It’s been several days since I noticed that my oh so very clever notion wasn’t actually a good one. I’ve been developing my little subleq creatures, called “figures,” layer by layer. There is one more layer to go, and I had what I thought was a brilliant way to implement it. That is, until I tested the new layer against the old version and saw that the same exact run, with the same exact results, was taking up to 59 percent longer!
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A given element can have different numbers of neutrons. While the protons determine an elements chemical properties, the different number of neutrons can have different nuclear properties. Uranium occurs naturally with mostly u238, with only about 0.07 percent of it occurring as u235. It’s the uranium 235 that can support a nuclear chain reaction. For most nuclear power reactors, you need around 4 or 5 percent of the uranium to be u235. If you want a nuclear explosion, it requires more than 90 percent. The process of increasing the percentage of 235 in uranium is called “Enrichment,” and it is a difficult and dangerous process.
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I’d like to thank john peacocke for giving me the idea for the next few episodes. We’ve been chatting via email, and he told me about molten salt nuclear reactors. That reactor and the general subject are interesting, and they make a nice break from the if and maybe of things like biology and evolution that we have been and will be talking about. Today, we cover the basics of nuclear fission.
I must make note of this mess before it leaves my head, and leaves me lost in the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine. I would shiver the whole night through.
In the newly defined handler object, there are methods that get called when a figure is added to the realm.
Handler.realmAdd(Realm realm, Figure figure)
Handler,realmAdd(Realm realm, Figure figure, int address)
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The fossil record contains, at best, only a few percent of any given ecology during any given time. To complicate the picture, some of the fossils are fakes. From money to reputation to jokes, there are many reasons why such fossil hoaxes are perpetrated. Today we look at a few examples of, and motivations for, false fossils.
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In the mid 1800/s some fossils were found in a tributary of the Illinois river, called “Mazon Creek.” They had simply weathered out of the ground, but it wasn’t until coal mining moved in, that the true extent and value of the Mazon Creek fossil deposit was discovered.
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Yesterday, I got email from the relevant companies. The smart glasses I ordered are on the way, actually shipped this time. This marks the end of a long, and quite Ludacris saga. I wondered just how long it really has been, so I took a look in the journal where I keep track of this mission. It’s taken more than five years, almost six.
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When a creature dies and becomes buried, sometimes its remains can completely rot and dissolve away, leaving a hollow space within the rock called a mold. If that mold becomes filled with sediment and water, it can harden into rock, becoming a cast. Every so often, the same sort of process can happen within the body of an animal, providing a stone cast of some of its internal arrangements. If that happens within the brain case of a skull, it’s called a brain cast. In 1924, a brain cast found in South Africa caught the attention of British anatomist Raymond Dart. After removing the fossil from the rock with his wife’s knitting needles, he was left with the first few skull fragments of Australopithecus africanus, or “southern ape of Africa,” to be discovered.
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Let’s get started.
Putting together the nodes and handlers is going to be somewhat painful, and slow. It might be a bit more fun, along with giving me a way to test the general concept and implementation, if I implement the handlers to help me do a particular experiment or two. There will be no getting away from days of going through, method by method, bit by bit, but this should be a much more interesting way to get started.
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The semiprecious stone amber is fossilized tree resin. Sometimes, insects and other small critters are trapped by sticky tree sap, and become encased in amber. Sometimes, microorganisms are found inside amber. Sometimes, they’re yeast that can be revived and used to brew beer.
Here’s an article about the yeast, revived and used to brew beer.
Amber Ale: Brewing Beer From 45-Million-Year-Old Yeast
Here’s the homepage of the folks who used ancient yeast to make beer.