jdurg

One reason why we, as a species, tend to not like bitter things is that bitterness is a common trait of alkaloids which are what most plant based toxins are made of. So the fact that most poisons are bitter in taste would be a good explanation of how we evolved to not find them that appealing. Also, I'd say that as we get older we find them less repulsive because we are able to adapt to the taste and supress the instinctive dislike. That would also explain why young people don't like bitter stuff as much as older people do. As we get older, we learn to appreciate the other effects of these alkaloids and are willing to tolerate the tastes.

I myself do not practice any religion and have been in many situations where I have been 'different' because of that. It does feel a bit awkward going into a social situation where everyone is deeply religious but you are not. What I always do is state that I am not a follower of their religion, but I respect their following of that particular faith. I don't think less of you because you follow that religion, so please don't think less of me just because I do not. I have found that nearly all people I have said that to respect that and don't push anything on me or think any less of me. In the few cases where people have tried to then push their beliefs or have thought less of me, it just showed what type of people they really were and that my not associating with them was no big loss.

Heh heh. How did I come up with that coincidence? Well, there was nothing to do at work and the picture of my element collection is hanging up on the cubicle wall right by my computer. I just happened to be looking at the green elements and noticed '3-17'. Yes, I need a life.

Yeah, silicon is really cool looking. It certainly does look like a metal, but it is so brittle and completely 'non-metal' like. That and tellurium are perfect examples of 'metalloids'.

It's better practice to just make a new solution. You don't want to get into the habit of just 'fixing' a messed up solution. It's a bad habit to start and can lead to problems later on in your chemistry career.

Tell that to any detector or person living anywhere near LA, NYC, or any major road. Also, based upon the molarity of the primary standard the concentrations would be very crucial. If you worked in an analytical lab and left a standard open to the atmosphere, or mis-made it, it would be a pretty big deal even with those little bits of contaminants.

Vomiting is the body's way of saying 'hey, there's some stuff in here that is NOT good and we have to get rid of it'. When you get food poisoning and begin to vomit and have diarrhea nonstop, it's because your body wants to get rid of the bacteria as fast as possible. When you drink too much and have too much alcohol in your body, your stomach attempts to remedy that problem by expelling anything you put into it. When you eat too much and your stomach is stretched from all that food and liquid you put in there, you almost want to vomit to relax your stomach and get rid of all that food. It's almost like a reflex action. You feel better afterward because that toxic 'stuff' is out of your body.

Today is March 17th, also known as Saint Patrick's day. A day celebrating Irish heritage and whatnot. Today can also be written as 3-17. If you look at the periodic table, what element is in the third period and has an atomic number of 17? That would be chlorine gas. What color is chlorine gas? Green. What is the 'official' Irish color? Green. Kind of freaky isn't it?

Okay, the blue color is due to a small bit of gallium oxide contamination. Upon exposure to moist air, which there was plenty of since I melted the metal in a hot water bath, a thin layer of oxide will form on the gallium giving it a sky blue tint. That is EXACTLY what I see so that mystery is now solved. Thank you internet.

Why not use Beryllium? Sure it's very toxic to humans when in a finely divided state, but that could be a nice little 'self defense mechanism'. Aside from lithium, beryllium is the least dense metal out there.

lol. Yeah, you should see the container I used to melt the big buttons in. There's this thin blue-black-metal haze to it from where the gallium 'stuck'.

The problem is, leaving it open to the air will allow contaminants such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and carbon dioxide to dissolve into the solution which can and will alter the concentration of the KIO3.

As you can see in the image above, everything went great! I lost a few milligrams of the stuff as it got 'stuck' to the plastic container I was melting it in, and some of it was lost as I tried to scrape off as much 'gunk' as possible as it solidified. What really puzzles me is the presence of a blue haze on portions of the metal. Under bright lights, you can see a sky blue tint to the metal at certain angles, but under other lighting you really can't see it at all. I wonder if there was some copper metal that got amalgamated into the gallium and is now emitting its light, or if it's a gallium oxide that is a slight contamination. Either way, it's kind of neat looking. What's cool is that the mercury I have in the same sized vial is at exactly the same level as the Ga is. When you pick each of them up, you can really feel the density difference. (Hg is about twice as dense as Ga). So all in all, it was a fun little time!

LOL. Yeah, I set it aside under my photography lamp and it all melted away, so I put it in with my other Gallium but then it solidified. Sorry about that.

Molten Gallium is about 86 degrees Fahrenheit. I already went through with the plan and it worked out great! I'll take a picture as soon as it finishes solidifying and I've cleaned off the 'gunk'.

Either today or later this week I will be receiving 60 grams of Gallium to add to my collection. Right now, I have my meager amount of gallium in a 20 mL vial as a solidified blob. My 60 grams of Ga will be arriving as two 30 gram buttons. So my task will be to melt the Ga and pour it into the glass vial where I will need to resolidify it. The problem is, Ga expands as it freezes so if I freeze it too quickly it may crack the glass vial. I'm pretty sure that it won't crack, however, since there will be plenty of room for it to expand upward if it needs to. (It's like a bottle of soda. A full bottle of soda will explode if it freezes because the liquid inside will expand to more than the volume of the bottle. If the bottle is half full, however, it won't break the container since it will just expand upwards as it freezes). So for my Ga I have the following planned. 1) Take some water in a big pyrex container and heat it up until it's just below boiling. 2) Take a separate container and put some ice water in there. 3) Take my current amount of Ga and place the vial in the hot water to melt the Ga that's in there. 4) With a plastic container with a spout, melt the 60 grams of Ga into a liquid using the hot water container. 5) Pour the ~10 mL of liquid Ga into my vial with the pre-existing Ga in a liquid form. 6) Place the cap back on the vial to keep O2 out. 7) Take the vial and place it on a surface sitting in the ice cold water. The cold from the bottom should cause the metal to solidify from the bottom upwards, so that any expansion will force the Ga further towards the top and not out towards the side. I figure this will allow it all to solidify and will prevent any cracking of the glass vial. The small amounts of impurities inside the Ga already should also give it the 'seed' it needs to solidify and not supercool. What do you think?

I've always thought of the term 'the button' as a poker term. Perhaps I play cards a bit too often? Nah. I win money so it's not too often yet.

Hmmm. Then maybe I was drinking because I swore my time was greater than 1 sec and I got that drinking message.

Heh. I got distracted and had a reaction time of 1.2 seconds. It asked me if I'd been drinking.

Exactly. Take a look at water. With a mass of only 18 it should not be a liquid. (Ethane, Propane, Butane, Carbon Dioxide, etc. all have higher masses yet are gasses at room temperature). However it has VERY strong hydrogen bonding which causes its BP to be much higher than expected.

To bring back the situations posted by Callipygous in post #150, if you stop a rape when you see it occuring you are protecting not only that person, but yourself. If the rape happens and that person gets away, he/she could rape you and you put yourself in danger. If a mother suffocates her baby right after it's being born, there's a chance she could suffocate you if she is allowed to get away with it as well. Again, those things which you are doing are considered moral in your mind but could also be tied back loosely into a form of self protection. If a mother aborts her baby in the third week of pregnancy, you really aren't in any form of self protection by stopping that since you cannot be aborted. (Then again, you've already stated that you are pro-choice until the third trimester so I don't even know why I brought that up. I fully agree with you on that point). I think earlier in the thread someone brought up the point about why animal cruelty is considered wrong and illegal. Once again, it can all be tied back to self protection. If you let someone go and torture a bunch of animals and perform cruel acts on them, there's the possibility that they could go and perform those cruel acts on you as well. So by making it illegal, you have protected yourself from being exposed to those acts. With just about all of the laws in our legal system today, there is some form of self preservation and defense in there. With things like abortion and same-sex marriages, there is absolutely nothing that ties it into self preservation. Those laws are all about protecting one's beliefs and forcing them on others. If Kelly and Sue decide to get married, how does that adversely affect me or the rest of the population? If Jim and Bill want to marry each other, how does that cause harm to you or I? If Betty goes and has an abortion, what threat does that pose to your life or wellbeing? These are the questions that I have yet to have answered in any discussion like these.

Ethyl alcohol has the VERY polar OH groups on the molecule and therefore exhibits some form of hydrogen bonding. Diethyl Ether is completely non-polar and only has weak Van-der-Waals forces holding the molecules together. As a result, Diethyl ether has a MUCH lower boiling point than ethyl alcohol does.

By putting the match between two pennies, you're confining the area in which the reaction can take place. A great deal of gas is formed but has nowhere to go so you hear and feel a loud 'pop'. The analogy to gunpowder that YT made is brilliant. Taking gunpowder and spreading it out over a large area will only result in a quick burn. Confining it into a closed system and igniting it will make it explode.

I agree with you 100% there.