John Cuthber

Last time I checked only the UK had the penny as a unit of currency. The US has cents which they coloquially call pennies but it doesn't say that on them. I think we used to have Taco Bell, but they disapeared. At some stage we could have done the experiment, but not any more. There's probably a facebook group devoted to getting them back. Incidentally copper is a noble metal- it only reacts with oxidising acids. Copper oxide will react with any reasonably strong acid to form a salt. That's why you can clean the copper oxide of coins etc. with dilute acid.

Ask an electric eel (or even a bike dynamo depending on your definition).

Oh no it won't. It didn't when I did it and it didn't when countless entertainers did it. The body has some reserves of oxygen. A single breath of an inert gas won't do you any harm directly. However it may leave you feeling a bit faint which can be a problem if, for example, you fall and crack your head. It may be a bloody stupid thing to do but overstating the risk like that doesn't help anyone.

I just wonder if there's any yeast in there. Production of CO2 in a half gallon closed container of soured milk could render the room pretty near uninhabitable for ages.

With poor control this becomes an experiment in the production of the chlorides of iodine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_monochloride

I don't know how accurately the microwave oven models the system you are looking at but I see a potential problem. When the timer switches the microwave oven off the "heating" stops imediately. With a jug of very hot water the "cooking" will continue for as long as it takes for the water to cool down. Anyway, to answer the question, have you though about a hot water urn. They are designed to keep water hot enough to make tea or coffee without boiling it away. Possibly a bit bigger than whatever you had in mind. this sor of thing. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BURCO-ELECTIC-CATERING-URN-USED_W0QQitemZ180361049878QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_BOI_Restaurant_RL?hash=item29fe5b3716&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A10%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

The idea is too speculative to say much about but, without the keratin in your skin you would die from dehydration pretty fast. If you avoided that somehow then secondary infections would finish you off.

As far as I can see the game is the same as the one here. http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~ajr/270/probsess/03/strategy.html except for a reversal of the object (ie the last stick wins vs the last stick looses. The strategy given is based on parity. There are lots of variations on the basic game and lots of them get called nim.

"It is, so to speak, a beam of light, frictionless, devoid of inertia. " The "so to speak" bit is important there, it means "not really". Anyway, electrons are lighter than ions so, for a given voltage and size, electrons are quicker.

I'm pretty sure you can fly a stunt plane upside down until the blood runs to your head. That means that, at least, not all of the lift is due to the "Bernoulli effect".

Still wrong. If I cut my finger or snag it on a rose thorn I end up with a hole in my skin just the same as if I have surgery. Bacteria will get in but (unlike your idea) most of them will do no harm. Most bacteria don't do very well at 36C, fairly high oxygen saturation and slightly alkaline conditions. To those that can't cope with such conditions, my blood might as well be bleach. Even those that can survive will usually soon be mopped up my my immune system. Lets be clear about this. Most bacteria (which are foreign by definition- I wan't born with them) are harmless. If a lot of bacteria which happen to be well adapted to causing infection get introduced into a cut (and they have no way to know, or care, if it's surgery or an accident) then, if my immune system doesn't destroy them quicker than they can multiply I get an infection. It's likely to be localised but it may get into the bloodstream. If it does it might damage the heart (though there's plenty of other ways it could kill me). The reason for swabbing skin before surgery is to reduce the number of bugs in order to make life easier for the immune system. People survived surgery before there were any antiseptics. I really don't understand yourpoint of view. Sometimes you say that all bacteria are our friends but at other times you say they should all be though of as deadly. Unsurprisingly, the truth is somewhere in between. Also, if you had looked at the Wiki article (and I know Wiki isn't God- it can be wrong; but I really think it's correct in this case) you would have seen that the black death was caused by a bacterium. It's even named on the wiki page as good old y pestis. So either explain why you didn't read it or explain why you said "That's most likely caused by a virus, not bacterium." While you are checking out that page on Wiki you might as well check this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus#Contributions_to_toxicology In particular read the bit that says "All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous." and see if you can understand how it relates to the issue of the toxicity of antibiotics.

There's not much difference between feathers and fur in terms of density.

This thread http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=40807 is about the potential requirement that cars achieve 42MPG. And it contains people genuinely saying they think it's impossible, but being answered by (mainly) Europeans saying that you can just go to the shop and buy a car that does roughly twice that. Is that an example of one of America's problems?

Green Xenon, are you aware of this event? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

Sorry, My mistake it wasn't faulty logic, it was faulty communication.

"No offense but anti-bacterials are bad." No offense, but sweeping generalisations are bad.* There are clearly cases where dropping the net number of bugs on the skin is a good idea. What would your opinion be of a surgeon who didn't swab the skin before he cut into it? Also if you think that you have, for example, just covered your hands with the flu virus, a disinfectant is a fairly good idea. * I'm English; I understand irony.

I think the game's generally called nim and the trick for always winning is based on parity.

Do you have a balance? Even one of the cheap ebay ones will give you 0.1g resolution. You can use that to calibrate volumetric glassware (not to ISO standards but, better than a typical measuring cylinder).

Particularly if you are really working with anhydrous ammonia; but if you use a fairly dilute solution the losses are generally small.

That must be faulty logic. Either we are boring or we are not. If we are not then you can't blame your boredom on our non existent boringness. If we are then it still doesn't help you any. Someone somewhere in the world isn't bored, so our being boring does not always cause boredom in others. If you are bored it's your problem; don't try to blame us for it.

NO doubt there are lots of factors but I read somewher that it improves the sense of smell. Partly because olfaction seems to "get tired"; after a while you stop noticing a smell I guess if you change nostrils the newly exposed on can detect the odour again. There’s another aspect to it. I can’t remember the details but it was something like the ability to distinguish molecules that don’t bind well to the receptors, but when they do they give a large signal from molecules that bind well but which don’t give as big a signal. One nostril gets a biger dose than the other and it sees the lots of molecules even though, individually they don't give a strong signal. The other nostil sees a smaller dose so it only sees the molecules that give a strong signal.

You can add the HCl slowly with a dropping pipette and weigh the solution added. As much accuracy as your balance can give you, but a pain in the neck to do. A decent burette will let you measure to 1% easilly and 0.1% if you are careful and know what you are doing. I think it's a good investment.

Even Aluminium will stand 600C (not with much leeway) but I doubt it would have any useful srength at that temperature. Steel would be an easy option. What do you want to do with this stuff?

There are two sorts of humans, those who factionalise... Seriously I think that, if it's not an inevitable human trait to "hang out with like minded people" it's a very strong one. People have certainly been know to do very odd things as a result of peer pressure.

It's difficult to get a solid material to touch, for example, the whole of your hands. The products used are generally liquids. I guess an alcohol gel or some such is about the closest to a real answer.