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City Officials Almost Ban Foam Cups
localhost00 writes "The city of Aliso Viejo, CA nearly banned foam cups when they learned they are produced from a substance known as 'dihydrogen monoxide.' A paralegal working for the city apparantly found a professionally designed web site put up to describe the dangerous properties of this chemical.
Apparantly, the report about Dihydrogen Monoxide was written by a then 14-year-old Nathan Zohner who was researching the gullibility of fifty ninth graders."
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Google News is fun
That stuff is nasty. Not only is it made from petroleum (America's crack), but it doesn't biodegrade and may leach toxins into the food it holds. Also, if it burns, it releases toxic particulates into the air.
The term "outside the box" is squarely within the box at this point.
They list a 1986 MSDS on the site, and a search confirms the entry. However, a search for the manufacturer points back to the hoax website. I think maybe msdsonline has falled for it, probably through lack of due diligence.
"I forgot my mantra."
That's right. Marathon runners are vulnerable to hyponatremia. Massive sweat + intake of unsalted water leads to sodium ion imbalance inside the body. It's one of those nasty conditions where the brain gets disoriented so the victim doesn't realize that they are headed for death.
Hyponatremia a Concern for Marathon Runners
I know the Slashdot stereotype is that nobody *here* has to worry about such things, but actually, I bet there are people in the Slashdot community who run this far and this hard.
No, it is actually technically correct. (The best kind of correct!) In chemistry naming conventions you usually use this sort of naming convention for binary nonmetal-nonmetal chemicals.
For example:
NO2 - nitrogen dioxide
N2O - dinitrogen monoxide
N2O5 - dinitrogen pentoxide
CO2 - carbon dioxide
So it does make sense to say:
H2O - dihydrogen monoxide
However the name hydrogen hydroxide is incorrect since that would indicate that the OH part of HOH (H2O ) is an ion and that the extra hydrogen is ionically bonded to it. This is not the case, in H2O both hydrogens are covalently bonded to the central oxygen atom.
You can see more about chemical naming conventions here.
Sapere aude!
This is obviously a blatant attempt at california(n) flamage, but...
With a small amount of research I'm sure you can pull up stupid laws and occurences for just about every state in the union. You want to know why people love california? Let me list some reasons without trying to sound like a tourist commercial:
- Extremely varying climates all within a relatively small area (i.e. Desert, Beach, Mountains all within a hour or so of each other)
- Strong cultural heritage throughout the state
- Southern california has some of the best weather in the US, bar-none.
- Napa Valley, Big Bear, Hollywood, Alcatraz, Catalina Island, Sea World, just to name a few
If you're looking for real reasons not to move to California, I can give you those too:
- Everything is expensive
- California traffic has been compared to a day in hell
- major metropolitan areas are very crowded.
- no smoking in bars or restaurants (seriously)
Obviously they did zero research on this before they had their knee-jerk reaction
I think the irony in that statement has been accurately summed up =)
arcane for life
http://www.zippynet.com/pages/bandhmo.htm
I believe this is the original. The page slashdot linked to is just someone rehashing the idea and putting up a different take on it. The person running the link I provided claims to have had their page up for a decade and on gopher for several years before that. So yes, you could say fraud for the slashdot linked website, but the original is 100% factual, and I give them the credit.
I can't even think of an example where someone with that background would involve themselves in politics.
Jimmy Carter.
HCl is hydrochloric acid because it doesn't involve a polyatomic ion. HClO3 is chloric acid, which does involve a polyatomic ion. However, since hydroxide (OH-) is a polyatomic, it is hydroxic acid.
Technically, the oxygen itself isn't flammable, the match is. The definition of flammable is that something readily combines with oxygen in an exothermic reaction producing fire. Oxygen does not combine with oxygen, but when more oxygen is present, it does have a tendency to increase the strength of a fire as the reactant is more readily available.
Its never happened, as far as the medical lit. I know about is concerned. It has a self-limiting factor: you'll get so high that you'll pass out or be unable to move well before you're able to consume enough THC to cause any sort of fatal overdose effect (excluding, of course, asphixiating because you pass out on your face or something along those lines).
"Stumble before you crawl"
Hyponatremia can be a problem, though rarely in a normal person (IIAD, BTW).
The most common scenario where I've seen symptomatic hyponatremia in a non-athlete is in a syndrome called SIADH (AKA: Syndrome of Inappropriate Anti-Diuretic Hormone). I've rarely seen it in psychiatric patients who compulsively drink massive quantities of fluids as part of their psychosis... Believe it or not, it's actually possible to drink enough water that you dilute out your electrolytes.
Anti-Diuretic Hormone is what determines the final concentration of your urine (ie. how much free water your kidneys scavenge from the filtrate in your kidneys)... it works in the kidney's distal tubules. Interestingly, ADH is inhibited by ethanol. Ever wonder how beer seems to go through you so quickly? Well, the answer is that it really doesn't... part of that massive urination is from the alcohol inhibiting ADH secretion, your kidneys start dumping free water, and you start peeing like a racehorse. The result? You get dehydrated; one of the major contributors to the discomfort of hangovers. Heh... a bag or two of IV fluids does wonders for a hangover.
Dilutional Hyponatremia is relatively easy to fix (obviously depending on severity)... just restrict fluid intake. In the case of SIADH, you also have to hunt for the cause... some lung cancers are notorious for secreting excess Anti-Diuretic Hormone.
Note that severe hyponatremia is life-threatening... you can have refractory seizures, coma, and profound mental status changes. Fixing it too quickly is also dangerous, and can cause a nasty (and permanent) condition called Central Pontine Myelinolysis... definitely not on the top-ten-diseases-to-have list.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Most people are wholly unaware of the fact that Jimmy Carter went to Georgia Tech and became a nuclear engineer for the Navy. Sam Nunn also started out as an industrial engineer at Georgia Tech before heading off to Emory & Emory Law to eventually graduate with a law degree.
Besides, the grandparent poster short-changes those of us who do have science/math backgrounds, who are passionate about politics, and who have considered getting more involved.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Don't pitch Ecstasy like it's a harmless medication... it is not. (Disclaimer: I'm an ER physician, and I've treated ecstasy users)
Ecstasy (MDMA) is chemically related to the amphetamine family, and has many of the same effects. One of the side-effects of Ecstasy is hyperthermia... an elevation of body temperature that can lead to rhabdomyolysis (mass breakdown of muscle tissue, often leading to kidney failure), brain damage, and death.
Ecstasy acts primarily on the serotonergic and dopaminergic neurons in the CNS, and appears to irreversably harm the former (documented pathologically in animal studies, and observationally in humans). Interestingly, Prozac and some of the SSRI drugs seem to partially antagonize the effects of Ecstasy (but if you're planning on stopping your anti-depressant so you can get a better buzz on the weekend, you need serious help).
There's another problem: you never know what you're getting when you buy street drugs. Unless you have a degree in organic chemistry and are making your own (which can be done), it pays to be cautious.
Maybe you've taken ecstasy hundreds of times and had no problem... good for you. But ecstasy is not harmless... I've seen it go wrong, and it's not pretty.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
If I remember my chemistry correctly, dihydrogen monoxide is incorrect because the molecule splits into H+ and OH- ions. It should be hydrogen hydroxide. I made the same mistake in chemistry class in 1964.