1

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / is this amythist stuck on a rock?

« on: 09/09/2009 11:24:01 »

Wrong green color for malachite- not sure about azurite either.  Green may be zeolite?  zeolites are common mineral fillings in volcanic vugs.

The green appears to be the color of aventurine.

2

Physiology & Medicine / What happens to the content of tumors after they have been destroyed by chemo?

« on: 05/09/2009 12:58:51 »

Autolytic cell destruction is uncommon in adult organisms and usually occurs in injured cells or dying tissue. Autolysis is initiated by the cells' lysosomes releasing the digestive enzymes they contain out into the cytoplasm. The cell then, in effect, starts to digest itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autolysis

In cell biology, autophagy, or autophagocytosis, is a catabolic process involving the degradation of a cell's own components through the lysosomal machinery. It is a tightly-regulated process that plays a normal part in cell growth, development, and homeostasis, helping to maintain a balance between the synthesis, degradation, and subsequent recycling of cellular products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy_%28cellular%29

Some debate as to whether Hogkins lymphoma is genetic or caused by virus ...
http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=jva37vxp8tp9b7f8&size=largest

Thank you very much - I didn't know the term for which I needed to search. As far as the heritary aspect, I don't know of any Hodgkins in my family for 3 generations, but I don't know anything about my ex-husband's family, because he was adopted.

If there is a cautionary tale here, it is to take your child for an annual physical.  My grandson saw pediatric docs when he was younger, but was apparantly healthy and asymptomatic in his high school years and had not seen a doc for 3 or 4 years.  By the time it was found, the tumor in his chest was approximately the size of a brick - we don't know how long it's been growing, but more than a year, in all probability.

3

Physiology & Medicine / What happens to the content of tumors after they have been destroyed by chemo?

« on: 05/09/2009 01:48:06 »

My grandson is 18, just graduated from high school in June and moved to South Dakota to live with his mother and stepfather to attend college there. He has always been very health conscious - works out regularly and eats healthy. (He eats milk products eggs and seafood, but has never eaten meat.) A few days after he got out there, he got gastroenteritis and my daughter took him to the ER.  They noticed that his neck was swollen and when they xrayed him found him to have a tumor that is wrapped around his carotid artery and jugular vein - he has another quite large one in his chest that is around his aortic arch and heart, and a third smaller one just starting on the other side of his neck.  The dx is Hodgkins Lymphoma, Stage 3 (I still can't believe it.) He will not have surgery on the tumors, but will have chemotherapy every two to three weeks until January, followed by six weeks of daily radiation treatment.

Since he will not have surgery to remove the tumors, what happens to the tissue they contain after they have been killed by the treatments?  I picture this big rotting mass in his chest the size of a brick and wonder how the body is able to rid itself of this without causing a massive infection?

It goes without saying that I am worried sick, regardless that Hodgkins has a high cure rate...

4

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Has anyone ever seen this kind of rock?

« on: 05/09/2009 01:21:07 »

Where did you get it? Did you tumble it to polish it? How heavy is it in comparison to an ordinary rock of the same approximate size? How hard is it? Will a file scratch it? Will it scratch glass?

It sorta reminds me of glass slag, are you sure it's a natural mineral?

5

Physiology & Medicine / Can we put our trust in big pharma?

« on: 03/09/2009 23:39:48 »

Not at all. The companies are constantly bringing drugs to market without (or ignoring) proper research. And physicians are lead by the nose by pharmaceutical sales people.  I was given meds without knowing about them and am now unable to produce my own adrenalin. As a person who must depend on medications to stay alive, I vet all I take very carefully. There are many I wouldn't take knowing what I now know, including the prednisone. 

I got thrombocytepenia from taking pravachol, my platelet count went down to 2000. I had to take prednisone for months and almost had to have my spleen removed.  My doc had called me on the phone and told me my cholesterol level came back high and he left some samples at the front desk.  I had no idea what ITP was, but found out quick enough when I started bruising and got a petechial rash on my legs and when scratching a mosquito bite left what looked like skid marks. 

I learned something - before I take any new meds I read about the potential side effects.

6

Physiology & Medicine / Can we put our trust in big pharma?

« on: 03/09/2009 14:54:46 »

One of the biggest problems today is that the components of various drugs are manufactured in under-regulated factories and workshops in China.

Do you remember the heparin scandal of last year, when Chinese factories were found to have intentionally contaminated heparin with Oversulfated Chondroitin Sulfate, causing the illness and deaths of many people? It happened at the same time when a woman here in Virginia contracted Cruetzfeldt-Jacob disease shortly after surgery. Since CJD is caused by the same prion that causes BSE, the component causing the deaths had been manufactured in China, and we had just been through the "melamine in the pet food", "lead paint on the toys" fiasco, I wondered if it was coincidental or if something given at surgery was contaminated with prions.  I did some research online to see what I could learn and found this article: http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120511367737423565.html which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Mar 10, 2008.

It states:

Wang Xiangyang, a factory director at the Zhaoyang Intestine & Casing Factory in Shandong, for instance, says his company has been forced to use sheep innards in addition to pig intestines because of a shortage of pig supplies. "We can't get enough pig intestines," Mr. Wang says. "There are a lot of people around who need them."

The U.S. and Europe stopped using heparin extracted from sheep and cow organs more than a decade ago after scientists became concerned about bovine spongiform encephalitis, or mad-cow disease, and a similar disorder in sheep known as scrapie. The fear was that prions, the tiny particles that cause these devastating illnesses, could be transmitted to humans through ingredients derived from cows or sheep

I actually reported this to the FDA and to the local health department, as well as to our local TV & Newspaper, thinking they might want to follow up, but got nowhere with it. The local press opted no to research it, because they felt publishing it would be "too imflammatory" and cause a scare. 

Personally, I found this more scary than the chondroitin deal. Since BSE or CJ disease often takes years to develop, who knows how many people may have got it. If that happened, and those people have given blood or died and donated organs, who knows how many people to whom they have passed it. Who knows what other sheep and cow products are being used in these Chinese factories?

7

Technology / How can I build a car immobiliser with a built-in timer?

« on: 02/09/2009 23:26:13 »

Instead, make a device that will lock a potential thief inside the car the minute he tries to start the engine, and set off an alarm - "to catch a thief". []

8

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / What are the geological consequences of the meteor impact at Chesapeake Bay?

« on: 02/09/2009 12:05:04 »

Not having yet read the link you posted- do you know if any paleo-channels or water gaps exist from the tsunami draining back into the ocean?  Just curious

Page 70, Fig. 2.14, shows the studied area - the authors have noted a "washback channel?" in the area of the lower James River.

The effects on local waterways was one of the things that piqued my interest when I decided to research the crater.  I grew up boating on the Chesapeake, and we participated in Navigation Contests - I was navigator and studied the channels and tidal currents in an effort to get a leg up on the competition.  At the time, I thought some things seemed perplexing, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

Here's a large pdf file of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed:
http://chesapeake.usgs.gov/pubs/cbimage.pdf

You can see that both the James (most southern river) and the York (next one to the north) change direction close to their mouths.  If you look at the land mass to the south of the James, you will note that the shoreline forms an arc between the mouth of the James and the Atlantic.  If you complete that arc, you are approximating the crater rim, so you can see that the James and the York switched direction to flow to the topographic low. (This was noted in the first link I gave - "Ancient Cataclysm")

I know that there are faults in the main river channels, (there's a graphic of them in "Ancient Cataclysm" I also know that the James and the York both have depths of over 100' at the locations roughly corresponding the the direction change. This is speculation on my part -
If the faults were formed at the time of impact and extended to the surface (the Potomac formation of Cretaceous time is very thick in the location, due to sediment washed down from the Blue Ridge, which were much younger and steeper) the force of the tsunami backflow would have eroded them into topographic low features which would dictate the future water course.

Non-scientifically speaking, just using innate logic, there doesn't seem to be enough natural watershed to generate the volume and velocity of water needed to gouge out three major rivers so close to one another.

9

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / What are the geological consequences of the meteor impact at Chesapeake Bay?

« on: 02/09/2009 02:52:58 »

Local tsunamis, but not regional along the whole east coast.  I would suspect massive fires in the rainforests along most of the east coast.  There's some interesting recent research on the shape of impact craters and ejecta paths- will try to send references.

Here is a link to a book on the Geology and Geophysics of the Chesapeake Crater:
http://books.google.com/books?id=U5joncTT4voC&pg=PA372&lpg=PA372&dq=sandia+labs+chesapeake+crater&source=bl&ots=Etmn1cp0d5&sig=uEZURzy0hahuy_Kj_-6cxQRpHPI&hl=en&ei=pMedSrSpKYj-M4eXzYUC&sa=X&oi=book

If you go to page 372, section 12.2, you can read about a model of the impact generated at Sandia Labs - which was based on a submarine crater rather than a terrestrial one.  Fig. 12.5 on page 375 shows the results of the model.  It appears that the entire fireball was contained within the ejecta curtain of the crater.  I suppose that doesn't preclude some fires started some distance away by debris that rained back down. 

Unfortunately, I don't own this book, and haven't read the entire contents that is posted on the web, I will have to see if our local library has it.  Anyway - I have read in other documents that the tsunami is thought to have reached the Blue Ridge - that is quite a wall of water as they are better than 150 miles inland, and that wall of water would have encompassed all 360 degrees.  I have traveled the East Coast up I95 as far as Rhode Island, and know that the land up to CT does not have significant elevation - I would think the tsunami would have innundated anything at least that far.

I haven't heard Dave Powars mention anything about charcoal beds thought to be the result of this crater (though there is a "black mat" at the top of the Lower Dryas that may indicate an impact on the ice sheet at that time).

I don't claim to know all there is to know about this crater, and there may be some research that has been published of which I am not aware.  If anyone has anything to contribute, please do so.

10

General Science / How bright are lighthouse lights?

« on: 29/08/2009 00:22:04 »

Regarding the GPS, two thoughts come to mind. On the satellite end - a solar flare could disrupt the signals http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Sept06/solar.flares.gps.TO.html.

On the vessel end, GPS's break, and batteries die (especially aboard blow-boats  []). I knew a person who was racing the Annapolis to Newport race several years ago and lost all his electronics to a lightning strike at the mouth of the Chesapeake - thankfully, he remembered his celestial nav and managed to win the race with a chart, sextant, and parallel rules.

I never go out without a chart and Weems protractor, even though the creeks and rivers of the lower Chesapeake are shallow, the bottom is forgiving, as long as one doesn't run aground on dead high tide.

11

Technology / What is holding back electric car technology?

« on: 28/08/2009 23:38:27 »

coquina.rocks
The quick-change (slide across) replacement is a good idea but why do they need to be cylindrical? Cuboids are  the most efficient use of space in, essentially, box-shaped vehicles and could just as easily be slid in and out.

It's because of "fits", because of the differences in distance from road to ground, as well as fore and aft location, as the vehicle drove into the bay, a cylinder that was a little convex on the end would "self-center" into a hole.  You would want the receptacle and the battery to be a snug fit, or it would rattle around too much. In the case of a cube or rectangle, it would take much longer to get the battery "square" with the receptacle. Suppose a tire was a little low?  The bottom of the battery receptacle wouldn't be parallel to the ground, and the delivery mechanism would have to have several more areas of adjustment to get it to line up properly. The more complicated a mechanism is, the more it costs to build and to operate.

12

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / What are the geological consequences of the meteor impact at Chesapeake Bay?

« on: 28/08/2009 13:18:48 »

For one thing, there may have been at least one other contemporaneous impact, in Siberia.  I have read of charcoal beds in some areas, but since the impact has been associated with a large tsunami, anything regional would have been extinquished, post haste.

13

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / What are the geological consequences of the meteor impact at Chesapeake Bay?

« on: 28/08/2009 13:13:38 »

A topic and an idea from the designers that is DUMB as rocks! I should know - I live with a rfw of them. They don't seem to hear and talk back, either.

Having been witness to the unresearched side effects caused by the introduction of ethanol gas, I hesitate to contemplate what will happen if the health care reform bill passes. Can you say "chaos theory"? They's a bunch of flutterbys flappin' their wings right now about 150 miles north of me.

14

Technology / What is holding back electric car technology?

« on: 28/08/2009 00:31:57 »

For those of you who haven't checked the geology forum - I'll do a little intro before I barge in...
I'm a female baby-boomer from southeast VA who's always been a science junkie. I ran a machine shop for 30 years so am not entirely obtuse about technical concepts.
I have not waded through all your posts, but scanned some of them and noticed someone had mentioned a battery swap station.

I agree that it is the concept which makes the most sense, if you're dealing with batteries, but the change would have to be quick and easy. I have been mulling this over for sometime.  In the first place, the battery size would have to be universal, as would the retainer, so all the car companies would have to agree. The delivery/acceptance mechanism would have to be adjustable within a reasonable perameter.

So - here's my idea - would would be particularly efficient in areas with lots of space and sunshine.

The battery is cylindrical in shape and is located in the trunk (boot) area - placed horizontally across the car with an entrance on one side of the car and an exit on the other. The delivery/acceptance mechanism contains new batteries on one side and used one on the other. It looks kinda like this: Π only fatter and it rotates from the top.

The car drives into the bay, the mechanism rotates down so that it lines up with the battery retainer on the car.  As a fresh battery is delivered into the car, the used one is pushed into the acceptance hole, the mechanism pivots back up, another new battery is loaded, and the used one rolls down a chute for recharge.

But - as other's have said, the recharge is the kicker. 

As I was listening to an ad for rail transportation, I took note of the fact that a train can deliver freight at an economy of over 400 miles per gallon - so, if the battery stations are close to rail service they can be moved there by container, and if the rail line is close to a source of natural energy, perhaps this could be made not only "green" but economically feasable as well.

If you're located in New Mexico or Arizona, it is a short hop to an open desert, where the batteries can be recharged by solar energy - if you live in London, this form of recharge won't work, but maybe you can hook them up to a wind farm, or a tide generator. Obviously, the source of energy can't be but so far from the point of use.  However, presuming there is an adequate supply of batteries, charging time is not critical, although the longer the charging time, the larger capital outlay the companies that run the facility will have to make.

Anyway - that's my rough idea, what do you think?

15

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: What are the geological consequences of the meteor impact at Chesapeake Bay?

« on: 27/08/2009 23:55:39 »

No Ma'am - it is GRITS - with or without cheese (I done been raised down south, too. And Bass - Well, watch out, he was there when Sherman marched to the sea! He's still a little miffed about it. Got so angry had ta' leave Georgia!) And pay no attention to turtle boy. He is a bona-fide side-show freak. 

Although I have been aware of this crater for a while, I did not know that it was causing problems in soil stability and subsidence today. What seems to be the consensus of opinion on the reason for this? Also, why is the water more salty - difference in seawater salinity with the melting of the glacial covering in the last 10-20,000 years?

Oh, Waterman girl, whaat's up on thaa baaay?

Lastly, and a tardy welcome to the site, Shell Hash Ma'am!

Yo, there, Jim-Bob - thanks for the welcome.

The reason for the subsidence and salinity is that the impact took place in a shallow sea.  All of the existing strata were blown out, the tsunami is thought to have reached the Blue Ridge, then it all washed back into the hole. The heat evaporated much of the water, but what was left combined with loose sediments to make a gooey (like that geology term?) matrix. Also, listric faults occurred at the edges and large chunks of the rim slipped forward and down, into the crater. In the ensuing 35 mya, several more layers of strata were laid down (one of the larger being the Pliocene "Yorktown Formation" which happens to have a "Coquina facies" thus Coquina from Yorktown is an inside joke.) Anyway, the weight of the later strata "squished" (another sophisticated gem) the contents within the crater, causing the subsidence.

What's up on the bay?  Boating's a little slow these days.  I am bookkeeper for a marina that has exchanged the majority of its sales from new boat purchases to engine repair bills.  Ethanol gas and fiberglass or aluminum tanks is not a good combo.  Guess that's a topic for the Tech forum.

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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: What are the geological consequences of the meteor impact at Chesapeake Bay?

« on: 27/08/2009 22:59:19 »

Hi GRIT & welcome to TNS. As a GRIT, I feel I should point out that I am a BRIT, that's a double for Boy raised in Town & British!!!

This made an interesting read, and whole lot of questions. Doubtless JimBob and Bass will be greatly interested.


As for me, I wouldn't know a rock if it hit me on the head. OUCH! What was that?

Hi Don,
I'm half Brit myself. My mother was born in Leyland, Lancs in 1909 and remembered being bombed by zepplins in WWI. (Lest you think I'm positively ancient, she was 42 when I was born.)  I still have a cousin who lives in Suffolk, near Woodbridge, in a village called Bawdsey, which is at the mouth of the Deben.  I visited her in 2004 and really enjoyed the country and the people.

Funny story, mom's memory of "the old country" remained stuck in 1928, when she immigrated to America to be a nanny/nurse. I was forever hearing how prim and proper English children were compared to my teen friends. So, when the Beatles were to appear on the Ed Sullivan show, she insisted I watch to see some refined music rather than that "infernal rock 'n roll". Off course, I had her on with "Awwww maaaa - do I hafta?" The look on her face when those mop heads took the stage would have stopped an 8 day clock!

Regarding that rock - incoming at about 50 grand an hour, you wouldn't have had time to put your head between your knees and kiss your butt goodbye! 

17

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / What are the geological consequences of the meteor impact at Chesapeake Bay?

« on: 27/08/2009 14:10:50 »

Hi y'all,

(The classic greeting given by a GRIT - Girl Raised In The South)

 I'm new here, a baby-boomer, and am particularly interested in Geology.  I live in Southeastern Virginia, USA, and on top of the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater, the top of which is approximately 400' below the surface. At the end of this post I have attached a link to a USGS website about the crater.  More technical papers are available, and more research has been done since it was created, but it is the most comprehensive and easiest to understand of all the sites, and has wonderful graphics which will enlarge with a "click".

I have been studying the crater since 1996, and have met (and been encouraged by) several of the geologists who discovered the crater. They have even allowed me on the drilling sites and allowed me to help pull a core (one of the highlights of my life, to be the first of two humans to ever lay eyes on sediments laid down up to 65 million years ago).

People have always been perplexed as to some of the goings-on around here.  For example, why is it, that no matter how well houses are constructed, or the quality of the foundation, plaster walls crack? Why does sea level seem to be rising here faster than it does in other places?  When a well is drilled, why is it that the water withdrawn may be 1.5 times saltier than the ocean? Why are exposed strata in various localities tilted even though the area is aseismic?

Even more perplexing to early hydrologists and geologists, when they examined well tailings below 400', why were telltales age markers form 35 to 65 MYA intermingled? Cederstrom, a USGS hydrologist, named the intermingled strata the "Mattaponi Formation" and suspected it was caused by a catastrophe, but his theory was not accepted. 

In 1983, the Glomar Challenger retrieved a core off the New Jersey coast that contained both tektites and shocked quartz - indicators of an impact. Forams contained in the samples dated the event at the late Eocene, 35 million years ago.

Then, in 1986, cores from boreholes from either side of the Chesapeake Bay revealed the presence of breccias - what had come up in Cedarstroms well tailings could be seen intact, and they were amazing - chunks from the size of bricks to automobiles and of all ages from Cretaceous (oldest sediments in SE VA) to Eocene were randomly interspersed in a muddy slurry the consistency of jello!

The following is the summary from "Chesapeake Bolide, Modern Consequences to An Ancient Cataclysm" - which can be found here on the USGS website:
http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/epubs/bolide/index.html

During the late Eocene, the formerly quiescent geological regime of the Virginia Coastal Plain was dramatically transformed when a bolide struck in the vicinity of the Delmarva Peninsula, and produced the following principal consequences:

The bolide carved a roughly circular crater twice the size of the state of Rhode Island (~6400 km2), and nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon (1.3 km deep).
The excavation truncated all existing ground water aquifers in the impact area by gouging ~4300 km3 of rock from the upper lithosphere, including Proterozoic and Paleozoic crystalline basement rocks and Middle Jurassic to upper Eocene sedimentary rocks.
A structural and topographic low formed over the crater.
The impact crater may have predetermined the present-day location of Chesapeake Bay.
A porous breccia lens, 600-1200 m thick, replaced local aquifers, resulting in ground water ~1.5 times saltier than normal sea water.
Long-term differential compaction and subsidence of the breccia lens spawned extensive fault systems in the area, which are potential hazards for local population centers in the Chesapeake Bay area.

A final note, when Dave Powars and Scott Bruce had proved the existance of the crater, they looked up Cederstrom, the geologist who first suspected its presence.  He was in a nursing facility nearing the end of his life, but they were able to talk with him and show him the evidence that proved he was right, and he was able to understand what they told him.

[MOD EDIT - PLEASE PHRASE YOUR POST TITLES AS QUESTIONS, IN LINE WITH FORUM POLICY, THANKS, CHRIS]

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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Where in the world?

« on: 26/08/2009 11:04:33 »

OK - I'll start a new thread...

19

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Where in the world?

« on: 26/08/2009 03:49:41 »

Hi -
I just stumbled in here, it looks like Lighthouse Reef Atoll - off Belize.
BTW my interest in geology began when I decided to learn more about the feature that lies 4oo' beneath my feet - the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater.  I have lots of info on it, if anyone is interested...

20

Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Help Identify Black Rock w/ Green Flecks

« on: 22/08/2009 13:47:28 »

Hi - I'm new here - I'll introduce myself later...
Is your rock magnetic?  It looks like cumberlandite, which happens to be the state rock of Rhode Island.