Nature Geek

Its not the years, its the miles.

A goose walks into a bar, sits down, and orders a beer. The bartender brings his beer over and says "hey, you know they have a vodka named after you?" The goose goes "They have a vodka named Roger?"

Hi mattmccade I'm a little confused as to what you want, since it sounds contradictory to me, but maybe it is my lack of understanding. You say you want to congeal the pigment, and then suspend it. In normal paint, the pigment is usually already suspended, it is very tiny particles of material (often a mineral) that is suspended in the liquid. If you congeal it, or let it settle for a year, it no longer is suspended. Now, there are some colorants that are not tiny particles, but are dissolved molecules, like in a dye. I suppose one could get those to clump together but stay suspended, but I'm not sure that's what you want. ​I suspect you want the pigment to not be uniformly dispersed in the liquid, or maybe only partially dispersed, but I'm not sure.

Oh, where is the fun in that. Humans have demonstrated repeatedly that they would rather ignore problems or pretend that they don't exist, and when forced to face the reality, come up with some crazy idea out of a James Bond bad guy playbook, or a cartoon. My guess as to what humans will do about global warming.... absolutely nothing. So far my answer seems right on track. Then, when the coral reefs are all dead and the oceans have displaced millions from the sea coasts of the planet, we will all act surprised and suddenly look to science to FIX IT!

About 25 years ago, when I worked for a company that grew quartz crystals, we had a small project to grow some oxygen-18 enriched quartz crystals for a professor that was doing ESR research. We needed a couple of liters of Oxygen-18 enriched water for this, and IIRC, it was something like $5000 for the water.

Nothing. If you don't have a way to complete the circuit, you won't get current flow, and so you won't have any electrochemical reactions.

That is among the stupidest part of Trump's actions. He says he is dismantling the clean energy initiatives so as to bring coal mining jobs back. Those jobs are not going to come back because of Trump's changes. No power company in the US is going to build a new coal-fired plant. Natural gas is cheaper. And it takes years to build a plant - by the time they have completed it, we may have a new President who will just reinstall all of those restrictions. And what little mining is done, is now much more automated than it used to be, and requires fewer workers. At most, Trump has slowed down the closing of coal-fired power plants, and slowed down the downsizing of the coal industry. And this, at the cost of preventing more damage to our planet. Bad.

In every way (he annoys me). Even among past Presidents who I didn't like, I could generally find some redeeming quality about them. Nixon was as amoral as they come, and was both paranoid and power-hungry, but he cared enough about how the future would view him that he actually did some good things. Reagan had a lot of bad policies, but he was a likable, senile grandfather figure, and gave great speeches. George W Bush is probably the dimmest bulb in the box, but I'd have a beer with him any day. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about Trump; he is, as best as I can tell, a completely despicable person, a con artist with no moral fiber, and what little business success he may have had, has been by guile, by pandering to the worst of human greed and avarice, and by taking advantage of others.

Wherever you stand on this issue, I find it almost mind-boggling that the Republicans have spent SEVEN years complaining about the Affordable Care Act, meaning they had seven years to fine-tune their own plan. Instead, they cobble together a bill in a couple of weeks, blow it through committees, still with entire sections filled with things like <insert future content here>, only to watch it die in the House for lack of votes. The incompetence is staggering. It says to me that in fact they never actually had a plan. It was always much easier to be against what Obama was for. If Obama said the sky was blue, they said it was red. But, when they moment of truth came to actual govern, they had no clue as to how to do it. The most ironic thing - the ACA is a Republican plan. Back in Bill Clinton's first term, when Hillary was the "Health Czar", and was trying to come up with a single-payer plan, what eventually was to become the ACA was proposed by Republican Newt Gingrich. It was an alternative that didn't get rid of the insurance companies, and allowed them to still make money, but gave a form of universal coverage. And where was it first tested out - in Massachusetts, by Republican Governor Mitt Romney. And that's why Obama proposed it - he figured the Republicans wouldn't vote against their own plan. But he was wrong; the fact that he agreed with them now made it wrong. But the problem now is that the Republicans came up with their best plan and now have to oppose there very own plan, and have nothing further to propose. A classic hoist on your own petard!

I have a dog, a whippet named Devo. He usually is well behaved, and when he is I say "Whippet, whippet good".

Employee for the US too.

I don't use pipettes in my lab work. I'd probably be predictable.

I think the threat of nuclear weapon use is greater than it was in the 50s and 60s, when the US and Russia dominated. As you mention, there are more actors now, both state and non-state. I certainly don't put it past the North Koreans or some terrorist group to lob a missile at someone. I'm actually a little surprised it has not happened yet. And while that would be bad, it would not be armageddon or nuclear holocaust. I think the possibility of a full out nuclear exchange among the superpowers is remote.

God's will?

The idea that mankind is of some use to the Universe implies a purpose and purposefulness of the Universe for which I find no evidence. Mankind's usefulness is only to itself. That should be more than enough motivation for us to behavior. I grew up through the 50s and 60s. I find the comparable threat of nuclear annihilation to be relatively low now. There are plenty of other threats to our planet and our species, climate change being top of my list at the moment. But I suspect, even with how bad that may be, that humans as a species will survive it.

When all is said and done, all will be said, and nothing will be done. - source unknown "If Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?" - Will Rogers.

Short answer: YES. Or maybe "It Depends". In both academics and industry (I am an industrial researcher), a lot of research is done as a team effort. So the necessary tasks are divided up. But there is no universal way that such things are divided. Even among various projects that I work on at this company, they get divided up differently. Sometimes the divisions are administrative versus research, sometimes they might be theory versus experiment or data creation (run experiments) versus analysis. And yes, people bring different skills to the team, and one hopes that the leader (if there is a leader) will divide the tasks in accordance to the skills and proficiencies that the various team members have. And sometimes no one on the team is good at what-ever and someone just has to deal with what-ever, whether you are good at it or not. But sometimes you are just a lone researcher, either in industry or academics. And yes, it all falls upon you at that point. As someone else already said, to a great extent, that is a misnomer. Similarly, it is a misnomer that scientists do not need skills in writing or speaking. Sure, like everything else, there are people who are better or worse at social and communication skills. And yes, one can survive in the world of research if those are not your strengths. Heck, they are things you can change over time and I know lots of researchers who have worked hard at improving these skills. But a completely unsocial, uncommunicative person is going to struggle; not just in research, but in many things.

You can purchase nitric acid from any of several laboratory and chemical suppliers, such as Fisher Scientific. However, since nitric acid can also be used to make explosives, you might be asked to demonstrate the nature of your business if you are not a past customer of these suppliers.

Phase diagrams should have references to the paper(s) where the work was done on that system. Look up those original references; they may have more data on the crystal structures of those various phases.

I first heard it about Nixon, and I don't think that was original. Might have started with Washington.

I think Moon Landing Deniers may have used that argument. I've certainly heard sillier ones that that.

I always found the "climatologists are lying about global warming" to be one of the funniest arguments by climate change deniers. Like NSF grants on climate are a path to BIG MONEY!. The energy companies that are trying to spread the lies against climate change pay a lot more. There is much more money to be made denying climate change that continuing to study it. sunshaker, I'm curious as to what you actually believe about climate change. Not the Daily Mail, you. I've never understood why people who don't believe in climate change have such a hard time accepting it. To me, even without the detailed science and models, it seems obvious. Humans are taking stored carbon (oil, coal, gas) that collected for millions of years, and are converting it to carbon dioxide over a period of about a hundred years. It would be surprising if such a massive process didn't have a measurable impact on our climate. What part of climate change don't you believe? Do you disbelieve the measurements humans have made of CO2 concentrations? Do you disbelieve that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Do you disbelieve the chemistry of combustion? I don't think you're obligated to answer my questions, but I am genuinely curious and hope you do.

I didn't think Donald Trump could write anything longer than 140 characters.

As a tool for teaching and learning about evolution, I would highly recommend the videos put out by Stated Clearly http://statedclearly.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/sciencestatedclearly (and if anyone is curious, no I am not a member of the group, but I have supported them and I am a big fan of one of the artists)