After intensive investigation on both the Soviet and US parts, spokespersons from both space agencies have determined the cause for the accident which has placed the station and its resident personnel in jeopardy.
In terse statements at a recent press conference, Soviet and US space agency spokespersons said Thursday We have concluded joint investigations concerning this potentially tragic accident and each nations' team, separately, has arrived at identical conclusions for this incident.
The accident was caused by one thing and one thing only: OBJECTS IN MIR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.The two inventors of the bungee rope went to Spain to test their invention. They built a 50-foot tower and, once completed, one of the guys stood on the edge of the platform and dove into the air with the rope tied to his feet. The other guy, standing up on the platform, waited until his friend returned up so that he could grab him. The first time his friend sprung up, he tried to grab him but missed and noticed that his head was swollen. The next time, he missed again and again there was a bruise on his head and face. This time, with much concern, he dove forward to get his partner, pulled him in and asked, "What happened? Is the cord too long?" His partner replied with his face all bloody, "What is piñata?"
Hark! The Streptococcus Brings
(Melody: "Hark! The Herald = Angels Sing")
Hark! the Streptococcus brings
Strep sore throat to all who sing,
Chloraseptic doesn't cure it
Other people's sneezing lures it.
If the strep bug has a virus
Scarlet fever then arises,
Cross reaction with the heart
Causes it to come apart,
Hark! the Streptococcus totes,
Toxin and fire to all it smotes.
Pneumonia makes you cough and wheeze,
Mucus fills the lungs with sleaze
A viscous greenish oozing cloak,
That causes you to gasp and choke
Without water you can drown
If you breathe the strep germ down
Hark! The Streptococcus breeds
The misery of a bad disease
Of fecal strep in food beware,
Methane gas befouls the air,
Speedily you drop your pants
As if they held live fire ants
On the toilet you are dying
Bent in pain, guts liquefying
Hail! the Streptococcus means
Glory to those who would be leanA science teacher walked by Taipei 101 and saw a man on top of the building ready to jump.
He quickly shouted out "Don't do it!! You have so much potential!!"What did the moon say to the sun?
So big and cant come out at night!ODE TO A CLONE
By John Scalzi
(This originally appeared in America Online's "Howdy" area on March 6th.)
Oh clone, my clone, how can you bear it
To exist knowing you have only one parent?
No zygote you, when haploid cells met
You were produced with a full chromosome set.
And now I can see that you are confused
To discover your genes have arrived slightly used.
To answer your questions is the aim of this poem
You who are like me, my clone, oh my clone.
You were not produced from between sweaty sheets
In fact, you arose from cells scraped off of my cheek.
Your genes gently placed in an egg we provided
And then shocked with a current until they divided.
You sat there a while till it was time to fish
That thing that was you from that petri dish.
(And though it may seem churlish at this time to mention,
we suspect that the dish had post-partum depression).
Oh clone, my clone, don't feel angst or feel grief
Because the genes that you have are not bought but are leased.
You have no mother, but that's no impediment
Indeed, you've bypassed the whole Complex of Oedipus.
To your one parent you can always relate
To do otherwise is a form of self hate.
Who can tell us apart when we answer the phone?
No one at all, my clone, oh my clone.
Think of all the experiences we'll have!
(That is, once they allow you to go from the lab).
I'll take you to places that I've already been
So you can see them once more for the first time again.
Let's go to work, where I think we will find
That we'll get twice as much done in just half the time.
And should we play tennis, our opponents have troubles
As they must play singles, but we shall play doubles.
Oh clone, my clone, I see you are vexed
By ethical issues admittedly complex.
If you are my clone, are you wed to my wife?
And would having two husbands cause marital strife?
Suppose that we clone her? Then what would that be?
Bigamy, polygamy, or polyandry?
Oh, the guilt I would have would go to the bone
If I accidentally slept with your wife, oh my clone.
Perhaps it would be better if we lived all our days
Away from each other -- and go separate ways.
I would stay here and live with my mate
And you would take yours to some other state
Perhaps to Alaska, with Northern Lights blue
To live off the land, in a hut or igloo.
And with a deep sense of pride all my friends would be shown
Many pictures of your house, a Nome clone dome home.
Oh clone, my clone, you impressive feat
The one person born with no help from gametes.
When you have troubles getting yourself to sleep
Do you think on your compatriot, Dolly the sheep?
It's true that we both share our genetic information
But I know that your mind performs its own peregrinations.
In the end I am me, and you are just you alone
You are your own person, my clone, oh my clone.During grammar school science experiements into properties of different alcohols:
The residue of each test was tipped down the sinks, which were grouped in threes. There were no U-bends, but each group of sinks emptied into a single box, which overflowed into the mains sewers. Presumably this was intended to retain things like droplets of mercury, which was not banned from use when I was 16.
During the session, my bunsen went out, so I re-lit it with a splint lit from the teacher's bunsen. For safety's sake (!) I dropped the burning splint into the sink, intending to extinguish it with water, instead of waving it around in the alcohol fumes. A small blue flame disappeared down the plughole. Hum, thinks I, I wonder where that's going?
I opened the cupboard 'neath the sink, only to find the drain box, full of alcohol, a roaring mass of flame. Shutting the doors, I called out, "Er, Sir..." just as the inch-thick wooden lids blew off the adjacent un-used sinks. Fortunately, the back-blast extinguished the flames under the cupboard, so the box only sagged slightly!CHEMISTRY RHYMES
Old Man Stokes
Old man Stokes was a gentleman fine
Who lived beside the Raleigh line;
Old anti-Stokes, his existance denied,
Lived never-the-less on the other side.I would make another chemistry joke, but they ARGON.
The Chemistry Teacher's Coming to Town
You better not weigh
You better not heat
You better not react
I'm telling you now
The Chemistry Teacher's coming to town.
He's collecting data
He's checking it twice
He's gonna find out
The heat of melting ice
The Chemistry Teacher's coming to town.
He sees you when you're decanting
He knows when you titrate
He knows when you are safe or not
So wear goggles for goodness sake.
Oh, you better not filter
And drink your filtrate
You better not be careless and spill your precipitate.
The Chemistry Teacher's coming to town.Top Ten ways to get thrown out of chemistry lab
10. Pretend an electron got stuck in your ear, and insist on describing the sound to others.
9. Give a cup of liquid nitrogen to a classmate and ask, "Does this taste funny to you?"
8. Consistently write three atoms of potassium as "KKK."
7. Mutter repeatedly, "Not again... not again... not again."
6. When it's very quiet, suddenly cry out, "My eyes!"
5. Deny the existence of chemicals.
4. Begin pronouncing everything your immigrant lab instructor says exactly the way he/she says it.
3. Casually walk to the front of the room and urinate in a beaker.
2. Pop a paper bag at the crucial moment when the professor is about to pour the sulfuric acid
1. Show up with a 55-gallon drum of fertilizer and express an interest in federal buildings.Two atoms are walking down the street when they run into each other. The first says to the second, “Are you all right? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m not feeling very well,” says the second atom. “I lost an electron!”
“Are you sure?” asks the first.
“Yeah, I’m positive!”
Submitted by vicky.
A Mad Scientist Christmas
Twas the night before Christmas and all thru my house,
Not a specimen was stirring, not even a louse.
The test tubes were capped and the rat cages closed,
The mold cultures fuzzy, the mice in repose.
The oven kept warm the ebola and pox,
I still need to locate my husband's clean socks...
But that has to wait till tomorrow, I know;
My buggies still need that much more time to grow.
When from the kitchen came a massive explosion,
I leapt from my bed in perpetual motion.
Grabbing my lab coat I pulled on my pants,
Struggling into them a sick sort of dance.
With fury and haste I put on a shirt,
Running out of the bedroom on feet black with dirt.
Buttoning my lab coat and donning a mask,
I ran into the kitchen holding an Erlenmeyer flask.
I nearly passed out when the man who I saw,
dressed in containment gear sealed without flaw,
Held high a huge sack with his arm stiff and straight,
I could tell he must have a hard time with his weight.
Through the mike from his suit he said without pause,
"Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas, I'm Hanta Claus!"
Over his shoulder he hefted the sack,
We walked into the living room, I offered a snack.
He took it and smiled, placed the sack by my bench,
Instantly I noticed the Clostridium stench.
Brimming with joy, I cried out with glee,
"Did you bring all of these germies for me?"
"Oh yes," said Hanta, "I must show propriety;
By bringing you microbes, I'm saving society.
"You are the only one who loves these diseases.
Therefore I'm glad to oblige who it pleases."
Delirious with excitement I sat by his side
While he gave me a year's stock of microscope slides,
And pasteur pipettes, drug resistant bacteria,
Such as staph, strep and cultures from the genus Neisseria.
The gleam in my eyes caused the house to be lit,
The moment he gave me a gram-staining kit,
Clostridium tetani, perfringens and sporogenes,
Salmonella typhi and Streptococcus pyogenes!
Plus viruses known to produce hepatitis,
Herpes, and rabies, yellow fever and meningitis!
But that was not all, he had parasites too,
Plasmodia, trypanosomes and schistosomes true!
Tapeworms and roundworms, plague-carrying fleas.
How sincerely generous, Hanta did aim to please!
At long last he said he must now go away,
His sled was experiencing radioactive decay.
"Thanks for the presents," I said, shaking his hand,
"They'll keep me off the streets, you understand."
Hanta Claus smiled and bid me goodnight,
Shouting "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good blight!"Two hydrogen atoms are at a party and bump into each other. The first one says, "Hey, grab that electron, it's mine!" "How do you know?" asks the second. "'Cause I'm positive!" the first replies.
Silent Labs
Silent labs, difficult labs
All with math, all with graphs
Observations of colors and smells
Calculations and graph curves like bells
Memories of tests that have past
Oh, how long will chemistry last?
Silent labs, difficult labs
All with math, all with graphs
Lots of equations that need balancing
Gas pressure problems that make my head ring
Santa Chlorine's on his way
Oh, Please Santa bring me an 'A'.A skeleton walks down empty Main Street. Suddenly he sees another skeleton carrying a gravestone. "Hey, what are you doing?” the other skeleton answers "Just strolling", "Why do have the gravestone, buddy?", "Because I always want to have some ID”.
A professor of chemistry wanted to teach his 5th grade class a lesson about the evils of liquor, so he produced an experiment that involved a glass of water, a glass of whiskey, and two worms.
"Now, class. Observe closely the worms," said the professor putting a
worm first into the water.
The worm in the water writhed about, happy as a worm in water could be. The second worm, he put into the whiskey. It
writhed painfully, and quickly sank to the bottom, dead as a doornail.
"Now, what lesson can we derive from this experiment?" the professor
asked.
Johnny, who naturally sits in back, raised his hand and wisely, responded, "Drink whiskey and you won't get worms."Investigators at a major research institute have discovered the heaviest element known to science. This startling new discovery has been tentatively named Administratium (Ad).
The new element has no protons or electrons, thus having an atomic number of 0. It does, however, have 1 neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons, and 111 assistant vice neutrons, for an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since it has no electrons, Administratium is inert.
However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it came into contact.
According to the discoverers, a minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons, viceneutrons, and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. In fact, an Administratium sample's mass will actually increase over time, since with each reorganization some of the morons inevitably become neutrons, forming new isotopes. This characteristic of moron promotion
leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is formed whenever morons reach a certain concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as the "Critical Morass".Q: Why can't you trust an atom?
A: Because they make up everything.Silver Nitrate
(to the tune of "Silver Bells")
Silver nitrate, silver nitrate
it's chemistry time in the lab
Ding-a-ling, with a copper ring
soon it will be chemistry day.
Take your nitrate, in solution
Add your copper with style
In the beaker there's a feeling of reactions
silver forming, blue solution
Bringing ooh's ah's and wows
now the data procesing begins.
Get the mass, change to moles
what is the ratio with copper?
Write an equation, balance it
we're glad it's Chemistry Day.It's So Easy
(Tune, It's so Easy)
It's with Cesium I'm in love!
It's with Cesium I'm in love!
People say that I'm a fool,
When I take my Cesium into the pool.
And it's so easy,
So doggone easy,
Yes it's so easy,
Where my love's concerned,
To get myself burned.
But it's with Cesium I'm in love,
It's with Cesium I'm in love!
I look into her flame and see,
A sky-blue light floodin' over me.
Though it's so easy,
So doggone easy,
Yeah it's so easy,
When she's concerned,
To get myself burned.
Still it's with Cesium I'm in love,
It's with Cesium I'm in love!
---Songs of Cesium #87The last words of a chemist:
1. And now the tasting test.
2. May that become hot?
3. And now a little bit from this...
4. ... and please keep that test tube alone!
5. And now shake it a bit.
6. Why is there no label on this bottle?
7. In which glass was my mineral water?
8. The bunsen burner *is* out!
9. Why does that stuff burn with a green flame?!?
10. *H* stands for Nitrogen - and that does *not* burn...
11. Oh, now I have spilt something...
12. First the acid, then the water...
13. And now the detonating gas problem.
14. This is a completely save experimental setup.
15. Where did I put my gloves?
16. O no, wrong beaker...
17. The fire alarm is just being tested.
18. Now you can take the protection window away...
19. And now keep it constant at 24 degrees celsius, 25... 26... 27...
20. Peter can you please help me. Peter!?! Peeeeeteeeeer?!?!?!?
21. I feel it how long 15 seconds are!
22. Something is wrong here...
23. Where do all those holes in my kettle come from?
24. Trust me - I know what I am doing.
25. And now a cigarette...Yesterday,
I had Cesium with which to play.
Now all my fingers have been blown away.
And silence reigns since yesterday.
Suddenly,
I'm just half the man I used to be.
I have no eyes with which to see.
My legs have parted company.
Why she had to blow,
I don't know,
I can only say.
Something went awful wrong,
In the waterbed where we lay.
Yesterday,
Her sky blue path seemed such an easy way.
Now I know there is a price to pay.
Oh, I believed just yesterday.
---Songs of Cesium #117Some tourists in the Chicago Museum of Natural History are marveling at the dinosaur bones. One of them asks the blonde guard, ‘Can you tell me how old the dinosaur bones are?’
The guard replies, ‘They are 3 million,four years, and six months old.’
‘That’s an awfully exact number,’ says the tourist. ‘How do you know their age so precisely?’
The guard answers, ‘Well, the dinosaur bones were three million years old when I started
working here, and that was four and a half years ago!’Submitted by vicky.
"Welcome to Entropy Burgers -- may I take your order?"
"I put in disorder a long time ago. The service here is getting worse all the time."
"My experience Gibbs me reason to believe you."
"I know the waitress who asked that, too. Her name's Ellen Omega. She really made me thermally dynamic. So, I asked her out. I tell you, when she don't like you, she really Boltz, man. Women like that are never distributed normally among the population."
"What kind of Poisson would say something like this?"Q: How do astronomers organize a party?
A: They planet.We Three Students Of Chemistry Are
We three students of chemistry are
taking tests that we think are hard
Stoichiometry, volumes and densities
worrying all the time.
O room of wonder
room of fright
Room of thermites
blinding light:
With your energies
please don't burn us
Help us get our labs all right.Cartoon Law I
Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.
Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over.
Cartoon Law II
Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease.
Cartoon Law III
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter.
Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyses this reaction.
Cartoon Law IV
The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken.
Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful.
Cartoon Law V
All principles of gravity are negated by fear.
Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight.
Cartoon Law VI
As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once.
This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A `wacky' character has the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required.
Cartoon Law VII
Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot.
This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science.
Cartoon Law VIII
Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify.
Corollary: A cat will assume the shape of its container.
Cartoon Law IX
Everything falls faster than an anvil.Cesium
Cesium, 'tis of thee,
Thy 'positivity,
Of thee I sing.
Thou whose hydroxide, dis-
solved my wife when she died,
Glorious too, for suicide,
Here, death, is thy sting.
---Songs of Cesium #65Several short geology plays on words
Okay, if you are a real geologist, you probably enjoy transferring geology vocabulary into everyday situations. For example, if you agree with what someone has said, you may say, You breccia! or My sediments exactly!
And if you are not pleased with the person's statement, you may resort to the old:
That's not gneiss!There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium (inhale)
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium.
There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium
And phosphorous and francium and fluorine and terbium
And manganese and mercury, molybdinum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium
And lead, praseodymium, platinum, plutonium,
Paladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
Tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium, (inhale)
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium
And also mendelevium, einsteinium and nobelium
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium
And chlorine, cobalt, carbon, copper,
Tungsten, tin and sodium.
- Tom LehrerThis was a story told to us by our chemistry master at school. A female student wished to make some potassium hydroxide solution (aqueous) and decided to throw a large lump of potassium into a bucket of water.
Her professor observed what she was about to do, out of the corner of his eye and hurried towards her, and after confirming this was what she was intending to do, asked her first to stir the water in the bucket for five minutes before adding the potassium.
She was puzzled and ran after him to ask the purpose of this action.
‘It will give me time to get away’ said the professor.
Submitted by vicky.
Q. How many Cardassians does it take to change a light blub?
A. Three, because there are four lights!THE CHEMIST'S RECIPIE FOR CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
The following recipie for chocolate chip cookies recently appeared in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN, Jun 19, 1995, p. 100). It was attributed to Jeannene Ackerman of Witco Corp.Ingredients: 1. 532.35 cm3 gluten 2. 4.9 cm3 NaHCO3 3. 4.9 cm3 refined halite 4. 236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride 5. 177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H22O11 6. 177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H22O11 7. 4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde 8. Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avain albumen-coated protien 9. 473.2 cm3 theobroma cacao10. 236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)
To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat-transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr add one, two, and three with constant agitation.
In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm add four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is homogeneous.
To reactor #2 add eight followed by three equal portions of the homogeneous mixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add nine and ten slowly with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.
Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown.
Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25 deg. C heat-transfer table allowing the product to come to equilibrium.Seventy Six Neutrons
(Tune, Seventy Six Trombones)
Seventy six lithe neutrons swayed on Cesium's bar,
Half a hundred and ten bold protons...
Hold it! Hold it!. That's Cesium 131. Half life only about 9.69 days.
Let's go for immortality here. Worth a shot anyway...
Seventy Eight Neutrons
(Tune, Seventy Six Trombones)
Seventy eight lithe neutrons swayed on Cesium's bar,
Half a hundred and ten bold protons joined the press.
And the eletronettes were a-whirling in duets,
All but one, the singular miss Six S.
Seventy eight nubile neutrons writhed in close array,
Half a hundred and ten lusty protons swelled the crowd.
And the electron pairs played blue photonic airs,
From within a shining quantum cloud.
There were pions, muons, quarks and other fermions,
Tunneling, tunneling, in a state of partial dress.
'Till an oily bit of water came a wandering,
And miss Six S got in a great big mess.
Seventy eight screaming neutrons ran and jammed the door,
Half a hundered and ten brave protons hit the ground.
There was a sky-blue flash, then nothing left but ash,
And the echo of a glorious thundering sound.
--- Songs of Cesium #76How can this be? Scientists say the world began with a Big Bang 13 billion years ago. All mankind got hit on the back of the head, and now astronomers see stars Millions of Light years away.
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost?”
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “Okay, great!”
But, God added, “Now, we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.”
The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”
Submitted by Damien.
In today's news...32 more planets were found outside of our solar system bringing the total to 400. And..., not a sign of intelligent life, not even here.
'Lectropositive Mama
(tune, Lady Madonna)
'Letropositive mama,
Cesium on your meat,
Wonder how you manage,
To stay on your feet.
How d'ya stand the smokin'?
How d'ya 'bide the flame?
Do you think that life's just
A burnin' game.
Monday night your hunger's a blue fire,
Tuesday morn' you're cookin' 'fore the sun.
Wednesday rain, you're only flamin' higher,
Having your fun.
'Lectropositive mama,
Cinders in your curls,
No way can compare you,
To ordinary girls.
Likin' the explosions,
Rock you on your seat.
How can any woman handle
All that heat?
---Songs of Cesium #47REASONS TO BE A CHEMIST
- All the coffee and pocket protectors you could want!
- Clark Kent style safety glasses
.- Exposure to all kinds of toxic and cancerous substances.
- The "opportunity" to deal with irate clients asking "where are my results?"
- Because it's pHun :)
- Access to 100% pure ethanol
- Knowing how to completely dissolve the bodies of your enemies
- You never have to worry about what you're doing on Friday night (You're working in the lab)
- Permanent goggle marks cheaper than a tattoo.
- You wish to be blamed for all faults in the environment.
- ditto for cancer
- You are adept at poverty cooking
- You prefer to get your course credits the hard wayWhenever I go to a restaurant, I always order is "dihydrogen monoxide on the rocks with a clear siphoning tube inside a glass".
The waiters/waitresses always ask me what drink is that?
I tell them that's the scientific name of a glass of ice water with a straw.An interesting exchange between two geniuses, Einstein said to Chaplin:
“What I most admire about your art…
You don’t say a word, and the rest of the world understands you.”
"It is true", answered Chaplin, "but your glory is even greater. The whole world admires you, even though they don’t understand a word of what you say!"Administratrium, The New Element
AMES, IA--The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by materials researchers at IPRT/ISU. The new element, tentatively named Administratium, has no protons or electrons, and thus has an atomic weight of 0. However, it does have one neuron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons, and 111 assistant vice neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together in a nucleus by a force that involves the continuous exchange of particles called morons.
Since it has no electrons, Administratium is totally inert. However, it can be detected chemically, since it impedes every reaction it comes into contact with. According to its discovers, a tiny amount of Administratium caused on reaction to take over four days to complete; the normal reaction time is less than one second.
Administratium has a normal half life of approximately three years, at which time it does not actually decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which neutrons, vice neutrons, and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. Studies have shown that the atomic mass usually increases after each reorganization.
Research at other laboratories indicates that Administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points, such as governmental agencies, large corporations, and universities. It is always found in the newest, best appointed and best maintained buildings.
Scientists point out that Administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reactions where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how Administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, butresults to date are not promising.- Visit the next joke about this topic!
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Cesium (All through the Night)
(Tune, Fever)
(1)
Never know how much I need you,
Never know how much I'd dare,
When I mix you up with water,
I get a heat that's hard to bear.
I need my Cesium!
Burnin' brightly,
Cesium to give me light.
Cesium --
In the morning,
Cesium all through the night.
(2)
Sun lights up the daytime.
Moon lights up the night.
Cesium lights up heaven above,
With a brilliant sky-blue light.
I need my Cesium!
Burnin' hotly.
Cesium shinin' so bright.
Cesium --
In the morning,
Cesium to make me feel right.
(Coda)
Everybody,
Needs some Cesium,
Cesium to give 'em that glow.
Cesium --
Add some water,
Get a fire hot as down below!
(3)
Romeo, he had Cesium,
Cool water Juliette.
When they mixed it up together,
Things got as hot as they can get!
They needed Cesium!
Flamin' madly.
Cesium burnin' so blue.
Cesium --
Shared between them.
Cesium to make their love true.
(4)
Come to the end of my story.
Got to the point that I made.
Cesium's the stuff to heat you up,
And you ain't gonna find no shade!
You'll need cesium!
As you sizzle.
Cesium some comfort to earn.
Cesium --
It's almighty.
What a lovely way to burn!
--- Songs of Cesium #96Away in a Test Tube
(Melody: "Away in a Manger")
Away in a test tube
My plague cultures grow
On nutrient agar
Mankind's greatest foe
It's easy to grow them
If one does it right
At thirty-five Celsius
All day and all night
Once they are ready
You can let them go
To sicken the masses
With pus-filled buboes.The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were gleaned from essays, exams, and classroom discussions. Most were from 5th and 6th graders. They illustrate Mark Twain's contention that the 'most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
Q: What is one horsepower?
A: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.
You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it, you got hit, so never mind.
Talc is found on rocks and on babies.
The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down.
When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions.
When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting.
Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand.
While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating. [this guy is going to do well in college! *haha* ...Lj]
Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any direction.
South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage.
Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime.
Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. There are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling because there are 180 degrees between north and south.
A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go.
There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet to be discovered. Finding them all means living forever.
There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of the Earth because of so much population stomping around up there these days.
Lime is a green-tasting rock.
Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils while others preferred to be oil.
Genetics explain why you look like your father and if you don't why you should.
Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there.
Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother.
Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers.
We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on.
To most people solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists solutions are things that are still all mixed up.
In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's.
Clouds are high flying fogs.
I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing.
Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is not much else to do.
Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a drop, it does.
Humidity is the experience of looking for air and finding water.
We keep track of the humidity in the air so we won't drown when we breathe.
Rain is often known as soft water, oppositely known as hail.
Rain is saved up in cloud banks.
In some rocks you can find the fossil footprints of fishes.
Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dogs tongue will kill the strongest man.
A blizzard is when it snows sideways.
A hurricane is a breeze of a bigly size.
A monsoon is a French gentleman.
Thunder is a rich source of loudness.
Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their names sound.
It is so hot in some places that the people there have to live in other places.
The wind is like the air, only pushier.Mr. Spock wears vulcanized rubbers.
Biology Christmas
THE NIGHT BEFORE DEFENCE
(or A Visit From Citrate)
Twas the night before defence, when all through te lab
Not a gel box was shaking, with stain or with MAb;
The columns were hung in the cold room with care,
In hopes that my protein, I soon could prepare;
The post-docs were nestled all smug in their beds,
While extracts of barley muddled their heads;
With the tech in the suburbs and PI the same,
I had just settled down to another video game.
When out of the fridge there arose such a clatter
I sprang from the terminal to see what was the matter.
Away to the cold box, I flew like a flash
But the stench was o'erpowering and I threw up beef hash.
The mould on the dampest of walls were cold
Had the softness of kittens only seven weeks old;
When what to my view, a thing I despise
But a half eaten sandwich and four tiny mice;
With a little old scientist, so lively and galling,
I knew at a glance was Linus Pauling.
More vapid than undergrads, his charges they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them rude names.
"Now, Watson! Now Francis! You strange little modellers!
On Luria! On Bertani! You stupid old broth'lers!
To the top of the bench, to the top of the wall!
Purify! Purify! Purify all!"
As dry heaves before the commitee meeting, bend
A young student's body and his colon distend,
So up their earlobes, acytes they grew,
With a sack full of antibodies, their skin turning blue.
And then, for a second, I heard from the 'fuge,
An unbalanced rotor spinning something too huge.
Where I put down my hand, to better hear the sound,
Came the snapping of sparks from a wire sans ground.
Pauling's hair was al wavy, and I thought I must be sick
`Cause the curls in his hair looked just like a helix.
On an arm load of oranges, he started to snack
An I recalled his fetish with citrate, the quack.
His eyes were all wrinkled, but the cheeks were yet red;
Not too shabby for a man who was several years dead;
The leer of his smile was just a tad scary
And the snow on his rooftop made his head yet quite hairy;
The end of a pipette, he held in his teeth
And a pile of kimwipes lay around his big feet.
He held a small vial of something quite gel-ly,
A mercaptan no doubt, for it make him quite smelly.
He changed `round the columns, adding to the confusion
And I laughed to spite my own paranoid delusion.
A wink of his eye and a rotation of his head,
Told me whatever I drank would soon leave me dead.
He spoke not a word, just buggered up my work,
And dried all my resins, that silly old jerk.
And separating his middle finger from first, fourth and third,
That crazy, old bugger, just flipped me the bird.
He grabbed up his cohorts and ran down the hall,
And away they all flew, letting me take the fall.
That is why, dear Commitee, I am sorry to say,
I need a five year extension, starting today.An Australian Professor was conducting a research on crocodiles along the Sepik River and was escorted by a villager who knew a lot about the river and crocodiles. Paddling up the river, the Professor asked the village escort, "do you know how to read?" asked the Professor. The Villager replied, "nogat eh". The professor then said, "well, then you are already dead because you know nothing". The villager was so upset that he paddled the canoe without saying a word.
A little up the river, the villager then asked the professor, "do you know swimiology?" The professor replied, "No". "Well then, you are dead," said the villager. "Because, if the canoeology is sinkology, you will not swimology, and the crocodiology will eatology your assology."Scientists have shown that the moon is moving away at a tiny, although measurable distance from the earth every year. If you do the math, you can calculate that 85 million years ago the moon was orbiting the earth at a
distance of about 35 feet from the earth's surface.
This would explain the death of the dinosaurs . . . the tallest ones, anyway.Q: Why did the chicken cross the möbius strip?
A: To get to the same side.ON A CHEMISTRY TEST at Midpark High School in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, one question concerned how to clean the floor after a chemical-powder spill. In detail, I described the liquid I would combine with the powder in order to dissolve it with chemical bonding and electron transfer. I was pleased with my grasp of molecular structure until the exams were handed back. Our teacher asked another student to read her answer. She suggested a broom and a dustpan to sweep up the spill -- and got full credit.
-- Contributed to "Tales Out of School" by Joe Astorino ? 1996 The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. All rights reserved.A small piece of sodium which lived in a test tube fell in love with a Bunsen burner.
“Oh Bunsen, my flame. I melt whenever I see you . . .”, the sodium pined.
“It’s just a phase you’re going through”, replied the Bunsen burner.
Submitted by zanny.
Sea-Floor Spreading Lament (folksong) by Brenna Lorenz
Refrain: Alas for the spreading of the ocean,
Alas for the spreading of the sea,
Alas for every year that passes by,
Taking you two inches more from me!
Oh, why did you leave our native plate,
Causing me to weep and to mourn?
With the plates diverging at such a rate,
To leave me alone and lorn?
If only the mantle would my counsel take,
If the Earth would but listen unto me,
I'd say, "Your convection cell remake,
And bring my darling back to me!"
So dive you down, you ocean dark,
Part of the mantle be-
Fire you up, you island arc -
Subduct my darling back to me!During the initial space flights, Nasa discovered that biro pens didn’t work under zero gravity conditions. To beat the problem, Nasa spent 6 years and $2 million in designing a pen for use in space. The pen would work under zero gravity conditions due to the pressurized ink inside, it would work under sub zero conditions, underwater, on glass and virtually any surface known to man. The Russians used a pencil.
Two hydrogen atoms bumped into each other recently.
One said: “Why do you look so sad?”
The other responded: “I lost an electron.”
Concerned, One asked “Are you sure?”
The other replied “I’m positive.”
Submitted by Sneha.
All electrons were in a party. Protons attacked them. A hero saves them. Electrons asked, “Who are you?”. Hero said, “BOND, COVALENT BOND”.
Protons have mass? I didn’t know they were catholic
So a neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender how much for a drink and the bartender says “for you, no charge
REAL QUESTIONS ASKED IN SCIENCE CLASSES
Are the rivers flowing up the mountain or down the mountain?
Is that the ocean? (Asked while on a field trip to Marine Lab Beach on Guam (a small island in the Pacific).
How can the river be flowing north? That's uphill!
How can mass wasting be an agent of landscape formation on the Moon? The Moon has no gravity!
How do I get water into this beaker?Two men (a Russian and an American) were talking about their countries' accomplishments.
The Russian says, "We were the first to go into Space."
The American replies, "Well, we were the first to land on the moon."
Sick of their arrogance, another man comes over and says, "Oh yeah! Well, I'm gonna be the first one on the Sun!"
The Russian and American both laugh saying, "You can't go to the Sun. It's too hot. You'll burn up"
The man confidently replies, "I'm not an idiot. I'll just go at night!"I'm Dreaming of a White Precipitate
I'm dreaming of a white precipitate
just like the ones I used to make
Where the colors are vivid
and the chemist is livid
to see impurities in the snow.
I'm dreaming of a white precipitate
with every chemistry test I write
May your equations be balanced and right
and may all your reactions be bright.NASA decided to send a shuttle into space with two monkeys and an astronaut. They trained them for months. Then when they thought they were ready, they placed all three in the shuttle and got ready to send them up into space.
As the moment came closer NASA’s mission control center announced, “This is mission control to Monkey One. Initiate!”
At that the first monkey started typing like mad and suddenly the shuttle’s engines ignited and the shuttle took off.
Two hours later NASA’s mission control center announced, “This is mission control to Monkey Two. Initiate!”
At that the second monkey started typing like mad and suddenly the shuttle separated from the empty fuel tanks.
Another two hours later mission control announced, “This is mission control to the astronaut…”
At this the astronaut responded “I know, I know. Feed the monkeys and don’t touch anything.”
Submitted by Ankita.
When Magnesium and Oxygen started dating I was like, "O MG!"
There was three astronauts, a Russian, an American, and a Blond.
The Russian says we were the first in space.
The American says we were the first on the Moon.
The Blond says I will be the first to land on the sun.
The other two look at her and say, The sun wont you burn up?
She says well duh we are going to land on it at night,Have you heard the one about a chemist who was reading a book about helium and just couldn't put it down?
What's the formula for water? -H-two-O What's the formula for an ice cube? -H-two-O-CUBED
Q: What do you get when you combine Al Gore with O2?
A: Oxymoron
The best chemists would definitely not be pet owners.
Their idea of a catalyst:
2 bags of cat litter
3 cans of cat food
1 can of flea powder
1 collar
Q: How do you get lean molecules?
A:Feed them titrations.
Q: And why does a white bear melt in water?
A: Because it's polar.
Did you hear about the industrialist who had a huge chloroform spill at his factory?
His business went insolvent.
Q: What's the most important thing to learn in chemistry?
A: Never lick the spoon.REAL ANSWERS FROM EARTH SCIENCE EXAMS
The terrestrial planets are much larger than the gas giants.
Wegener found matching bedbugs on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
The main problem associated with limestone aquifers is Lyme disease.
We don't have rock salt on Guam because that forms from from evaporation of oceans and we don't have oceans on Guam.
Erie, Pennsylvania has no volcanoes because it's too cold there.
The most important agent of landscape formation on Guam is greyhounds - they are intelligent.
We know that the sun is much farther away from us than the moon is, because we can see stars between us and the sun, but not between us and the moon.
The rear end of a trilobite is called a trilobutt.Newton, Pascal and Archimedes are playing hide and seek. Archimedes starts to count, Pascal hides in a bush, and Newton draws a square on the ground and steps into it. Archimedes finds Newton first, of course, but Newton replies, "Nope. One Newton on one square meter is equal to one Pascal."
Cesium's Strange
(Tune, People are strange - The Doors)
Cesium's strange,
when you're a stranger
Consummate danger,
ready to blow.
Water is wicked,
wet and unwanted,
Folks are unfriendly,
when you glow.
Don't take it out in the rain.
You're insane!
You're insane!
Don't you remember the pain?
You're insane!
You're insane!
You're insane ---
Cesium's strange,
pregnant with danger,
Hand the next stranger
a kilo or two.
Pour on the water,
lamb at the slaughter,
Bathe in the light
that is blue, sky-blue!
Don't take it out in the rain.
You're insane!
You're insane!
You'll always remember the pain.
You're insane!
You're insane!
You're insane ---
--- Songs of Cesium #13When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity.
To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300° C.
Indians just use a pencil.
Submitted by vicky.
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. -- Mike Adams
Chemicals: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.
Remember, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate!
There is the joke about the homeopath who forgot to take his medicine and died of an overdose.
How many physical chemists does it take to wash a beaker?
None. That's what organic chemists are for!
It is disconcerting to reflect on the number of students we have flunked in chemistry for not knowing what we later found to be untrue. --quoted in Robert L. Weber, Science With a Smile (1992)
Physical Chemistry is research on everything for which the negative logaritm is linear with 1/T -- D.L. Bunker
Q: What weapon can you make from the Chemicals Potassium, Nickel and Iron?
A: KNiFe.Photons have mass? I didn't know that they were Catholic.
Want to hear a Potassium joke? K.
Q: Why do centipedes have 100 legs?
A: So they can walk.Lab Reports
(to the tune of "Jingle Bells")
Dashing through the lab
with a tan page lab report
Taking all those tests
and laughing at them all
Bells for fire drills ring
making spirits bright
What fun it is to laugh and sing
a chemistry song tonight.
Oh, lab report, lab reports,
reacting all the way
Oh what fun it is to study
for a chemistry test today, Hey!
Chemistry test, chemistry test
isn't it a blast
Oh what fun it is to take
a chemistry test and pass.We Wish You a Happy Halogen
We wish you a happy halogen
We wish you a happy halogen
We wish you a happy halogen
To react with a metal.
Good acid we bring
to you and your base.
We wish you a merry molecule
and a happy halogen.Quantum Chemistry
On the first day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: An exam in Quantum Chemistry.
On the second day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: a double integral and an exam in Quantum Chemistry.
On the third day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: three orbitals, a double integral, and an exam in Quantum Chemistry.
On the fourth day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: four harmonic oscillators, three orbitals, etc.
On the fifth day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: Five Hermitian Operators! Four harmonic ocillators, three orbitals, etc.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: six spin-orbit couplings, etc.
On the seventh day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: seven basis functions, etc.
On the eighth day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: eight time dependent perturbations, etc.
On the ninth day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: nine Slater determinants, etc.
On the tenth day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: ten electrons tunneling, etc.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: eleven photons emitting, etc.
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my professor gave to me: 12 fermions exchanging, etc.It was time for the final and the student depending upon getting at least one right answer on the chemistry test.
The question was "If h20 if water, what is h204?"
This was a quick question for most, but it took the student some thinking time.
Finally, he wrote down his answer: For drinking, washing, and cleaning.If you have more toys than your kids
If you need a checklist to turn on the TV
If your I.Q. number is bigger than your weight
If you have introduced your kids by the wrong name
If you can remember 7 computer passwords but not your anniversary
If you have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work
If you rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires
If the microphone or visual aids at a meeting don’t work and you rush up to the front to fix it
If you have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal
If you have memorized the program scheduled for the Discovery channel and have seen most of the shows already
Submitted by zanny.
Bob Hill and his new wife Betty were vacationing in Europe, as it happens, near Transylvania. They were driving in a rental car along a rather deserted highway. It was late, and raining very hard. Bob could barely see 20 feet in front of the car.
Suddenly the car skids out of control! Bob attempts to control the car, but to no avail! The car swerves and smashes into a tree. Moments later, Bob shakes his head to clear the fog. Dazed, he looks over at the passenger seat and sees his wife unconscious, with her head bleeding! Despite the rain and unfamiliar countryside, Bob knows he has to carry her to the nearest phone.
Bob carefully picks his wife up and begins trudging down the road. After a short while, he sees a light. He heads towards the light, which is coming from an old, large house. He approaches the door and knocks. A minute passes. A small, hunched man opens the door. Bob immediately blurts, "Hello, my name is Bob Hill, and this is my wife Betty. We've been in a terrible accident, and my wife has been seriously hurt. Can I please use your phone?"
"I'm sorry," replied the hunchback, "but we don't have a phone. My master is a doctor; come in and I will get him!"
Bob brings his wife in. An elegant man comes down the stairs. "I'm afraid my assistant may have misled you. I am not a medical doctor; I am a scientist. However, it is many miles to the nearest clinic, and I have had a basic medical training. I will see what I can do. Igor, bring them down to the laboratory."
With that, Igor picks up Betty and carries her downstairs, with Bob following closely. Igor places Betty on a table in the lab. Bob collapses from exhaustion and his own injuries, so Igor places Bob on an adjoining table. After a brief examination, Igor's master looks worried.
"Things are serious, Igor. Prepare a transfusion." Igor and his master work feverishly, but to no avail. Bob and Betty Hill are no more.
The Hills' deaths upset Igor's master greatly. Wearily, he climbs the steps to his conservatory, which houses his grand piano. For it is here that he has always found solace. He begins to play, and a stirring, almost haunting, melody fills the house.
Meanwhile, Igor is still in the lab tidying up. His eyes catch movement, and he notices the fingers on Betty's hand twitch, keeping time to the haunting piano music. Stunned, he watches as Bob's arm begins to rise, marking the beat! He is further amazed as Betty sits straight up! Unable to contain himself, he dashes up the stairs to the conservatory. He bursts in and shouts to his master: "Master, Master! The Hills are alive with the sound of music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"The scientist and his research staff were interacting with the recently landed aliens to gain information about their lifestyle when the question of reproduction came up. Finding it difficult to understand the oral description, the head researcher said "Why not just demonstrate for us?" The male alien then proceeded to intertwine his antennae with those of the female alien and after about 30 seconds of flying sparks a large sack begins to form on the female's back and two minutes later the sack breaks open and out pops a miniature alien. "That is how we reporduce. How is it done here on earth?", asked the aliens. The head scientist looks at his attractive female assistant and says "In the interest of scientific interchange I think we should demonstrate, don't you?" The sex-starved assistant is more than willing and after the climax of 30 minutes of heated passion the research scientist pants "There, that (pant) is how we do it (pant) on earth." "But where is the offspring?" asks the alien. "Oh, the gestation period is about 270 earth days", answers the scientist. "What!" exclaims the alien. "If you have to wait 270 earth days, then why were you in such a hurry at the end?"
Newfoundland, My Newfoundland
(Oh, Christmas Tree, Oh, Christmas Tree) by Brenna Lorenz
Convection's cell was at thy door, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Thy ancient heart to pieces tore, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Great faulted blocks came crashing down, and flood basalts the land did drown,
And clastics coarse fell all around, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland!
Iapetus began to spread, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Detritus from thy coast was shed, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Thy slope was draped, so proud and great, with massive banks of carbonate,
Grand bank to meet so sad a fate, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland!
For flysch encroaching from the east, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Devoured thy margin like a beast, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
The ocean floor was raised on high, its mafic head reared to the sky;
Its chromous threat was drawing nigh, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland!
Your once-proud bank was bowing down, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Subduction did thy margin drown, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
The angry mantle did desire to smother thee with ash and fire,
And close Iapetus entire, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland!
The island arc with fiery breath, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Did shower all the land with death, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Until subduction's starving throat, on Grenville crust was made to choke,
The tyrant's rule collision broke, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland!
The land subsided in its pain, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Olistostromes in chaos reigned, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Then in Caradoc time there came a shale everywhere the same
That blanketed thy wounds and shame, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland!
Behold! Upon thy ancient shore, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
A landmass was annealed once more, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland,
Alas! Thy trials go on and on, for rifting struck the Avalon -
The cycle must repeat anon, Newfoundland, my Newfoundland!Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to her husband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen my joules!"
"Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux a moment. Perhaps they're mislead."
"No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting them in my burette ... We must call a copper."
Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms, said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name of Lawrence Ium.
"We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and dangerous. His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I can catch him there." With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an activated state and sped off along the reaction pathway ...
-- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations"Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. The first says to the second, "I think I've lost an electron." The second replies, "Are you sure?" to which the first retorts, "Yes, I'm positive."
Isn't it time we required universal Federal licensing for use of Alka Seltzer, Fizzies, and Pop Rocks? Background verification, two week cooling off period, fingerprinting, mandatory fizz locks. No gas release in excess of one liter. No automatic unloading - no motorized or wind-up Pez dispensors!
CO2 kills! Suffocation! GREENHOUSE EFFECT! Save our children!
Minorities are put at risk! I want a National War on CO2! We already know how Belgium was decimated by Coke-a-Cola. Can we afford to risk American lives so the small cliques of fantatics and zealots can exercise their bubbling pornographic appetites? How many children must die before we act!
Burning the flag releases CO2, Hitler's crematoria released CO2, firebombing Dresden released CO2, nuking Hiroshima released CO2 - how much clearer must it be made?
And what about NO2? SO2? ClO2? Are we about to discriminate on the basis of Period Table group number? Renumbering the groups ws not enough. Renumbering the groups will NEVER be enough! I say, "NEVER!" Every elemental group must realize its full electrochemical potential and oxidation state, and all its lesser oxidation states as well - with equal representation!
Today it is baking soda and vinegar. Tomorrow it will be sodium hydroxide and concentrated sulfuric acid. By the end of the week butyllithium/TMEDA will be poured into Magic Acid by the pound! By the ton! WHERE WILL IT STOP!
Exotherms, global warming, penguins sweated to death... all because some MONSTER wanted a little fizz. Isn't that the way it always starts, with a "little" CO2 in a Bierstube in Munich? Computer models and their renormalized data are unequivocal: 44.0104!
Mommy, daddy, does your child breathe CO2?
Put an end to the CO2 nightmare before it's too late!Graptolites (Melody: Danny Boy)
by Brenna Lorenz
Oh, graptolites -
Your stipes, your stipes are calling
From every shale in every ancient land;
Oh, graptolites -
Through dream's dark oceans falling,
Your rhabdosomes with grace in every strand.
Oh, take me back to Cambro-Ordovician days,
With all your youth and glory in full blaze -
You lived to see a mighty ocean wax and wane,
But modern oceans spread for you in vain.
Dendroidea -
Your autothecae smiling,
Through Tremodocian trials they would last -
Dendroidea -
Your bithecae are crying,
For when you fade, alas, they too must pass.
Why did you leave the ocean bottom safe and wide
To drift with plankton on the roving tide?
Oh, Dictyonema, from thy thecal loins emerged
Proud Graptoloids, that from their past diverged.O Humid Night
(Melody: "O Holy Night")
O Humid Night
Anopheline mosquitoes
Are circling you in the hope of a meal.
She takes a bite, saliva from her mouthparts
Drool parasites which you can't see or feel
Your brain can get sick,
You will have a coma
After the rage and the headaches have passed
You're veggie soup, home to protozoa,
Mosquito lands, time to go home at last..
Fall on your knees,
Pale, burning with fever
Plasmodia
Are in your blood, were in your spleen
Malaria
There's no real cure, just in your dreams...Some tourists in the Chicago Museum of Natural History are marveling at the dinosaur bones. One of them asks the guard, "Can you tell me how old the dinosaur bones are?"
The guard replies, "They are 3 million, four years, and six months old."
"That's an awfully exact number," says the tourist. "How do you know their age so precisely?"
The guard answers, "Well, the dinosaur bones were three million years old when I started working here, and that was four and a half years ago."A physics professor at a state university in Michigan was famous for his animated lectures. He was short and thin with wild white hair and an excited expression. In lecture he would through himself from the
top of desks and throw frisbees to students in the back row to illustrate various principles.One day in class he was spinning on an office chair holding weights in each hand when he lost his balance and tumbled into the first row.
He apologized to his class for going off on a tangent.
Submitted by Kristy.
Oh Cesium
(Tune, Oh Christmas tree)
Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
Thy spectrum doth us please-ium.
Thy sky-blue lines in plasma's fire,
Do dreams of icy lakes inspire.
Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
Thy spectrum doth us please-ium.
Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
When held, you never freeze-ium.
Thy gently smoking silver spheres,
When dropped in water, please the ears.
Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
When held, you never freeze-ium.
Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
You put us at our ease-ium.
You tend the seconds of the day,
So that our watches never stray
Oh Cesium, oh Cesium,
You put us at our ease-ium.
---Songs of Cesium #34Cesium Glows
(Tune, Love's a Rose - Neil Young)
Cesium glows, but you better not lick it,
It's fire grows when it's on the tongue.
Lips full of holes, you'll know you've kissed it,
Just take a bite if you want to die young.
I want to see what's never been seen,
I want to dream that Cesium dream.
Come on love, we can glow together,
Let's eat it all right now.
Take a bite right now.
I want to lie in a hole in the ground,
Six feet deep, and twelve feet 'round.
Sky blue light around me shinin',
Pale blue worms upon me dinin'.
Cesium glows, but you better not lick it,
It's fire grows when its on your tongue.
Mouth full of holes if ever you kiss it,
Gimme a spoon 'cause I wanna die Young.
---Songs of Cesium #109Recently, the Psychic Hotline and Psychic Friends Network have launched hotlines for frogs. Here is the story of one frog and his discussing with his psychic.
A frog telephones the Psychic Hotline and is told, “You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you.”
The frog says, “This is great! Will I meet her at a party, or what?”
“No,” says the psychic. “Next semester in her biology class.”
Submitted by zanny.
A vertically challenged psychic was arrested one day. He escaped from jail and the newspaper headline read, "SMALL MEDIUM AT-LARGE."
A Mitochondrion walks into a bar and asks for some energy.
The barman says: "That'll be 80p!"Two atoms were walking down the street. One atom says to the other one, "I've lost an electron! The 2nd atom replies, "Are you sure?" Says the 1st atom, "I'm positive."
Yesterday, scientists revealed that beer contains small traces of female hormones. To prove their theory, the scientists fed 100 men 12 pints of beer and observed that 100% of them gained weight, talked excessively without making sense, became emotional, couldn't drive, and refused to apologize when wrong.
No further testing is planned...Iron the Red Atom Molecule
(to the tune of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer")
There was Cobalt and Argon and Carbon and Fluorine
Silver and Boron and Neon and Bromine
But do you recall
the most famous element of all?
Iron the red atom molecule
had a very shiny orbital
And if you ever saw him
You'd enjoy his magnetic glow
All of the other molecules
used to laugh and call him Ferrum
They never let poor Iron
join in any reaction games.
Then one inert Chemistry eve
Santa came to say
Iron with your orbital so bright
won't you catalyze the reaction tonight?
Then how the atoms reacted
and combined in twos and threes
Iron the red atom molecule
you'll go down in Chemistry!What did the planet get in karate?
An asteroid belt!Cesium (Burning in the Dead of Night)
(Tune, Blackbird)
Cesium burning in the dead of night.
Take your sky blue lines and start to shine.
All my life,
I was only waiting for the moment you were mine.
Cesium burning on a lake of ice.
Lift your glorious flame up to the skies.
All your life,
You were only waiting for some water to arise.
Cesium burn.
Cesium burn.
Give your light to this coal black night.
--- Songs of Cesium #133Scientists studying a pair of visiting aliens ask how they reproduce. The male alien says "Here, will show you" and proceeds to intertwine his antennae with those of the female for 15 seconds afterwhich a sack beigns to expand on the feamle's back. 60 seconds later the sack breaks open and a minature alien pops out. "That's how it's done says the male alein. How do you earthlings reproduce?" The male scientist eyes his attractive female assistant and says "Shall we demonstrate?" The female assistant feeling somewhat frisky replies "In the interest of scientific interchange, of course" and the two proceed to engage in 30 minutes of fantastic sex. "There", says the scientist aftterwords, "that's how we earthlings reproduce!" Fine" replies the alien, "but where's your offspring?" "Oh, our gestation period is 9 months" says the scientist. "9 months?" questions the alien, "but if you have to wait 9 months, why were you in such a hurry at the end?"
Chemist's fast prayer:
Dear Lord, if I mix sodium
with concentrated HNO3,
and add to it Plutonium,
would you take care of me?Molecule 1: I just lost an electron.
Molecule 2: Are you sure?
Molecule 1: I’m positive.The Twelve Days of Chemistry
On the first day of chemistry
My teacher gave to me
A candle from Chem Study.
(second day) two asbestos pads
(third day) three little beakers
(fourth day) four work sheets
(fifth day) five golden moles
(sixth day) six flaming test tubes
(seventh day) seven unknown samples
(eighth day) eight homework problems
(ninth day) nine grams of salt
(tenth day) a ten page test
(eleventh day) eleven molecules
(twelfth day) a twelve point quizAt a press conference the Brunettes announce they are going to make a trip to the Moon. The Redheads speak up "That's been done before, we're going to go to Mars". The Blondes speak up "That's nothing, we're going to be the first people to go to the Sun". One of the reporters says "Don't you idiots know that you'll burn up?" The Blondes say "NO WE WON'T; WE'RE GOING TO GO AT NIGHT!"
Total immersion geologists
Total immersion geologists: Are you totally obsessed with geology? If so, then you are a total immersion geologist. Here are the ten warning signs:
1. You judge a restaurant by the type of decorative building stone they use rather than their food.
2. You manage to turn any conversation into a discussion of geology, as in: "What did you think of that Superbowl game last night?" "I must have missed that conference. Who sponsored it? Geological Society of America?"
3. You refuse to let nightfall stop your field excursions and continue looking at the outcrops using the headlights of your field vehicle.
4. You like rock music only because it's called "rock" music.
5. You will try to claw through the water flowing in a stream to get a better look at the bedrock at the base of the channel.
6. You will walk across eight lanes of freeway traffic to see if the outcrop on the other side of the highway is the same type of rock as the side you're parked on.
7. You name your children after rocks and minerals.
8. You're not sure if you have children.
9. You view non-geologists as subhuman.REAL CHEMISTRY NAMES OF REAL PEOPLE
Gold J. of North Carolina
Silver J. of North Carolina
Argon C. of Guam
Florine J. of Tennessee
Clorine J. of Maryland
Benzena J. of South Carolina
Ethyl J. of Ohio
Ether J. of Tennessee
Methyl S. of Maine
Methane M. of AlabamaNASA just disclosed details why the rover wouldn't accept any commands. They took a picture of the rover's built-in display which showed a windows screen and the text "press any key to continue".
It is not conclusive yet, but the NASA believes the Mars Pathfinder has found proof of life on Mars. The cd player was stolen.
The Mars Pathfinder was renamed today in honor of the late astronomer, Carl Sagan. The craft will henceforth be referred to as bha memorial station.
You've probably heard about the Mars Pathfinder probe. Once it lands on the red planet, pathfinder will release the sojourner rover, a little laboratory on wheels. Sojourner will cruise about the martian surface performing experments. It turns out that sojourner and pathfinder will communicate using two standard, off-the-shelf 9600 baud radio modems.
According to jet propulsion laboratory program manager Donna Shirley, the modem manufacturer warned jpl that sending the modem to mars would void the warranty.Chemistry Christmas
'Twas the night before Christmas,
The lab was quite still;
Not a Bunsen was burning
(Nor had they the will).
The test tubes were placed
In their racks with great care,
In hopes Father Chemistry
Soon would be there.
The students were sleeping
So sound in their dorms,
All dreaming of fluids
And Crystalline forms.
Lab-Aids in their aprons
And I in my smock.
When outside the lab
There arose such a roar
I leaped from my stool
And fell flat on the floor.
Out ot the fire escape
All of us flew.
What was the commotion?
Not one of knew.
The flood-lights shone out
O're the campus so bright
It looked like old Stockholm
On Nobel Prize Night.
My fume-blinded eyes
Then viewed (dare I say?)
Eight anions pulling
A water-trough sleigh.
And holding the bonds
Tied to each one of them
Was a figure I knew
As our own Papa Chem.
With speeds in excess
Of most X-rays they came.
As they Dopplered along
He called each one by name.
"Now Nitrite, now Phosphate,
Now Borate, now Chloride
On Citrate, on Bromate,
On Sulfite and Oxide.
Forget what you know
Of that randomness stuff,
Let's go straight to that roof,
If you've quanta enough."
As fluids Bernoullian
Behave in a pinch,
Those ions said "Alchemist
This is a cinch."
So up to the lab-roof
Those "chargers" they sped
With Pop Chemistry safe
In his water-trough sled.
Just a microsec later
Electroscopes showed
Charged particles coming
To our lab abode
We raced back inside,
And what d'ya think?
Down the fume-hood Pop Chem fell,
Right into the sink.
He was dressed in a lab-coat,
Quite ragged and old,
With removable buttons
(The style, we're told)
A tray-full of beakers
He clutched to his heart--
And under his arm
Was an orbital chart.
His eyes through his goggles
I just couldn't see
His hands were all yellow
From H-N-O-3.
His head was quite bald
With a fringe all around
Like a ring test for iron,
That same shade of brown.
He puffed a cigar
With a smell not at all
Unlike the organic lab
Right down the hall.
The smoke billowed forth
From his angular face
And with Brownian Movement
Enveloped the place.
He was thin as a match
And not terribly tall
He wasn't the type
I'd expected at all
But a look at his clothes,
In the lab's harsh white light,
With their acid-burn holes--
He's a chemist all right!
He didn't say much
(He had no time to kill)
And filled all the test tubes
With nary a spill.
Then placing them bak
On the benches with care
He dashed to the fume-hood
And rose through the air.
He called to his team
And his ions took off
And kinetics took care
Of Pop Chem and his trough,
But I heard him cry out
As he flew down the street
"Merry Holidays to all!
May your stockrooms stay neat!"The Geologist's Come-All-Ye (a folksong) by Brenna Lorenz
Come all ye lads and you will hear
About the life that we love dear,
Refrain: With our diddle-air-re-oh, falling rock away, knock it down,
Fall-di-knock-a-rock-away, me laddie-oh!
Geologists all bold and strong,
We are the subject of this song.
We get up with the rising sun
And map until the day is done.
We walk two hundred miles a day,
And study rocks along the way.
We fight our way through brush and trees
And slog through bog up to our knees.
When flies are thick, then we don't walk,
They carry us from rock to rock.
We swing our hammers with a whack,
Take home an outcrop on our backs.
Nine hundred pounds of rock or more
Is just an average daily score.
If we run out of food to eat
There's always rock beneath our feet.
There's nothing quite like granite stew
'Though graptolites are some good, too.
In the evening to the clubs we flock,
To drink Dominion and Old Stock.
Here's to your health and our health, too,
May your life prove as good to you,
As our...Helium walks into a bar and asks for a drink. The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve noble gases here." Helium doesn't react.
A hesitant driver, waiting for a traffic jam to clear, came to a
complete stop on the freeway ramp. The traffic thinned, but the driver
still waited.
Finally a furious voice from the vehicle behind him cried, "The sign
says 'Yield', not "give up!"There was this biologist who was doing some experiments with frogs. He was measuring just how far frogs could jump. So he puts a frog on a line and says "Jump frog, jump!". The frog jumps 2 feet. He writes in his lab book: 'Frog with 4 legs - jumps 2 feet'.
Next he chops off one of the legs and repeats the experiment. "Jump frog jump!" he says. The frog manages to jump 1.5 feet. So he writes in his lab book: 'Frog with 3 legs - jumps 1.5 feet'.
He chops off another and the frog only jumps 1 foot. He writes in his book: 'Frog with 2 legs jumps 1 foot'.
He continues and removes yet another leg. " Jump frog jump!" and the frog somehow jumps a half of a foot. So he writes in his lab book again: 'Frog with one leg - jumps 0.5 feet'.
Finally he chops off the last leg. He puts the frog on the line and teels it to jump. "Jump frog, jump!". The frog doesn't move. "Jump frog, jump!!!". Again the frog stays on the line. "Come on frog, jump!". But to no avail.
The biologist finally writes in his book: 'Frog with no legs - goes deaf'Cesium the Beautiful
Oh beautiful for blue of skies,
Among thy spectral lines.
When cast upon the waters clear,
Thy splendid fire shines.
Oh Cesium,
Oh Cesium,
Our days we trust to thee.
Thy faultless rhyme,
In keeping time,
From care doth set us free.
---Songs of Cesium #68Q: How many physical chemists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but he'll change it three times, plot a straight line through the data, and then extrapolate to zero concentration.
"A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold."
Isaac Asimov said that if you want to find a chemist, ask him/her to discuss the following words: 1) mole 2) unionized. As he so eloquently put it, "If he starts talking about furry animals and organized labor, keep walking."
Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist!
Definition: (Fe)male: Male with iron added, for greater strength, ductility, and magnetisim.
Acid is base.
Q: Why do chemists like nitrates so much?
A: They're cheaper than day rates.
"Scale keeps forming inside the kettle", complained Tom, recalcitrantly.Q: Why are atoms Catholic?
A: Because they have mass.This was a story told to us by our chemistry master at school. A female student wished to make some potassium hydroxide solution (aqueous) and decided to throw a large lump of potassium into a bucket of water.
Her professor observed what she was about to do, out of the corner of his eye and hurried towards her, and after confirming this was what she was intending to do, asked her first to stir the water in the bucket for five minutes before adding the potassium.
She was puzzled and ran after him to ask the purpose of this action.
'It will give me time to get away' said the professor.Q: How many Cardassians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 4. One to change the light bulb, and one to shoot him and take the credit, two more for disposing the body out an airlock, and 100 credits each to hire them.It was a celebratory mood with the boys at NASA — they had just made the scientific achievement of a lifetime. As they were uncorking a bottle of champagne, the head scientist at NASA asked everyone to be quiet as he was receiving a congratulatory phone call from the President of the United States.
He picked up a special red phone, and spoke into it. “Mr. President,” he said with a broad smile on his face, “After twelve years of hard research and billions of dollars spent, we have finally found intelligent life on Mars.”
He listened for a second, and his smile gradually disappeared, replaced by a frown. He said, “But that’s impossible… we could never do it… yes, Mr. President,” and hung up the phone.
He addressed the crowd of scientists staring at him curiously. “I have some bad news,” he said, “the President said that now that we’ve found intelligent life on Mars… he wants us to try to find it in the Congress.”
Submitted by zanny.
IT'S OFFICIAL : CHEMISTRY LECTURES ARE A YAWN.
October 9, 1995
A scientist has come up with proof of something students have known for years -- chemistry lectures are boring. In an article published in the current issue of Chemistry in Britain, a university chemistry lecturer introduced a guest lecturer to a class of 50 doctoral candidates.
Then, he and his colleagues studied variations in what he calls the HTFDR -- "head-to-floor distance reduction." After about an hour , the average HTFDR dropped from 135cm to 121cm, said the author of the study, who preferred to remain anonymous.
The HTFDR immediately bounced back to normal when the speaker uttered the magic words: "And in conclusion . . ."Q: Why shouldn't you make fun of a paleontologist?
A: Because you will get Jurasskicked.Several scientists were all posed the following question: “What is 2 * 2 ?”
The engineer whips out his slide rule (so it’s old) and shuffles it back and forth, and finally announces “3.99″.
The physicist consults his technical references, sets up the problem on his computer, and announces “it lies between 3.98 and 4.02″.
The mathematician cogitates for a while, then announces: “I don’t know what the answer is, but I can tell you, an answer exists!”.
Philosopher smiles: “But what do you mean by 2 * 2 ?”
Logician replies: “Please define 2 * 2 more precisely.”
The sociologist: “I don’t know, but is was nice talking about it”.
Behavioral Ecologist: “A polygamous mating system”.
Medical Student : “4″
All others looking astonished : “How did you know?”
Medical Student : “I memorized it.”
Submitted by zanny.
At the physics exam: 'Describe the universe in 200 words and give three examples.'
Q: What do physicists enjoy doing the most at baseball games?
A: The 'wave'.
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was known as SLAC, until the big earthquake, when it became known as SPLAC. SPLAC? Stanford Piecewise Linear Accelerator.
A student recognizes Einstein in a train and asks: Excuse me, professor, but does New York stop by this train?
Researchers in Fairbanks Alaska announced last week that they have discovered a superconductor which will operate at room temperature.
The answer to the problem was "log(1+x)". A student copied the answer from the good student next to him, but didn't want to make it obvious that he was cheating, so he changed the answer slightly, to "timber(1+x)"
One day in class, Richard Feynman was talking about angular momentum. He described rotation matrices and mentioned that they did not commute. He said that Sir William Hamilton discovered noncommutivity one night when he was taking a walk in his garden with Lady Hamilton. As they sat down on a bench, there was a moment of passion. It was then that he discovered that AB did not equal BA.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends on your frame of reference.A science teacher tells his class, "Oxygen is a must for breathing and life. It was discovered in 1773." A blonde student responds, "Thank God I was born after 1773! Otherwise I would have died without it."
Do you think there is intelligent life on Mars? Ask John.
I sure do, replied Bob; you don’t see them spending billions of dollars to come here, do you?O Little Melting Particle
(to the tune of "O Little Town Of Bethlehem")
Para Dichloro Benzene
how do you melt so well?
The plateau of your cooling curve
is really something swell.
We think the heat of fusion
of water is so nice
Give up fourteen hundred cals per mole
and what you get is ice.Q: What do you call it when an astronaut gets sick after eating?
A: Launching his lunch!Deck the Labs
Deck the labs with rubber tubing
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Use your funnel and your filter
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Don we now our goggles and aprons
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Before we go to our lab stations
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Fill the beakers with solutions
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Mix solutions for reactions
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Watch we now for observations
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
So we can collect our data
Fa la la la la, la la la la.Test Tubes Bubbling
(to the tune of "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire")
Test tubes bubbling in a water bath
Strong smells nipping at ypur nose.
Tiny molecules with their atoms all aglow
Will find it hard to be inert tonight.
They know that Chlorine's on its way
He's loaded lots of little electrons on his sleigh
And every student's slide rule is on the sly
To see if the teacher really can multiply.
And so I offer you this simple phrase
To chemistry students in this room
Although it's been said many times, many ways
Merry molecules to you.O Come All Ye Gases
O Come all yea gases
diatomic wonders
O come yea, o come yea
calls Avogadro.
O come yea in moles
6 x 10 to the 23rd
O molar mass and molecules
O volume, pressure and temperature
O molar volume of gases at S.T.P.BAN DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE! THE INVISIBLE KILLER
Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means death.
Dihydrogen monoxide:
* is also known as hydric acid, and is the major component of acid rain.
* contributes to the "greenhouse effect."
* may cause severe burns.
* contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
* accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
* may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
* has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
CONTAMINATION IS REACHING EPIDEMIC PROPORTIONS!
Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. In the midwest alone DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage.
Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:
* as an industrial solvent and coolant.
* in nuclear power plants.
* in the production of styrofoam.
* as a fire retardant.
* in many forms of cruel animal research.
* in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
* as an additive in "junk-foods" and other food products.
Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!
THE HORROR MUST BE STOPPED!
The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation." In fact, the navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive tons of it through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later use.
IT'S NOT TOO LATE!
Act NOW to prevent further contamination. Find out more about this dangerous chemical. What you don't know CAN hurt you and others throughout the world.A photon walks into a hotel. The desk clerk says, "Welcome to our hotel. Can we help you with your luggage?" The photon says, "No thanks, I'm traveling light."
The Marginal Basin Song by Chris Stillman
(melody: Lead us on, thou Heavenly Father)
On a margin runs a canyon down into the ocean dark;
There's a basin slowly filling with detritus from the arc.
Refrain: For the drifting causes rifting,
Opens basins mighty fine
Which strike-slip will close in time.
With volcanics there's no problem; they're erupting all the time;
Fill the thin with pillow lavas, sheeted dikes and serpentine.
Rising slowly from the ocean filled with gritties coarse and fine,
Are you fore-arc? Are you anti-arc? Are you just a geosyncline?A poet and a scientist were traveling together on a plane. The scientist was bored and said to the poet, "Hey, you, do you want to play a game? I'll ask you a question, and if you get it wrong, you give me $5. Then, you ask me a question, and if I can't answer it, I'll give you $5."
The poet thought about this for a moment, but he decided against it, seeing that the scientist was obviously a very bright man. He politely turned down the scientist's offer.
The scientist, who was really bored, tried again. "Look, I'll ask you a question, and if you can't answer it, you give me $5. Then you ask me a question, and if I can't answer it, I'll give you $50."
The poet agreed. "Okay," the scientist said, "what is the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon?"
The poet, obviously not knowing the answer, didn't stop to think about the scientist's question. He took a $5 bill out of his pocket and handed it to the scientist.
The scientist happily accepted the bill and promptly said, "Okay, now it's your turn."
The poet thought about this for a few minutes, then asked, "All right, what goes up a mountain on three legs, but comes down on four?"
The bright glow quickly vanished from the scientist's face. He thought about this for a long time, taking out his notepad and making numerous calculations. He finally gave up on his notepad and took out his laptop, using his Multimedia Encyclopedia. As the plane was landing the scientist gave up. He reluctantly handed the poet a $50 bill.
The poet accepted it graciously, getting ready to stand up. "Wait!" the scientist shouted, "you can't do this to me! What's the answer?"
The poet looked at the scientist and calmly put a $5 bill into his hand.Chemistry Wonderland
Gases explode, are you listenin'
In your rest tube, silver glistens
A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight
Walking in a chemistry wonderland.
Gone away, is the buoyancy
Here to stay, is the density
A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight
Walking in a chemistry wonderland.
In the beaker we will make lead carbonate
and decide if what's left is nitrate
My partner asks "Do we measure it in moles or grams?"
and I'll say, "Does it matter in the end?"
Later on, as we calculate
the amount, of our nitrate
We'll face unafraid, the precipitates that we made
walking in a chemistry wonderland.To the tune of "Send in the Clowns"
So this is it,
A few bases to go,
I've tried and I've tried but the techniques's so slow.
I've poured my gels,
I've run quite a few.
Full of bubbles, they leaked and why I never knew.
But where are the clones?
I've got to have clones,
The end is so near.
Is my broth rich?
Does it look clear?
Contamination is something I always fear.
Are my plaques blue?
They shouldnt be,
No DNA left I'm down on my knees,
So give me some clones?
I've got to have clones,
The end is so near.
I've had bad preps,
There've been quite a few,
Ive tried all brands of PEG, fresh buffers, but nothing would do.
And though they say,
Solutions will keep,
In my hands they last no more than a week.
So send me some clones?
I've got to have clones,
The end is so near.
I've read my gels,
My eyes are quite sore,
There's still sequence missing, of this I am sure.
But there it is!!
Finally done.
I've conquered this fragment and now I have won.
Whats's this I hear?
A voice from the door.
My supervisor wants 10kb more!
So give me some clones,
I've got to have clones,
Or I'll be here all year!
Bill KalionisDURING my freshman biology class at North High School in Springfield, Ohio, our teacher was lecturing on the conditions in which bacteria exist. Elaborating on the acidic environment where bacteria thrive, he suggested a simple experiment. "I want you to drop a nail into a glass of Coke or Pepsi, and then observe the acidic reaction on the nail," he said. The girl sitting next to me raised her hand and asked in all seriousness, "Do you mean a real nail, or a press-on?"
-- Contributed to "Tales Out of School" by Carolyn Stickney ? 1996 The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. All rights reserved.I heard this story in the late seventies. Just prior to a manned launch an insect was heard in the superstructure of the rocket. The risk analysis and decision had to be made to launch or to delay the launch and purge the insect. The risk was negligible so the rocket launch. The insect was dubbed the Gemini Cricket.
The geology poem
Ode to Olivine in Thin Section, a poem by Brenna Lorenz
In basalt a lurid green
Bespeaks the savage olivine;
Mantle's child, born of fire,
Restless in the open air,
Little beads of anger bear
The torture of desire.
Silica upon its face
It suffers, helpless, in disgrace,
Its powers of reaction bound
By solid's bond and cage,
In agony confined to rage
Unstable and unsound.
Its birefringent power plays
The sifted light to rare displays;
The haunting, primal colors tell
Of fire and fury's flag unfurled,
Flag of fluid, nether world,
Beneath the fragile shell.Why do these 2 relationships differ so much: the orbital relationship between the earth and sun and that of a tether ball and it's pole?.......
.......that of the sun and earth is a no strings attatched relationship and the other is not!Q: What did the 30 degree angle say to the 90 degree angle?
A: "You think you're always right!"I've always wondered how cool it would be to go to outer space, the Doc said I need to find my inner space first!
I Saw Teacher Kissing Santa Chlorine
I saw teacher kissing Santa Chlorine
under the chemistree last night
They didn't sneak me down the periodic chart
to take a peek
At all the atoms reacting in their beakers;
it was neat.
And I saw teacher kissing Santa Chlorine
under the chemistree so bright
Oh what a reaction there would have been
if the principal had walked in
With teacher kissing Santa Chlorine last night.Miss Jones had been giving her second-grade students a lesson on science. She had explained about magnets and showed how they would pick up nails and other bits of iron.
Now it was question time, and she asked, “My name begins with the letter ‘M’ and I pick up things. What am I?” A little boy on the front row proudly said, “You’re a mother!”
Submitted by vicky.
Why Don't We Mix Up the Two
(Tune, "Why don't we get drunk..."
with apologies to Jimmy Buffett)
I've got a pound of Cesium,
It's burning gently near.
The sky-blue flame looks lovely,
But it's noise I want to hear.
So darlin' bring some water,
A couple pints'll do.
And why don't we mix up the two?
Why don't we mix up the two?
'Cause Cesium and water,
Really make a wicked brew.
You say I've got a death wish,
But honey, I'm just blue.
So why don't we mix up the two?
---Songs of Cesium #29Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip? To get to the same side.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Issac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest, chickens in motion tend to cross roads.
A neutron walks into a bar; he asks the bartender, "How much for a beer?" The bartender looks at him, and says "For you, no charge."
Two fermions walk into a bar. One orders a drink. The other says "I'll have what he's having."
Two atoms bump into each other. One says "I think I lost an electron!" The other asks, "Are you sure?", to which the first replies, "I'm positive."
Renee Descartes walks into a bar, the bartender says "sir can I get you a martini "Descartes says "I don't think..." and he disappears
Where does bad light end up? Answer: In a prism!
Heisenberg is out for a drive when he's stopped by a traffic cop. The cop says "Do you know how fast you were going?" Heisenberg says "No, but I know where I am."Mole problems? Call Avogadro: 6.023 E23
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
(Picture of Einstein in a police uniform with caption): 186,000 miles per second. It's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Feathers are light.
The sun gives off light.
Therefore, the sun gives off feathers.THE LAST WORD
The Ultimate Scientific Dictionary
Activation Energy: The useful quantity of energy available in one cup of coffee.
Atomic Theory: A mythological explanation of the nature of matter, first proposed by the ancient Greeks, and now thoroughly discredited by modern computer simulation. Attempts to verify the theory by modern computer simulation have failed. Instead, it has been demonstrated repeatedly that computer outputs depend upon the color of the programmer's eyes, or occasionally upon the month of his or her birth. This apparent astrological connection, at last, vindicates the alchemist's view of astrology as the mother of all science.
Bacon, Roger: An English friar who dabbled in science and made experimentation fashionable. Bacon was the first science popularizer to make it big on the banquet and talk-show circuit, and his books even outsold the fad diets of the period.
Biological Science: A contradiction in terms.
Bunsen Burner: A device invented by Robert Bunsen (1811-1899) for brewing coffee in the laboratory, thereby enabling the chemist to be poisoned without having to go all the way to the company cafeteria.
Butyl: An unpleasant-sounding word denoting an unpleasant-smelling alcohol.
CAI: Acronym for "Computer-Aided Instruction". The modern system of training professional scientists without ever exposing them to the hazards and expense of laboratory work. Graduates of CAI-based programs are very good at simulated research.
Cavendish: A variety of pipe tobacco that is reputed to produce remarkably clear thought processes, and thereby leads to major scientific discoveries; hence, the name of a British research laboratory where the tobacco is smoked in abundance.
Chemical: A substance that:
1. An organic chemist turns into a foul odor;
2. an analytical chemist turns into a procedure;
3. a physical chemist turns into a straight line;
4. a biochemist turns into a helix;
5. a chemical engineer turns into a profit.
Chemical Engineering: The practice of doing for a profit what an organic chemist only does for fun.
Chromatography: (From Gr. chromo [color] + graphos [writing]) The practice of submitting manuscripts for publication with the original figures drawn in non-reproducing blue ink.
Clinical Testing: The use of humans as guinea pigs. (See also PHARMACOLOGY and TOXICOLOGY)
Compound: To make worse, as in: 1) A fracture; 2) the mutual adulteration of two or more elements.
Computer Resources: The major item of any budget, allowing for the acquisition of any capital equipment that is obsolete before the purchase request is released.
Eigen Function: The use to which an eigen is put.
En: The universal bidentate ligand used by coordination chemists. For years, efforts were made to use ethylene-diamine for this purpose, but chemists were unable to squeeze all the letters between the corners of the octahedron diagram. The timely invention of en in 1947 revolutionized the science.
Evaporation Allowance: The volume of alcohol that the graduate students can drink in a year's time.
Exhaustive Methylation: A marathon event in which the participants methylate until they drop from exhaustion.
First Order Reaction: The reaction that occurs first, not always the one desired. For example, the formation of brown gunk in an organic prep.
Flame Test: Trial by fire.Genetic Engineering: A recent attempt to formalize what engineers have been doing informally all along.
Grignard: A fictitious class of compounds often found on organic exams and never in real life.
Inorganic Chemistry: That which is left over after the organic, analytical, and physical chemists get through picking over the periodic table.
Mercury: (From L. Mercurius, the swift messenger of the gods) Element No. 80, so named because of the speed of which one of its compounds (calomel, Hg2Cl2) goes through the human digestive tract. The element is perhaps misnamed, because the gods probably would not be pleased by the physiological message so delivered.
Monomer: One mer. (Compare POLYMER).
Natural Product: A substance that earns organic chemists fame and glory when they manage to systhesize it with great difficulty, while Nature gets no credit for making it with great ease.
Organic Chemistry: The practice of transmuting vile substances into publications.
Partition Function: The function of a partition is to protect the lab supervisor from shrapnel produced in laboratory explosions.
Pass/Fail: An attempt by professional educators to replace the traditional academic grading system with a binary one that can be handled by a large digital computer.
Pharmacology: The use of rabbits and dogs as guinea pigs. (See also CLINICAL TESTING, TOXICOLOGY).
Physical Chemistry: The pitiful attempt to apply y=mx+b to everything in the universe.
Pilot Plant: A modest facility used for confirming design errors before they are built into a costly, full-scale production facility.
Polymer: Many mers. (Compare MONOMERS).
Prelims: (From L. pre [before] + limbo [oblivion]) An obligatory ritual practiced by graduate students just before the granting of a Ph.D. (if the gods are appeased) or an M.S. (if they aren't).
Publish or Perish: The imposed, involuntary choice between fame and oblivion, neither of which is handled gracefully by most faculty members.
Purple Passion: A deadly libation prepared by mixing equal volumes of grape juice and lab alcohol.
Quantum Mechanics: A crew kept on the payroll to repair quantums, which decay frequently to the ground state.
Rate Equations: (Verb phrase) To give a grade or a ranking to a formula based on its utility and applicability. H=E, for example, applies to everything everywhere, and therefore rates an A. pV=nRT, on the other hand, is good only for nonexistent gases and thus receives only a D+, but this grade can be changed to a B- if enough empirical virial coefficients are added.
Research: (Irregular noun) That which I do for the benefit of humanity, you do for the money, he does to hog all the glory.
Sagan: The international unit of humility.
Scientific Method: The widely held philosophy that a theory can never be proved, only disproved, and that all attempts to explain anything are therefore futile.
SI: Acronym for "Systeme Infernelle".
Spectrophotometry: A long word used mainly to intimidate freshman nonmajors.
Spectroscope: A disgusting-looking instrument used by medical specialists to probe and examine the spectrum.
Toxicology: The wholesale slaughter of white rats bred especially for that purpose. (See also CLINICAL TESTING, PHARMACOLOGY).
X-Ray Diffraction: An occupational disorder common among physicians, caused by reading X-ray pictures in darkened rooms for prolonged periods. The condition is readily cured by a greater reliance on blood chemistries; the lab results are just as inconclusive as the X-rays, but are easier to read.
Ytterbium: A rare and inconsequential element, named after the village of Ytterby, Sweden (not to be confused with Iturbi, the late pianist and film personality, who was actually Spanish, not Swedish). Ytterbium is used mainly to fill block 70 in the periodic table. Iturbi was used mainly to play Jane Powell's father.Q: Why do pirates like algebra?
A: "Annex" marks the spot.When you die, you should have your brain donated to science. I hear they're trying to come up with the perfect vacuum.
Did you know if you were to stretch your blood vessels out end to end in a straight line, you would die?
In the far distant future in the year 4527, a number of scientists from all over the universe were having a convention on a far distant galaxy. Two beings were seated next to one another when they struck up a conversation.
"Where are you from?" the one asked.
"I'm from Alpha Century," he answered. "Where are you from?"
"I'm from Earth" was the answer.
"I know someone from earth," the Alpha Centurion said. "John Smith. Do you know him?"Two molecules are walking down the street and one starts looking around. The other asks,
"What's wrong?"
"I have lost my electron!"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive!"The Vulcan Neck Pinch is not half as powerful as the Vulcan Groin Kick, but it's more politically correct.
---William WhiteThese are reputedly real answers to questions on science tests.
When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.
Water is composed of two gins, oxygin and hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.
Nitrogen is not found in Ireland because it is not found in a free state.
When you breathe, you inspire. When you do not breathe, you expire.
Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes, and caterpillars.
Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is affirmative or negative.
The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader.
The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.
A fossil is an extinct animal. The older it is, the more extinct it is.
For fainting: Rub the person's chest, or, if it's a lady, rub her arm above the hand. Or put her head between the knees of the nearest medical doctor.
Equator: a menagerie lion running around Earth through Africa.
Rhubarb: a kind of celery gone bloodshot.
The skeleton is what is left after the insides have been taken out and the outsides have been taken off. The purpose of the skeleton is so that there is something to hitch the meat to.
To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose.
The body consists of three parts - the brainium, the borax and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain. The borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowels, of which there are five - A, E, I, O, and U.Scientists have proven that there are two things in the air that have been known to cause women to get pregnant: their legs.
Q: What did Mr Spock say when he looked
in the toilet?
A: Captains LogThe experimentalist comes running excitedly into the theorist's office, waving a graph taken off his latest experiment. "Hmmm," says the theorist, "That's exactly where you'd expect to see that peak. Here's the reason (long logical explanation follows)." In the middle of it, the experimentalist says "Wait a minute", studies the chart for a second, and says, "Oops, this is upside down." He fixes it. "Hmmm," says the theorist, "you'd expect to see a dip in exactly that position. Here's the reason...".
A Princeton plasma physicist is at the beach when he discovers an ancient looking oil lantern sticking out of the sand. He rubs the sand off with a towel and a genie pops out. The genie offers to grant him one wish. The physicist retrieves a map of the world from his car an circles the Middle East and tells the genie, "I wish you to bring peace in this region".
After 10 long minutes of deliberation, the genie replies, "Gee, there are lots of problems there with Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, and all those other places. This is awfully embarrassing. I've never had to do this before, but I'm just going to have to ask you for another wish. This one is just too much for me".
Taken aback, the physicist thinks a bit and asks, "I wish that the Princeton tokamak would achieve scientific fusion energy break-even."
After another deliberation the genie asks, "Could I see that map again?"
What is the difference between a physicist, an engineer, and a mathematician?
If an engineer walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he takes the bucket of water and pours it on the fire and puts it out.
If a physicist walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he takes the bucket of water and pours it eloquently around the fire and lets the fire put itself out.
If a mathematician walks into a room and sees a fire in the middle and a bucket of water in the corner, he convinces himself there is a solution and leaves.
An experimental physicist performs an experiment involving two cats, and an inclined tin roof. The two cats are very nearly identical; same sex, age, weight, breed, eye and hair color. The physicist places both cats on the roof at the same height and lets them both go at the same time. One of the cats fall off the roof first so obviously there is some difference between the two cats.
What is the difference? One cat has a greater mew.
French physicist Ampere (1775-1836) had two cats, one big and a one small, and he loved them very much. But when the door was closed cats couldn't enter or exit the room. So Ampere ordered two holes to be made in his door: one big for the big cat, and one small for the small cat.
A psychologist makes an experiment with a mathematician and a physicist. He puts a good-looking, naked woman in a bed in one corner of the room and the mathematician on a chair in another one, and tells him: "I?ll half the distance between you and the woman every five minutes, and you?re not allowed to stand up." the mathematician runs away, yelling: "in that case, I?ll never get to this woman!". After that, the psychologist takes the physicist and tells him the plan. The physicist starts grinning. the psychologist asks him: "but you?ll never get to this woman?", the physicists tells him: "sure, but for all practical things this is a good approximation."
There is this farmer who is having problems with his chickens. All of the sudden, they are all getting very sick and he doesn't know what is wrong with them. After trying all conventional means, he calls a biologist, a chemist, and a physicist to see if they can figure out what is wrong. So the biologist looks at the chickens, examines them a bit, and says he has no clue what could be wrong with them. Then the chemist takes some tests and makes some measurements, but he can't come to any conclusions either. So the physicist tries. He stands there and looks at the chickens for a long time without touching them or anything. Then all of the sudden he starts scribbling away in a notebook. Finally, after several gruesome calculations, he exclaims, "I've got it! But it only works for spherical chickens in a vacuum."Q. How many Borg does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. All of themIf you rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires
If you have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal
If you have more toys than your kids
If you need a checklist to turn on the TV
If you have introduced your kids by the wrong name
If you have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work
If your I.Q. number is bigger than your weight
If the microphone or visual aids at a meeting don’t work and you rush up to the front to fix it
If you can remember 7 computer passwords but not your anniversary
If you have memorized the program scheduled for the Discovery channel and have seen most of the shows already
Submitted by vicky.
Q: What kind of ghosts haunt chemistry faculties?
A: Methylated Spirits!
Q: How many atoms in a guacamole?
A:Avocado's number.
Q: What do chemists use to make guacomole?
A: Avogadros.
Free radicals have revolutionized chemistry.
These were printed on bumper stickers and given out at an American Chemical Society meeting 10 or 12 years ago: It takes alkynes to make a world.
"Take plenty of the dark purple solution", Tom offered, managnimously.
"This old pipe is rusty", said Tom, ironically.Q: Why are Helium, Curium, and Barium the medical elements?
A: Because if you can't heal-ium or cure-ium, you bury-um.I Wish I had a Pound
Oh I wish I had a pound of cesium.
Oh I wish I had a pound of cesium.
I would take it in the shower,
And I'd glory in its power.
Oh I wish I had a pound of cesium.
---Songs of Cesium #111
Friday, 26 February 2016
Science Jokes
About Kannnadasan -
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