General Science Thread

[Jazzgirl_127]

Also, I'll just quietly post this here since it's the only place on GUB I feel safe saying anything about COVID, but my daughter went to school for 2 days this year and the next morning: "Your Child has been exposed to COVID-19 in a classroom with a "teacher/student/administrator/coach" and you should call ..."

She is out till the 21st. I appreciate the staff being on top of it and professional about it. Just FYI this is going to happen all over.

We have a bit of a wild week ahead hoping no one gets a cough or fever.

Ugh. I hope your family doesn't catch it.

I also hesitated to post (we weren't technically involved because we chose the fully remote version). In our district, kids were able to go back for one day to meet teachers and pick up supplies. In that time, one student who tested positive 2 days after their day at school and a teacher (who was in the classroom 2 days, took off the next two days because they felt sick and tested positive the next day). We got the one email and it was shortly followed by the second email. I worry for the teachers, hopefully no one else gets it. Masks were required and students were split up over four days so schools were at no more than 25% capacity...but still.

[caduceus]

Thank you on the advice for Vitamin D - I'm going out to get some, now. And I also heard (this is anectdotal, totally) that ER doctors regardless of age were taking a baby aspirin every day, convinced it helps. I am near 50 and no GI issues so it's not a bad thing for me anyway.

I am on the way to the store now.

Any Vitamin D is probably good (sunlight included!). D3 is the animal form and is best absorbed by the body. A recent study showed that Vitamin D reduces COVID related ICU admission by 97%! Don't know about the aspirin. I haven't seen any studies. It's not a bad thing for anyone over 50 (for coronary heart disease and stroke prevention).

On edit: It makes sense that aspirin (a platelet inhibitor) would possibly help in the situation of coronavirus illness. The virus, while being a respiratory illness, is primarily a vascular (blood vessel) attacker. Anticoagulants are now a mainstay of treating seriously ill people with COVID, along with other medications, like steroid medications that quell the immune system.

[willandi]

Any Vitamin D is probably good (sunlight included!). D3 is the animal form and is best absorbed by the body. A recent study showed that Vitamin D reduces COVID related ICU admission by 97%! Don't know about the aspirin. I haven't seen any studies. It's not a bad thing for anyone over 50 (for coronary heart disease and stroke prevention).

On edit: It makes sense that aspirin (a platelet inhibitor) would possibly help in the situation of coronavirus illness. The virus, while being a respiratory illness, is primarily a vascular (blood vessel) attacker. Anticoagulants are now a mainstay of treating seriously ill people with COVID, along with other medications, like steroid medications that quell the immune system.

Thank you for your advice. I got my flu shot last week, the 'high' dose (I am 71), and have been taking 5000 iu of D3 for some time. I take a full aspirin daily, rather than Xarelto (or any of the others) which does things to me I don't like.
I also am O pos, and have heard that that may also be a good thing.
My wife, on the other hand, is A something blood type and has a suppressed immune system. She was told in June that she probably has Lupus and needs to see a rheumatologist to begin treatment. None accept her insurance or have any openings for 6 months or more. There may be one in C d'A that will. Waiting to hear back.
Meanwhile...just plugging along and trying to get by.

[DZ]

Ugh. I hope your family doesn't catch it.

I also hesitated to post (we weren't technically involved because we chose the fully remote version). In our district, kids were able to go back for one day to meet teachers and pick up supplies. In that time, one student who tested positive 2 days after their day at school and a teacher (who was in the classroom 2 days, took off the next two days because they felt sick and tested positive the next day). We got the one email and it was shortly followed by the second email. I worry for the teachers, hopefully no one else gets it. Masks were required and students were split up over four days so schools were at no more than 25% capacity...but still.

Yeah. It was a really really tough call.

When numbers were way higher, we said "No." And it was easy. But then her school did the right thing and put all classes off for 3 weeks. Just work from home.

They tried a staggered start, half kids going every other day, social distancing, masks, and some classes taught outside. Our daughter said "I really want to go back to school" and who can blame her? It was a heart-wrenching decision, but we decided to have faith in the precautions taken. Maybe we did the right thing in that they knew near instantly when there was a problem.


Fri morning we were told she was "in a classroom" with someone diagnosed with COVID."

So it would have had to have been last Tuesday, which means if we can get through this week, we'll probably be okay. But even sitting down working one asks every 10 mins "Do I feel feverish?" so ... we're probably all going to be okay. She thinks she knows who it was and not one of her friends whom she spent a lot of time around. But still. It was a very hard decision and now we have to watch the entire situation closely and think about what to do.

In honesty, I don't think it matters bc I don't see them getting through October anyway. I just wish she could socialize somehow not on a screen. Her assignments are getting done, but nothing replaces a teacher.

[caduceus]

Yeah. It was a really really tough call.

When numbers were way higher, we said "No." And it was easy. But then her school did the right thing and put all classes off for 3 weeks. Just work from home.

They tried a staggered start, half kids going every other day, social distancing, masks, and some classes taught outside. Our daughter said "I really want to go back to school" and who can blame her? It was a heart-wrenching decision, but we decided to have faith in the precautions taken. Maybe we did the right thing in that they knew near instantly when there was a problem.


Fri morning we were told she was "in a classroom" with someone diagnosed with COVID."

So it would have had to have been last Tuesday, which means if we can get through this week, we'll probably be okay. But even sitting down working one asks every 10 mins "Do I feel feverish?" so ... we're probably all going to be okay. She thinks she knows who it was and not one of her friends whom she spent a lot of time around. But still. It was a very hard decision and now we have to watch the entire situation closely and think about what to do.

In honesty, I don't think it matters bc I don't see them getting through October anyway. I just wish she could socialize somehow not on a screen. Her assignments are getting done, but nothing replaces a teacher.

I feel your thoughts. Having a 13 yo, going on 14, I know how it feels (and she's all online when school starts Tuesday). BUT, no amount of teaching lost will equate to the prospect of a family engulfed by a deadly virus. Do not worry about the educational situation. In the end, it won't matter one bit. She will manage it probably better than you do. She will be fine, but you will probably spend your nights in anguish. Don't worry. Keep her safe and your family safe. Priorities! Something about seeing the forest for the trees....

[DZ]

LIGO and VIRGO have discovered more stuff in the first few years than they ever dreamed. Next up will be space-based ones that go 50 kilometers or more, shinging lasers at mirrors in satellites.

Record-breaking gravitational waves reveal that midsize black holes do exist

Detected on May 21, 2019, the gravitational waves originated from a source about 17 billion light-years from Earth, making this the most distant detection confirmed so far. Because of the expansion of the universe, that distance corresponds to a travel time of about 7 billion years, meaning that the gravitational waves were emitted when the universe was about half its current age. It’s also the most energetic event yet seen, radiating about eight times the equivalent of the sun’s mass in energy, says astrophysicist Karan Jani of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. “I hope it deserves its own entry in the record book.”

Basically the biggest explosion ever contemplated. Eviscerating 8 suns into pure energy.

The new event dethrones the previous record-holder, a collision that occurred about 9 billion light-years away that radiated about five solar masses worth of energy, and created a black hole of 80 solar masses (SN: 12/4/18).

But, for the new event, “there’s no doubt,” says astrophysicist Cole Miller of University of Maryland at College Park, who was not involved with the study. “This demonstrates that there is now at least one intermediate mass black hole in the universe.”

The black hole’s two progenitors were themselves heftier than any seen colliding before — at about 85 and 66 times the mass of the sun. That has scientists puzzling over how this smashup came to be.

More, here, and I support Science News.org with a monthy donation and encourage everyone else. Best science journalism out there and a non-profit. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...ion-ligo-virgo

[DZ]

Once you cross the event-horizon in a large black hole, it's the only way to "move" faster than the speed of light. But, you're not really falling or moving because time and space switch place in a black hole and you are basically doing nothing but falling forward into time. You can no more avoid the singularity than you can avoid next Tuesday.

It is freakin' weird.

[Markburn1]

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new...thin-20200908/

"Another possibility is that dark matter, which clumps the universe together, transforms into dark energy, which drives it apart. Or perhaps the Earth sits in a vast void, skewing our observations. Or the two anomalies could be unrelated. “I haven’t seen anything compelling,” Hudson said, “but if I was a theorist, I’d be very excited right now.”

[Markburn1]

"A groundbreaking survey of over 10 million star systems has failed to detect signs of extraterrestrial intelligence."

https://gizmodo.com/another-sweeping...ort-1844983788

Maybe God isn't ready for us to see His other creations of life beyond our little blue ball. I think it's possible He has created life elsewhere, but for whatever reason He hasn't deemed it necessary for us to discover it...yet.

Notice that in the previous post it was posited that the Earth might be in a vast void in the universe.

[DZ]

More and more scientists are wondering why they've detected no sign of intelligent life in any galaxy anywhere, no flashing stars, no obvious patterns. The answer is either than advanced intelligence relies on power sources outside of stars, or there is very very little intelligent life out there. The "great filter" which might be life itself, or complex cells, or self-destruction.

UPDATE

The House Zoomer doesn't have an signs of COVID, nor does anyone else, on Day 8 of exposure. So if we make it 2-3 more days everything is likely fine. Meanwhile, her school's entire 8th grade is shut down due to teachers' exposure to one that got it, 7th grade is barely hanging on - we don't see how this is sustainable and prolly can't make it two more weeks. Sad but very predictable, as Cad has told us.

[DZ]

UPDATE: Day 9 and all clear so far.

SOME NEWS FOR THE BREWERS AND WINE MAKERS HERE: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...nt-smell-taste

How does a crop’s environment shape a food’s smell and taste?

Since then, terroir has continued to take hold as a marketing strategy — and not just for wine and chocolate. Terroir labels are also becoming more common for products like coffee, tea and craft beer, says Miguel Gómez, an economist at Cornell University who studies food marketing and distribution. Consumers “are increasingly interested in knowing where the products they are eating are produced — not only where but who is making them and how,” he says. People “value differences in the aromas, the flavors.”

The definition of terroir is somewhat fluid. Wine enthusiasts use the French term to describe the environmental conditions in which a grape is grown that give a wine its unique flavor. The soil, climate and even the orientation of a hillside or the company of neighboring plants, insects and microbes play a role. Some experts expand terroir to include specific cultural practices for growing and processing grapes that could also influence flavor.

Sounds legit.

Some scientists and wine experts are skeptical that place actually leaves a lasting imprint on taste. But a recent wave of scientific research suggests that the environment and production practices can, in fact, impart a chemical or microbial signature so distinctive that scientists can use the signature to trace food back to its origin. And in some cases, these techniques are beginning to offer clues on how terroir can shape the aroma and flavor of food and drink.

Ecologist Jim Ehleringer of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City studies trace elements that plants passively take up. Those elements are a direct reflection of the soil. “Trace elements do not decay and so they become characteristic of a soil type and persist over time,” Ehleringer says.

"They say" - Everytime I went to Pike's in downtown Seattle, I heard the stories that some oyster connosieurs could tell from which "bay" an oyster originated. I am still skeptical. But we can all taste the difference in Copper River Salmon, so I'm not sure why it'd be different, though I alway thought Copper River just had more fat than most salmon.

[DZ]

UPDATE on COVID Vaccine:

This includes the Oxford vaccine which was an important early entrant, one that had a lot of excitement around it. Cad can explain it to us.

Here’s what pausing the AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus vaccine trial really means

A single volunteer’s illness has sparked a temporary halt to the late-stage clinical trial of a leading coronavirus vaccine, an action that highlights the level of rigor needed to ensure that a vaccine is safe and effective, experts say.

AstraZeneca, which is developing the vaccine in concert with the University of Oxford, pushed pause on September 8 after a study volunteer in the United Kingdom had a suspected serious reaction. The hiatus will allow an independent review board to decide what to do next.

The illness may turn out to have nothing to do with the vaccine. If so, the trial, which may enroll as many as 50,000 people worldwide, including up to 30,000 in the United States, may resume. If the vaccine caused the illness — known as a serious adverse event — it could spell the end for AstraZeneca’s vaccine hopes. But experts say the pause is part of the tricky business of doing science and needed to happen to ensure safety.

We have no idea if it is likely due to the vaccine or not. Doctors in this area likely do know the odds.

“It was actually encouraging to see AstraZeneca take it so seriously,” says Esther Krofah, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit FasterCures, part of the Milken Institute think tank. “They did exactly the right thing.

What members of the public often don’t understand is that the courses of clinical trials often don’t run smoothly and Phase III trials are put on hold temporarily on a regular basis, says Seema K. Shah, a bioethicist at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. In fact, “bumps in the road are normal for vaccine trials, and they should happen if you’re studying them rigorously,” she says. “If nothing goes wrong while you’re testing it, maybe you didn’t test it well enough.”

It is reassuring to hear that they're willing to stop the trials with all the social pressures on them.

[DZ]

Dark matter clumps in galaxy clusters bend light surprisingly well

This unidentified stuff, which makes up most of the mass in the cosmos, is invisible but detectable by the way it gravitationally tugs on objects like stars. (SN: 11/25/19). Dark matter’s gravity can also bend light traveling from distant galaxies to Earth — but now some of this mysterious substance appears to be bending light more than it’s supposed to. A surprising number of dark matter clumps in distant clusters of galaxies severely warp background light from other objects, researchers report in the Sept. 11 Science.

Turns out, Einstein was right. Gravity does bend light. It also slows down time, which is why you can hang out on the edge of a black hole and live 100,000 years, even though you'd never know it.

This finding suggests that these clumps of dark matter, in which individual galaxies are embedded, are denser than expected. And that could mean one of two things: Either the computer simulations that researchers use to predict galaxy cluster behavior are wrong, or cosmologists’ understanding of dark matter is.

But telescope images told a different story. The researchers used observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope in Chile to investigate 11 galaxy clusters from about 2.8 billion to 5.6 billion light-years away. In that set, the team identified 13 cases of severe gravitational lensing by dark matter clumps around individual galaxies. These observations indicate there are more high-density dark matter clumps in real galaxy clusters than in simulated ones, Meneghetti says.

The simulations could be missing some physics that leads dark matter in galaxy clusters to glom tightly together, Natarajan says. “Or … there’s something fundamentally off about our assumptions about the nature of dark matter,” she says, like the notion that gravity is the only attractive force that dark matter feels.

[LongIslandZagFan]

UPDATE: Day 9 and all clear so far.

SOME NEWS FOR THE BREWERS AND WINE MAKERS HERE: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...nt-smell-taste

How does a crop’s environment shape a food’s smell and taste?







Sounds legit.



"They say" - Everytime I went to Pike's in downtown Seattle, I heard the stories that some oyster connosieurs could tell from which "bay" an oyster originated. I am still skeptical. But we can all taste the difference in Copper River Salmon, so I'm not sure why it'd be different, though I alway thought Copper River just had more fat than most salmon.

No doubt on smell impacting flavor. If you ever go a beer festival, after this COVID thing is done, you can pick out the brewers in a heartbeat. They are the people sticking the glass to their nose first and taking a good whiff. You can make a low hop beer taste hoppy but just dry hopping the hell out of it. Hops don't really excrete their oils without heat. But the definitely give out chemicals for aroma. So in the end, the aroma tricks you into thinking it has more hops than it really does.

[DZ]

No doubt on smell impacting flavor. If you ever go a beer festival, after this COVID thing is done, you can pick out the brewers in a heartbeat. They are the people sticking the glass to their nose first and taking a good whiff. You can make a low hop beer taste hoppy but just dry hopping the hell out of it. Hops don't really excrete their oils without heat. But the definitely give out chemicals for aroma. So in the end, the aroma tricks you into thinking it has more hops than it really does.

I totally believe it. Real connoisseurs with a great nose can pick it out immediately and casual drinkers like me probably only know it tastes good without specifically knowing why.

If you think about it, it would be hard to argue otherwise. If a living think like a fish - Copper River salmon being the most obvious - can have a distinct flavor, even though they swim around, it makes sense that something that lives its life in one unique spot would have variations of flavor.

Glad you saw this.

[DZ]

This might be bad. But we can handle the truth and there's nothing political about scientific truths.

Cad? This makes a little sense to us lay people.

College athletes show signs of possible heart injury after COVID-19

Amid growing concerns that a bout of COVID-19 might damage the heart, a small study is reporting signs of an inflammatory heart condition in college athletes who had the infection.

More than two dozen male and female competitive athletes at Ohio State University underwent magnetic resonance imaging of their hearts in the weeks to months after a positive test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The images indicated swelling in the heart muscle and possible injury to cells in four of the athletes, or 15 percent, researchers report online September 11 in JAMA Cardiology. That could mean the athletes had myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle most frequently caused by viral infections.

Obviously, it is difficult to tell without prior images of the heart pre-COVID.

Heart images of eight additional athletes showed signs of possible injury to cells without evidence of swelling. It’s more difficult to interpret whether these changes in the heart tissue are due to coronavirus infection, says Saurabh Rajpal, a cardiologist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. One limitation of the research is the lack of images of the athletes’ hearts prior to the illness for comparison, Rajpal and his colleagues write.

It does sound significant enough that they may well want to spend a fortune (they make a fortune in some places) and image just a ####load of basketball/football players now and then compare post-COVID. It is the least the NCAA can do.

And to make it scarier, these were all so called "mild cases."

None of the 26 athletes in the study, who play football, soccer, basketball, lacrosse or run track, were hospitalized due to COVID-19. Twelve of the 26, including two of the four with signs of inflamed hearts, reported mild symptoms during their infection, such as fever, sore throat, muscle aches and difficulty breathing.

All we know is it's not "good." And it's bad enough that a proper study ought to be done to determine if there's a real link.

But I can't think of a reason that a college athlete would be more susceptible than an adolescent girl (maybe) and definitely a 50 y/o adult. These are the scary things.

[DZ]

Primordial black holes anyone?

Is There a Black Hole in Our Backyard?

What is an astrophysicist to do during a pandemic, except maybe daydream about having a private black hole? Although it is probably wishful thinking, some astronomers contend that a black hole may be lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system. All summer, they have been arguing over how to find it, if indeed it is there, and what to do about it, proposing plans that are only halfway out of this world.

According to their calculations, that object would be roughly 10 times as massive as Earth and would occupy an egg-shaped orbit that brought it as near as 20 billion miles from the sun — several times the distance from the sun to Pluto — and took it as far as 100 billion miles away every 10,000 to 20,000 years.

Here is the primordial part;

But you don’t need a star to die to make a black hole. In 1971, Stephen Hawking, drawing on an idea earlier suggested in 1966 by the Russian physicists Yakov Borisovich Zel’dovich and Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov, theorized that intense pressures during the Big Bang could have collapsed matter directly into black holes. Those primordial black holes could be of any size and could be anywhere. A black hole as massive as Earth would be about the size of a Ping-Pong ball and would be exceptionally hard to see.

Those objects could be free-floating planets, the authors said, with masses ranging from half to about 20 times that of Earth. But they could as easily be primordial black holes floating around the galaxy, the astronomers proposed. If that were the case, the putative Planet Nine could well be a black hole, too, in a distant orbit around the sun.

A couple other things: A black hole with the mass of the earth would be the size of a ping pong ball.

Black holes don't "suck" anything in, they're just normal gravity no different than the sun.

Interesting that some day they may make a rocket engine out of black holes by phasing several lasers at each other, creating small black holes which emit Hawking radiation, as long as you could power the lasers (very difficult) you'd have unlimited power. Hawking radiation follows an inverse in size. A black hole the size of an atom would emit HUGE amounts of Hawking radiation, whereas the big ones in the center of the universe emit far less. I have no idea why.

[Martin Centre Mad Man]

UPDATE: Day 9 and all clear so far.

SOME NEWS FOR THE BREWERS AND WINE MAKERS HERE: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...nt-smell-taste

How does a crop’s environment shape a food’s smell and taste?







Sounds legit.



"They say" - Everytime I went to Pike's in downtown Seattle, I heard the stories that some oyster connosieurs could tell from which "bay" an oyster originated. I am still skeptical. But we can all taste the difference in Copper River Salmon, so I'm not sure why it'd be different, though I alway thought Copper River just had more fat than most salmon.

I believe it. There are places in Scotland where the air smells like good Scotch. There are peat moss scents that rise out of the ground from the bogs. Some people burn it as a heating fuel. When burned, it gives off a delicious smoky peat aroma.

The distillers use peat moss charcoal to flavor their whiskey. I gained a real appreciation for their whiskey, while touring the countryside. The flavor matches the home of origin.

[DZ]

I believe it. There are places in Scotland where the air smells like good Scotch. There are peat moss scents that rise out of the ground from the bogs. Some people burn it as a heating fuel. When burned, it gives off a delicious smoky peat aroma.

The distillers use peat moss charcoal to flavor their whiskey. I gained a real appreciation for their whiskey, while touring the countryside. The flavor matches the home of origin.

Oh, I believe it about Scotland. They have to have the wood to make the barrels and the wood comes locally, obviously.

I heard a comedian from Scotland once say in Scotland everything is the same color, it's called "Damp" - that's funny.

[Martin Centre Mad Man]

Oh, I believe it about Scotland. They have to have the wood to make the barrels and the wood comes locally, obviously.

I heard a comedian from Scotland once say in Scotland everything is the same color, it's called "Damp" - that's funny.

They actually use a lot of second hand American bourbon barrels. A lot of American distillers only use barrels for one batch.

https://vinepair.com/articles/bourbo...rel-cooperage/

Few places love American bourbon barrels as much as Scotland. Deep in the Scottish countryside, stacks of used American whiskey barrels tower above buildings. Eventually, those barrels will be reworked and transformed, and the barrels that once helped American whiskey become bourbon will be born again as Scotch barrels.

By law, Scotch must be barrel-aged for at least three years, though it’s often much longer. Those barrels are a crucial component in the Scotch whisky production process. Many of them start as 200-liter American Standard Barrels and were used once by bourbon, Tennessee whiskey, and rye producers. Through an involved process, they become 250-liter Scotch barrels fit to be refilled.

[Martin Centre Mad Man]

https://thewhiskeywash.com/whiskey-s...t-they-be-new/

Some bourbon enthusiasts may wonder: why do bourbon focused distillers only use a barrel once? After all, other distilleries and brewers use second and sometimes third-fill casks, sometimes even those same ex-bourbon casks. So why not bourbon?

...

Another (delicious!) reason lies in the chemical reactions that take place between whiskey and barrel. Oak contains several compounds like tannins, lactones, vanillin, and hemicellulose, all of which diffuse into the spirit to lend flavor and color. Because those compounds are poured into bottles along with the whiskey, and drank by eager folks like us, used barrels have less flavoring capacity than new ones (a characteristic Scotch distillers describe as “losing its virtue”).

And finally, to be called bourbon in America, a spirit is required by law to be aged in a new barrel.

Does this information belong in the General Science Thread? Probably not, but this is the Foo and there are no rules in the Foo...

[DZ]

MMM - Of course it belongs in the Gen. Sci. It's great stuff. We did the story above on the local chemicals and farms, it's great. Anytime one's learning it's a good thing.

And I never knew any of that, highly interesting. I did know that laws played some factor in what could be called what.

Fascinating, thank you very much.

[DZ]

We are on Day 11, thx for everyone being nice and prayers. It looks like we're fine. My girl is careful which helped.

Now we just have to deal with a Cat 1 - Cat 2 hurricane barreling right at us (this time) and arriving on Tues/Wed.

[willandi]

MMM - Of course it belongs in the Gen. Sci. It's great stuff. We did the story above on the local chemicals and farms, it's great. Anytime one's learning it's a good thing.

And I never knew any of that, highly interesting. I did know that laws played some factor in what could be called what.

Fascinating, thank you very much.

What has always amazed, and sometimes angered, me is how each libation has it's own name and they often get usurped by other similar drinks.
The first one I ever really noticed was usquebaugh, translated from the Scot's Gaelic as 'Whiskey". To me, that has always meant Scotch whiskey. I have referred to each by their name. Bourbon, to me, isn't Whiskey, it is Bourbon and the same with Rye. I know many don't agree, so it's just my uphill battle (and as an aside, I don't care for the lowland peaty Scotches, I much prefer the Highland).
Beer, to many, is any of that family, even though the process of making beer differs from ale, lager, stout, pilsner etc. I like all of them, in their own way, some more than others. Food and time have a lot to do with choice as well.

Enough of my rant.

[DZ]

What has always amazed, and sometimes angered, me is how each libation has it's own name and they often get usurped by other similar drinks.
The first one I ever really noticed was usquebaugh, translated from the Scot's Gaelic as 'Whiskey". To me, that has always meant Scotch whiskey. I have referred to each by their name. Bourbon, to me, isn't Whiskey, it is Bourbon and the same with Rye. I know many don't agree, so it's just my uphill battle (and as an aside, I don't care for the lowland peaty Scotches, I much prefer the Highland).
Beer, to many, is any of that family, even though the process of making beer differs from ale, lager, stout, pilsner etc. I like all of them, in their own way, some more than others. Food and time have a lot to do with choice as well.

Enough of my rant.

Others who know more will respond with better answers.

I know nothing except I like learning about the artistry (is that the word?) that goes into the exquisite little differences and processes that distinguish the great products from crap. It's the same with wine and beer. I like learning about it even though I rarely drink anything now and when I do it's usually just a Heinekin. But I still love learning about the aging process and how the artistry is handed down and how science is replacing some of the art to it, which isn't necessarily bad.