I have held back no water in its season

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3323704.html

Setting: England, July/Early August of 1914, very beginning of World War I.

Terms Searched: Essentially, I searched for "horses" and "broken legs", "horses" "shooting injured horses", "World War I" got some of what I was looking for: I found articles that discussed how injured/suffering horses were dealt with in WWI and general information on why broken legs are bad news for them. I also found on Wikipedia the American Academy of Neurology's grading-scale for concussions, which I'm using as a reference. However, some of the questions I have here are a bit too specific/unusual for Google.

(Warning, somewhat grim discussion of unpleasant horse death/injury below the cut)

Scenario: An English soldier is riding a horse during a training exercise, test, etc, just know that they're not far from the camp/military base and it's not during a fight. They are going rather quickly, and the horse falls- I'm thinking a hole or a rock, as my previous searches have told me that those might be sufficient enough to make a horse fall (And in those sources, speed was always a factor in how badly the horse was injured). The soldier goes flying off, dislocates his arm, bangs his head (he gets a Grade I concussion according to the AAN guidelines), and gets a fair-sized gash on his head as well. The horse is badly injured as well, and another soldier decides that it is badly injured enough that he's going to shoot it and put it out of its misery.

Essentially, I'm looking for answers for the following:

1) I know the legs are a really bad place for a horse to be injured, but if the fall is bad enough is it realistic to say that neck/back damage could happen as well? If going fast enough, could a horse fall and do enough damage to its back/neck/legs that killing it immediately would be considered appropriate?

2) I know that shooting injured horses happened in World War I, as an article I found discussed it. However, the article and others I found dealt more with mid-toward the end of WWI, and less of the very beginning. So would it have been realistic to say that a horse that was badly injured during training/what have you in July of 1914 would be shot? Or would there have been another method of killing that was maybe... I don't know if "nicer" is the word I'm looking for, but less bloody? And again, this is assuming that the horse is very, very badly injured and that the person doing the shooting has enough knowledge of horses to know there's no real help to be had for it.

3) This is pretty specific, but does anyone know what would have been procedure for moving an injured soldier (I don't plan on giving him a neck injury, but suppose they suspect he has one)? He's dizzy, probably not able to walk very well, and somewhat confused. He has a few friends that have come to help him out, so I assume they wouldn't just let him get up and walk back on his own- so would proper procedure be to get a stretcher, or to just help him get up and support him as he walks? And again, he's either on or very close to the military base/camp where he came from so medical personnel are presumably nearby (unless that wasn't the case in 1914?)

4) Are there any medical facts for treating a dislocated shoulder and concussion (or general military medical procedure) in 1914 that I should be aware of? How long would this soldier be kept from duty? I'm referencing the AAN guidelines mentioned above when I say he has a Grade I concussion, which means no unconsciousness, the confusion only lasts about fifteen minutes. I don't know if he would be out for a week, a month, only a few days? They're still gearing up to go to war, mind you, so there's no actual fighting for him to be participating in just yet.


Thank you to anyone who can help me with this, as I know those questions are a bit detailed and specific. Just want to make sure the story is as realistic as possible.

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3323623.html

Would the technology for tracing a telephone call (pin-pointing the caller's location) be available in 1950, even if not commonly in use by the police?

Location: Vancouver, Canada (phone calls would be made within the city)
Terms googled: many combinations of telephone, trace/tracing, call, history, police, all of which return many hits for how to trace your current phone history; have skimmed several articles about the history of telephones in general and in the 1950s/1940s; any suggestions for google searches also welcomed

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3323161.html

Hello little details! This is the first time I ask so I hope I am doing this right (english is not my first language so I hope I express myself correctly).

One of my MCs is supposed to have an accident which causes him to be unable to play the violin. Ideally he could still TECHNICALLY do it, but it would cause pain (resulting in him giving it up).

Setting would be 17th century-ish. I'm currently thinking about him getting his hand crushed and then not having it treated, resulting in the fingerbones not properly healing. From what I read about fractures, this seems to be possible. Especially scaphoid fractures seem to result in difficulty of grasping things for the patients, if not treated.
From my research it seems to be realistic for something like this to happen without major complications like necrosis etc, but I might be wrong.

Since I need him to be unable/unwilling to play his violin anymore and I don't play that instrument myself I tried to find out what would be more severe - breaking the left or the right hand. I googled forum posts and articles about lefthanded and righthanded violinplay and looked up some tutorials for playing it as well as videos of people playing the violin and it seems to me that the hand playing the strings generally needs more dexterity (which would be the left hand)? Or skill to learn? I'm not sure about this.
I've read opinions that the hand holding the bow is more important, but these haven't been in the context of 'what if your hand was broken' so I'm not sure if it means anything in this regard. I could see this causing trouble too though if you have difficulty grasping things.

So basically I wonder if the injury I have in mind is realistic for my scenario, and if yes, which hand would cause the most trouble (or wether it's not important).

I researched guides and videos on how to play the violin, discussions about left handed vs right handed violins, fractures, hand fractures in particular, scaphoid fractures, therapy for hand fractures.

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3323099.html

Hi!

My MC is male, early thirties, and moderately fit. In the story, he's being unknowingly dosed by another character.

My question is what could be a possible cause for psychosis? He's bought a new apartment, and ever since he's lived there he's been hearing voices, feeling cold (which I think I'll have that due to the fact that the A. C. isn't working) and he begins to feel some paranoia. I want him to become convinced that his place is haunted by ghosts.

I read some people's experiences on drug-forums, and I was thinking either pure meth, amphetamines or LSD, but I don't how effective that would be. While I'm alright with a some side effects, I don't want him to realise that there's a completely unsupernatural reason that he's hearing things until further on in the story. Plus, I've read that substance psychosis normally happens to chronic users or after one large dose. Is there something milder?

I've googled substance psychosis, psychosis causes, auditory hallucinations, drugs that cause psychosis.

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3322862.html

Hi all. I know a reasonable amount about what split-brain patients are like, but all the articles on them refer to a surgical procedure. Is it at all reasonable for someone to suffer a head injury that's vigorous enough to sever the corpus callosum, but not so vigorous that it kills them or causes cripplingly massive damage to the rest of the brain? The head injury element isn't absolutely critical to the plot -- I can age up the character and make him someone who had the surgery to treat epilepsy, if I have to. (Actually, there might be reasons to do this anyway. Hmm.)

The story is set in contemporary Seattle. I've looked up "split brain" on Wikipedia and "split brain head injury" and "accidental split brain patient" on Google.

ETA: It sounds like a severed corpus callosum without severe additional damage doesn't pass the sniff test. I'd considered the idea of a congenital defect, but I'm trying to keep this at or near short story length; the head injury bit doesn't buy me enough to justify the additional technical exposition required. Thanks!

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3322542.html

Hey, Little Details! Have I got a question for you :D

So. I'm drawing a comic (graphic novel, sequential art, whatever you please to call it - I just think of it as a story I tell with pictures) and I need help with a type of crystal I came up with. It's a type of mineral with the perculiar property of making people/things do certain things (varies according to type/location mined/etc), and it makes for fun times with my main characters.

Everywhere it's appeared so far, it's been a particular shape, and I am of the opinion that it must grow that way. Some googling led me to the word "scalenohedron", and that looks like how I've been drawing it. I goog'd "scalenohedral crystals" and got some good naturally-occurring examples of the shape - rhodochrosite is a particularly fine one. However, when I then googled some of these minerals (rhodochrosite again, for example, but calcite is another), I came up with crystals in other shapes (because calcite apparently thinks it's hilarious to look like anything).

What I want to know is these things:

1) when I draw them in the mine (as I will eventually), will I need to include variously-different-shaped (that is, scalenohedral, octohedronal, prisms) crystals in one area? I would assume crystals with the same type of shape and cleavage all grow in one area - certainly when I look at them on the goog, in their own matrixes they're all of one shape (like: no cubic crystals growing on top of prisms).

2) are scalenohedrons weird? that is, should I include crystals of different shapes, or is it okay to stick with what I've got?</i> I'm still pretty early in the comic, so I can start sticking in some different shapes if necessary, but I'd really like to keep to scalenohedrons because they're pretty :D

3) Is there anything else you-the-geologist think I-the-writer/artist should keep in mind? I like geology and minerals a lot (♥ the rocks & minerals section in the NMNH), but I don't know what else I should automatically know about how these guys grow or form that would be obvious to a geology buff. Can you tell me if you think I'm missing anything?


Aaaand that's pretty much it. Thanks in advance for any help you guys can offer!

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3322161.html

Hello! I'm having a little trouble researching about the treatments for what I'm doing to my MC in my fanfic.

The MC is male and in his thirties and fit. It's set in modern day UK. There are slight superpowers and such at work, although it's not really important to his injury (other than the fact that someone with super strength hurt him)

Anyways, it's a pretty severe injury, because the bad guy repeatably abuses the knee in hopes that the MC will never walk normal again. My main thing is that I have to do as much damage as possible without amputation, because it's important later in the story that he has both legs (one of them being pretty damaged)

I have a question about surgery, because the character has ACL/MCL and other tears that need to be fixed, but i read that they usually leave the surgery for a week to let the swelling go down. If the MC also has a broken/shattered kneecap do they automatically need to do surgery on that? or do they wait for the swelling to go down on that as well? Also, for any of those who have had kneecap issues and such, to repair an injury like that do they put pins and such in your knee to help stabilize it (and remove them after a couple of years). Do you also need to wait for the kneecap to heal before you start doing physio? I know starting physio quick is important but considering he has so much damage done do they wait for him to heal, or do they just start him ASAP so it will help him in the long run?

Research: (everything from google) Shattered kneecap, ACL tear... pretty much all the tears you can do... Recovery from those. Kneecapping (which is pretty much what I'm doing, minus the gun.. but i can't find a lot of prognosis on it)

I can find good information on the individual injuries, it's just with all of them together that's leaving me a bit overwhelmed. I've read through some of the knee injuries tags here... http://little-details.livejournal.com/3264597.html that one does a really good example of the actual physio (and I'm probably going to use her example)

Any examples or suggestions would be great. It's really important that even after about 6-8 months of physio the MC still has major issues with his mobility, and does not have a good prognosis of his leg getting much better, so I'm trying to make it as serious as possible, without going overboard.

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3321931.html

I have a military-related question. In Lois McMaster Bujold's Memory, we discover that officers can be promoted to one rank higher than their original one when they retire; Emperor Gregor promotes Miles to captain when he (Miles) retires, even though he was only a lieutenant. Unfortunately, my knowledge of the US military is *cough* not quite as extensive as my knowledge of Bujold's military. My army brat father has informed me that officers in real world militaries are sometimes promoted right before they retire, but even after Googling things like "military promotions retirement," I have no idea if the US army does this, let alone under what circumstances they might do it. Does anyone have any idea?

Setting is modern-day US army.

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3321747.html

I'm looking for what sorts of shrine or offering might be appropriate for a young Hindu male musician going to college.

Setting: Modern (2012), an unnamed college on the East Coast of the US.

Ramanik (Ram for short) was born in India (I haven't decided exactly where yet) but immigrated to the US with his family as a young child. They belong to the Brahmin caste, and his family is about middle class in the US. Ram is a talented and devoted musician (flute, piccolo, and other woodwind dabbling), and he's working towards a performance degree.

He's quiet about it, but still religious, and he follows the vegetarian ideal. I know that the practice of Hinduism can be so individual that I'm not sure what devotions would be realistic for him. Right now, I'm considering a small icon of Ganesha in one of his various (32, 12, depending on the source) forms -- based on anecdotes from a ethnomusicology professor, who plays the tabla -- with the icon in his room, with sweets offered regularly.

This is something I'd like to get respectfully correct, which is why I ask. If any of this seems off, I would love to hear the feedback of those more familiar with this kind of thing.

Search terms: Various combinations of Ganesh, Ganesha, forms of Ganesh, Ganesha attributes, Hindu music/musicians and gods, vedic instruments, Dvija Ganapati,

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3321464.html

Setting: London, UK; 2011

Characters involved: Alec, an African-American man in his early 20s; Eliot, a white man in his early 30s; Parker, a white female in her early 20s; Sophie, a white female in her early 40s; Nate, a white male in his mid-40s. All of them are US citizens on holiday in London, except for Sophie who's a British national.

The scenario:

Eliot finds Alec unconscious in an alley of unknown cause. An ambulance is called, which takes Alec to a hospital. Eliot tells the ambulance personnel that he’s Alec’s brother-in-law. From my research it appears that he would not be allowed to ride in the ambulance, so Eliot is picked up by Parker and they both go to the hospital.

Upon arrival, they tell the reception about Alec being brought in and that Parker is his wife. I am assuming that this will get people to tell Parker about Alec’s medical condition, and Eliot being her brother makes it so they both get to wait for information, probably in the A & E waiting room. They are told Alec is still unconscious and tests are being run.

After some waiting, Sophie and Nate arrive. They might be old enough to pose as Parker’s parents, although they would be hard-pressed to explain why she’s a blond and they are not, but they cannot pose as Eliot’s parents. So they are simply friends. I gather they can wait with Eliot and Parker, but medical information would still only be shared with Parker, who might ask either her brother or one of her friends to stay with her when the doctor speaks with her? Either way, the doctor tells them that Alec woke up briefly, very disoriented, but is unconscious again. Tests have shown some nerve damage, nothing lasting, although he’ll probably have some shakiness for several days. (Can they run tests for that while he’s unconscious?) Other than that, they can find no injuries. He’s being transferred to a bed and kept for observation overnight.

My research has shown that the ward head nurse can allow someone to visit after visiting hours, and since Alec is disoriented when he wakes up, I think Parker as his wife would get permission to spend the night. I’m unsure which ward he would be in and if he’d have to share his room. During the night, Alec wakes up twice, once very disoriented and brief, the second time he’s awake longer, realizes where he is, knows who Parker is, but has lost all memory of the attack that caused him to end up in the hospital, in fact he has lost memory of a great portion of that day.

The next day, Eliot, Sophie and Nate will visit. Depending on the exact ward, visiting hours start as early as 10 am or as late as 2 pm, and generally last until 8 pm, sometimes with a lunch break in between in which no visitors are allowed. Alec will have one to two people at his bedside for all hours it’s allowed. Because Alec is now awake and aware, but still shaky due to the nerve damage, they doctors decide to keep him for one more night, and if all goes well and he continues to have a e decrease in shakiness he’ll be discharged the next morning. Parker is not allowed to stay overnight again, since Alec is no longer disoriented.

The next morning, the doctor does his rounds and tells Alec that he’ll be discharged. Around noon his friends come to pick him up and get him home.

Now, two questions:
1. Is this scenario plausible, considering NHS/UK policies in hospitals? Does anyone see me saying something that’s impossible considering policy//other reasons?

2. With Alec being brought to an NHS hospital, but also being a US citizen, would there be a bill for him to pay? If he was British, he’d be insured for a hospital stay. I know many US citizens don’t have insurance. So the big question here is, would Alec get a bill from the hospital that he’d then have to pay (assume he has no insurance)?

In order to write this scenario, I’ve delved into the NHS site, the site for the St. Bartholomew Hospital, which is the closest hospital to the place where Alec is found, previous posts on this site and several UK patient advice sites. I believe I’ve not written anything weird, but I have no experience with UK hospitals. I understand they’re very much like the system we have set up in my own country from what I’ve read, but that might have caused me to miss some difference that really do make a difference in how this would play out.

Edited to correct Sophie's nationality.

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3321114.html

Here is the setup. The heroes need to get to their space ship which is in a docking bay on a large space station. The bad guys have it surrounded so the good guys blow open the exterior doors to the bay...

So questions...

Based on MOVIES (since I have never tried this... yet) there is explosive decompression which causes a violent rush of air and blows everyone out of the hanger into space. This sounds great, but is it real? The pressure difference between a pressurized shuttle bay and outside is only 1 atmosphere, does not seem like it would really do that.

Second question, would the size of the hole matter for the wind force? Say a door made for a normal person verse the hanger doors.

Research I have done has been Google searches with various key words such as "explosive decompression," "air lock open in space," and so on. The problem is all the reliable links I found talked about the impact to the body of the sudden exposure to vacuum and nothing about the air velocity blowing or not blowing out. I did not know where to turn after that, so I came here. :)

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3320890.html

Time/place: Fantasy world with roughly late 1700s/early 1800s level of technology

My characters are at sea in a small sailing vessel when a storm comes up and deposits them ... somewhere. They are on a long voyage and have a sextant with them, but I'd like it to be broken in the storm, so they can only get a vague idea where they are from the stars. (I need them to be thoroughly lost for the next piece of the plot to go into effect.) However, I have only the vaguest notion of how a sextant is put together -- basically what I can figure out from looking at pictures on the Internet -- so I'm not sure of the best, most plausible way to break it so that it can't be fixed. Both main characters are tinkerer types (one leans more to educated book-learning and science, the other is a practical handyman-type guy and skilled sailor), so the trick isn't breaking it so much as breaking it in a way they can't work around.

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3320822.html

I'm trying to find a list of orphanages in London, in 2011, which are all still active/working orphanages. I'd like the exact number and the names of the orphanages, if in any way possible.

I'm having trouble mainly because my seach either directs me to general sites geared towards adoption from orphanages in Britain - with no subdivisions or lists of actual orphanages given, or I get a list of phone directories where there's all kinds of organizations that work with orphans in one way or another - yet again, not actual working orphanages.

I've found three (possible) orphanages in London from an old Q&A on ask.com:

Coram orphanage (unlikely that it's still in London, I've found information on the founder and there it said the location changed to a more rural setting in the 20th century)
Barnardo's home (headquarters are in London, but is there an actual orphanage?)
Save an Orphan (uncomfirmed, I cannot find an actual orphanage, it seems to be an national organization)

I've searched for "London orphanages" but like I said before, that gives me a whole lot of useless sites.

Surely there must be orphanages in London - actual, active orphanes with children? At least one?

http://little-details.livejournal.com/3320425.html

Sort of a "what if," and I'll try to keep it short. I'm not necesarily looking for exact answers as much as suggestions or ideas as to what *could* happen.

I'm writing a sci-fi story in which all life in most of the N. Hemisphere instantly ceases to exhist. How it happens and where all that carbon goes is part of the sci-fi (assume it's just gone), but what I'm curious about is what would likely happen to the planet in things such as...

... global climate? (Ice age or warming?)

... weather?

... ecosystem?

... evolution of plants and animals?

This is primarily over the next 250 years and assuming that a) ocean life was mostly preserved and b) humans are out of the picture.

I'm also curious what effects might play a role in the gradual recovery of the global balance, given that all life in the Southern Hemisphere survives the initial catastrophe. What would the Earth look like in 250 years?

Google: I followed a few leads to reading about the impact of supervolcanos on climate, but it looks like most of their effects come from Sulfur, which wouldn't be the case here. This might be more akin to a meteor impact, but I'd still love to hear other ideas. There is also a study that says it takes a forest 140-200 years to recover 40-80% of its growth, but that's assuming that the devastation didn't take up half the planet, so.... *shrugs*