I tried heroin once. Back in my hitch-hiking days I smoked it (believe it or not) with one of the drivers. It was absolutely wonderful. It felt like I just totally aced a toughest college exam. A complete euphoria. Pure happiness. In fact, it was so wonderful that I decided not try it ever again, because I could see how easily one can become addicted to it. But I did not get addicted. Then again, even back then, I was a motivated student, and my goal was to pursue science. Wasting my life doing drugs wasn't my plan.
I might possibly try it again, given a chance, since it's now been almost 20 years. I am not planning on seeking it out, though, and I don't hitch-hike anymore, so I don't think it's going to happen, which is probably for the better.
That doesn't make sense. Once the beam has diverged enough to 'light up the entire plane', or even just the cockpit, the light intensity is very small. A powerful laser pointer has an output of ~250 mW (milliwatts). 250 mW dispersed over 1mm^2 is very strong illumination. 250 mW over the whole cockpit is nothing - same as a 250 mW lightbulb. Unless the cockpit is pitch dark, you will not even notice it.
How many ways are there for people in their 70's to make a such large and meaningful contribution to their society? It would really be a great legacy to leave behind.
Did this experiment in a radiochemistry lab class.
Regular salt - it contains potassium-40
on
Testing Geiger Counters
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Use common kitchen salt (NaCl). It contains a small amount of potassium chloride (KCl). The amount of KCl in the salt you buy should be listed on the packaging. 0.012% of the KCl present will contain a naturally occurring radioactive isotope of potassium, potassium-40 (half-life of 1.3 billion years). So, if you weigh the amount of salt you test with your Geiger counter, you should be able to figure out how much potassium-40 you have. The specific activity of potassium-40 is 0.0000071 Curie/gram. One Curie is 3.7×10^10 decays per second, so one gram of potassium-40 should give you 263000 decays per second, one milligram of potassium-40 should give you 263 decays/second, and so on. By comparing your measurement results to what you would expect, you can tell how well your Geiger counter is performing. Be ready to measure for at least several minutes, though.
Well, that paper came out in 1975, before the era of molecular biology, back when people knew almost nothing about how the sense of smell, or pheromone detection worked. In 1991 Buck and Axel published their paper in Cell on discovery of odorant receptor proteins (in mouse), which then led to discovery of odorant receptor proteins in insects, and other receptor protein families (V1R, V2R, TAAR) that are likely responsible for pheromone detection in mammals, and yet more receptor proteins likely responsible for pheromone detection in insects. Buck and Axel received a Nobel prize for their discovery. Btw., a 'vibrational theory of olfaction', similar to what you cite, popularized by the book The Emperor of Scent (Random House, 2002) was thoroughly destroyed by Leslie Vosshall's research published in 2004 in Nature Neuroscience.
The spec sheet is for something different: instead of 4.8'' it is 2.4''; instead of 16.8M colors it displays 260k colors, and it is only 320x240 pixels (at 170 ppi). It appears to be a spec sheet for their previous announcement. I can't find anything about the current announcement on the Ortustech website...
I second that. Just in the past month or two, there has been:
- a Neanderthal genome sequenced
- a genome from two different types of human cancers
- genomes sequenced of a pair of identical twins, one twin has multiple sclerosis, the other doesn't
ALL of this data is in public databases. You can either access it through various web interfaces, or just download the sequences as text files, work with them offline. I am sure there is a lot of interesting information in it, just waiting to be discovered. If you are interested, check out http://www.genome.ucsc.edu/Neandertal/. Brush up on Perl, read up on BioPerl if you want, and dig away!
There are piles of astronomy data that are publicly available - you just need to write the software to dig through it. I remember a few of years ago there was a paper in the top science journal Nature in which the authors found a snow/ice/dry ice outcrop on Mars that was not there in some earlier images of the area, but appeared in some of the more recent ones. All the raw images are available online, someone just had to find this needle in the haystack. So, if you have an interesting idea, you should be able to pursue it even without astronomic equipment.
Btw., the original Nature article is here (if you have a subscription):
http://www.nature.com/nature/foxtrot/svc/mailform?doi=10.1038/444800a&file=/nature/journal/v444/n7121/full/444800a.html
The 'before' and 'after' images are available, for example, here:
http://popsci.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/marswater.jpg
While I don't remember my current phone number, I still remember my family's phone number back from when I was 6 years old. But maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was just 4 digits: 3309.
The year was 1979, and we lived in what was then the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
That's the laser I actually use the most... Even though I run a microscopy lab that uses all kinds of lasers (Ar, He, He-Ne, dye, also two femtosecond titanium:sapphire lasers).
1998 or 1999. I realized the modem didn't work, so I booted into Win95, read about it online, booted linux, tried the suggestions, booted into Win95, read some more, booted into linux, tried it, booted Win95,... for the rest of the day. Then I gave up.
Slashdot Mirror
Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgJfVRhotlQ
I tried heroin once. Back in my hitch-hiking days I smoked it (believe it or not) with one of the drivers. It was absolutely wonderful. It felt like I just totally aced a toughest college exam. A complete euphoria. Pure happiness. In fact, it was so wonderful that I decided not try it ever again, because I could see how easily one can become addicted to it. But I did not get addicted. Then again, even back then, I was a motivated student, and my goal was to pursue science. Wasting my life doing drugs wasn't my plan. I might possibly try it again, given a chance, since it's now been almost 20 years. I am not planning on seeking it out, though, and I don't hitch-hike anymore, so I don't think it's going to happen, which is probably for the better.
I think those are the ones that the parent meant. Gives you some idea of what kind of situation it must have been!
or if the pilot did NOT mistake Venus for another plane?
That doesn't make sense. Once the beam has diverged enough to 'light up the entire plane', or even just the cockpit, the light intensity is very small. A powerful laser pointer has an output of ~250 mW (milliwatts). 250 mW dispersed over 1mm^2 is very strong illumination. 250 mW over the whole cockpit is nothing - same as a 250 mW lightbulb. Unless the cockpit is pitch dark, you will not even notice it.
How many ways are there for people in their 70's to make a such large and meaningful contribution to their society? It would really be a great legacy to leave behind.
Did this experiment in a radiochemistry lab class.
Use common kitchen salt (NaCl). It contains a small amount of potassium chloride (KCl). The amount of KCl in the salt you buy should be listed on the packaging. 0.012% of the KCl present will contain a naturally occurring radioactive isotope of potassium, potassium-40 (half-life of 1.3 billion years). So, if you weigh the amount of salt you test with your Geiger counter, you should be able to figure out how much potassium-40 you have. The specific activity of potassium-40 is 0.0000071 Curie/gram. One Curie is 3.7×10^10 decays per second, so one gram of potassium-40 should give you 263000 decays per second, one milligram of potassium-40 should give you 263 decays/second, and so on. By comparing your measurement results to what you would expect, you can tell how well your Geiger counter is performing. Be ready to measure for at least several minutes, though.
Well, that paper came out in 1975, before the era of molecular biology, back when people knew almost nothing about how the sense of smell, or pheromone detection worked. In 1991 Buck and Axel published their paper in Cell on discovery of odorant receptor proteins (in mouse), which then led to discovery of odorant receptor proteins in insects, and other receptor protein families (V1R, V2R, TAAR) that are likely responsible for pheromone detection in mammals, and yet more receptor proteins likely responsible for pheromone detection in insects. Buck and Axel received a Nobel prize for their discovery. Btw., a 'vibrational theory of olfaction', similar to what you cite, popularized by the book The Emperor of Scent (Random House, 2002) was thoroughly destroyed by Leslie Vosshall's research published in 2004 in Nature Neuroscience.
Does anyone remember it? Even real companies were spending money to build their spaces there. How long ago was that? And now? Just tumbleweed...
mod up, please
Rest easy... There is factual information, but it has nothing to do with the actual article.
The spec sheet is for something different: instead of 4.8'' it is 2.4''; instead of 16.8M colors it displays 260k colors, and it is only 320x240 pixels (at 170 ppi). It appears to be a spec sheet for their previous announcement. I can't find anything about the current announcement on the Ortustech website...
not being hosted in the state-of-the-art facility, has its server on fire
... since it is in binary. Unless there is some pattern.
TPB
I second that. Just in the past month or two, there has been:
- a Neanderthal genome sequenced
- a genome from two different types of human cancers
- genomes sequenced of a pair of identical twins, one twin has multiple sclerosis, the other doesn't
ALL of this data is in public databases. You can either access it through various web interfaces, or just download the sequences as text files, work with them offline. I am sure there is a lot of interesting information in it, just waiting to be discovered. If you are interested, check out http://www.genome.ucsc.edu/Neandertal/. Brush up on Perl, read up on BioPerl if you want, and dig away!
There are piles of astronomy data that are publicly available - you just need to write the software to dig through it. I remember a few of years ago there was a paper in the top science journal Nature in which the authors found a snow/ice/dry ice outcrop on Mars that was not there in some earlier images of the area, but appeared in some of the more recent ones. All the raw images are available online, someone just had to find this needle in the haystack. So, if you have an interesting idea, you should be able to pursue it even without astronomic equipment. Btw., the original Nature article is here (if you have a subscription): http://www.nature.com/nature/foxtrot/svc/mailform?doi=10.1038/444800a&file=/nature/journal/v444/n7121/full/444800a.html The 'before' and 'after' images are available, for example, here: http://popsci.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/marswater.jpg
While I don't remember my current phone number, I still remember my family's phone number back from when I was 6 years old. But maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was just 4 digits: 3309. The year was 1979, and we lived in what was then the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
That's the laser I actually use the most... Even though I run a microscopy lab that uses all kinds of lasers (Ar, He, He-Ne, dye, also two femtosecond titanium:sapphire lasers).
1998 or 1999. I realized the modem didn't work, so I booted into Win95, read about it online, booted linux, tried the suggestions, booted into Win95, read some more, booted into linux, tried it, booted Win95,... for the rest of the day. Then I gave up.
American airlines is now charging fees to non-passengers: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/american_airlines_now_charging
Wasn't this story already deemed to be bogus once? http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/02/1749213&from=rss
Isn't that the way it has been for the past 50 years?
That's what I wanna know...