Thursday, December 09, 2004
ET go home......make mine a diamond ;)Fantastic, fun article (thank you, Ray) about a list that talks about revamping that 100-things-before-I-die list compiled by some imaginative British scientists :) Give it a whirl!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/news/story/0,12976,1361763,00.html
Here's the pick of the list :D
Extract your own DNA by spitting gargled salt water into diluted washing-up liquid and slowly dribbling ice-cold gin down the side of the glass. Spindly white clumps which form in the mixture are, basically, you.
Link your home computer to the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico (via setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu) and you could be the first person to spot messages from aliens for which the telescope constantly checks. If your computer gets the first, the Americans promise to give you the credit.
Measure the speed of light by melting chocolate in microwave oven hotspots and measuring the distance between globs. Various calculations produce the answer and you can still eat the chocolate afterwards.
Be a gecko.Researchers in Manchester have almost succeeded in developing Velcro-like pads to fix to the feet of volunteers who will then be able to scuttle over the town hall or the Guardian's northern headquarters like lizards, with no risk of falling.
Write your name in atoms at IBM's Almaden research laboratory in San Jose, California - and, while you're saving up to go, simply see an atom by befriending a physicist at one of Britain's many university labs with the equipment to trap and cool atoms. Barium is best.
Use your excreta to enter the amazing world of the dung beetle. Much more basic but just as fascinating for some. If you are ever caught short in the open, says New Scientist, turn the accident into an opportunity by lingering nearby and watching what happens. "It won't take long for the beetles to appear, scuttle boldly up to your deposit and begin rolling balls of it away, head-butting it and pushing it with their forelegs." Reassuringly, it gets used as food and a beetle breeding nest.
Inhale helium and start singing.Old hat but a must for anyone who's never done it. But don't take too much and never use a pressurised source. If you do, in New Scientist's words, "you probably won't be singing anything. Ever".
When you've gone
Help nail a murderer.You can register ahead with Tennessee's body farm. Donated corpses are left out in the open to decompose before trainee forensic scientists get to work on them. An estimated 100 murderers have been convicted as a result.
Become a diamond. LifeGem of Chicago, Illinois, the book reveals, will take a few grains of your cremated remains, subject them to high pressure and temperature, and you will emerge from the process, 18 weeks later, as a sparkling one-carat diamond.
Mina at 7:34 PM
