NRTS Safety Poster showinbg the destroyed insides of the SL-1 reactor
SL-1 Reactor Accident and Nuclear Reactor Fatalities

SL-1 Reactor Accident and Nuclear Reactor Fatalities

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The above image is a photo of the mangled insides of the SL-1 reactor after its criticality excursion accident. We’re still in science-lite mode here until the move across the country is done. Writing to maximize SEO is still disabled. Packing and moving is not my idea of a good time.   Today’s science-lite offering is a video made by the now-defunct Atomic Energy Commission about the SL-1 Reactor accident in 1961. Playtime is approximately 40 minutes: The video includes footage…

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Element 118: Oganesson

Element 118: Oganesson

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My blog posts are going to continue to be science-lite until we’re done with our move from Maine to Idaho, sometime in mid-October.  This week’s science-lite offering is our newest element, the element 188, which was officially named  just last year as Oganesson, after physicist Yuri Oganessian, who headed the joint Russian-American team that made the discovery of the element in 2006.  They collided atoms of California-249 and Calcium-48 to produce three – and maybe even four – atoms of…

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The Most Elegant Periodic Table Ever

The Most Elegant Periodic Table Ever

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My blog posts are going to be science-lite until we’re done with our move from Maine to Idaho.  This week’s offering is the most elegant periodic table every drafted.  It is a thing a beauty, stacking the elements by the number of orbitals and arranging them geometrically by type and reactivity.  If you grok physical chemistry, you will really be blown away.  If you don’t grok physical chemistry, then please just appreciate the geometry beauty inherit in the order of…

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The Best USGS Topo Map Ever!

The Best USGS Topo Map Ever!

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My blog posts are going to be science-lite until we’re done with our move from Maine to Idaho.  This week’s offering is the Rozel Point SW Utah 7.5 minute topo map. I discovered this topo while working on a project involving the Rozel Point Oil Field, which is mostly under the Great Salt Lake.  Anyway, I believe that just by looking at this topo, you will discover the great humor and awesomeness of it.  Words often fail to describe this…

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figure of Labrador instrument from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/231197.pdf
Corpse Gas Part II: Enter the Soil Gas Cadavermeter

Corpse Gas Part II: Enter the Soil Gas Cadavermeter

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CORPSE GAS 101 At the dawn of the 21st century, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation promoted research into quantitative methods of measuring corpse gasses as an adjunct or possible replacement for cadaver dogs. They funded a joint project with the University of Tennessee body farm and a soil gas group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A body farm is just what it sounds like: it’s a plot of land where researchers plant corpses in order to study the…

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Corpse Gas Part I: Cadaver Dogs and Other Human Remains Detection Methods

Corpse Gas Part I: Cadaver Dogs and Other Human Remains Detection Methods

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Beginning in 2010, I had the opportunity to help in the search for Susan Powell, a mother of two toddlers from West Valley City, Utah. Susan is a missing person. She was last seen on the evening of December 7, 2009. Her husband, the now-deceased Josh Powell, remains the sole “person of interest” in her disappearance. The details of her case made headlines internationally so I won’t repeat them here. There are three good “true crimes” books out on the…

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One of the 1919 total eclipse photographic plates from Dyson, Eddington and Davidson, 1920
Einstein’s Eclipse

Einstein’s Eclipse

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The photo above is a positive image of one of the photographic plates taken in Sobral, Brazil, during the 1919 total eclipse of the sun. The data from this and other images taken at the time were used by Dyson, Eddington and Davidson (1920) in the first independent confirmation of the gravitational deflection of light as predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. CONFIRMING EINSTEIN’S GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY In 1915, Einstein published his theory of general relativity. In 1916,…

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The Mysterious Case of the Missing Volcanic Bombs

The Mysterious Case of the Missing Volcanic Bombs

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Ever watch those nature shows of volcanoes erupting where gobs of red molten lava are thrown high into the air? All that airborne lava has to come back down. When those gobs and splatters of lava fall back to earth, they tend to look like somewhat flattened blobs of bread dough. Geologists call them volcanic bombs. Today’s installment of gnarly science is about a volcanic eruption where the expected volcanic bombs went missing. Before we go looking for the missing…

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space photo 2003 Great Salt Lake
The Lovely Rosy Waters of the Great Salt Lake

The Lovely Rosy Waters of the Great Salt Lake

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THE GREAT SALT LAKE The Great Salt Lake is so salty that no fish can live in it. Regardless, it supports its own unique fishery based on Artemia salina, the brine shrimp. Only organisms adapted to extreme salinity can survive. The microscopic ones give the northern half of the lake its rosy color. The conditions that support these rosy-color organisms are: an accident of geography ( interior drainage). a railroad causeway An accident of geography The Great Salt Lake is…

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mercury danger sign
Methylmercury Poisoning

Methylmercury Poisoning

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When people worry about mercury in fish, it’s organic methylated mercury they’re worrying about. METHYLMERCURY SOURCES While there are a multitude of mercury chemicals, the ones that concern human life are methylated compounds of mercury. One major source of methylmercury is industry. The chlorine-chemical plants and pulp-paper mills have historically discharged fluids contaminated with methylmercury into rivers, lakes and oceans as part of their waste stream. This practice is now illegal in many places, like the United States and Sweden,…

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