jdurg

Altering the results of a lab test is more serious than some people may think. I work for a Clinical/Contracting Research Organization which performs the data analysis of clinical research trials being performed across the world. Every day we work with data generated by doctors who have patients assigned to these clinical trials. The data obtained in these trials helps determine if a 'new' drug gets accepted by the FDA and can be put into production by the company, or if the drug is rejected and the company loses out. Faking lab results can have serious consequences on the results of these trials. If they fake results and data so that Adverse Events aren't reported during the clinical trial, the drug may be accepted and released into the market. Then years down the line people can start having serious reactions and sue the living crap out of the manufacturer of the drug. This can cost many people their jobs and their livelyhoods. It may also cost people their lives if their reactions to the drug are particularly bad. Also, what would happen if the 'faked' data caused the FDA to reject a drug that in all actuality was working? Again, the company could lose out on millions and numerous people could lose their jobs due to the budget crunch. As a good example, take a look at what went on with Vioxx. What if a doctor or group of doctors altered (faked) their data to cover up the increased heart attacks associated with the drug. The risk never would have been seen in the clinical trials because of that and the FDA could have then accepted it. Now all of a sudden it shows up and the company that made the drug (Merck) is suddenly out of a lot of money. All of a sudden that little 'no big deal' becomes a lot bigger. (I don't know if that is what actually happened with Vioxx, but it's a good example).

I will apologize in advance for how my post may seem kind of 'out of the loop', but this thread has grown quite long and would take an ample amount of time to read all the way through. With that said, I will now state my opinion on the initial question. I have no problems with animal testing. As a human being who enjoys being alive, I would rather have these new medicines and techniques tested on an array of animal subjects first before they are tried out on human beings. Why do I feel this way? Well as a human being I believe that our species is more important than the animal species. There's a reason why we have advanced further along than other species of animals. If the roles were reversed I'm sure that they would do the same thing. If that makes me a bad person in the eyes of some people, then so be it.

Okay, when balancing equations the best way to start out is to pick one compound and try and get that one balanced. (Therefore it's best to pick a compound that is present in multiple products). This way, once you get that one main compound balanced you can slowly bring back the other parts of the equations to get everything balanced. In this example, it's actually not too bad since it's simply a neutralization reaction. In a neutralization reaction an acid and a base react to form a salt and water. So the hydrogen part of the acid will always combine with the hydroxide part of the base to form the water molecule. What's left over creates the salt. In the answer you got, let's take a look at the total count for each element in the reaction: Reactants; 2-Al, 18-O, 12-H, and 3-S Products; 2-Al, 15-O, 6-H, and 3-S So you are short 6 Hydrogen atoms and 3 Oxygen atoms. What can you do on the products side to get 6 more hydrogen atoms and 3 more oxygen atoms? Once you've figured that out, you'll have balanced the equation.

Nope. You are not correct. I got the answer, but I think I did something logically wrong and just got lucky. Hmm.........

This one was on today's Mensa Calender puzzle, and while I got the answer I think it was by dumb luck. I'm not sure how it can mathetmatically be determined. "A certain girl is a very astute shopper and always liked to get the best bargain. Today she was in charge of getting party favors for a Mardi Gras party. She goes to a store and makes her arguments and is successful in her fight. However had she paid 4-cents more per hundred party favors, she would have wound up buying 5 less. How much did she pay per hundred party favors?" For some reason, I can't figure out how to get the exact total since they don't give you the amount of money she spent total, nor the number of party favors she bought.

There's no doubt that there's evidence. It's just that so many scientists refute the evidence saying that it's not "100% conclusive". (Then again, it could just be that they don't want to be proven wrong. )

Yeah, I worded that wrong. I'm trying to say that if it was only a meteor that did it, it would have to be a pretty violent one and would take out nearly all the life on earth when it hit. Plus, it would have left a lot more evidence than what we have seemed to find thus far. I believe that smaller meteor impacted which helped push along the demise of the dinos.

I'm not sure I understand you fully. Do you mean alkali's as in basic materials, or the Group I metals? If you mean as in a base, the only reaction I readily know of is concentrated sodium hydroxide and aluminum metal reacting to form hydrogen gas. The Group I metals will also react with molten salts of most other metals forming a Group I salt and a pure metal. For your second question, just write out the formulas of calcium sulphate and sulfuric acid. You'll soon see why there is no reaction. (Here's a hint; why doesn't hydrochloric acid (HCl) react with sodium chloride (NaCl)?)

I too think it's proposterous to say that we are alone, but I also feel that we are just too far away to make any meaningful communications. I mean, look at how long man has been the dominant species here on earth. During the time it would take for a signal to reach anywhere, that time frame would have long since passed. If we receive a signal from an alien civilization, by the time we get it their planet may have been destroyed. It's frightening how big our Universe is. Every time you look up at the stars at night, you're looking back in time. Much of what you see may not even be there anymore. While I don't think that we are absolutely alone in the Universe, for all intents and purposes I think we are due to the size of the Universe. As for all this Area 51 and X-Files stuff, I'm not really a big believer in it. I just think that if the U.S. Millitary, or any other nation's government for that matter, had some top secret technology or weaponry that they didn't want nosey people to know about, they'd do their best to cover it up. I don't see Area 51 as some secret UFO research place. I think of it as some incredibly top-secret millitary base containing some pretty scary stuff that most people really shouldn't know about. For the government, all this alien talk is great because it's probably distracting people from the real goings on down there.

I really don't believe in any "one" event causing the mass extinction, and I think that anybody who does believe it was just one event is doing themselves a disservice. Science is about being open-minded and looking at the evidence; all of it. To say that it was ONLY the meteor that did it, or it was ONLY pre-existing conditions is just ignorant in my opinion. I fully feel that it was a combination of numerous things, some of which we may never be able to fully provde. (Like perhaps some type of bacterial or viral outbreak that severely weakened the population, and then the meteor(s) comes along and wipes out the rest. If the earth was in a bad shape after the onslaught, evidence of that bacteria may be very difficult, if not impossible, to find). In science, people become strongly attached to their beliefs. That is why new 'theories' and 'ideas' are shot down like crazy and those who believe in them and come up with them are thought of as 'idiots'. This has happened all throughout history. Look at Priestly and the 'Phlogiston' debates. The better scientists out there are the ones who feel strongly about what they believe in, but are willing and able to toss aside their beliefs when conclusive proof arises which disproves their theories. I feel that it was more than just a meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. I think it was a combination of many things. This is simply because the violence of a meteor impact would surely do more than just wipe out the dinosaurs. I have trouble seeing how it couldn't wipe out life entirely. I think that 'higher life' was moving along with some 'issues' and then the meteor(s) came down and just sped things along. If I'm right, I'm right. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. My life will still go on. What happened millions upon millions of years ago is not going to affect how I live my day to day life.

Cadmium Sulfide and traces of Selenium added to molten glass gives it a red color when it sets.

Don't "pooh-pooh" the idea of body language being a big clue. I've been playing poker for quite a while now, and even when people are trying to be perfectly still they are giving off plenty of information. Whether it's the way they hold their hands, or the way they're breathing, or the dozens of other things that people do when trying not to give away information. Successful poker players aren't mind readers. They are just able to make very logical assumptions based upon the way other people are reacting. Many times I've played and laid down a great hand like a nut-flush or a set of aces when I was able to see that I was beat. Every time, the player I laid my hand down to is frustrated that I didn't bet like crazy with the good hand I had. (I.E. I'll have the flush but they'll have a full-house, or I'll have trips and they'll have a very sneaky straight). They simply can't believe that I would fold a good hand (albiet a losing one in those circumstances). I just simply tell them that they gave me all the information I needed to know that I'm beat.

The mucus is always inside your body, it's just that your body keeps it in there so it can functions to trap solid particles and other "junk". When you have a runny nose, your body is attempting to flush out all the bacteria by excreteing it in a stream of mucus. Your body will do anything it can to get rid of the invading organism, and if it has to flood them out in a shower of mucus that is what it will do.

If the dissolution of the salt is an endothermic process, it will cause the temperature to depress. (However, that's more typical with ammonium salts and not aluminum, though I'm not 100% sure. I'd have to look that up).

So you just have a spare, fully charged car battery lying around that you're willing to use? And you have the blowtorch there to melt enough of the salt to make it worth the effort? And you have a way to provide an inert blanket over where the sodium is generated so that it doesn't catch fire, yet this inert blanket won't extinguish your blowtorch?

Hydrogen chloride and hydrochloric acid are two completely different things.

That's not something that is easily done at ALL at the home. You would need to first melt the salt into a molten state, then be able to supply the current needed to separate the ions and keep them separate. I don't know of many people who have that type of equipment lying around.

No, that's the name of the force. The force is called 'the strong force'.

1): pH is a measurement of the concentration of hydronium ions present in an aqueous solution of an acid. If it's not in water, it has no pH at the moment. (So technically speaking, 100% sulfuric acid would have no pH. Add some water and turn it into 98% sulfuric acid and it will have a very low pH). 2): The concentration of an acid definitely affects its pH value. pH is not an intrinsic property of a chemical. If you have 100 mL of a 1 molar HCl solution and 100 mL of a 10 molar HCl solution, the pH of the 10 molar solution will be noticeably lower. (Probably by a factor of 1 if my logarithimic math was done right in my brain). 3): Question 3 and Question 2 are exactly the same thing. Molarity, a term to describe concentration of a solute, plays a big role in the pH of a solution. The more moles of the acid you have, the more hydronium ions there will be and hence the lower the pH. A 1 molar solution of ethanoic acid has a different pH than a 1 molar solution of hydrochloric acid because HCl is a strong acid and fully dissociates in water while ethanoic acid is a weak acid and doesn't fully dissociate. It doesn't matter how many protons the acid can donate to the solution. What does matter is the number it actually DOES donate.

That will happen even if you are in the 10-14 years old range. That's why retainers are used for a while after braces are taken off. The roots of your teeth need to readjust themselves so that they won't revert back.

I think it's all about relativity. Is pure Zinc metal really a good enough reducing agent to reduce the Iron 3+ ion back to the metal? The Zinc would rather just reduce two Fe3+ ions to Fe2+ and become Zn2+ itself. (Your first oxidation reaction is wrong. You're short an electron on the products side). In a sense, you could say that one Zn atom will reduce Fe3+ to Fe1+, but Fe1+ is not a stable ion as far as I'm concerned, so I don't believe it would exist. So now you have a solution with Fe2+ and Zn2+ ions in there. Is Zn2+ willing to give up two more electrons to become Zn4+ and have Fe2+ become iron? God no. So what happens is that no solid iron is produced. However, if you can remove all of the Fe3+ ions with some zinc metal, and then add even more zinc metal to the mixture, you'll start reducing the Fe2+ ions back down to Iron metal and you will eventually see iron forming. So the iron metal will form, but only when there's enough Zinc to remove the Fe3+ ions from the solution. As for the cost, making Iron from Fe3+ is more expensive. When reducing the Fe3+ ion, for every 1.5 moles of Zinc metal you get one mole of Iron metal. When reducing the Fe2+ ion, for every mole of Zinc you get a mole of Iron. So you need to use up more zinc in order to reduce the Fe3+ ion back to the metal.

In reality, it's probably a combination of the two. The thing that second article mentioned was how a fully deuterated compound smells different than a normal non-deuterated version. They say that the structure is the same, but it would actually be slightly different since the deuterium atoms is VERY SLIGHTLY larger than the protium atom. It may just be a combination of the stretching and moving along the C-D/C-H bond that results in the different smells.

I donated blood when I was in high school and I couldn't have been more than 17 years old at the time. Got me out of gym class that day too, and we had to do our 2-mile run. I also donated blood a bunch of times in college. If I was low on money but wanted to have fun, I'd stop by the Red Cross bloodmobile that was always around campus and donate some blood. Then I'd hit the bar afterwards and get one or two beers and be completely wrecked. I helped save lives, plus I got drunk really cheaply. I couldn't do it all too often, but those times where I really wanted to get hammered but didn't have a lot of money worked out great. (BTW, I'm A-)

Well I would have to disagree with whatever paper that is based upon the information given in your post. The vibration of a molecule is its temperature. Molecules at a higher temperature vibrate more rapidly so they would have a higher frequency. To say that smell is based on the frequency of the vibration would say that your sense of smell is 100%, completely due to temperature. That is completely wrong. Molecules come in many different shapes. The DNA molecules is a double-stranded helix while a benzene molecule is pretty much a flat six-sided ring. These different shapes allow for the different behavior of many molecules inside a human body. The shape is also what gives rise to a compound's odor. Molecules that are similar in shape and electronic structure tend to have similar odors. Look at the halogens; Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine. They are all diatomic molecules which want to grab an electron from anything. As a result, they basically have a slightly positive effective charge on them. (This isn't entirely true, but I'm just trying to simplify things here). In your nose, all of the halogens smell pretty similar. They all have a bleach-like odor to them. This is because of the electronic structure of the halogen molecules and the shape of them. Also look at molecules like benzene, toluene, phenol, etc. They have a very similar odor to each other because their shapes are very close to each other. As a result, they trigger similar receptors in your nose. Another good example is hydrogen sulfide gas. H2S gas has the same shape as a water molecule, but a different electronic configuration. H2S smells like rotten eggs. Your nose is able to detect the tiniest amount of H2S gas in the air, but after a short while you become desensitized to it. It's theorized that the gas molecule binds to the scent receptor in your nose thereby inactivating it. As a result, you no longer smell the gas. If you move into an area that is free of H2S gas, those receptors are able to clear themselves out and your ability to smell the gas comes back. This 'blocking' of your scent receptors by H2S gas is pretty nasty because the gas is also very toxic. So you might think the gas leak has gone away when in reality your nose is just numb to the odor. Anyway, I hope that cleared things up a little bit without causing too much confusion. It's early for me and I've yet to wake up fully. lol.

Whenever I had to heat a solution of anything in a chemistry lab we threw in some ceramic chips to preventing bumping of the solution. It's actually pretty easy to see overheated water in the home. If you have a somewhat tall glass that can go in the microwave, fill it up almost to the top with water. Then heat this inside the microwave for a while until it begins to boil. Once its boiling, turn the microwave off and let it sit for a good 10-20 minutes. Then turn the microwave back on and heat it up for a while. You'll notice that the water doesn't really boil when you think it should. After a while, turn the microwave off. Now from a VERY far distance, drop a sugar cube into it. (You might want to put one on the end of a yardstick and let it fall off of the end). The addition of the sugar cube will provide the seed needed for the superheated water to vaporize and it will suddenly vaporize in a violent manner. Now this doesn't happen all the time, but if you try it enough times you should be able to see it happen. However, remember that it's incredibly dangerous because that water is at a temperature greater than 100 degrees C and can cause massive burns and possibly shatter the glass. (It's also more prone to happen to a cup of distilled water as opposed to tap water). In order for something to boil, just as in freezing, it needs a "seed" to get started. If there is no 'seed' bubble for the solution to work off of, it's temperature will just rise and rise. Then when it gets that 'seed' it will quickly boil all at once. The boiling chips will provide the 'seed' that the solution needs in order to boil and will severely prevent this violent occurance from happening.