Gilded

"we are talking about the 241 isotope aren`t we?" Yeah, the one used in smoke detectors. Half-life about 430 years, decays through alpha emission (with a VERY minimal chance of spontaneous fission). I'm starting to think swansont should have a word here, before I make a fool out of myself.

"Bang is NOT good!!!!!! gas volume is !" Bang is especially not good when carrying rather expensive electronics, such as a video camera, aboard. Having your new thousand dollar cam blowing into tiny pieces because of too much *bang* isn't too nice. :|

Yeah, they indeed are quite heavy. :/ I'd still personally go with a small BP charge, in a critical point thereby de-attaching the nosecone.

Ahh yes, if we are talking ejection only, lots of... ejection causing stuff is usually good. Perhaps you could even have a pressurized carbon dioxide ejection system, though that's probably going to cost quite a bit.

Trying to have alpha without gamma is like trying to have... err, corn flakes without corn.

Argh, I'm getting rather tired of these @Home things. >:/

Well then, that's the only case where I'd like to see Swedes drink a glass of schnapps. No really, I like Sweden as much as Conan O'Brien does.

Hmm... If you have KNO3 and charcoal, then why should you even BUY black powder when you can make some yourself with some sulfur added (not too hard to get you know). I'd attach the nosecone so that it sits tight, yet there's only one critical part holding it to the rest of the rocket. This part should be easily replaceable, and made of something that would easily break with a small BP/thermite/something else charge. Perhaps there could be a small extra ejection charge after this, just in case. Not too costy, if you ask me.

have a ball = extremist food eating beating

"Santa`s Hard! he can take it )" He sure is. The -51 might have something to do with Santa having no offspring though...

Yipes, -42 is pretty bad. I think in Lapland the lowest temperature measured was -51 Celsius, and I think about -31 is the lowest here where I live.

I personally like the aspect of nanotechnology making it possible to transfer data faster and more efficiently (duh). Downloading pr0n - from under 56kb modem to 100Gb nanocable.

I like it how snakes disjoint (if that's even a word) their jaws to swallow things. Although, if you or your neighbors have dogs or similar, you might want to reconsider the snake buying to avoid "what happened to my alsatian and why is your anaconda so fat?" type of things. :/

Come to think of it, I don't think there has been school closings due to temperature or snow in my entire lifetime, or not in the southern Finland at least. If -25 Celsius and about two feet of snow doesn't close down the schools, I don't know what will.

"me too, Clostridium Botulin Toxin." My 8th-9th grade chemistry teacher told that a schnapps glass of the stuff would be enough to kill the entire population of Sweden.

I think insects or spiders are the best. Or perhaps a hermit crab or something. Of course, there's nothing funnier than watching a spider-creature attack a helpless insect AND TEARING IT LIMB BY LIMB... Oh sorry, got carried away there. Btw Sayo, have you considered feeding rodents or the like to your scorpies? Although you might want to wait until they learn to hunt properly and grow a little too.

Btw, how cold is it usually in UK? When Finland is warmer than -15 Celsius in December everyone's "OMG OMG GREENHOUSE EFFECT!"

Dang. :> What is it with the Brittish and fun spoiling? >:/

"I did it the hard way, first I fugured that 3 more than a multiple of 5 would have end in either a 3 or an 8 then went through the multiples of n11+7 and kept out the ones ending in 3 or 8. After that I went through the possibilities and subtracted 1 and divided by 3, if it was divisible then I tried subtracting 5 and dividing by 7. It figures the last number I got to was the correct answer." Well you have certainly lost your marbles.

Ooooh x-ray shading. Why didn't you say so. I thought you we're talking about PET/radiotherapy test isotopes. "I have about 300 grams of it at the time, my dad, who's a radiologist, got me some for a Barium sample for my periodic table" My dad did PET at a local university, still works there. My mom also works there. And all they ever got me was some glass vials and dry ice. >:/

"GRE stands for Graduate Record Exam. It's a typical requirement for graduate programs in the US. There's a general one and various subject tests also. The general one is a breeze and the subject ones are really tough." Aaalrighty then. Thanks.

If a nucleus is in excited state, it tries to lose the extra energy by releasing a gamma photon. Most cases, another particle(s) (such as an alpha-particle) is released ALSO. Although, if a nuclei is in metastable state (such as Tc-99m), it releases only the gamma photon to become more stable (but not necessarily stable as an isotope). I'm quite sure swansont could explain this with some fancy terms and so on, but now that he hasn't answered this I took the liberty of doing so.

Of course, any extra radiation is "bad". Even with an isotope that has a stable daughter product, it's still radioactive. However, you must remember that even though technetium-98 goes through beta decay, when the nucleus is excited, gamma rays are released also. Even a relatively thick glass wall won't stop them. And when it comes to acquiring samples of radioactive isotopes, I say go nuts as long as a) The isotope has a relatively long half-life (preferably over a million years). If the sample is very, very small, like some polonium on the tip of a needle, I'd say a couple of hundred years is enough b) The isotope isn't too toxic, and if accidentally consumed goes right through your body (unlike for example Sr-90) c) If it's atomic number is above 95, you don't want to have anything to do with it

I don't think there's any sense using C-14 even in tests, as it's plenty in every living organism already (carbon dating you know).

"going down that hill on a sled was extremely fun and extremely painful" There's a certain hill on my school route, that I go down every morning. It's probably over freaking 45 degrees steep, and most of the time unsanded and frozen solid. Almost immediately after it, there's a ditch and a large rock in the ditch (you have to take a rather hard turn if you don't want to end up in the ditch). If it's not named yet, they should call it the Suicide Hill. >:/