T_FLeX

hmmm.....I was under the impression that twin studies have pretty much showed behavior and intelligence are over 60% nature, and no, I don't think it's amoral. I don't think there is a difference between a pair of clones and an identical twin, so I doubt clones would be any more helpful than a pair of twins. I could be wrong though.

Last weekend I tried to make me some copper sulfate for fun, I have some pictures on my website under the sulfuric acid section. http://tflex101.home.mchsi.com/ I thought I could just put the copper in the acid and let it dissolve, like iron does in hydrochloric acid, but it actually has to be hot and concentrated in order for it to dissolve. This weekend I plan on boiling the acid down and trying again. Edit: I bought my acid at a local ebco battery store here in town. Dunno how rare those are, but it’s a store that sells nothing but batteries: ) If you live in the states you can buy pure copper sulfate at any home depot or Wal-Mart, its sold as a fungicide, should be near the drain cleaners and other chemicals. It should not be that hard to find, if they don’t sell it locally you can buy it online its only around 10 bucks.

What's the point? You can't stop religion it's like a disease. I live in Georgia and this does not surprise me at all.

http://tflex101.home.mchsi.com/index.html Been working on my website all day, and I have to say so far its looking good, tell me what you guys think.

I got all the glassware from a lot I bought off ebay, ended up costing 120 dollars shipped, I got all the glassware in that picture and a whole lot of extra flask and cylinders.

I finally got some money together and decided I better spend it on something constructive before I blow it all on food. So after spending around 30 bucks and a few hours of assembly this is what I came up with. http://home.mchsi.com/~tflex101/mantle.htm I found the actual heating element on ebay for really really cheap, ended up costing around 17 bucks shipped. It's kinda old and junky looking but a new one would have cost 100+ bucks. For the controller I used a incandescent light dimmer, I wasn't sure if it would work or not, because the controllers usually used for these mantles are over a hundred bucks, but because the dimmer only cost around 6 bucks I thought I would give it a shot. The dimmer ended up working perfectly, very good at controlling heat, I was able to distill alcohol at exactly 174 F at a steady rate, something I could not do using a flame. The wiring I did myself as you can probably tell, I tried to layer it in electrical tape to avoid getting zapped. I also used my erector set to mount the dimmer and all the wires. So what do you guys think? Is it safe to use?

I think America needs to revamp the educational system all together; I’m afraid the standards just keep lowering. I went into college thinking it was going to be greatly different from high school, that it wasn't just an assembly line for a diploma but sadly I was wrong. I can see why there are not that many students that go into the sciences ( at least at my school) it's because all the science classes are substantially harder, and the future job salaries for your standard chem or bio majors are not that impressive. ...but back to the subject at hand. The main cause of the lack of scientist in America is the relatively low demand/pay for them. I don't think businesses are willing to spend the money required for long term research and development when they can spend it on shady advertisements and make quick bucks. And this attitude doesn't create a demand in the scientific job market. Take for instance Bill Gates, and the fact that he's sitting on billions. Why doesn't he take that money and spend it on research and development? Too much of Americans currency is being paid to corporate crooks, instead of the people who contribute to a society (scientist). So I don’t think the number of scientist will increase significantly unless scientists start getting the pay and respect they deserve. I really don’t know if it’s the same way in the Eastern Civilizations but I do know they respect education a hell of a lot more than Americans do. One of my hobbies is chemistry and I am now learning why I haven’t met too many (none- other than people on the internet) fellow chemistry hobbyist. It’s too darn expensive. The cost of a glassware set up is ridiculous and chemicals are either way to expensive or illegal to have. I’m sure it’s the same way in other scientific fields also.

When there is no sunlight most plants can't do too much. The sunlight is what actually gives the engergy to split the water molecules into oxygen, so without it no oxygen is produced, and without the high engergy elections formed in this process the plants cannot regenerate NADPH which is required for carbon fixation of the Calvin cycle. So as a result no oxygen gets produced and no carbon dioxide gets used. The second question I believe is because all( almost all) plants only have stoma on the bottom of the leaves. Hope that helps.

I remember debating this in my highschool psychology class! There is no point really, I think everyone knows it's both. There is a study in the book "Genone"(I think) that did a test with seperated twins, and it turned out that even if the twins were seperated and put into totally different enviroments they were still basically the same in both intelligence and attitude. I think the test concluded that it was about 60% nature and 40% nurture.

I think it can be held in platinum also, but that might put a huge dent in your wallet. Is hydrofluoric acid similiar to hydrochloric acid? In that it is extremely soluble in water, and just basically hydrogen fluoride gas dissolved in water?

Wow, what would you do, hit me? Beat me up? Let me guess your black right? You would just go to jail, which probably wouldn't be so bad man, after all 80% of your cell mates would be fellow "blacks" like yourself, and you know how nice and friendly "they" are. And I wish you would stop generalizing poor people, they're not all ignorant "blacks" and Latinos, guess what I'm poor! I live in a city where blacks greatly outnumber the whites! I went to a predominately black high school! I unlike many of my fellow high school students got a College prep diploma and actually went to college! Don't feed me this bullshit on how the black man is held down. A lot of my high school black friends worked a lot harder than me, some of them worked two jobs , but they always seemed to buy "urban gear" and twenty inch rims which clearly shows where their priorities were. I worked for "the rich white man" making 5.15 an hour had to be driven there by my parents or my brother, my wardrobe consisted of 2 pairs of pants around 5 white fruit of the loom t-shirts, and 4 thermal shirts. Do you see me bitching about how the white man is bringing me down? If anything it makes me work harder. For those people you claim are unintelligent, and merely motivated. This is exactly my point. Blacks are not lacking in the mental ability, it's their attitudes (motivations) that hold them back. They don’t seem to realize this and I’m afraid this pattern will continue. If you read through my post I never called blacks unintelligent. So I'm not really sure why you got so mad about it.

The same reason they are taught creationism is equally viable as evolution, they can't handle the truth.

What appeals to me about science is the pursuit of it. I can't see myself doing anything else. Science has basically built society, and this has been done through a relatively small number of people compared to general population. There is nothing more interesting to me than a good science book, everything else just seems so....em meager, unsubstantial? I'm not really sure how to put it.

I remember reading a book I think it was "Genome" or something like that. It talked about a study done with twins that showed that separated twins had a high probability of being equal in intelligence no matter what the social conditions were. It went on to say that intelligence was around 60 percent hereditary, while the other 40 percent was how hard you study, your motivation, stuff like that. I pretty much agree with what the study said, but I also think the developmental years ages 0-12 are crucial in determining intelligence. I think Asians are so smart is because in most Asian families education is so important, and its not the get an education to get a good job education, it's the go to school to learn all you can education. Feel me? As for African Americans and Mexicans I don't see many of them even trying to learn, they basically just go through school hoping that they will get a good job, and show no interest in the subjects. I know I am generalizing some, but I would say the majority of them are like this. This coming from someone who went to a >70 percent black school. And you’re right Blike people do not talk about this, usually because African Americans feel so strongly about it. I'm always hearing them bitch about the educational system (this is in America guys don’t' know about any where else) and how they need computers and smaller class rooms. This does not work because of the attitude of blacks. Throwing money at it will not fix it, the kids have to want to learn. I don't feel that I am racist. I have a lot of black friends, and even listen to black music, but I just don't think the majority of blacks are on par with whites and Asians. This is a subject I feel very strongly about because of where I live and what is happening at my school. There has been a massive influx of blacks to this college, and they are the reason Georgia will stop giving, or change the requirements of the HOPE scholarship. Way too many blacks are coming into college unprepared taking the easiest classes available and passing. And because there is so many, the classes are getting easier and easier. This is not acceptable in my opinion, blacks in my area have already lowered the bar in public schools ridiculously, and I can't stand to see them do it to college too. If you want to call me racist that's fine. I guarantee if you lived down in the dirty south you would feel the same way.

Hey I just found this site when I was searching for a 24/40 glass stopper, some of the stuff looks like a pretty good deal. You might want to check it out. http://www.mbcoct.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=outsville

Sometimes you can find a good cheap lot of glassware on ebay. I bought a lot of around 15 glassware pieces for a hundred bucks, which was a pretty good deal, considering it has everything for a distillation set up and more. As for the chemicals, just hit up the local hardware store you can find a lot of the basics, only thing I can't seem to find in my city is sulfuric acid Here is a good list put together buy a guy in the UK but you can find a lot of the stuff in the US. http://www.hyperdeath.co.uk/chemicals/

Usually, or at least no colleges I've looked into have minors in biological engineering. The University of Georgia has a very good Biological engineering program which I hope to get into next year. It’s basically biology, chemistry, genetics, and engineering all in one. The program gives three optional areas of emphasis, bio medical, bio processing, and environmental. This program is available in many other schools, and is supposed to be one of the best of its kind. You might be interested in it, considering it has a lot of different subjects all revolving around biological engineering. I originally wanted to go the genetics wrought, but the job field seems mostly oriented toward cancer research, and forensics science, basically stuff I don't care much for, I'm more of the production/manufacture type. This is my first year in college too, and I've looked at a lot of different schools and programs, and found this one to be the most interesting. The only draw back to this program is I've been told it's pretty tough. I think maybe a dozen people graduated last year with it at UGA.

I'm pretty sure you can make it by bubbling chlorine gas though water, but it would be easier to buy it at your local hardware store, it goes by the name of Muriatic Acid (around 33% pure) and isn't too expensive. While were on the subject, why is it so hard to find Sulfuric acid? Is it not the most produced chemical worldwide? I have asked around in the local stores, and the only thing I get are dirty looks. Another question, it is possible to distill vinegar to get a higher concentration? Someone told me you have to use sodium acetate, and sulfuric acid, and then distill that. I'm assuming that’s how you would get in the 99 percentile range, but I don't see why you couldn't just distill vinegar, and get 80-90 percent. Anyone know?

Most Universities will pay you to get a Ph.D.? How does this work? I'm really not sure on how any of the graduate programs work; do they only pay for the students who graduated at the top of the class? Would someone please fill me in? Thanks. Also, what does TA stand for?

Methane is the shit!

The powder was proably Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and is pretty cheap. Sodium carbonate is naturally found in lakes, so That would be my best guess.

Something acid is basically just a solution with a higher concentration of H+ ions than water. A base is a solution with a lower concentration of H+ ions. A buffer is a substance that either donates H+ ions or accepts them depending on the ion concentration in the solution. A neutralization action is when 2 substances one acidic, one basic come together and turn the H+ of the acid and the OH- of the base into water, for example HCL(hydrochloric acid)+Na(OH) (sodium hydroxide)-->H2O + NaCl Sorry don't have any links.

Glider, Yes I read lots of information of methanol, Lots of different info actually. Some sites said that methanol is produced by bacteria, and not the yeast, and then others said that anything you make using yeast (as long as you sanitize everything) is drinkable, and that moonshine making you go blind is just a myth. In the times of prohibition, factories that produced alcohols for fuel, were required to "denature" the alcohol rendering it poisonous by adding methanol or other chemicals, and that some people would try to drink it and go blind, not knowing it had been modified. This in turn led to the big myth of moonshine making you go blind. Either way I toss out the first 100 ml of every batch just in case, because of the lower boiling temp of methanol. Does anyone know the truth? Does a simple yeast, sugar brew yield methanol? oh and, YT2095, what’s wrong with drinking just pure ethanol?

No the American population should have very little influence on how research, or methods are conducted. If the research does not hurt or effect them in any way they should have no say what so ever. In my experience most people that are not interested in science know very little about the current research methods, they had no say before why should they now. The truth is no one would even care, if it wasn't for some religious bozo complaining about the dangers of playing God.

I just felt like I would tell you guys what I did over the summer. Over the summer I got bored and decided to build a distillery, because I was genuinely interested in the subject. I figured that the field I will be going into deals a lot with fermentation, and chemistry, I thought this would be a great learning experience, and believe me it was. Before we actually built the still, we needed to make some base alcohol. At first we used regular old baker's yeast we found at Winn Dixie, I read in a book the yeast needed all kinds of things to help them grow and produce alcohol such as folic acid, free nitrogen, and vitamins, We had no idea how much of which we needed so we put in all kinds household items we thought could help. Needless to say the first couple of batches were downright deadly, we read that they needed free nitrogen, not just something with protein in it so we tried to use ammonia (which my bro assured me would be fine..lol) when we heated that batch up it gave off a horrible smell that I’m almost positive was dangerous to inhale. After these first couple of batches my brother got discouraged and kinda gave up, but I'm not one to quit. I did a little research and found some super yeast which is known as turbo yeast. It's awesome stuff, it's about 4 bucks a pouch and makes 6.5 gallons, and all you have to do is add sugar and water. This seemed a lot easier than the other way so I've been using turbo yeast ever since. About a month after originally thinking up the project, I got started on the still. I wanted something I could set up in my kitchen, and be easy to store away easily. My first design was made out of copper pipe and a 3 gallon pot; I had 2 cooling tubes running through the main column. This design was decent and we would get some pretty pure distillate but, I did a lot of research on the subject, and found that it's better to have just a long column with no cooling through it except maybe at the top. This is because a tube through the middle would disrupt the equilibrium. So I chopped up this design and began work on a better still. (I’m a perfectionist) This whole time I still had nothing I felt was drinkable, the last still worked good but was only getting around 60-70 pure alcohol, which came out dirty and smelled like Plummer’s putty(another long story..lol) At this point I ran out of money. So I tried to recycle the old still, by cutting off just the top (condenser) which took me a long time to get right, because I had already soldered everything in place. I had no other tubing but a piece of 1 inch pipe that was maybe 3 foot tall. This was not the length that I wanted for the column, but I didn’t have the 10 bucks to buy another pipe, so I used that. This new design which was basically a column filled with copper scrubbers and a modified condenser at the top worked a lot better than the last one, and was a lot easier to clean. The first run I did with it worked flawlessly. I don’t have an alcometer so there is no way I can tell the purity of the distillate, but from experience with other alcohols it is around 80-90 pure. I throw out the first 20-30ml of a run, and then collect until the temperature goes above 180-185. I get 2 full bottles (375ml) every run, and put the leftover (tails) back into my main wash. I can get around 7-8 bottles with every batch which cost me around 4$(yeast) + 4$(sugar)= 8 bucks for 7-8 bottles of 90% alcohol. Rounding it off that’s around 1 dollar a bottle. The day I distilled my first batch I was so excited! I wanted to try to do some experiments on the optimum alcoholic consumption for a good time, or at least do some preliminary runs to make sure the distillate had no adverse effects, but my friends came over and peer pressure got to me: ( It probably wasn’t very smart but everyone got drunk and had a good time. The next day no one had a hangover or anything. Now they keep asking me to buy some of my stuff, but I have decided not to sell my product. I did not make a distillery to make money. I do not let anyone drink my liquor unless they are under my direct supervision, and drink a bottle from a batch I have already tested myself. There is always a risk of something going wrong and I would be held responsible. Please don’t make me out to be some kind of alcoholic, which I am not. I only drink every now and then, and that’s usually as a reward for studying all day or something. I basically just wanted to see if I could do it. I learned an enormous amount while doing this project. I just thought I would share this story with this forum, because it seems as though we have similar interest.