Caustic

I agree with Meucat about the reason we age, although the process is still a mystery to me. The simple reason, which I have already thought about much in the past, is we are only made to reproduce, and then what? What happens to our bodies after reproductive age does not affect our offspring as long as we live long enough to keep them alive. So there is little guidence by evolution or natural slection on the way we age after reproductive age has ended. The only reason we live so long is probably because old people can still help the tribe and therefore natural selection does help a little in allowing us to live a while longer, and 70-80 years isn't bad for a mammal. Bacterium are Prokaryotic cells, which differ greatly from the Eukaryotic cells which make up plants and animals, although they are both products of a common ancestor. One of the main differences is that bacterium or prokaryotic cells are much simpler, smaller, and differ vastly in internal structure, such as by the lack of a nucleus, and a very hard and thick outer cell wall. It should also be noted that there is a third branch of cells called "Archaea" which are single celled but are more similar to eukaryotic cells than prokaryotic. I think the fatal flaw which causes aging must lie in the complexity of the Eukaryotic cell and all its complicated and specialized functions. aging and death sucks but its better than reproducing asexually... cuz i got laid last night and it was cool

I was reading about a neutron capture experiment http://www.dartmouth.edu/~physics/labs/p1/lab4.pdf Silver was placed in a paraffin block with Americrum (as an alpha source) and Beryllium to produce neutrons. The paraffin was supposed to slow down the neutrons or "thermalize" them so they can be captured. According to this lab, Ag when bombarded with slow neutrons will capture them and then decay to eaither Cd or Pd depending on the isotope of Ag. So my question is how long would you have to expose the Ag to the neutrons to convert a majority of it to Cd and Pd? And once converted can these elements be seperated? Basicially i want to know if i can make a valuable element from a cheap one by bombarding it with neutrons.

I believe that mixing chemicals is a good way for amateurs to gain valuable knowledge and experience that cant be gained from a merc index. Redrang604 and Nave may be working with hazardous chemicals but its not like theyre doing anything stupid. They are pretty sure that they have ClO2 and have researched it. Just follow your basic safety procedures and use common sense. I say keep up the good work and keep us posted with anything else you discover. Hey i have an idea, drop a little Hg into it (from a distance) and see what happens!

my chem teacher used to work at a shampoo company and she said that they put horrible chemicals in the shampoo to create the fragrances

i wonder if i could just put them all together to make one huge battery. they are each 3.3v

I recently bought around 90 lithium batteries from a government auction. They are the button type measuring a little under an inch across. What could i use these for? besides their intended electrical use. When disassembled there are 2 halves, one is full of what appears to be carbon powder and some sort of electrolyte, and the other side is just a chunk of Li metal. One neat thing i discovered is that the Li ignites from friction and violently burns a hot red colo(u)r. It burned so hot that it ate away a little crater in the concrete. I like to make fireworks and was thinking the Li could make some nice effects. I have lots of KNO3 and was thinking about trying to isolate the K with the Li if it isnt too difficult. Any suggestions?

i was making an experimental batch of rocket fuel (100+ grams) that contained mostly KNO3 + Sucrose, but i had thrown in some NH4NO3, zinc, carbon, and sulphur just to see how it would affect the burn rate. These were heated over an electric burner to melt the sucrose and i was starting to pack the hot paste into a cardboard tube when the pan suddenly ignited and there was a huge wall of pink/purple fire roaring 6 inches in front of my face! I immediately unplugged the hotplate, cleared the area of combustible clutter (it was in a messy junk packed garage) and reached for my fire extinguisher. When i sprayed the dry chemical extinguisher on the pan of burning chemicals, the pressure from the extinguisher blast blew the pan off the burner plate onto the ground and shot burning balls of fuel all over the garage! The dry chemical did little to inhibit the burning chemicals. Little fires sprung up everywhere and when i ran out of extinguisher pressure i started stomping them out. After about a minute it was all over and there was a huge cloud of toxic smoke pouring out of my garage which took a very long time to dissipate. Afterwards my garage was a mess. Everything was covered with dry chemical dust and ash. My arms had little burns all over them from burning propellent and my shirt was full of little burn holes. I was pretty lucky that I didnt burn the whole apartment complex down. My garage was full of oxidizers, gasoline, oil, a full propane tank, aerosol cans, ammunition, misc chemicals and combustible materials. It was a much needed reality check. not too long later, i was making some bottle rockets with just plain KNO3/Su and to make the bore hole through the grain i came up with the bright idea to melt the hole with a hot screwdriver. The hot screwdriver ignited the tube in my had which was full of about 25g of propellent. Luckily i pointed the tube away from my body and no damages were suffered except for a few minor burns on my hands. Luck was again on my side. Lesson learned: never overheat rocketfuel (DuH!)

i think if you put some mercury metal on aluminum it will cause the al to corrode and disintigrate. not sure how fast it is but i saw something about it in a magazine. this is why it is illegal to bring mercury on an airplane. but it would be pretty hard to get some mercury nowadays due to its toxicity...

i have 27,292 points on UD right now, thats from 73 days of processing time. yeah, what are these "rewards" it talks about?

when you get closer to an object, the force of gravity will increase exponentially. If you could zoom in close enough to the surface of an object, and take percise measurements, can true gravitational refraction be observed around "small" objects such as a ball bearing, or bowling ball, or the moon? Even a small gravitational force should affect the photon's path as least a little. And when a photon passes a large curved surface which causes the photons path to go very close to the surface for a relatively long period of time, shouldnt the photons path bend around the surface? Im wondering if this happens enough for it to be observed and measured in an ametaur experiment using easily obtainable equipment.

I noticed when I look very closely at just about any object with a curved surface with a straight line behind it running almost parallel to the edge but still intersecting it (or almost) that the line will bend toward the object as if the light is being attracted to it. we all know that the power of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of distance, so when you look very closely at the edge of a massive object, maybe the gravity from the mass of the object is actually strong enough to visually refract light due to the short distance? is this possible, or is this caused by some other Phenomenon? I know this takes place around super massive objects like black holes, but has this ever been observed on a smaller scale?

my guess is that they are nothing more than particles of dirt, crud, and other inanimate objects. the round one in the first picture might be algae or some other single celled micro organism. but i am no expert so dont take my word for it. i never drink tap water, it just grosses me out. plus some places are using recycled sewage in their tap water. not to mention all the chemicals they add to disinfect it. i read an article about prozac being found in tap water that was from recycled sewage. yuk. where in the world were these samples taken?

yes, all tire shops use lead wheel weights to balance tires. they range in sizes from 1/4 oz to over 3 oz. im sure they will give you as much as you want. just be careful to wash your hands after touching the lead as it is toxic. and to think i work with the stuff every day... another thing to look out for with the weights is that some of them have a grey protective coating to prevent scratches on aluminum wheels, so if you want pure lead you need the uncoated steel wheel variety. you can tell the difference because the lead will turn shiny if you scratch it with a hard object like a knife.

i guess we americans dont like to put extra silent pointless letters in our words

what exactly is a "horseshoe" or "tadpole" orbit anyways?

i know that rattle snakes can live for like 20 minutes with the head cut off. im not just talking about the body twitching, the head actually kept opening its mouth trying to bite me, and it was sticking its tounge out too. suppose that you could keep the brain alive with some sort of machine that pumped oxygen rich blood into the arteries leading to the brain, then how long do you think the brain would live? in a human i mean.

a good source of lead metal is your local tire shop. I work at discount tire co. and we collect hundreds of pounds of Lead wheel weights every month. Since we actually pay a company to remove and recycle the stuff, which is considered hazardous waste, all you have to do is ask and we will give you as much as you want! people ask for the stuff all the time and i just grab a few handfulls and put it in a bag, no questions asked. But how reactive is the lead with oxidizing agents? wouldnt it need to be in powder form for any kind of reaction to take place? or maybe you could add an oxidizer to molten lead? do you think KNO3, NH4NO3, or KClO4 would work? (because those are the only ones i have) Now that you have reminded me of the abundance of lead which i have access to, i must inquire; what other reactions can lead metal be used in?

i was planning to use battery acid to extract iodine from seaweed

the private space travel industry is still in its infant stages... but i will soon be offering orbital flights in my home built space ship for $1000 USD per person. Hurry because i only have 30 seats left! I accept paypal, cashiers check, and money order. Please send all payments as soon as possible to reserve your seat on the first flight! no but seriously, i think that in less than 20 years we will all be able to go to space for a reasonable price and maybe even the moon. I hope that in my lifetime i will be able to go to mars, but i dont know if that is possible. What can we do to speed up the process? We all should become Aerospace Engineers (as i plan to do) and help advance the space industry. we need to develop new and cheap propulsion technology, and start our own companies to support the industry. The success of this industry depends on how many people devote their lives to it. you can count me in.

the only "M-80's" and "M-100s" you can buy here in america are very weak and contain less than 2 grains of chemicals, which is hardly anything. They are basicially a small firecracker cast inside of some plaster in a cardboard tube, the explosion of the plaster makes the noise louder but they still suck! plus you cant even buy them in most states. Real M-80s were banned in the '60s and are very illegal.

after performing the process once, can the H2SO4 / H2O2 be reused? or do you need to start with a fresh batch every time? H2SO4 isnt cheap, even if you get it from car batteries, the batteries are expensive unless you get lucky and find some cheap used ones. and H2O2 is expensive too. Im trying to find a way to make a good amount of iodine crystals inexpensively.

I have read a post somewhere that said that iodine can be extracted from seaweed. How much iodine is present in seaweed and what kinds of seaweed has the highest yield? Living in southern california there is plenty of Kelp and sea grass off the coast and i am very interested in the potential for iodine extraction from these plants. If anybody has any info and even a procedure for the extraction i would greatly appreciate it. ps. if there is another source of cheap iodine that anyone knows of please share. thanks.

Whats Kalium? do you mean potassium?

A hybrid rocket engine is one that uses a combonation of liquid oxidizer and solid fuel grain. A hybrid engine was recently used on Space Ship One to win the Ansari X Prize. This engine used N2O (Nitrous Oxide) injected into a combustion chamber full of Hydroxy-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB), a synthetic rubber commonly used in tires. But I have never heard of a hybrid motor that uses liquid fuel with a solid oxidizer. What if you compressed an oxidizing agent into a dense grain and injected liquid fuel such as alcohol into the chamber containing the solid oxidizer such as NH4NO3, NH4ClO4, KNO3, or KClO4 which are all common in rocket propellents. Are liquid oxidizers just more efficient? Or would this design just not work? Being a solid, and more dense oxidizing agent, i would think that this design might have some advantages. On the other hand, it may be more difficult if not impossible to ignite or sustain ignition... i just dont know... I believe that the development of new propulsion technology is important to the budding private space industry and we should all be brainstorming new ideas...

many drugs were discovered by self experimentation, The medical use of N2O (nitrous or laughing gas) for example was discovered when a chemist was experimenting on himself by inhaling different gases. According to my chemistry book he noted that he "became extremely intoxicated". N2O has since become very important in medicine, especially dentistry. MDMA or "Ecstacy" was also discovered this way and origionally intended for use psyco therapy, and was legal for years until the abuse exploded in popularity in the late '80s. So self experimentation is a good way to test drugs that normally would not be tested on humans. But it seems like a majority of chemicals are toxic or harmful in some way, im sure poisons have been accidently discovered in this manner too, so i would never do this unless you know what your dealing with!