The Alchemist Trap

(From "Beschreibung allerfürnemisten mineralischen Ertzt unnd Bergkwercks Arten," via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

That's an alchemist's workshop, in the late 1500s. If some of the equipment looks familiar: you've either been watching old 'mad scientist' movies, or seen a chemical lab.

Quite a lot of a chemist's glassware, like retorts, was standard equipment for European alchemists, back when they still had some credibility.

Then alchemists realized that claiming they could make lead into gold, or preserve an aristocratic lady's youthful looks made getting government grants a lot easier.

As a fundraising strategy, it worked: until enough aristocrats realized that the court alchemist's gold came from the treasury. There's more to researchers calling themselves "chemists" instead of "alchemists," of course: there always is, when humans are involved.

Then there's the story of two enterprising chaps and a clueless emperor, and that's not quite another topic.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Science, Faith, and Albertus Magnus"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (February 23, 2014)
• "Killer Tomatoes and a Ranting Lemming"
  (August 6, 2013)
• "Lemming Tracks: 'And We're All Gonna Die!' or, not"
  (March 16, 2012)
• "Mineral X From Outer Space!"
  (May 9, 2011)
• "Diane de Poitiers' Elixir of Youth: Side Effects Include Death"
  (December 18, 2009)

DIY Fireworks - Kids, Don't Try This at Home

"DIY Fireworks Blow Away Factory-Made Displays"
Danielle Venton, Wired Science, Wired (July 3, 2011)

"On the Fourth of July, the sky above towns across the nation will glow in a blitz of factory-made colors.

"But some of the biggest, best and most innovative fireworks won't be on display during the holiday. Instead, they'll be tucked away in the garages and home workshops of hobbyists like Tom Niesen.

" 'I'm an old-school firework artist,' said Niesen, a 43-year-old electrical technician in Duluth, Minnesota. 'I build some of the largest fireworks in the nation. It's something very few people can do.'...

"...Innovations have traditionally come slow to the field: Basic firework chemistry hasn't changed much in the past 200 years. One thing that could really use some help from ambitious hobbyists is the lackluster blue we're forced to put up with, Conkling said. The copper compounds that give fireworks a blue color break down under the high heat needed for bright colors.

" 'So we can get a really bright red, a really bright white, but we're stuck with a sort of mediocre blue for our national colors,' Conkling said. 'There are a lot of amateur pyrotechnicians pursuing this. They'll spend their winter nights in the basement trying to make a better blue.'..."

There's more to the article¹ - including a set of pretty good photos of fireworks displays.

Now, the Lemming's going to rant. Just a little.

Being Crazy, Being Careful, and Being Crazy-Careful

There's a huge difference between some dude propelled by energy drinks, something he read on the Internet, and over-confidence, blowing himself up: and somebody with experience and sense trying to improve a process.

For the last half-century, at least, America's best and brightest (just ask them) have been assuming that The Masses have the reasoning power of a four-year-old, and the self-control of a cat in heat. At least it seems that way. Particularly when yet one more regulation comes along.

Or another insanely-obvious warning label. Like the one on a transparent jar of peanuts: Labeled "PEANUTS...INGREDIENTS: PEANUTS...ALLERGY WARNING: CONTAINS PEANUTS". Good grief, what part of "PEANUTS" did some bureaucrat think we wouldn't understand?!

Should a toddler play with sparklers - unattended? The Lemming thinks not. Should sparklers be forever banned because someone, somewhere, might let a toddler play with sparklers? The Lemming thinks that's overkill.

Is it safe to experiment with new fireworks formulas? Of course not.

It's also not 'safe' to use LP gas to grill hamburgers. Not in the 'nothing could possibly go wrong, no matter how many daft, stupid, self-destructive lapses in judgment are committed' sense. And yet, the Lemming routinely grills burgers on an LP gas grill. And hasn't blown up the neighborhood.

Not yet, anyway.

It's not likely to happen, either - because the Lemming observes common-sense safety precautions. Like shutting off the gas flow if the grill doesn't light.

America has tried being crazy-careful for decades. And ingenious nitwits still manage to hurt themselves now and then.

Maybe it's time to try being just plain careful - and let someone else be crazy for a change.

Somewhat-related posts:

• "Fireworks, Common Sense, and the Incredible Exploding House"
  (July 2, 2011)
• "Aerators in Minnesota Lakes: Good for Fish; For People, Not So Much"
  (January 6, 2011)
• "Our Benevolent Rulers Protecting Us From Big Paperclip?!"
  (October 2, 2010)
• "Salmonella in Eggs: It's Enough to Make You Sick"
  (August 20, 2010)
• "A Fireworks Glossary"
  (July 4, 2009)

Background:

• Northern Lighter Pyrotechnic, Inc.
  "a non-profit corporation formed for the purposes of promoting the safety, skill and artistry in pyrotechnics...."

---

¹ More from the Wired article:

"...Essentially all public shows will use mass-produced factory fireworks, mostly from China; competition and regulation have largely snuffed out U.S. makers. These fireworks are cheap and abundant, great for post-barbecue reverie but unsatisfying to discerning eyes.

" 'In municipal displays you'll see quantity over quality,' said Niesen, a member of Northern Lighter Pyrotechnics. 'For something really spectacular, the public should come to the conventions of fireworks clubs.'

"Amateur clubs are the source of many of the improvements in firework technology, said John Conkling, a chemist at Washington College in Maryland and author of The Chemistry of Pyrotechnics. Clubs like the Northern Lighters attract licensed hobbyists with the diligence and dedication to innovate....
(Danielle Venton, Wired Science)

Mineral X From Outer Space!

"4.5-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Yields New Mineral"
Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor, Space.com (May 9, 2011)

"The meteorite containing krotite is called NWA 1934 CV3 carbonaceous chondrite. Chondrites are primitive meteorites that scientists think were remnants shed from the original building blocks of planets. Most meteorites found on Earth fit into this group.

"The mineral, a compound of calcium, aluminum and oxygen, needs temperatures of 2,732 degrees F (1,500 degrees C) to form, supporting the idea that it was created as the solar nebula condensed and the planets, including Earth, were formed, the researchers say.

"The tiny mineral sample – just 0.2 inches (4 millimeters) long – came from a grain in the meteorite dubbed "cracked egg" for its appearance. In addition to krotite, the cracked egg grain contains at least eight other minerals, one of which is new to science, the researchers say.

"Studying this mineral and other components of the ancient meteorite are essential for understanding the origins of the solar system, the scientists say...."

Krotite or the new mineral from outer space isn't the sort of thing that made for cinematic triumphs like The Green Slime (1968). On the other hand, analysis of rocks (and carbonaceous chondrites, which aren't quite rocks) from outer space helps researchers piece together how the Solar system formed.

Which probably won't help anybody figure out who's going to win the next Super Bowl. Even so, the Lemming finds that sort of thing interesting. Your experience may vary.

Slightly-related posts:

• "Apex Chert: Microfossils, Microfractures, or Maybe Both"
  (April 23, 2011)
• "Ecological Disaster - a Third of a Billion Years Ago"
  (October 1, 2010)
• "Phobos: Moon of Mars Formed From Rubble?"
  (September 28, 2010)
• "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Feldspar, but Didn't Know Where to Look"
  (January 16, 2010)
• "Painting Mars Red - Tumbling it, Actually"
  (September 21, 2009)

More:

• "4.5-Billion-Year-Old Antarctic Meteorite Yields New Mineral"
  Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience (April 6, 2011)

Ecological Disaster - a Third of a Billion Years Ago

"How Plants Drove First Animals Onto Land"
Wired Science (September 29, 2010)

"About 350 million years ago, evolution took one small step for fish, and a giant leap for every terrestrial animal since. According to a new study, it was all made possible by plants.

"Prehistoric oxygen levels extrapolated from ancient mineral sediments suggest aquatic life went into overdrive after plants boosted atmospheric oxygen levels. Oceans became so fiercely competitive that some fish sought safe haven outside them.

"Some scientists have proposed as much, but the new research, published Sept. 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides the first solid evidence.

" 'Before this paper, there was essentially no experimental evidence for how oxygen accumulated through animal history. It was only predicted by theory,' said Tais Dahl, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Southern Denmark’s Nordic Center for Earth Evolution...."

The research involves seafloor samples, molybdenum, and what we've learned about how that relatively-common element, erosion, and how long it takes the average particle to settle to the bottom of the ocean and stay there (about 1,000,000 years).

The Wired Science article tells about one debate in the scientific community - an example of what the Lemming has noticed in other sciences, ranging from biology to geology. It seems that there are two basic philosophies about how development happens:

• One is that development is gradual, like the smooth growth curve you get when you take data from thousands of people and come up with an "average" person.
  • Growth spurts? Those can't happen - that smoothed-out statistical curve don't have no growth spurts.
    • That's another topic.
• The other is that development comes in fits and spurts.
  • The sort of thing we see when we look at data from individual human beings.

The advantage of the 'gradualist' philosophy, as the Lemming sees it, is that it allows textbooks to display nice, smooth growth curves; and provides a feeling of continuity.

The advantage of the 'spurt' philosophy, again from the Lemming's point of view, is that it seems to be a somewhat better match with reality. Particularly when researchers start collecting enough data - and track specific instances of a process, rather than averages from a set of instances.

Back to that article:

"...The first, traditional view holds that planetary oxygen levels continued to rise steadily, reaching near-contemporary levels well before Earth’s life diversified again, some 400 million years ago. In this narrative, it was only a matter of time - another 50 million years, give or take - before a few lagoon-dwelling creatures ventured onto land. Terrestrial life was a clockwork eventuality. Plants provided more oxygen, but weren’t essential.

"According to the other interpretation, oxygen levels stayed steady from 550 million to 400 million years ago, when the forerunners of modern plants evolved and flourished. Only then did oxygen jump, allowing fish - until then a small, relatively insignificant part of the animal kingdom - to take large, highly predatory forms...."

In this case, "large" means up to 30 feet long - which would be a substantial fish even today, about a third of a billion years down the pike.

Oxygen: Not Necessary for Life-As-We-Know-It

We're used to living in an atmosphere with quite a great deal of oxygen in it. In fact, human beings need oxygen to survive. So to quite a few other creatures.

Not all, though. (April 9, 2010)

As the Wired Science article points out, the amount of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere has changed - quite a lot - since plants started dumping that highly reactive gas into the environment.

We're the sort of creature that's geared to use oxygen's habit of reacting with a wide range of substances - releasing quite a lot of energy in the process. We need the stuff. Other critters can be killed by exposing them to oxygen. ("Anaerobic bacteria culture," Encyclopedia of Surgery)

From what we've learned about Earth, about a third of a billion to half a billion years back, it looks photosynthetic plants triggered a massive ecological disaster. Their metabolism dumped oxygen into the ocean and atmosphere - killing off species which couldn't cope with that reactive gas.

Finally, the Wired Science article has some cool pictures: of a 30-foot-long fish (that used oxygen), a - thing - that could live on water or land, and leaves from the gingko tree - that hasn't changed much in the last 350,000,000 years.

Related posts:

• "Two Thirds of a Billion Years Ago: Earth's First Animals?"
  (August 18, 2010)
• "Four Legs, a Tail, and Tracks a Third of a Billion Years Old"
  (July 26, 2010)
• "Animals That Don't Need Oxygen - It Gets Weirder"
  (April 9, 2010)
• " 'Snowball Earth,' Evolution, and Really Old Rocks"
  (March 16, 2010)
• "Frail, Delicate Little Mother Nature?!"
  (December 20, 2009)
• " 'Journey of Mankind:' 160,000 Years of Ups and Downs"
  (November 1, 2007)

More related posts, at

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"

Titanium Dioxide in Concrete: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

"Could pollution-eating concrete clean up our urban jungles?"
CNN (August 6, 2010)

"Concrete isn't usually considered an environmentalists' friend, but a remarkable new technology could soon be turning the gray stuff green.

"Scientists at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands have developed a paving material that actually eats pollution, claiming it could soon become a crucial tool for improving air quality in urban areas.

"The problem in many cities is that vehicle exhausts emit nitrogen oxides, which cause acid rain and smog that damages not only human health and quality of life but also the fabric of buildings.

"But the new concrete is coated with titanium dioxide, which is a photocatalytic material, meaning it removes the nitrogen oxides and uses sunlight to convert them into harmless nitrate that is washed away by rain...."

I remember when asbestos was the wonder-mineral that saved lives by containing fires. The stuff was everywhere. It worked just fine as a fire barrier and an insulator. Then we found out that asbestos fibers don't play well with our lungs, and now there's a whole industry built around safely removing asbestos.

The CDC's description of titanium dioxide is - interesting:

"...Exposure Routes
"inhalation
"Symptoms
"Lung fibrosis; [potential occupational carcinogen]
"Target Organs
"respiratory system
"Cancer Site
"[in animals: lung tumors]..."
("Titanium dioxide," NIOSH HomeNIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards (NIOSH Publication Number 2005-149) (September 2005)

Sounds like the folks at Eindhoven University of Technology have another wonder-mineral on their hands. Yes, at long last the dangers and discomfort of urban pollution are at an end: thanks to the wonders of modern technology!

I can see the ads now: Use new, improved concrete: now with titanium dioxide! It eats nitrogen oxides! Use EUT's new, improved oxide-eating concrete now! Be ecologically aware!

Well, maybe not quite like that. But I'm pretty sure that there's going to be an effort to make cities which don't use EUT's pollutant-eating concrete seem backward, while praising forward-looking outfits that do.

Sounds almost too good to be true: concrete, something that's almost everywhere in contemporary cities, may now absorb pollution.

Carcinogen in Concrete: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Ever notice how, in almost every construction project, there's a lot of dust? Quite a lot of that is from concrete that's pulverized as old sidewalks, roadways, and walls are broken apart to make room for new structures.

Somehow, I don't think that all the titanium dioxide in EUT's wonder-concrete will have reacted with nitrogen oxides, by the time it's knocked apart for street maintenance or new construction.

Some time after that dust settles, my guess is that there's going to be a spike in lung fibrosis and cancer among folks living in ecologically-aware cities.

Last Roll of Kodachrome Manufactured Last Year, Processed Now

"Death of Film: Last Roll of Kodachrome Processed"
Gadget Lab, Wired (July 23, 2010)

"What do you know about Dwayne's Photo Service of Parsons, Kansas? It is the place where the very last roll of the Kodachrome was processed...

"...The last roll was shot by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry..."

"...McCurry's film may have been the official last roll off the production line, but Dwayne's will still process any Kodachrome that you might have until December 10th this year. And then it will shut down, forever. People may still shoot analog, but with the death of Kodachrome comes the spiritual death of film."

Kodak discontinued its Kodachrome slide film last year. The transparency film didn't require E6 chemistry, which is more usual for transparencies - and apparently not enough folks were using Kodachrome to support the costs of its special processing.

Besides, taking photos by exposing a thin layer of chemicals on a flexible strip is rather old-school these days. Quite a few folks use digital cameras.

Steve McCurry shot 30 exposures of the last manufactured roll in New York, and took six more photos in Parsons, Kansas. The pictures, we're told, will be in an upcoming National Geographic magazine. I'm guessing that "New York" is "New York City," but I could be wrong about that.

That last bit of the article: "...with the death of Kodachrome comes the spiritual death of film." That's a bit over-the-top, I suppose. But this certainly is a sort of milestone in photography's history.

Life Around a Red Dwarf Star? Could be

"Red Dwarfs May Be Safe Havens For Life"
Space News, Discovery News (July 4, 2010)

"It's been 15 years since astronomers first discovered a planet beyond the solar system orbiting a normal star. We've found lots of unusual exoplanets since then, but nothing where we think life could exist.

"In two to three years NASA's Kepler space telescope will provide the statistical bedrock for estimating the number of Earth clones in the galaxy...."

"...The planet will orbit a nearby red dwarf star found in surveys taken within 100 light-years of Earth. Why? Because red dwarfs are much more numerous than sun-like stars and so provide many more targets. Because red dwarfs are dim, planets orbiting them will not be as swamped by starlight and so their light is easier to measure...."

Some of this I'd read before: like a planet that's close enough to a red dwarf to be habitable (by us) would likely be tidally locked, with one side always facing the star. Some I hadn't. Red dwarf stars go through a long period in which they have flares: big ones. Radiation from those flares would be really, really hard on living things on any planet close enough to have liquid water.

Unless there was a super-strength ozone layer. Which, maybe, there would be. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)'s astrobiologist Antigona Segura ran numbers from a known red dwarf flare - and demonstrated that the UV radiation would strengthen the ozone layer of an Earth-like planet - assuming that one was there.

All of which is quite theoretical, until we find a roughly Earth-size planet in a stable orbit at the right distance from a star.

Which, at the rate planets are being found these days, may not be that far off.

---

Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

Gratzel Cells: Windows that Generate Power

"Windows that Work as Solar Cells"
David Teeghman, Tech News, Discovery News (June 13, 2010)

"The biggest problem with solar panels is that they're expensive. Solar power is actually the most expensive type of renewable energy. But a Swiss professor has just received the Millennium Technology Prize for developing low-cost solar cells that can be built into glass windows. So instead of installing solar panels on your roof; you'd just install them as windows, which you need anyway...."

"...Michael Gratzel spent two decades developing a revolutionary type of dye-sensitized solar cell called a Gratzel cell (guess where he got the name for it). The group that presented the award, the Technology Academy Finland, says this invention is a huge leap forward for solar technology...."

It's not just technically nifty. Apparently, Gratzel cells could be relatively inexpensive to manufacture.

The basic idea of using cheap materials to convert windows and roofs into power generators is many decades old - in 'hard' science fiction, anyway. Looks like someone's come up with a practical approach to making the things.

As they used to say, 'stay tuned.' I suspect we may be hearing more about the Gratzel cells.

Life on Titan! Or, Not

"Strange Discovery on Titan Leads to Speculation of Alien Life "
Space.com (June 7, 2010)

"New findings have roused a great deal of hoopla over the possibility of life on Saturn's moon Titan, which some news reports have further hyped up as hints of extraterrestrials.

"However, scientists also caution that aliens might have nothing to do with these findings.

"All this excitement is rooted in analyses of chemical data returned by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. One study suggested that hydrogen was flowing down through Titan's atmosphere and disappearing at the surface. Astrobiologist Chris McKay at NASA Ames Research Center speculated this could be a tantalizing hint that hydrogen is getting consumed by life.

" 'It's the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth,' McKay said.

"Another study investigating hydrocarbons on Titan's surface found a lack of acetylene, a compound that could be consumed as food by life that relies on liquid methane instead of liquid water to live...."

Or, there could be chemistry and/or physics happening on Titan that isn't biological, isn't living.

We just don't know. Yet.

One thing the scientists expected to find was acetylene on the surface. They didn't. That could mean that there are acetylene-eating critters on Titan - or radiation is converting acetylene in the atmosphere into compounds that don't show up on instruments (or haven't been linked to the acetylene dearth) - or something else is going on.

Whatever is going on: there's a lot more to learn about that moon of Saturn's.

Related posts, not all in this blog:

• "Alien Life will Most Likely be - Alien"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (April 12, 2010)
• "Titan, Life Without Water, and 'Messing With Old Definitions'"
  (March 24, 2010)
• "Beautiful Space Princesses, Almost Certainly Not: Flying Whales, Maybe"
  Drifting at the Edge ot Time and Space (December 8, 2009)
• "Life on Ceres? Could Be"
  (March 5, 2009)
  Particularly
  Exploding Martians and the Viking Life Experiment

---

Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

Early Earth Didn't Freeze: Why?!

"How Early Earth Got Warm and Hospitable"
Space.com (June 3, 2010)

"Our planet might have kept warm in the super-ancient past when the sun was substantially dimmer than it is today because of a complex brew of global warming gases much like that now enveloping Saturn's moon Titan, scientists reveal.

"These new findings could also shed light on how the building blocks of life might have formed on Earth.

"When the sun was young, models suggest it was just 70 percent as bright as it is now. However, during the first two billion years or so of Earth's history, the surface of the planet was warm enough for glaciers to not form and early life to emerge...."

The article gives a pretty good overview of what's been discussed over the last several decades, about what Earth was like a really long time ago. Including the continuing story of ammonia in Earth's atmosphere. If you take ammonia and methane, and add electrical sparks: you get amino acids and other organic building blocks. Not life - but the parts you'd need for living organisms.

Just one problem - ultraviolet light destroys ammonia, and there would have been a whole lot of ultraviolet light back then.

Or, not. Something called fractal size distribution in the gasses we're pretty sure were in Earth's atmosphere should have blocked the shorter ultraviolet wavelengths, preserving ammonia, and let in longer visible light: keeping our planet warm.

Fascinating! If you're interested in that sort of thing.

If there's a lesson to be learned here: Change happens.

---

Related posts, at

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"
• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Feldspar, but Didn't Know Where to Look

"FELDSPAR"
Mineral Information Institute

"Feldspar: A rock-forming mineral, industrially important in glass and ceramic industries, pottery and enamelware, soaps, abrasives, bond for abrasive wheels, cements and concretes, insulating compositions, fertilizer, poultry grit, tarred roofing materials, and as a sizing (or filler) in textiles and paper. Albite is a feldspar mineral and is a sodium aluminum silicate. This form of feldspar is used as a glaze in ceramics...."

This page is awash with information about feldspar. Like:

"...Feldspars are relatively hard at 6 on Mohs' hardness scale. Feldspars are generally light-colored, including white, pink, tan, green, or gray. The color varies due to impurities within the crystal structure. Feldspar is the mineral that gives granite its pink, green or gray color...."

And:

"...The name feldspar is a contraction of the longer name fieldspar...."

There's more, like how feldspar is used in making glass.

By the way, the reason that you haven't heard of the feldspar supply crisis is that there isn't one. Feldspar is a major component in this planet's crust.

It's not too hard to find, apparently:

"...Feldspar is mined from large granite bodies (called plutons by geologists), from pegmatites (formed when the last fluid stages of a crystallizing granite becomes concentrated in small liquid and vapor-rich pockets that allow the growth of extremely large crystals), and from sands composed mostly of feldspar...."

"Alien Dust," HD 131488, and the Puzzle of Planets

"Alien Dust Kicked Up By Baby Planet Collisions "
Space.com (January 12, 2010)

"In the search for other planetary systems like Earth that are capable of hosting extraterrestrial life, scientists have come across some very alien systems indeed. But the latest ones have researchers truly perplexed.

"New observations have found evidence for planet formation around stars much more massive than the sun, as well as dusty debris – thought to be leftovers from collisions between rocky planetary embryos. There's a twist: The dust has a completely different chemical makeup from the composition of our own solar system.

"These new findings were presented this month at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.

"Alien dust

"The strange dust that shows different chemical markers than what we find in our own neighborhood is in a star system about 500 light-years from Earth...."

I've said it before: it's interesting, when observations validate existing models for how the universe works. It's exciting when they don't: because that means there's something new to learn.

Aside from the "alien dust" close to HD 131488, there's a second belt of cold dust, much farther out. Which is a bit odd: apparently stars tend to have warm dust close in, cold dust far out, but not both.

The article also gives a bit of background about another set of stars, thousands of light years away: more data to piece together, trying to work out how the planets form.

---

Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

Diane de Poitiers' Elixir of Youth: Side Effects Include Death

Odds are, you've already seen this: it's one of those weird news stories that everybody, from the Tri-City Herald to WJAC.

"Study: Too much drinkable gold for king's mistress"
The Associated Press (December 17, 2009)

"A British medical journal has published findings saying a mistress of 16th-century French King Henry II may have died from consuming too much drinkable gold.

"When French experts dug up the remains of Diane de Poitiers last year, they found high levels of gold in her hair. Since she was not a queen and did not wear a crown, scientists said it was hard to see how jewelry could have contaminated her hair and body...."

Odds are, a sort of "drinkable gold" killed her. It was a sort of youth-preserving medical treatment that was popular at the time - for women with enough disposable income to afford the stuff.

The Associated Press isn't known for playing practical jokes on its clients, but I did a little checking, anyway. Sure enough, "drinkable gold" was a sort of elixir of youth at one time. Toxic, ineffective, and ultimately lethal: but popular.

Notes on Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 3
Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

"...Drinkable gold is "a preparation of nitro-muriate of gold deoxydized by some volatile oil, formerly esteemed as a cordial medicine; drinkable gold." See Johannes Agricola's Treatise on Gold 4...."

That link to "Treatise on Gold 4" leads to:

"Joannes Agricola - Treatise on Gold"
Chapter 4.
The Alechemy Website

"Another Process for the Preparation of Oil of Gold

"Take purified gold, 2 Lots; quick silver, 8 Lots. Make of them an amalgam such as goldsmiths make when trying to gild. Put this ground gold in a leather and dry the quicksilver off it...."

Don't laugh. Alchemy started out as a serious - and useful - study of materials. The basic designs of beakers, crucibles, and most other glassware you see in chemistry labs today were the work of alchemists.

Then, alchemists discovered that they could get the equivalent of government grants if they said they could turn lead into gold. Or, in this case, preserve youth.

Another Super-Earth: Probably With Water, Possibly With Strange Chemistry

"Nearby Super-Earth May Be a Waterworld"
Space.com (December 16, 2009)

"A rocky and water-rich planet, not much heftier than our own, has been discovered so close to our solar system that astronomers one day may be able to study its atmosphere.

"And though astronomers are pretty certain the water exists, they don't know its state, with speculations ranging from liquid water to water ice and an exotic state called a superfluid.

"The extrasolar planet, now named GJ 1214b, is about 40 light-years away. It orbits a red dwarf star. It is the only known 'Super-Earth' exoplanet — worlds that have masses between Earth and Neptune — with a confirmed atmosphere...."

It helps that GJ 1214b is one of the few known exoplanets to pass between its star and Earth - making it possible to measure its diameter and, with the diameter and mass known, its density.

What we don't know - yet - is how hot GJ1214b is. There's a chance it may be to hot for liquid water to exist. At least, not the sort of liquid water we're familiar with. Under extreme pressure and heat, water can go directly from ice to a sort of exotic superfluid. Which may be happening on GJ1214b. Or, the planet may have liquid water under its massive hydrogen and helium atmosphere.

And no, odds are that there's no life on the planet - as we know it or otherwise.

Still, an interesting place.

---

Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

Some Krypton and Xenon in Earth's Atmosphere: Not From Around Here

"Earth's Atmosphere May Have Alien Origin"
Wired Science (December 10, 2009)

"Isotopic analyses of the gases krypton and xenon suggest that much of Earth's atmosphere came from outer space, not inner space.

"Krypton and xenon appear in Earth's atmosphere — and in the universe as a whole — only in trace amounts. Detailed analyses of the gases provide clues about where those atmospheric components originated, says Greg Holland, an isotope geochemist at the University of Manchester in England. Those analyses, reported in the Dec. 11 Science, suggest that those gases, as well as many others now cloaking our planet, arrived via comets or were swept up from nearby gas clouds during the late stages of Earth's formation.

"Some scientists have proposed that the gases in Earth's atmosphere originated within the planet, says Holland. According to those arguments, the atmosphere either seeped out of the Earth as the planet gradually cooled or were expelled from the crust when large numbers of asteroids pummeled the planet and melted its surface around 3.9 billion years ago. But new isotopic evidence gathered by Holland and his colleagues suggests that those scenarios probably aren't right...."

First, a little background. An isotope is "one of two or more atoms with the same atomic number but with different numbers of neutrons" (Princeton's WordNet)

Elements - including noble gasses like krypton and xenon - from different planets have different ratios of isotopes. Which makes it possible to identify rocks found in Antarctica as having started out on Mars. ¹

And it looks like quite a bit of the krypton and xenon in Earth's atmosphere didn't come from this planet.

One of the less-unlikely explanations for where the 'other' gasses came from is that comets crashed into our planet, mostly quite a long time ago.

More-or-less-related posts:

• "Change, American Culture, Trilobites, Humanity's History, and the Big Picture"
  (last updated December 9, 2009)
• "Wet Mars: New Evidence"
  (July 1, 2009)
• "Methane in Extrasolar Planet's Atmosphere: A First"
  (March 21, 2008)

Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

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¹More:

• "Balmy water once bathed Mars rock claimed to host life"
  New Scientist (August 28, 2009)
• "New Study Boosts Idea of Past Life on Mars"
  University of Wisconsin-Madison (March 13, 1997)

NASA Studying Recipe for a Planet

"Simulations Show How Earth-Like Planets Can Form"
Space.com (October 29, 2009)

"NASA has long followed the water and chemical building blocks of life in the course of space exploration. But most computer simulations that help scientists understand how planetary systems form usually overlooked the chemistry of planets, at least until now.

"A new study has looked for the first time at the dynamics and chemistry of how Earth-like planets form. The approach shows how rocky planets form from the manic swirl of gas and dust in the early planetary systems, and also what chemical building blocks existed in the planets that emerged from the chaos.

'If we're looking for Earth-like planets, it'd be nice to know the chemistry we're after,' said Jade Bond, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson and a lead author on the study.

"Such a first step has only assessed the chemistry of Earth's solar system, and still needs testing across more dynamical models...."

Well, it's a start. A few philosophy 101 students notwithstanding, we know that Earth exists and that there's life here. It makes sense to start making a model, by starting with the one place we know supports life.

"...Scientists have found that certain temperature profiles reliably match certain chemical profiles, after studying material from meteorites that fell to Earth. Some meteorites still hold the chemical profiles of the early solar system, and can serve as useful real life comparisons for simulations.

"Model results showed that Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed 'wet,' with perhaps enough water to sustain life. But important elements such as nitrogen and carbon did not accumulate during simulated planet formation, which suggests that they needed to arrive by other means to kick start the development of life on Earth...."

Which means there's still quite a bit to learn. Which, in turn, means that this should be an exciting field, at least until what's unknown now becomes known. By which time we'll have discovered more facets of reality that we didn't know existed - and know very little about.

Exciting.

The article does a pretty good job of explaining what the researchers are trying to do - and how it ties in with the fast-growing list of exoplanets that have been spotted.

Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

The Inside Scoop on Coffee

"What's Inside a Cup of Coffee?"
Wired Magazine (September 21, 2009)

"Caffeine
This is why the world produces more than 16 billion pounds of coffee beans per year. It's actually an alkaloid plant toxin (like nicotine and cocaine), a bug killer that stimulates us by blocking neuroreceptors for the sleep chemical adenosine. The result: you, awake.

"Water
"Hot H2O is a super solvent, leaching flavors and oils out of the coffee bean. A good cup of joe is 98.75 percent water and 1.25 percent soluble plant matter. Caffeine is a diuretic, so coffee newbies pee out the water quickly; java junkies build up resistance...."

"...3,5 Dicaffeoylquinic acid
"When scientists pretreat neurons with this acid in the lab, the cells are significantly (though not completely) protected from free-radical damage. Yup: Coffee is a good source of antioxidants...."

"...a good source of antioxidants..." - somehow, though, even though antioxidants are now what ultraviolet light and spinach were to earlier generations, I rather doubt that we'll see coffee in health food stores.

Still, stranger things have happened.

It's a pretty good look at the chemical components in coffee - and, in some cases, what they do when they start perking through our metabolism.

Pretty good article, I think.

Martian Microbe Markers - Maybe - and Mysterious Mark on Mercury

"How Mars Rocks Could Preserve Signs of Life "
Space.com (October 2, 2009)

"They haven't yet figured out how to draw blood from stones, but a group of French researchers is offering new insight that could change how scientists search for signs of life in Martian rocks.

"By studying the laboratory fossilization of microorganisms, scientists have caught a glimpse into how early Earth and potential Martian life might be preserved in rocks. The scientists focused on Pyrococcus abyssi and Methanocaldococcus jannaschii, extremophiles which thrive in piping hot (up to 176°F), oxygen-lacking (<0.2% of current levels) environments.

"Some believe this sort of hot, anoxic environment is where life may have originated on Earth, and perhaps even on Mars.

" 'Environmental conditions were similar on the young terrestrial planets and traces of early Martian life may have been similarly preserved as silicified microfossils,' the scientists write in their study, which appeared in the September issue of the journal Geobiology...."

Okay: An article with "Methanocaldococcus jannaschii" in the second paragraph isn't going to be particularly light reading: and the idea of spending time learning about how some bunch of eggheads plan to look for teeny, tiny fossils of bugs that died a few billion years ago might not appeal to everybody.

Me? I read the thing.

But then, when I was a boy I'd read the ingredients list of cereal boxes. I can get along without reading longer than I can make do without breathing - but I really like to read.

Back to the article.

When something the size of a T. Rex dies, there's a reasonable chance that its bones will get fossilized - turned to stone. For a long time, bones, shells, and other hard parts of animals were just about the only sort of fossil known. Knowing what to look for, and a whole lot of legwork has turned up fossils of plants and animals without hard parts.

But they're not all that easy to find.

When it comes to single-celled organisms, it gets even harder.

One thing mentioned in this article is a sort of chemical signature - starchy chemicals called "extracellular polymeric substances," EPS for short. Finding EPS in a rock may mean that microorganisms were in the dirt before it turned to stone - or that microorganisms got inside the rock later.

It's not an ideal test - but if EPS showed up in Martian rocks that hadn't been exposed to Earth's lively ecosystem, that'd be an exciting development.

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And now, for something completely different.

"Mercury's Mysterious Bright Spot Photographed Up Close"
Space.com (October 1, 2009)

"During its most recent flyby of Mercury, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft caught another glimpse of the innermost planet's mysterious bright spot.

"The MESSENGER probe skimmed just 142 miles (228 km) above Mercury at its closest approach as it whipped around the planet during the flyby, the last of three designed to guide the spacecraft into orbit around the planet in 2011.

"The $446 million probe snapped several new images of Mercury during the flyby, despite a minor data hiccup that delayed the downlink of some of the images.

"One of the new images shows a bright spot on the planet's surface, a feature that scientists cannot yet explain...."

"...cannot yet explain..." - it's exciting when that phrase shows up. It's an indication that humanity's knowledge is going to be expanded a bit - sooner or later.

The bright spot? It may be associated with a hole that was made by volcanic processes. Or, something else.

COROT-7b: A Planet with Weather Worse than Minnesota's

"On Alien World, It Rains Rocks"
Space.com (October 1, 2009)

"On Earth, strange things, including frogs and fish, sometimes fall from the sky, but on a distant extrasolar planet, the weather could be even weirder: When a front moves in, small rocks rain down on the surface, a new study suggests.

"The exoplanet, COROT-7b, was discovered in February by the COROT space telescope launched by the French and European space agencies. Last month is became the first planet outside our solar system to be confirmed as a rocky body — most other known exoplanets are gas giants.

"The planet is nearly twice the size of Earth and about five times the mass of our world. Calculations have indicated it has a density about that of Earth's, which means it is likely made up of silicate rocks, just as Earth's crust is.

"The planet is likely much less hospitable to life though, as it is only about 1.6 million miles (2.6 million km) away from its parent star — 23 times closer than Mercury sits to the sun...."

And, on the sunward (starward?) side of COROT-7b, it's hot enough to vaporize rock. That close to the star, it's almost certainly tidally locked, with one side always facing the star. It occurs to me that it might have a resonant rotation like Mercury's. The planet closest to our star rotates once every 2/3 of its year. The article doesn't mention this possibility, so I don't know if it's an omission, or something that's 'obvious.'

Anyway, COROT-7b's atmosphere is most likely - vaporized rock. The gasses would be mostly sodium, potassium, silicon monoxide and oxygen - either atomic or molecular oxygen.

Weather on COROT-7b should be pretty much like weather on Earth. Except that when a front comes through it rains rock.

"...The rock rains form similarly to Earth's watery weather: 'As you go higher the atmosphere gets cooler and eventually you get saturated with different types of "rock" the way you get saturated with water in the atmosphere of Earth,' [Washington University, St. Louis' Bruce Jr.] Fegley [Jr.] explained. 'But instead of a water cloud forming and then raining water droplets, you get a "rock cloud" forming and it starts raining out little pebbles of different types of rock.'..."

It's sort of nice to know that there's a place with weather more extreme than here in Minnesota.

Life's Sinister Origins: Comets?

"Did Comet Crashes Help Spark Earth Life?"
Space.com (September 24, 2009)

Billions of years ago, comets may have ferried life-sustaining water to our planet's surface, but that may not be all that we should thank these dirty snowballs for. Researchers are simulating comet impacts to see if they might help proliferate the left-handedness in molecules that life on Earth depends upon.

"There is evidence from meteorite studies that amino acids may have been delivered to Earth from space.

" 'There is interest in how these building blocks came to be on primordial Earth,' says Jennifer Blank of the SETI Institute.

"She and her colleagues study comets as a second avenue for depositing these biological compounds on Earth. Their current work, which is supported by NASA's Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program, is looking at how the fire and brimstone of a comet impact may benefit the formation of complex molecules of a particular handedness...."

The proteins we're made of are built of 20 amino acids - which are 'left-handed' molecules. 'Right-handed' equivalents can exist - but they're not involved in our amino acids.

Why?

Good question.

We've gotten more accurate (or less-inaccurate) models of what Earth's atmosphere was like as the years go by: and this article discusses one of the more recent models.

The 'it came from outer space' explanation for how things are now is useful, and allows for more research to see how closely it matches verifiable realities - but then the question is 'why were the space chemicals left-handed?'

I ran into the possibility that circularly polarized ultraviolet light might be involved several decades back. That idea's still being discussed, it seems. But, although circularly polarized infrared light has been observed in the Orion molecular cloud, we haven't detected circularly polarized ultraviolet light in nature.

Yet.

There are some other possible explanations, too. ("Space Hand-Me-Downs," Google HTML version of http://www.astrobio.net/includes/html_to_doc_execute.php?id=3251&component=news, a Word document)

The article discusses why these researchers focused on comets, rather than meteors. Comets aren't as common, but they presumably don't do quite as much damage - or generate as much heat - when they hit, and they carry water with them.

All in all, a pretty good update on the state of knowledge - and informed speculation - about what happened in Earth's first billion years.

Related posts:

• "Left-Handed Life: Why are We So Sinister?"
  (September 17, 2009)
• More posts, at
  • "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"