aj47

aha thanks

Recently my neighbour was cleaning out her attic and asked if I wanted to sift through her junk to find anything I wanted. Apart from finding an old guitar case and a scalextrics set, I came across an extremely old but in perfect condition apple computer, which I am told was one of the first models from the early 80's. As much as I want to keep it I have no room for it and was wondering if it might be a collectable item. What do you think?

Although animals might not have identical immune/nervous systems to humans, enough pharmaceutical research has been carried out to show that they are similar enough for animal testing to be used as a reliable means of testing the safety of a drug. True there have been cases where people have died or been injured through drug trials, but when you take into account the immense number of drugs tested over the years, these cases are extremely rare. I should also point out that drugs do not come straight out of the lab to be immediately tested on animals. On average it takes 12 years from synthesis, for a drug to be put on the market. In that time a variety of methods are used to test the safety of the drug i.e. computer simulations and in vitro cell culture, and animal testing is one of the last stages. Human trials are always used when a pharmaceutical company is researching a drug, but before the trials can be carried out, animal testing is needed to predict whether the drug is safe enough. Do you really suggest researchers should skip animal testing and test potentially unsafe drugs on humans. I really hope you are joking.

Can I be best man?

The other day I saw what appeared to be my friend in my local library, head down reading a book. As a joke I crept up behind him and jokingly slapped him in round the face to discover it wasn't my friend but a random guy. It was pretty embarassing to say the least.

I find the same but usually the other way round. For me if I stay up late enough drinking I wake up feeling scarily good, but I know the good feelings down to me still being slightly tipsy. Although after the fun few hours upon waking, the most horrible hangover always ensues which is why I try not to let it happen too often.

I had a friend who was ill for just over a year with similar symptoms and she too went to several doctors and had a few tests which all came up with nothing. Eventually she was told that she probably had 'post-viral fatigue syndrome' although they said it was a vauge diagnosis. Although I can't say for sure, in her case I think that much of her illness was psychosomatic as she's well known for her anxiety and hypochondria. Also after spending literally hundreds on alternative medicines, she finally got better while going to counseling for anxiety, although she says it was a coincidence.

Do you find insane jumps on your bike relaxing?

Just a few songs i've been addicted to recently.... Yann Tiersen - sur le fil (he wrote most of the music for 'Amelie' and 'Goodbye Lenin' which are two of my favourite films). The Arcade Fire - Neighbourhood #1 (such an amazing band) Get cape, wear cape, fly - Call me ishmael Guru - lifesaver (even you if you hate hip hop listen to this song, it's a good mix of hiphop and jazz) Led Zeppelin - That's the way. Jehst - 1979 (good UK hiphop, again non gangstarish) m83 - teen angst Million dead - living the dream (despite the name of the band, this song isn't heavy) Radiohead - How to dissapear completely, No suprises, Bullet proof I wish I was. (by far my favourite band) Erik satie - Gymnopédie and Gnossienne 1,2 and 3 Lauren Hill - To zion (possibly the best voice ever)

ah wait I got it, the English version is different to American

arrgh level four is annoying me. I think I get it but the 0000 bit throws me completly.

A stingray tail to the heart - ouch. At least he died doing something he loved.

I'm bored of these threads

Its like christmas come early. Thanks again thats awsome.

wow I havn't seen generosity like that in ages, that would be awsome thanks. I'm not looking to make too much acid just enough to play around with and add to my collection, so yea I would expect 1-2 grams to be enough. Cheers i'll pm you my address.

I got Schindler's List too

ah excellent, I lost my job last week so I appreciate cheap things alot more than I used to.

Thanks for the replies, i'll probably attempt the phosphate and sulphuric acid way first as I partially wanted to make the acid just for the satisfaction of making it, but if I fail i'll probably just buy some. I've seen bottles of rust remover beofre which I have heard are also dilute H3PO4 . Anyway I'm assuming you can buy relatively pure phosphates as fertalizers right?

Really the only Jewish person I've known was an eccentric old man who lived next door to our family. I don't really remember much about him except I used to love visiting him on friday nights as he would always give us challah bread and dance around the house singing 'shabbat shalom'. Why do you want to hear about Jewish people anyway?

I'm an outdoors person who was born and lived in the Dorset countryside for the first few years of my life, then I moved to to a city when I was five. I recycle and purposly turn off lights to save energy but i'm not sure if I would go as far as to say i'm an environmentalist. Also if fishing is considered hunting I would call myself a hunter. So really I could almost vote for all of them.

From what I remember from my A2 chem course, phosphoric(V)acid can be formed from phosphorus pentoxide in the reaction [ce]P2O5 + 3H2 O -> 2H3PO4[/ce]. As i've been looking for a small amount of phosphoric acid, I wondered whether this reaction could be carried out at home by simply burning red phosporus to obtain the pentoxide then reacting with water? From what I have read, industrial methods involve dissolving the pentoxide in dilute phosphoric acid not water which suggest that the reaction my be slightly violent so I'm a little wary. Anyway do you think this would work or is there a simpler/safer method to obtain the acid? EDIT: this should probably be in the applied chemistry section actually.

This morning I was heating up a large pan of oil and I noticed that when the oil got to a certain heat, small bubbles of gas would form on the bottom of the pan and rise to the top as water does when it boils. This confused me a little as I always assumed gases cannot dissolve in non polar solvents. Does anyone know what was going on?

Actually there was a program on this on channel four recently called 'feral children' which showed the physical/psycological effects of children raised by animals or without any human contact. There were some pretty horrible cases i.e in 1970's when a father caged his 2 year old daughter in a dark room and kept her there with out human contact untill she was found at 13, or a few cases where children had been abandoned and raised by animals. Anyway with the majority of cases, after being found the child would have severe problems with launguage and social interaction. The majority also had severely underdeveloped brains and smaller cortexes with areas such as wernicke's and broccas being affected. There would be physical problems i.e 'psychogenic dwarfism' where the child would not grow properly due to the extreme emotional deprevation preventing growth hormones from being relased or in a lot of cases excessive growth of body hair. So yea there are many psycological and physical problems caused by lack of human interaction, however I don't think these children would die as a direct result of them.

yea i'm really looking forward to UCL, if you havn't visited it allready you should as it's a really nice place. Although from what I hear living in London is ridiculously expensive, but then again I found out the other day you get a bigger loan so i'm sure i'll be fine. I definately want to go travelling on my gap year, but as to where i'm going im not completly sure yet. My brothers living in Colombia at the moment so I may visit him and travel around but I want to travel by myself and although he tries to convince me otherwise, I still think Colombia's a bit too dangerous. But anyway i'm in no rush to decide as I need to work for a least 3 or 4 months to save up enough.

yea I remember talking about water purifying tablets and peeing purple before but I can't find the thread.