Chemistry

Now, this is how to mount an expedition:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) ? a beverage company has asked a team to drill through Antarctica's ice for a lost cache of some vintage Scotch whiskey that has been on the rocks since a century ago.

The drillers will be trying to reach two crates of McKinlay and Co. whiskey that were shipped to the Antarctic by British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton as part of his abandoned 1909 expedition.

Whyte & Mackay, the drinks group that now owns McKinlay and Co., has asked for a sample of the 100-year-old scotch for a series of tests that could decide whether to relaunch the now-defunct Scotch.

Actually, the stuff shouldn't have changed at all in terms of flavor. Once bottled, scotch doesn't really "age" any more. Be interesting to try it, though.

Jim Downey

Tearful Atlanta Cops Express Remorse for Shooting 92-Year-Old Kathryn Johnston, Leaving Her To Bleed to Death in Her Own Home While They Planted Drugs in Her Basement, Then Threatening an Informant So He Would Lie To Cover It All Up

About this item:

Ex-Atlanta cops sentenced in deadly botched raid

ATLANTA – A federal judge sentenced three former Atlanta police officers to prison Tuesday for their part in a botched drug raid that ended with the death of an elderly woman in a hail of gunfire.

Jason R. Smith, Gregg Junnier and Arthur Tesler received sentences ranging from five years to 10. Kathryn Johnston, 92, was killed by police gunfire during the 2006 raid at her home.

OK, Gang - time for confessions. Take a stand: Eggnog, yes or no?

If you say yes, what variety, what kind of alcohol?

If no, you're a heathen destined to live forevermore as an outcast from society.

Me, I like my eggnog with whiskey (Scotch, actually), minus all the milk and egg gunk. With ice.

Jim Downey

If you would like a small insight into why I love doing what I do for a living, be sure to check out this delightful feature which was on NPR's Weekend Edition this morning:

Paging Through History's Beautiful Science

by Joe Palca

Ah, gotta love the advancement of science - soon, you'll be able to drink beer with the legitimate claim that you are doing it for your health:

Anti-cancer beer under development

NEW YORK: American students have designed a genetically modified yeast that can ferment beer and produces the chemical resveratrol, known to offer some protection against developing cancer.

* * *

The idea for the healthier beer, dubbed 'Biobeer', started out as a joke. "You could say that the inspiration for the project came from a student who really enjoys his beer," said Thomas Segall-Shapiro, a member of the team behind the project.

And from USA Today:

Students are working to modify the yeast with two sets of genes, including one that will allow the yeast to metabolize sugars and produce an intermediate chemical. The second set will convert that chemical to resveratrol.

Isn't the whole premise of the War on Some Drugs that you should only use drugs for a medical condition, not just for fun or convenience? Well, then, how about this?

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

* * *

Such episodes are among more than 250 cases The Washington Post has identified in which the government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has shipped out of the United States since 2003 -- the year the Bush administration handed the job of deportation to the Department of Homeland Security's new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

I like hot stuff. As noted in this post, I grew a bunch of extra-hot Habanero varietals this year, and have made several batches of super-hot sauce. But even I have my limits, and know them. Unlike this twit:

Man, you gotta love dumb jocks.

Jim Downey

(Cross posted to my blog. Via MeFi.)

OK, as noted in another thread, I like things that go boom, things that burn, all that 'rapid oxidization' stuff. Now, remember from your high school chemistry class that fun demonstration (do they still do this these days?) of what happens when you drop a piece of metallic sodium into water? Well, how about dropping 20,000 pounds of the stuff into a lake?

As someone mentioned in the MeFi thread where I came across this, it brings to mind the delightful segment from Brainiac where they played with small amounts of rubidium and cesium. Good times, good times...

Jim Downey

Odd little news item:

LONDON (Reuters) - A surge in naked sleepwalking among guests has led one of Britain's largest budget hotel groups to re-train staff to handle late-night nudity.

Travelodge, which runs more than 300 business hotels in Britain, says sleepwalking rose seven-fold in the past year, and 95 percent of the somnambulants are scantily clad men.

"We have seen an increased number of cases over the years so it is important that our staff know how to help sleepwalking when it arises," Leigh McCarron, the chain's sleep director, said in a statement.

One tip in the company's newly released "sleepwalkers guide" tells staff to keep towels handy at the front desk in case a customer's dignity needs preserving.

Article goes on to explain some of the common causes of sleepwalking, but curiously neglects to mention one which I have heard about: Zolpidem, known more commonly by the brand name "Ambien". Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

...and offer them gifts of hydrogen peroxide.

One summer while I was in college, a relative in the construction industry got me a job doing hot tar roofing. It was excellent money (union scale), but absolutely miserable work. I had to get up about five in the morning, and drive to the job site, then spend 8 - 10 hours up on a blistering hot roof in East St. Louis, doing all the physically demanding and horrid things one has to do to replace a 'tar' roof on a large commercial building.

Now, here's an interesting bit from a recent press release:

ORANGE, CA (April 3, 2007) – The world’s first spiritual perfume – Virtue® – was Premiered this week by IBI, a niche fragrance company in Orange, CA. Based upon an inspired Biblical formula, the perfume is designed to be a reminder of God, Christ, spiritual self and soul.

“We turned to the Bible to seek inspiration about which items to include and became convinced that a formulation would reveal itself,” explains Rick Larimore, IBI’s chief executive officer. “Creating Virtue® has been a journey and adventure through fragrance and scripture, with remarkable miracles confirming our choices.”

Ah, yes - there are so many wonderful scents hinted at in the bible: burnt offerings, the blood of children, leprosy. Oh, wait, maybe these aren't the fragrances that were miraculously confirmed. No, instead they claim that it was the the smell of holiness itself:

From USA Today, under the headline Coca-Cola should drop the 'coca,' Bolivia growers say:

A commission of coca industry representatives advising an assembly rewriting Bolivia's constitution passed a resolution Wednesday calling on the Atlanta, Ga.-based company to take "Coca" out of its name and asking the United Nations to decriminalize the leaf.

The resolution demands that "international companies that include in their commercial name the name of coca (example: Coca Cola) refrain from using the name of the sacred leaf in their products."

The commission, which met for three days in Sucre, 255 miles southeast of La Paz, is part of an effort led by President Evo Morales to rehabilitate the image of plant, used in the Andes for millennia but better known internationally as the base ingredient of cocaine.

Yup, it's not just the monotheists who are nuts.

Jim Downey

A drug that prolongs life, averts degenerative disease and makes you into a champion athlete has been found in red wine!

Woo Hoo!

But wait... There's gotta be a catch... Hmnn...

[link] Red wine has about 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter, so a 150-lb person would need to drink 750 to 1,500 bottles of red wine a day to get such a dose.

D'Oh!

Maybe 500 bottles a day, but 750? No way, dude. Heh.