If the timeline in fetus becomes too bulky, then the timeline could be split up into articles about various aspects of the fetus's development, with summaries in the fetus article. There is already an article on fetal movement, and there could eventually be articles on the fetal brain, et cetera. I do not think we need an article other than fetus devoted to the whole timeline of all aspects of a fetus's development, except that prenatal development can summarize the developmental info for both an embryo and fetus.
As far as splitting up articles to separate human and non-human articles, perhaps a better approach would be, for example, to keep the human info at fetus with the non-human info at the end of that article (as it is now), and then when there is a lot of non-human fetus info it can be split off (i.e. so there would then be a "fetus" article and a "non-human fetus" article but no "human fetus" article). Likewise, there would eventually be an "embryo" article and a "non-human embryo" article, but no "human embryo" article.Ferrylodge 15:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be 'human embyro' and 'embryo'? I tried to organize a discussion about this human/non-human naming issue but nothing much came of it. There seems to be an underlying assumption that everything will be about humans, and we generally tend to write articles in this way much to the detriment of broader information. Regardless of the naming politics, I think all articles should from the outset make it very clear what the scope of the article is. I find nothing more annoying than an article that opens with a broad biological definition of a subject and then proceeds to talk about nothing but humans, as if there is no need to justify or even point out that this approach has been taken. Richard001 23:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Mikael Häggström's proposition

Since most readers are humans, and therefore very likely want to know about human development, I agree with Ferrylodge that human articles have higher priority, and should come first. Yet, I also agree with Richard001 that it's confusing with articles not really saying what they should. Therefore, prenatal development should remain a top-tier hub to summarize the human sub-articles, but those sub-articles should remain the human ones, but, in turn, linking to the general articles. The general articles, however, can begin with the human version, i.e. a link to the main article and a short summary, and subsequently tell how this works differently in different animals. Therefore, people getting directly to those, instead of linking from prenatal development, still get to the human part first. Regarding the non-human or non-mammal sections in existing articles, they may remain as summaries, with links to the main, more general, articles.

However, just because the top-tier hub prenatal development should start with the human point of view, this doesn't exclude that a parallel top-tier hub should exist for the general one, and linked to that prenatal development. I suggest one such article should also be created, i.e. a general one.

Furthermore, regarding different articles of fetus and fetal development, I think they should be different articles, just as there is one for embryo and embryogenesis. The section of the cirkulatory system of the fetus, e.g. tells a lot of how it works, but not really its development. I'm aware of that fetal development and prenatal development often are used as the same thing, but with a clear note early in fetal development that it only is a part of the whole thing, it shouldn't be too confusing.

Human fetal development would probably be much a top-tier hub, in turn, for the development of each organ individually. This doesn't exclude, however, the small list of links to those individual organs which exists in the higher article prenatal development as well.

All in all, this proposition hopefully avoids confusion as much as possibly can be done, once and for all:

Human

I propose the following organization of prenatal development and its hierarchy of links:

General

Furthermore, just as prenatal development is the presentation to human development, it should link to a parallel article for all animals. That links can either be at top of, or in summary of prenatal development. The name of this article, however, I'm not sure, but it must be something better than mammalian embryogenesis, as it is now, because that article is only a subarticle to this one. So, the hierarchy of that article would so far be:

Animal offspring / progeny / ... development/ prenatal development (non-human):

Mikael Häggström 09:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

An outline

Perhaps an outline may be helpful, to structure present and future articles on this subject.

I. Prenatal development

A. Fertilization
B. Embryo
i. Embryogenesis
ii. Organogenesis
iii. Embryology
a. History of embryology
b. Embryologists
c. Recent research in embryology
C. Fetus
i. Fetal movement
ii. Fetal pain
iii. Fetal brain
iv. Fetal circulatory system
v. Fetal digestive system
vi. Fetal lymphatic system
vii. Fetal nervous system
viii. Fetal reproductive system
ix. Fetal respiratory system
x. Fetology
a. History of fetology
b. Fetologists
c. Recent research in fetology

II. Prenatal development (non-humans)

A. Fertilization (non-humans)
B. Embryo (non-humans)
C. Fetus (non-humans)

If there is consensus about this general structure, then we can discuss filling in further items. Not all of these items would need to be created as articles right away, but an outline like this could serve as a useful roadmap. I don't think that we need any separate "timeline" articles, since a timeline can be adequately included as part of any of these articles. Also, I again recommend against using the term "fetal development" since it is an awkward term that very often covers embryonic development too.[2] If we must have a separate article about development of the fetus, then it could be called something like "development of fetus", but (just like timelines) I don't think that we need any separate "development" articles since development can be adequately included as part of any of these articles described in the outline.Ferrylodge 14:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I, too, assume any further item could be added to my proposed outline, if there is consensus about it. So, we have two alternatives now, which, as far as I see, are incompatible with each other. Therefore, it seems all we need now is that everybody to say which one they prefer. However, I'm new to such procedures here in Wikipedia - where are the ballot boxes? Furthermore, are there any other participants, or suggestions of changes in the existing ones? Mikael Häggström 12:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I had to try some of my ideas to see that some of them are not optimal yet. Actually, I find the order of articles good enough for now. More amount of text is required before any further split of articles should be made, and personally I won't be able to contribute very much to that until next vacation. So until then, I'd say there are other parts of Wikipedia that requires cleanup. Mikael Häggström 06:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd suggest following change to your outline above: x. fetal musculosceletal system xi fetology ... I tried to link from a medicine article (Hip dysplasia (human) to fetal development and found a big gaping hole in the entire area. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 18:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject?

Isn't it appropriate to start a new Wikiproject? It's very hard to organise and deploy ourselves effectively through this talk page alone. Would also bring more attention to the very difficult task of finally sorting out these confusing, often wrong articles Snellios (talk) 13:31, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I've proposed a project here. Please hop on board if you think it's a good idea! Snellios (talk) 22:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps a project on developmental biology would be more better and more broad? We definitely do need one on this subject. Richard001 (talk) 01:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Invertebrate paleontology

The article Invertebrate paleontology may benefit from additional contributions. Thanks! -- Jreferee (Talk) 20:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

allowing unconverted metrics in scientific articles

I'm seeking consensus at MOSNUM talk for a change in the wording to allow contributors, by consensus only, to use unconverted metrics in scientific articles. Your opinions are invited. Tony 15:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Eugenics/Dysgenics in the Human article

I'm not very happy with this addition. Could I ask for some second opinions at Talk:Human#Lame_.22Dysgenics.22_Section? Thanks Tim Vickers 02:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Exosome complex up for FA

The article above has been up for FA already for some time, but has not attracted a lot of remarks. Any comments and suggestions on the article are welcome and will be addressed. The FAC discussion can be found here: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Exosome complex. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 18:19, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Selection of articles for kids on elementary schools

I am preparing sets of wikipedia articles for the OLPC project. For example this will be selection of some 1000 articles for biology on elementary school Wikislice biology - we could work together. I need help to improve this selection. There will be bundles for all major school subjects List of planned selections (physics, chemistry, mathematics, geography etc.). The selection will on the 100$ laptop and all kids will use it at school. I can easily assemble the content bundle for the OLPC laptop but I need help to assemble the selection of keywords and organize these keywords into logical hierarchy. I am not a biology expert.

If you are interested in cooperation please contact me at User_talk:Arael2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.229.220.105 (talk) 14:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletions (WP:PROD)

Perhaps this section you've created could be updated outmatically based on category? Richard001 23:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, but I am not sufficiently skilled to establish the automation. There are at least two fully automated solutions in place, one based on categorization and the other based on banner template; see this page for information I've collected on them. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:33, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Biology collaboration

Most of the subprojects I work with are too small and inactive to have their own collaborations, but maybe we could set one up (weekly/monthly) for biology as a whole, something we could all work on together. It might help build a stronger link between the somewhat disconnected daughter projects. Mutualism is one example I had in mind, a very important concept in ecology, but the article is barely start class. We could start with a monthly collaboration on the most important articles in various areas. Richard001 01:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Specific topics are covered by each subproject, but more general topics can be covered in a collaboration at the parent project level. - TwoOars (Rev) 19:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
How about Wikipedia:Biology collaboration of the month? Richard001 10:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm all for it. There should be some sort of collaboration on biology topics. For example, animal, plant, fungus and microorganism are all rated B-quality articles. They probably should be FAs, or at least GAs. - tameeria (talk) 21:03, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll help. — Scientizzle 17:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Colouration

I'd like to get more input on the organization of our articles on colouration. Currently we have no central article on the subject. We have animal colouration, largely from 1911 Britannica, as well as two small articles on advertising colouration and cryptic colouration. These should probably both be merged into a central article on the subject, but there is of course no such article at present. Should we keep the article on animal colouration, or just move the lot to a central location and try to work on it from there? It is a very broad subject (see e.g. Britannica's current 42 page article), but I'm still not very well read on this topic, so I'm unsure how we should partition such an article. I think we need to start with a single core article and work from there though. Richard001 22:42, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Template

Would someone be able to add a |needs-photo parameter to the template like other projects that adds the request to Category:Wikipedia requested biology photographs. Richard001 23:56, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Done! Now you just need to create the category. Hersfold (t/a/c) 18:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Cheers Hersfold, I've started using it already. Say, would you be able to do the same thing for plants? See Category talk:Wikipedia requested photographs of plants for the original request, which nothing seems to have been done about. Richard001 04:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

CFD aid request

Hello, Categories for Discussion needs someone to help complete a category split from Category:New World rats and mice to Category:Sigmodontinae, Category:Neotominae, and Category:Tylomyinae. It's been sitting there for over a month because I don't think anyone at CFD really knows which is what. Could someone who does stop by and try to work on this? I know it's 493 articles, but it does need doing. Thanks. :-) Hersfold (t/a/c) 22:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible vandalism in project assessments

Would someone at this project take a look at the article assessments on Talk:Joseph Merrick please? It's not clear to me why this person should be considered a top-level importance on so many projects. WhatamIdoing 04:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the biology template, I think medicine is more specific. Probably best to address the assessor directly in these cases (the assessment was only an edit or two old). Richard001 04:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Change to Manual of Style on measurement systems

The section on choosing measurement systems has been changed from:

  • In scientific articles, SI units are the main units of measure, unless there are compelling historical or pragmatic reasons not to use them (for example, Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s−1)

Into:

  • In scientific articles, use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic. This will usually be SI, but not always. For example, natural units are often used: ångströms (or angstroms) are widely used in such fields as x-ray crystallography and structural chemistry, and Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s−1.

Comments on this change are welcome at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Units_of_measurement. Thank you Tim Vickers 18:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

One editor is objecting strongly to this change, some feedback from people writing science articles would be very helpful. Tim Vickers 17:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Anthropocentrism in Wikipedia biology articles

I think that most biology articles on Wikipedia focus on humans too much. The article Exocrine_gland, for example, has a "List of exocrine glands" section which doesn't even mention that it only lists human exocrine glands, and ignores exocrine glands in non-human animals (the article solely focuses on human exocrine glands). Is this the right way to approach biology subjects? I think it would make more sense for articles to focus on defining "exocrine gland" from a species-neutral perspective (the term is species neutral, not human-focussed), and the article Human exocrine glands should focus on exocrine glands in humans (this would allow articles to be created for other species where it would be appropriate/interesting/needed). The species neutral exocrine gland article would have a section "Human exocrine glands", I assume. This would fix a bias that shouldn't be present in science articles. Any opinions on this? --Oldak Quill 22:27, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you, though it's a contentious issue that hasn't really been discussed much. I tried to bring it up on the naming conventions page, but nothing much came of it. Virtually all biology is biased in the direction of humans - whether that means focussing on humans and ignoring mention of other species, or focusing on species more closely related to humans (e.g. neglecting mention of plants and non-animals, or giving minimal attention to microbes (as in the whole taxonomic classification system, up until recently, and probably still now). The problem is even worse in laypeople, who often think animal and mammal mean the same thing. More attention to the issue, including discussion and policy/recommendations is needed. Richard001 02:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It's probably because they're also medical articles, and WikiProject Medicine is human. 132.205.44.5 (talk) 00:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
An example would be an article on cold/flu viruses. These infect humans, but they also surely infect many other animals. Often, there is nothing about this in the article. There is less information about them in other animals, and less interest due to the limited applications (perhaps veterinarian and avoiding it jumping from animals to humans) so it makes some sense to have relatively less focus on other animals, but even taking this into account there still tends to be too much about humans in most articles. Richard001 (talk) 10:11, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
As a paleontology editor I totally agree with the complaint. A couple of us got Anus moved to Human anus because it starts of with content that's totally inappropriate for innocent invertebrates! -- Philcha (talk) 11:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Project Banner question

Would anyone object if I added parameters to allow assessments for Wikipedia:WikiProject Cell signaling to the existing project banner? The advantages of doing so would be that in those circumstances the single banner would automatically assess for both projects. The disadvantage would only arise if you thought the articles regarding cell signaling don't fall within the scope of this project. John Carter 16:18, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

It would be okay for quality ratings, but not for importance, unless you can assign a separate importance for each project via the one banner. Richard001 07:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 19:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Scientific peer review

This Scientific Peer Review project can hardly be called successful. While there have been a steady but small flow of articles submitted for review, the actual reviews have been either non-existent or in no real way different from those done through the standard Wikipedia:Peer review process. Some editors will recall that the project was started with an enthusiastic discussion about identifying expert reviewers through an elected board. Unfortunately as time went by, it became clear there was no consensus on whether we had a board, or on how it was to be set up or on what it was supposed to do. There was also a lack of consensus on what "sciences" we were covering, and on many other aspects. In the end we sort of lapsed into a minimal review process which has staggered on for about 18 months. I think it is time we decided what to do about the project. Unless people can come up with a new way forward and enthusiastically implement it, I think we have to declare that this project be no longer active in any sense and that editors should ask for review at WP:PR. I am posting this on the talk pages of the major Science WikiProjects. Please feel free to publicize it elsewhere. Please add you comments at Wikipedia talk:Scientific peer review#Is this inactive?. --Bduke 01:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:AR1 Backlog

If a couple people who like making new articles would like to hop over to WP:AR1#Science, I'll bet you guys could cross the "Sceince" section off the list of articles requested for more than a year. Just a friendly heads-up. Best, shoy (words words) 17:28, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

RFC on 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack

Soil

The Soil article could use some biological perspective to balance the human use and cultural impacts perspective. This has come up several times in the discussion at Talk:Soil. If interested, please join in. -- Paleorthid (talk) 00:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Articles listed at Articles for deletion

Please contribute to the discussion. Uncle G 17:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for related site

At present, you are the project group responsible for the article on aging, but I have made a proposal at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:COUNCIL/P#Gerontology which might interest some members. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

What featured pictures should be acceptable for animals?

There is a discussion here. Permalink is here. Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:38, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Astrosociobiology at AFD

Astrosociobiology has been nominated for deletion. 132.205.99.122 (talk) 20:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Famous pandas

Category:Famous pandas is up for renaming/splitting. 132.205.99.122 (talk) 19:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Greenspun illustration project: requests now open

Dear Wikimedians,

This is a (belated) announcement that requests are now being taken for illustrations to be created for the Philip Greenspun illustration project (PGIP).

The aim of the project is to create and improve illustrations on Wikimedia projects. You can help by identifying which important articles or concepts are missing illustrations (diagrams) that could make them a lot easier to understand. Requests should be made on this page: Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/Requests

If there's a topic area you know a lot about or are involved with as a Wikiproject, why not conduct a review to see which illustrations are missing and needed for that topic? Existing content can be checked by using Mayflower to search Wikimedia Commons, or use the Free Image Search Tool to quickly check for images of a given topic in other-language projects.

The community suggestions will be used to shape the final list, which will be finalised to 50 specific requests for Round 1, due to start in January. People will be able to make suggestions for the duration of the project, not just in the lead-up to Round 1.

thanks, pfctdayelise (talk) 12:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC) (Project coordinator)

"Natural Stress"

Could someone please have a look at Natural Stress? It reads like a school report, but I suspect there's some useful material there. Melchoir (talk) 02:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Request for input re Science Super-Categories

There is a CFD discussion underway at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_December_15#Category:Physical_sciences regarding the relationship between, and possible merging of, two Categories: Category:Physical sciences and Category:Natural sciences. Thus far the discussion has attracted very few comments and it has been relisted. Two editors suggested asking for input from this Project, but as far as I can see there was no follow-through on that -- until now. So please give this some thought, and then share your thoughts at the CFD linked above. Thanks! --Bduke (talk) 04:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

  • I have just made a significant alternative proposal. Please take a look and add your comments to this important discussion. Cgingold (talk) 02:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggested addition to "To do" section

I would suggest the addition of a third line to section Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology#To do, as follows:

Thanks for considering this addition. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:32, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Epibiont

Saw this new article on Epibiont and don't know enough about it to know whether its real or not. No sources, so I'm bringing it here. Mbisanz (talk) 10:49, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

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