John Cuthber

IIRC the first synthesis of the perbromate ion was by radioactive (beta) decay of a radioisotope of selenium as a selenate. The yield was lousy, but they did make the stuff. When radioactive decay occurs in the body it's not just the molecule containing the decayed atom that gets damaged. The radiation trashes a bunch of nearby molecules too.

Odd; did the baking powder have a "best before" date on it? The whole purpose of the stuff is to fizz (slowly) when added to water-containing foods. Incidentally, baking soda will fizz in very hot water but that might not help you much.

I think the dull answer might be to do with this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean

You might tell your friend to search for "ginger beer recipe" It's likely to make a better product.

Since vitamin C is very soluble in water there's nothing much to gain by using a base to extract it. Also, it is less likely to be oxidised by the air if it is in neutral or acid solution. (BTW, a lot of the column manufacturers supply "application notes" for their columns. It's blatant advertising, but it's a good way to find out about analytical methods, on-line, for free.)

What do you know about the ratios of G, A and C in "earthly" DNA? What's is different on Mars and how might you explain that?

There is a potential problem with local anaesthetics- they get absorbed through the large open wounds and they are rather toxic if you get a lot of them.

I'd still like to know why the baking powder didn't work. Do you know it's different from baking soda?

"The conc acid will remove water quicker than normal desiccants" When the water leaves the solution, how does it know to hurry up because there's some sulphuric acid out there?

I suspect that there are a very large number of possible answers to the question. For example, you could put the two items down and go off and do some vital research that gets you a Nobel prize. Or you could put them down and vegetate in front of the tv. or, well lots of things really.

Odd variety of granite that reacts with acids like that.

Baking powder?

You can remove some of the water under vacuum, but the stuff will tend to decompose.

Good point, but it works both ways; if the current flows for a short enough time then it won't have any effect.

I suspect it's a matter of Joules that can kill, rather than Watts.

Yes.

I mean that every living thing emits electromagnetic waves of all wavelengths. So do the non living things.

Yes, but the effect would be so slight that I wouldn't want to have to measure it.

Yes, you can do it badly. The first holograms were made without lasers. Strictly, this wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Gabor about the inventor is wrong. You can't make holograms without coherent light.

There would be a vast number of photons bouncing about coherently inside the laser. Almost all lasers act this way; most photons don't get out.

Every living thing is at a temperature above absolute zero and therefore emits em radiation at all wavelengths. OK the emision rate of visible light from something growing in my fridge is pretty near zero but I can calculate the rate if I get bored enough. If you stick your biology in an NMR machine you can get a whole lot more interesting RF radiation from it.

I can't imagine why you would bother but... Imagine you have a normal dye laser that emits somewhere near 400nm and you tune it with a grating or whatever to exactly 400nm (as near as you want). This laser will have an output mirror that reflects very nearly all the photons that hit it back into the cavity in order to maintain the oscillation. Imagine that you coat a bit more silver onto that mirror so it reflects slightly more- the system will still work as a laser. You might have to drop the input power to keep things balanced but that's not difficult. Keep raising the reflectance of the output mirror and you will get to a point where, on average, you get one photon a second from it. Pointless, but possible.

It's true that perchlorate is more stable. That's why you shouldn't use it. Because it's more stable it doesn't do anything unless you get it so hot that, once the reaction starts, it's even more violent. Also, of course, it has more oxygen in it. It also has a much higher melting point too so, if things go wrong, it's hotter. Generally anyone who closes their post with "Please take me seriously!! I konw what Im talking about." should raise a flag about their ability, even more so if they can't spell sulphur. There is, with this experiment, a small risk. If the chlorate is contaminated with some reducing material then the reaction may well become violent, even before adding the sweets. You can check this by heating a small amount of the chlorate behind a blast screen before you start. Of course, if it's the same batch as you used last time and it was OK then, you should be able to use it again (provided, of course, that you can be sure that it hasn't been contaminated in the mean time).

No nuclear, no petrol; no hope.

Presumably there's another 1% bad maths.