Gilded

I wish I had a microscope for micro-organism study. I find it very interesting, though you might want to do it after dinner, not before. :> "looks like a goats testicle to me" You have been doing a lot of things with goat testicles perhaps to recognize them so well?

http://www.webelements.com - All you ever wanted to know about different elements (and more) http://www.nearingzero.net - If science related humoristic pictures aren't nice, then I don't know what is

Looks like a meatball to me. Or then I'm just hungry.

I think David Hahn made his own HNO3 the same way you're trying to make it. He used it to isolate uranium from pitchblende, though not too successfully.

It has rained an incredible amount here in Finland this year, way more already than last year, so it's probably starting to be near England's rain amounts.

It would be a nasty trick to put some NI3 in someone's shoe and let it dry there.

It's fun to ride your bike to school when there's a foot-layer of snow and a 1cm layer of ice beneath it. Even more fun is the 1cm layer of ice with water on it.

N-trihalides are indeed something to be feared; you can set off nitrogen tri-iodide with a feather.

Yeah me too. Good to know that snow problems can be solved with the aluminate too. Sadly, we have sometimes like 2 feet of snow so it doesn't help much unless I have like tons of it.

Hey, why haven't I thought of that. Throw a kilo of sodium pieces around your yard and boom! No snow! No lawn either though.

Synthesizing high explosives by yourself: Not recommended. Though they are usually rather safe (needing the blasting cap for detonation and all that), the making process is the one where you can get yourself blasted to pieces, depending on the explosive of course.

Yet another crappy science related picture by Gilded: http://www.geocities.com/nabomato/base.JPG

Heh, the gas giants are nice in the aspect that they might have diamonds raining from the upper layers. "on europa especially there is believed to be liquid water under the ice" Europa has a nasty cover of sulfuric acid from the sulfur ions coming from Io. You could use the H2SO4 to make batteries or something fun though. Luckily, it doesn't cover the whole moon.

Since it seems were talking about the H way of being acidic, first of all, they are H+; hydrogen ions; protons. There are also other ways of being acidic (such as the Brønsted-Lowry approach, which is pretty much the same only with H3O+). pH in this case is the negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration, and so it is in the B-L approach. For example, in a solution where there's 0.1mol H+ and 0.9mol H2O, the pH is one. A solution with 0.01mol H+ and 0.99 H2O has a pH of 2 and so on. If due to lack of sleep I have screwed up something, please, correct me.

Some honor in warfare is still present though, or that's what I'd call internationally trying to prevent the use of nuclear and biological weapons.

"So we came here perhaps because of basic life from space, chemical reactions in our primordial soup, and/or other life forms planting the seeds of life." All possible, I'd go with the prim. soup though. Mmm... soup. I wonder if there are other possible structures for living thingies than silicon and carbon (and even the silicon is rather uncertain). "Later, these life forms might consider genetically changing themselves or perhaps adding other compounds to enhance their structure, meaning becoming robotic or the like. These life forms might also decide to create life on other planets." Heh, the game Master of Orion immediately came to mind. Also, the vision in Star Control of the Mycon-species is rather interesting; a fungoid species that can change its DNA at will, almost instantly. "Today I'd like to be able to eat lead-based compounds, but perhaps tomorrow is a good day for being able to breath methane". :>

"Why do people no longer fight with honor?" Ahh, reminds me of the good old samurai. They had some other nice habits too, like preferring sex with other samurai over sex with women...

"Watch it, Gilded! Of all the different sexes, women are my favorite!" Yes, women are cool but having a woman president isn't as fun as you might think it is. Now, some jokes then: There were three men who were friends, Bob, Will and James. They all die in a car accident and go to heaven. God then says: "Ok guys, we have a sort of policy here: you get a vehicle depending on how faithful you have been to your partner." Bob then says: "I've been unfaithful 10 times" "So... You shall have an old Toyota", God replies. "I have done it 5 times", Will then says. "So... You shall have a 2-year old BMW", God replies. "I have always been faithful to my partner!" James then shouts. "Well done! You shall have a brand new Ferrari", God says to him. Days then pass, and the men meet up. Bob and Will are rather glad, but James is crying. "You're in Heaven and can drive around with a Ferrari! What's the matter?", Bob and Will ask. "I know", James replies sadly "but I just met my wife; she has a skateboard". ---- An Asian and an American guy sit in a bar. They then start fighting because of some silly thing. The American then wakes up behind the bar, and can't remember what happened. "What was that", the American guy asks. "Just a little something from the East; karate, that is", the Asian guy replies. Hours pass, and then they start fighting again. Same thing happens. "Was that karate?" the American guy asks. "Just a little something from the East; this time it was taekwondo", the Asian guy smiles. Once again, hours pass, and they start fighting again. This time however, the Asian guy wakes up behind the bar and can't remember a thing. "What was THAT?", the stunned Asian asks. "Just a little something from the East", the American smiles. "A Toyota wheel cover, to be exact."

Oh, sorry, I read that you meant that both have equal densities. Silly me. It seems that pure H2SO4 has a density of 1.8g/cc. So 80% H2SO4 20% water has a density 1.64g/cc, or then I'm too tired to do simple math.

So they're lighter than water? Interesting.

Yeah, but they are museum grade samples, in mineral oil and argon, inside a glass ampoule. The ones kno3 sells are probably a bit oxidized on the surface, and not so pure.

Indeed, it would be very interesting to find a planet where life is just taking its first steps. Watching it develop from the start would be like a TV show that lasts for billions of years. :> Kinda reminds me of Bold and the Beautiful... with lasting, and lasting, and lasting and creatures of ~10 IQ bouncing around and all that.

Hehe, nice one Phi. Especially when Tarja Halonen (aka president of Finland, who is sadly a woman, if someone didn't know) strongly criticized Bush's actions recently. Luckily, the Finnish can say whatever they want and nobody seems to notice. Ok, here's another one about ex-presidents and presidents, Bill Clinton and Putin this time: Vladimir Putin decided to visit Bill Clinton one day. Vlad was greatly impressed by Clinton's house, and even decided to send a letter to him afterwards: "Dear Bill, Your house was awesome! The food was delicious, your yard was really beautiful, it's hard to even describe all the marvellous things you got there! Even the brass toilet seat... Wow!" When Clinton read the letter, he went really mad and crushed the letter and shouted: Hey Hillary, I think I've figured out who crapped in my saxophone!

Heh, I know that they sell K and Na in paraffin inside sealed tins (and even thought about buying some Na, or K while I'm at it). It's a rather high price though, but it's always a pleasure to throw some in your neighbor's fountain and scare the heck out of him.

By the way, how easy it actually is to extract Na from NaCl through electrolysis? This has probably come up before, but I can't remember if there ever was an answer. :|