Comandante

they say it was a mechanical failure, but it's all a cover-up! go and check it - sector 34 disappeared completely after it was swallowed by a black hole shortly after first collision, now they need to make some replacements

but as it is true for basically all countries, it is not easy to find a good educational system.

Fully agreed with that.

Simply put because of the relatively low output from Chinese institutions. Only in the last decade or so did they really put up speed. Also, if you check the Chinese nobel laureates I am sure that you will find them doing their research in the USA. China is trying to get back top scientists (a similar problem that Germany faces, albeit for different reasons) and is recruiting aggressively.

That partly makes sense, but I see what you mean. Also, do you think that if a well trained and skilled scientist who wanted to find a good job could do so better in China or Germany than in US, UK, Australia or others, or does that only count for people with Chinese background?

In addition to things previously said, does anyone know of a way to find out or website that collects data on % use of patents in industry worldwide? Based on some figures from sales of products worldwide I've noticed a rather large number of Chinese owned patents; not that I know the precise figure or source, it was a while ago, but would like to look it up again so if anyone has anything on that would be great.

[edit]: an interesting article I found; http://www.scidev.net/en/news/china-joins-top-ten-for-international-patents.html

I had similar sort of idea like iNow, but then I thought about space technology and exploration, in terms of both science and tech it seems to me that China is way ahead in those terms, in part thanks to Russia for support but also to their own efforts. I don't know how much that counts though, is it just a publicity stunt or does it really take that much skill to launch people into space?

I say Russia helped China with a lot of things but that's not to say Japan did everything on its own either. The way I see it Japan has their reputation for building things the way things are supposed to be built (hence their technological supremacy), but a lot of Japanese technology was based on ideas/patents originating from Europe or US. Anyone disagree?

The issue that lies therein is how does one count a significant scientific or technological achievement of one country? Does the achievement have to be original or can it involve ideas and patents from other countries?

CharonY, it seems to me you didn't include China in that list of scientifically 'leading nations', correct? If so, why not?

One interesting fact that I found is that Japan has almost 3 times as many Nobel laureates than China (particularly with respect to science); the question then is, does winning a Nobel prize count towards scientific achievement for one country or does the achievement really depend on how those findings are used?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_country

In terms of scientific and technological achievement, which of the two countries do you think has done a better job? Most of you would probably automatically think of Japan and its fancy robotics programs, cars, Maglev train, the envisioned space elevator, katana sword and countless other examples, but the true question really is; is China really that much behind, or is it ahead and why? That's something I'd like to know.

No worries.

In that case, if you really do like environmental science then you can go for that too. What's good about it in Australia in particular is that it's very valuable and that employers from all sorts of industries are employing environmental scientists at an increasing rate (from what I've heard) and you can imagine why. Environmental science as a degree involves a lot of units that aren't really cores for any other degrees, unless people pick them up as electives or take environmental major. Now, how exactly interchangeable are general science degrees with environmental I'm not sure, but I do think that if environmental scientist is required then those with environmental degree would be given the advantage. I'm also not sure how they've structured Env. Science degree at UQ but you can take a look at their website or brochure and compare, as I haven';t got much time now. Though, as to answer your question about 'hard' science bit I can tell you that environmental science is no joke. I can imagine there'll be plenty of chemistry, mostly analytical in later years, and also most of the first year chemistry units that any chemistry degrees are made of. Furthermore, I believe you may be able to pick 1 to 2 electives, which you could use to pick up some maths and physics and see if you like it, but that's something you'll have to work out from the brochure. I'm sure you'll be able to do it in Science degree though if you can manage to pick an environmentalist major and maybe chemistry/physics or other minor or another major; as I said before, Science degrees are flexible.

If you really really like physics after you take it up as elective then you could probably be able to transfer into general science degree at second year level (or even after first semester) and continue into physics major. There are plenty of careers for physicists in a lot of industries, examples would be research (very wide areas) or education (from primary school to university lecturing which requires PhD) but to get a much bigger list go to your nearest university and pick up a "science graduates careers" booklet or even attend one of those public lectures where they talk about careers for science grads. Don't forget that Department of Defence also has some great positions if you like a pretty vibrant environment.

I could've gone through my degree fully without buying any books at all, if your Uni has access to databases like sciencedirect etc you can always reference material from there, for the more basic stuff get everything from the books in the library (if the lecture notes don't already do the job). Nevertheless, I bought textbooks for most units and all new too- still have them and often come in handy. Most expensive I had to pay was Advanced Inorganic Chemistry $180 by Cotton et al.

upon mixing the oil with the Potassium ethoxide with a magnetic stirrer in a flask, it was turbid, and then about 2-3 mins later the color suddenly changed to perfectly clear and a very deep Orange, about 2 mins later it went slightly turbid again but maintained the color.

I tried one of these biodiesel preps today and I also observed sudden turbid-to-clear change after a few minutes, however, I didn't get any orange, it was mostly yellowish, and it didn't go turbid again. I used NaOH instead of KOH and I left it stirring for now, though room temperature is pretty low (around 14°C), I'm thinking to provide some heating.

Where in Australia are you? I've been to few universities in Melbourne, including RMIT, Deakin, Monash and Swinburne. I'm completing one science degree this year (and I'm 21 : ) and I'm starting my second science degree next year, with physics as major and I intend to proceed into honours after that and also PhD. For this first degree I'll be getting distinction average (around 78%) and I can tell you I didn't try anywhere near my best, so my point is that it won't be too hard at all to get a decent pass or credit, all you need to do is attempt problems from past/practice exams about two-three weeks before the exam (or earlier if you want better marks) and you should be fine. If you get stuck at any point most lecturers/tutors will be happy to assist you.

As far as physics is concerned, if you go to study physics you'll definitely be required to pick up some maths, hopefully that doesn't scare you because you will need some maths skills for university physics. For physics I would recommend Monash University as they have the best physics courses around here (though people from Uni. of Melbourne might disagree) and they also have our only synchrotron in their backyard so you'll be going there as well. Monash also has the largest school of chemistry in Australia and has strong biochemistry courses. Also, from what I gather most of the lecturers there are pretty cool and from what I've seen myself they have some very nice demonstrations for first year units.

RMIT is good for engineering and such while Deakin is good for biomedical sciences and molecular biology, and also to mention they have strong chemistry courses at Geelong campus (far west from city). With Swinburne I'm not well accustomed but I hear they've got some nice engineering courses. Well, in case you’re not even in Melbourne, the same applies to physics, if you want to study physics past first semester you’ll be required to take some maths as prerequisite for physics. With chemistry there are generally no maths prerequisites unless you take up chemical engineering units, so in pure Science degree you’ll be allowed 1-2 electives from any faculty per semester if I’m not mistaken, which could turn into a lot of fun as you could be picking up random units such as intro to astronomy, some law units, philosophy or whatever else you might find fun or easy, but then again you will need to do a set of units in relation to what major you pick. Therefore think about what your major might be, you can even have 2 majors or a major and a minor, or just a major and a bunch of random units. That’s what I like about science degrees, they’re like baskets from a supermarket- you just add things into it that you like, and depending on the university there could be heaps of different units to choose from. If you don’t know what some units are about and synopsis from uni websites doesn’t tell you much, then you can always go and attend a few lectures from the start of any unit or alternatively e-mail (or go in person) unit chairs and ask them for more information.

Whatever the case I personally believe that anyone who doesn’t have a Science degree is missing out and what’s more I think that any Uni course should be backed by at least 2 years of science units. I know that a lot of things I said aren’t related to your concerns, and I also don’t know what the bridging scheme you mentioned is, but nonetheless I still think that you should do a Science degree (3 years at least) if you have the resources, and then if you liked it go into honours.

Cheers

Log into sciencedirect or other online database through your uni's website (through library link, if they have one ) and then search for descriptions of methods and technologies for geochemical exploration; though, I'd suggest you first get a book from the library on geology or geochemistry and get some introductory information regarding geochemical exploration before you actually start gathering up in-depth info. hope that helps.

I didn't need the heater so I didn't think about it much.. I might try to implement an electric hotplate as the top holder plate in that design, in which case I'll have to change the housing too; if I ever get around that idea I'll update

Well, I think it's rather difficult to distinguish between an early chemist and an alchemist, but here's a page about some famous alchemists, Newton amongst them as Klaynos said.

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2002/crabb/famous.html

Does it REALLY have to schott duran? You can buy other borosilicate brands (like I did) which would be cheaper too. I bought 90% of my glassware from eBay, either locally or from overseas, and I didn't have any problems getting it. Sometimes you can also find schott duran on eBay but not that often, at least not in Au., don't know about US.

Also, I don't see why you should have problems, as far as I'm concerned there are at least a dozen activities out there which require borosilicate glassware and are at the same time legal.

I was going to post this a while back but got stuck into some uni work so here it is...

I wanted a magnetic stirrer but I didn't want to pay $100+ for one so I decided to make it from what I had in the garage. The idea was to use an old fan, a couple of magnets, a stirrer bar and a power supply.

Here's the list of things that I used, remember that you can use a vast range of alternatives depending on what you're going to use the stirrer for (I need(ed) it for a couple of chem experiments):

- 12 V (0.15A) fan from an old power supply

- 6 x neodymium disk magnets (4 x 5mm)

- magnetic stirrer bar (white, coated)

- power supply (5-6V)

- 5 pieces of wood, 6 nails and 2 screws

- plastic cd case

- some sticky tape or other glue

(and you might need ruler and pen if you're not good at cutting things approximately)

How to make it (I won't go in depth with description as it should be pretty obvious from the photos at the end):

Starting off with the fan, I ripped it out of an old power supply, rated 12V. I was going to use it to carry 6 x neodymium magnets stacked together and centered on top of the fan, fixed by some sticky tape.

Neodymium magnets I was going to buy as I wanted them for other things too but then ended up stealing a couple of magnetix pieces from my brother's toys section, you can do either . Stack them together to form a larger magnet and stick them onto the fan.

Power supply I already had but if you don't have one you can also use one of those 6V batteries or add up a 4 of 1.5V ones, up to you.

Professional stirrer bars (white plastic coated ones) you can buy for a dollar or cheaper, or alternatively you can use 3-4 neodymium magnets and coat them yourself, or even use whatever else magnetic you've got- I'm sure you can find something around.

Finally, you'll need a housing able host all parts of the stirrer; I used a couple of wooden blocks that I already had, which came handy because I was able to screw in 2 screws to fix the fan so it doesn't move. I actually used a saw to cut the top 3 pieces so that they fit, but I really didn't pay much attention to the overall design of the housing at all, as long as it stood firm and simple. I also used one piece of a plastic cd case as the top plate on which I would put the flask/beaker. You can glue in or fix this plate with some sticky tape if you want.

Once everything was assembled I gave it a test run, and it worked However, I found that it will not work well at over 10-12 V, if you manage to get it to that, at which voltage you'll be observing quite a dangerous twister that knocks the stirrer bar out of sync more often than not. The part where I try to reach the highest rpm was quite addictive actually, gotta love those twisters.

As a further note, I realized there are quite a few things that could use improvement. These include the removal of blades on the fan so that it doesn't cool the beaker (unless of course you want it to cool, or heat for that matter by directing the heat from a source onto the base of the beaker, you'd need the heat source though, which wouldn't be very practical due to limitations, maybe 40 degrees C), use of more than 6 magnets for greater stability and higher rpm and use of stronger magnets for stirrer bar amongst other things.

Nevertheless, so far it served the purpose and can keep stirring continuously at 5V for as long as you want it. I kept it on a test run for 12 hours without problems.

Photos attached.

Yes. Similiar experimentation would be considered inhumane and unethical.

Pity! I was just considering of doing it! But then again would those 'living' bodiless mice haunt me overnight? I think I'll stick to observation for now!

It appears that the mentioned work might be that of Dr Vladimir Petrovich Demikhov, organ transplant pioneer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Demikhov). Fascinating work he's done, I'm particularly interested in the brain and head transplant attempts that he did, will do some more research about it when I get time, damn exams!

There also appears to be some research done on the subject in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant) but Dr Demikhov's was apparently the first to utilize full cerebral functions. What's paritcularly interesting are these notes he made for Experiment 2, Feb 24,26 1954:

"09:00 The donor’s head eagerly drank water or milk, and tugged as if trying to separate itself from the recipient’s body.

22:30 When the recipient was put to bed, the transplanted head bit the finger of a member of the staff until it bled.

February 26, 18:00. The donor’s head bit the recipient behind the ear, so that the latter yelped and shook its head." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant)

Apprently these experiments were indeed carried out in USSR in the 40's, and there are some journal articles in regards to those, however, I'm not sure if the real experiment is what's shown in this video, check it: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=rSrIkUXwsNk

If anyone has other videos or articles about similar experiments please post here.

Also, a question: would similar experimentation with regular lab mice for instance be illegal these days?

yeah, there's nothing I haven't come across before, just don't know what's the problem. this allergic contact dermatitis is annoying.

Apparently the two should be around 99% the same, with reconstituted juice just being dried once and then hydrated again, and yet I find the two have very different tastes. Apart from the taste one other, more important, thing is bothering me; when the bottle states "reconstituted juice 99%" I'm curious what exactly, of the other 1%, could cause an allergic reaction in my mouth which I get from drinking these reconstituted orange juices? Freshly made juice from fruit is by far a better choice for me and I can't seem to find anything similar on the market to buy, as all of the juices I've seen are pretty much 'reconstituted'. I've tasted some trully great juices when I was in Europe few months ago, but Australia seems to have very limited choice of natural juices on the market, at least in the places where I shop... (if someone can recommend some would be great).

I see. Did you also provide nitrogen atmosphere for this reaction or is that not necessary?

by the way, will 98 or 99% ethanol work?

cool, I'm going to try this as soon as I assemble my magnetic stirrer, might post that into apparatus section as well

Also, are there any model motors that could be used to test different biodiesels for efficiency?

Just to add a few notes to this thread; I've managed to bend the glass with propane torch, make the cooler/condenser from a 2L coke bottle and some tubing attached to it (letting the water through it very slowly) and that's as much as I'll say about that (that's the part that worked out ok ) because I soon realized that the setup was not very efficient at all, though it did work (this was a couple of months back, forgot to update ).

I then decided to get proper condenser and few other things and I was delighted at the workings of the new setup which was test-run to produce some lavander oil. As I said, worked very well and got me some very nice oil with greenish tint. Will do many distillations in the coming weeks

I recycled water for cooling and used good old alcohol burner as heat source

Here's photo

Really? How can you know? I assumed it'd be nanosig because I get better resolution with smaller wavelengths.. explain for me? Perhaps I should look this sticker under a microscope

You've probably heard of x-ray crystallography as it is a very common and useful technique used to analyse bond distances, angles etc - in simple terms - probe the atomic arrangement in crystals. Last year we had to learn in-depth how this method works and the apparatus behind it so I got that down pretty well. If you're already wondering - NO I don't know how to make one at home However, something occured to me recently. If you think about it, those green lasers have a bit smaller wavelength than the red ones, at around 532nm, and they are also better-visible to the human eye, not to mention that a decently-powered green laser can be purchased for around $80 these days. That said, you'll know why I wanted to probe a nano-engineered surface with my green laser

It worked as I expected, resolution was a bit poor (due to difference in wavelength size and nano-work scale) but useful nevertheless! I took a recent genuine Intel CPU box and scanned it around for nanosignatures, wasn't long before I found one I posted a video online so you can have a look here: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1287916/using_green_laser_to_reveal_invisible_objects/

If anyone tries this method on other nanotech objects could you please be kind to let us know what you found, would like to see more examples

hi YT,

was thinking so too, just checking. However, is there any other way to freeze someone so that she/he could be 'warmed up' again without fatal damage?

Hey, just wondering if someone was to fall into a pool of liquid nitrogen and become completely frozen, what would be tissue damage and would it be possible to bring him/her back to life?