week eight

semiconductor of the week:

carbon.

puts the o in organic....

the building block of life, carbon turns out to also be a semiconductor. with the atomic number 6 and the famous atomic mass of .....???..... yep, 12, it has a very special place in chemistry and life as we know it.

it's the fourth most abundant element in the universe, and second only to oxygen in human bodies. it's present in all other forms of life too, or at least all forms of earthly life. i'm not giving up yet on some silicon based aliens coming to town.

and speaking of silicon.... when used as an elemental semiconductor, engineers at princeton university believe carbon could replace silicon in the i.t. industry in just a few years. a new graphene substrate, a few atoms thick, has been created which performs ten times faster than silicon. according to the researchers, future cell phone and wireless devices using this technology will not only be faster, but also smaller and more energy efficient. eventually carbon will also be used in cpus.

one fun thing about carbon is that both diamonds and graphite are carbon, yet almost completely opposite in external appearances. diamonds are translucent, while graphite is a dark grey-black opaque, and though diamonds are the hardest naturally occurring substances, graphite is a soft black-smearing pencil filler. fullerenes, sometimes in the form of buckyballs, are also made of carbon and offer all kinds of exciting new uses for carbon, medical and otherwise. i guess when it comes to carbon, it makes a huge difference whether you're a tetrahedral lattice arrangement (diamond), hexagonal layered lattice sheets (graphite), or some crazy mixed hexagonal, pentagonal, heptagonal (huh? - that's 7-sided) lattice contraption created in a lab (fullerene)..... i think i'll just be ok with being carbon-based.

chembalancer:

fun and pretty easy. nice instant feedback.

balancing equations:

less fun, and less independent thinking. and unless i did something wrong, it's pretty short.

week seven

alkali earth metal of the week:

barium.

i mean, they use it in enemas. what can i say? there's not whole lot else that interests me about this soft, silvery metal with an atomic number of 56 and  atomic mass of 137. i do like the numbers  1, 3, and 7, but is that reason enough for anyone to put a metal in their derriere?

barium is highly reactive with both air and water, so it's rarely found in it's pure form in nature. it's also never found in it's pure form in a barium enema. those are actually done with barium sulfate.  and although barium is a heavy metal with a high level of toxicity, fortunately barium sulfate is highly insoluble, and is not absorbed by the body in the time it takes to pass through the gastrointestinal tract. the barium sulfate particles are "suspended in water" and then either flushed in from the lower end or drunk from the upper end - a "barium meal." yum. maybe i'll have that instead of a happy meal next time... then the barium sulfate serves as a radiocontrast agent for making x-rays of the food tube.

i guess anything is better than thorotrast, the thorium dioxide they used for the same purpose in the 1930's - 50's. that stuff was one of the most potent human carcinogens yet found. yikes!

avogadro's hypothesis:

it's really amazing how the work or mental processes of one person can instigate such great changes in generally accepted reality. and, that it many times takes everyone else a long while to get around to accepting the new ideas. well, actually, maybe 50 years is short for such a major leap in understanding. maybe my mind's on internet time.... anyway, look what has happened since 1860 and the manic (maniacal?) explosion of chemistry. a little idea goes a long way...

what is a mole?:

i thought a mole was a cute little brown furry animal that digs underground and can't see very well. now i find this has nothing to do with that mole. unless we're talking about measuring a mole of a mole. that would be an avogadro's number (6.022136 x 10^+23) of the furry mammal people. look out earthworms! anyway, i guess it works better with atoms and molecules. in their case, a mole is used to help figure out grams of a substance, or the number of atoms or molecules in a sample, and other fun stuff.

week six

halogen of the week: 

astatine.

astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element on earth. it's estimated that there are between 25 and 28 grams of the stuff in the earth's crust at any given time. so i've got more grams of the earth's crust stuck to the bottom of my hiking boots than the earth has natural astatine, period. that's not much. what there is, is produced by the decay of uranium and thorium.

astatine is in the halogen family, and they are quite dysfunctional. or at least extremely reactive. in fact, they are the most reactive elements yet discovered. and even though astatine is the least reactive of the bunch, it's still named for the greek "astatos" meaning 'unstable'. (maybe the halogens could get some counseling from neon and company next door.) 

it's the darkest halogen, assumed to be nearly black in solid form, giving a "dark purplish vapor" when heated. could be fun to have around on halloween - if there were more than 28 natural grams of it!

astatine's extremely short half-life of up to eight hours or so make it challenging to work with. and though it can be carcinogenic, it's being tested on mice for use in radiation therapy. it's isotope At211 has a half-life of 7.2 hours and emits alpha particles which can reduce ascites without being overly toxic to healthy tissues. and if you're wondering how the heck they get those 28 grams out of the earth and use them to torture mice, they don't. i mean, yes, they do torture mice, unfortunately. thank you mice, we love you. but no, they don't use the tiny amount in the earth's crust - how would they find it? and what would they collect it with? instead they make isotopes of astatine by "bombarding bismuth with alpha particles". that part sounds kind of fun, but only 0.00000005 grams of astatine have been produced in this way up to now.

At's atomic number is 85, with an atomic mass of 210.

alchemy?: 

alchemy seems to be practical meditation. the union of body and spirit. the taiji taken apart and put back together again. the quest for ultimate oneness with the divine. this might be a purely internal exercise.  or, as everything is a holistic representation of all that is, playing consciously and with very clear intention with elements on the physical level would have to affect all other levels of the being. holding sacred the intention to transform the physical, that transformation would necessarily be reflected in spirit. and i do wonder about the modern chemical world and the consciousness with which so many transmutations are performed. the intention, presence, and deep purpose - or lack thereof. how does this recklessness reverberate through our reality as we make use of the products of these (al)chemical reactions?

week five

inert gas of the week:

not a lot to choose from. i guess stability is kind of a rare thing around here...

"tell me is it the crack of the pool balls, neon buzzin', telephone's ringin it's your second cousin..."  - tom waits

and just why do neon signs buzz? if it's not a collection of glow in the dark florescent bees, then what is it? actually, most of the new ones don't buzz any more and many of them aren't made of neon.  but - different inert gases make different colors when trapped in glass tubing and illuminated by a few thousand volts of electricity.  neon and helium are still the most common gases in "neon" lights, but the tubes can be filled with mixtures of inert gases to make different colors.

check out the colors of neon, argon, helium, krypton and xenon: (thanks wikipedia.) 

neon itself has the atomic number 10 and an atomic mass of 20.1797. it is the fifth most common element in the universe, but relatively rare here on earth. random and amazing facts about neon are its boiling point, -410 degrees fahrenheit, and that it's the least reactive of all the elements. maybe we could make a homeopathic tincture of this and sell it as a spiritual tonic? or at least drop some in the water of world leaders everywhere.

colors in my kitchen:

red beet. orange sweet potato. yellow onion. white cauliflower. green avocado. yellow sunburst squash. red apples. blueberries. red strawberries. yellow bananas. green nori. brown almond butter.  i tend to eat in cycles, eating the same few things over and over again for a month or two until i get tired of them and then start eating something else. like, beautiful fresh organic apples and raw organic almond butter - my favorite breakfast right now. i'm so into this, i've been considering buying a used champion juicer to make my own almond butter. and! - frozen banana creme (made of championed frozen bananas). with dark chocolate sauce it's the best thing ever. also in love with steamed cabbage right now, but sadly, there's none in the kitchen at the moment. most of the things in packages don't seem to have much color. tan or brown. except maybe yellowish mustard and sauerkraut, green microalgae and veggie burgers, pink raspberry kombucha... oh yeah, don't forget white mint galactica coconut bliss!! yum!

links?: 

what's funny about What is important about the color of minerals? is that they don't really talk about what's important. or at least, what seems important to me, which is the healing properties offered by these minerals which are related to their colors. it's well known that different stones are helpful for activating and healing different chakras according to color. it's also a practice in chinese feng shui to use crystals, often chosen by color, to magnify the strength of particular elements. stones are one aspect of the diverse natural world which is open and ready to share healing gifts with us if we open to it.

week four

catalyst of the week: 

me! well, actually, you, too if you are engaged in the field of healing. i have always considered myself as a catalyst for healing. energy thrown into another person's system to activate latent and/or undirected innate healing capacities and inspire them (bodymindspirit) to heal themselves. i like this write up from wikipedia: "unlike other reagents in the [chemical] reaction, a catalyst is not consumed. thus, the catalyst may participate in multiple [chemical] transformations...."

that said, another type of catalyst we all have intimate relationships with are enzymes. (you could say that we are enzymes, at least partially, and that's pretty intimate.) primarily proteins, these little motivators lower the activation energy needed for reactions to occur and greatly speed many processes. which is pretty useful if  you plan on digesting food in this lifetime.  or if you want to move, breathe, think, grow, reproduce (yourself and others).  they occur everywhere from our digestive tract to our muscles to our dna. the digestive kind also come in convenient little petroleum-based plastic bottles in the vitamin section of your local health food store, greatly disturbing the balance of humans and nature. just one more thing our enzymes are going to have to help us take action on.

just how close are we to a green economy?:

it's up to us. really,  it's a choice. we can choose to continue living in this numbing insanity, or we can pressure our governments, especially big, tough, bullies like our own here in the u.s., to make real and lasting change for toward the survival of our own and all species. if governments legislate green economic guidelines, incentives, and penalties, a green global economy could be created extremely rapidly. yes, we have to deal with what we've created up to now, but ceasing to create more toxic waste and living system destruction, combined with creative and positive means of transformation and sustainable (on multiple levels) new products and services, could reactivate the lifeforce of this planet. in individuals, communities (human, plant, animal, etc...), internationally, and deep in the heart of gaia herself.

atom economy: 

so atom economy is all about reducing waste and "using every part of the deer." uh, i mean atom.  uh, i mean chemical process. or at least as many parts as possible. i don't know if we'll ever find a real use for the atom's bladder, but even if it ends up as a fun toy for children, we can say we're moving in the right direction. then someday they might speak in awed tones about our people - "and after centuries of way too much messing around, they finally remembered to respect the earth through which they lived and they (almost) never threw anything away."