John Cuthber

How toxic are French fries?

I get the feeling that you are looking at the "low technology" end of the range of options. If I'm wrong then use HPLC /MS. There's no way of selectively introducing double bonds into the lipids that won't also introduce them into other things- for example the side chains on some amino acids. Also, that method would introduce different numbers of double bonds randomly into the fatty acids. That would give rise to different sensitivities for the different acids. It would be impossible to get a meaningful result that way. You would be better filtering the algae out, drying them, weighing them, washing them with ether and drying and weighing them again. The weight loss is mainly due to lipids.

Donna, Ingesting small amounts of hydrogen peroxide is pointless. Ingesting large amounts of hydrogen peroxide is dangerous. Which option are you going with?

"I oppose the views of Scientism, the positivist approach of science doesn't give us a complete understanding of the world around us and hence other roads to reality should be open for speculation and for criticism. " OK, So what does science not explain? Perhaps more interestingly, what is there that science will never explain? Unless you can answer those the assertion "the positivist approach of science doesn't give us a complete understanding of the world around us" is, at best, questionable.

If he has a terminal velocity then he's not in free fall. He's being slowed down by air resistance.

I particularly like this suggestion "Ode to Joy - Beethoven. The joy of learning, understanding, and discovery - and the revelling in unbridled curiosity." I think this version covers the truth and beauty of science as well as any other work ever has or will. At any rate, anything but this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V83JR2IoI8k

"What now" is a good question. What do you want to do? If nothing else you could sell the stuff on ebay.

I don't think there is a simple way to do it. You can halogenate the fat then hydrolyse that halide to give an alcohol then dehydrate that to give an unsaturated product but, at best, it won't work very well.

This story gets sillier each time I look. http://blog.hubze.com/2012/01/sopas-chief-sponsor-violates-copyright-laws/ Incidentally, The Dollar is not the only unit of currency in the world. It is not even the biggest: the euros are worth more than the dollars.

Was that typo deliberate? Incidentally, if you really want to avoid a hangover, don't just drink the water before and after: drink it instead.

Would anyone like to play "spot the straw man" in that reply which talks about a ceremony in response to something that talks about "something that resembles marriage"? Here's a hint. I didn't mention a ceremony because it's hard to see how much evidence there could be of a prehistoric ceremony.

The world economy is going to hell in a hand basket. The sea levels are rising. The CO2 levels are too. There's every chance of yet another war killing thousands but what you choose to worry about is who bonks who, and in what legal framework. Weird. Incidentally, if something that resembles marriage didn't predate history we would have died out. Our kids are too much trouble for someone on their own. You could claim it was some sort of commune, but I would call that a marriage of sorts if it's purpose it to keep the adults together while they raise the kids.

Existence is a property that, for example I have and my sister doesn't. (I have only one sibling, and he's my brother) Since existence is a property, anything without properties cannot have existence and, therefore, does not exist.

" This causes morality to crash " No it doesn't.

Ok, so people found work rounds. So what? The point wasn't to stop people using WIKI, it was to make them think about the silly legislation. If they really wanted to close it down they could just switch off the servers. How much use would disabling scripts be then?

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the misogyny of a lot of religions. It does make it rather more difficult for half the population to get along with the other half.

If Fluka are selling it as analytical standard it's least as good as you need.

"Was Newton wrong because of GR?" Yes. However his stuff is often a good approximation. And, on the subject of God and logic. God is generally defined as being omnipotent etc Can He set himself a goal that he cannot reach? OK- so one of His defining characteristics is a contradiction in terms. Logic doesn't stand a chance of debating things like that.

"Maybe 'An eye for an eye' is in conflict with 'turn the other cheek', but I don't see how that invalidates the whole testament." It invalidates it because the whole testament is meant to be the Word of God yet at least some bits of it are plain wrong. "I'll accept it not being a logical fallacy, but it still feels weak to me. " What? you are not bothered that it's trivial to prove that God got it wrong? If that's "weak" what would count as strong?

"When discussing science, logical fallacies are consistently called out. People are very pedantic. Yet when it comes to criticizing religion the rules of argument seem to relax considerably. " Since religion is pretty much independent of logic it is no shock that logic gets "blurred" when talking about religion. Also, the New Testament is different from the old one. If the new one is right then the old one was wrong. But both are claimed to be the "Word of God" so He must have got His Word wrong on at least one occasion. It's not a straw man. It's not a logical fallacy. The only possible get out is that right and wrong changed. "An eye for an eye" may be right "turn the other cheek" might be right; but you can't do both.

I wondered about boric acid because it would explain why nothing much showed up in the PIXE results. Anyway, if it is than this is as good a way to prove it as any.

"God has done His best to stop us doing these things. By giving us the New Testament, and even sending His own son down to help us." You mean He got it wrong when he wrote the Old Testament? Incidentally, iNow, I'm surprised by your display of ignorance. God takes a capital letter, even if you are an atheist (I don't worship the moon, but it's still Monday etc.) and possessive forms need an apostrophe. So it's God's best that's not up to it.

"This has the added benefit of NOT being an obvious shielding material which would be completely incongruous with a 'luggage' application. " Yeah, picture the scene at the airport. 2 customs officials checking bags "Hey Fred." "Yep," "You know this new scanner thingy they got" "The terahertz one? yes, why do you ask" "How much did it cost?" "about a zillion dollars, why?" "Because I can't see what's in this bloke's bag" " don't worry- that's not obvious shielding- it's perfectly normal for baggage to be opaque to terrahertz radiation- that's why we use it. Nothing incongruous there" "Thanks" (Turns to passenger) "OK, Mr Bin Laden , carry on."

I think they refer to the fact that, for example, gold which isn't very reactive is found as the element, but sodium which is very reactive is always found as compounds.

Nasa tried it. They were trying to find a way for space travellers to control the ship even though they couldn't move because of the G forces during take-off. It didn't work for their purposes. Do not look at the next line in this box- it's the emergency de-pressurize button. Looking at it will kill you and the crew. Just keep looking at this box for a while without looking at the next line Opps!- that's what kept happening.