Part 13 (2/2)
As humans, we sometimes think of ourselves as standing on the top rung of the evolutionary ladder. But all organisms have an equally long history. Humans aren't so exalted, evolutionarily speaking, and lowly bacteria routinely humble us with their highly attuned chemical signaling.
Bacteria were here first, and they set the rules. Perhaps if we learn to speak their language, we will alter the rules enough to help ourselves. But we should never forget that the ones in charge are the smallest. The meek shall inherit the earth; in fact, they already have.
For more information, visit the University of Nottingham's quorum-sensing site: nottingham.ac.uk/quorum [image]
CHAPTER 3.
TOOLS: THE MONKEY WRENCH.
”When you tempt fate . . .” Man is called the tool-using animal. So what do we call a man who misuses tools? Well, much of the time we call him a Darwin Award Winner. The human animal is remarkably creative in finding ways to mishandle everything from a basic shovel to more sophisticated tools like chainsaws, drills, air compressors, was.h.i.+ng machines, and Tasers. Wait! Don't touch that k.n.o.b . . .
Fool's Gold * Rub the Mint * Saw It Coming! * A Drilliant Idea * It's the Cure That'll Kill You * Spin Cycle * A Putty Bullet [image]
[image]
Darwin Award Winner: Fool's Gold Confirmed by Darwin Featuring money and a shovel
5 FEBRUARY 2009, INDIA
Bachelor lottery agent Pravin K. lived with his brother's family in Vasai. His own house, an abandoned hundred-year-old building, was located a few meters away.
Some legends hold that a pot of gold lies buried at the end of the rainbow, but Pravin learned in a dream that an ancient pot of gold was actually buried beneath his house! He decided to ”follow his dreams” and dig for that gold. He kept his plans private to avoid a fight over the fortune.
The dream told him to dig beneath the staircase, so after lunch every day without fail, Pravin would take his spade and dig a little deeper beneath the stairs. The neighbors had no idea that days and nights of digging had resulted in a long, fifteen-foot-deep tunnel. The innovative gold digger had even rigged a remote-control toy car to carry a flashlight to a.s.sist him in the dark!
He was smart enough to control his lighting needs, but not smart enough to take into account the water table. One day the thirty-two-year-old lottery agent did not return home, and his worried relatives lodged a missing persons report. Police discovered that the floor of the old house had caved in. The soil beneath the staircase becomes wet at a depth of five meters due to its proximity to the sea, and the unsupported walls of the tunnel had collapsed.
[image]
A few hours later an earthmover excavated Pravin's body from the debris, along with a spade and the innovative mobile flashlight. The lottery agent's number . . . was up.
Reference: Mumbai Mirror Mumbai Mirror BEACH GETAWAYDigging a hole sounds simple enough but it's actually a dangerous activity.Sunny, sandy beaches can get crowded, even on a winter day. In December 1997, a quest for privacy and protection from the wind prompted D. Jones to dig an eight-foot-deep hole on the beach in Buxton, North Carolina. He unfolded a beach chair at the bottom of the pit, and was enjoying his hard-won seclusion when the wet sand collapsed, burying him in a suffocating slide. Although digging for privacy-or for gold-may seem to be a harmless pastime, distinct danger lurks in the depths of a deeply dug hole.Reference: Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design(Plume, 2007) Darwin Award Winner: Rub the Mint Unconfirmed Personal Account Featuring school, work, and an air compressor!
DECEMBER 1988, ROMANIA
I was a student of electricity and mechanics in Communist Romania. At the time, it was mandatory for all children, including university students, to boost the economy by ”active partic.i.p.ation.” Each autumn we worked in agriculture, harvesting fruits and vegetables, and for three weeks per year we were required to train in a power plant or factory, to get a feel for successful Communist industry. This was known as ”Rub the Mint.”
My cla.s.s was sent to Slatina where aluminum was obtained with the power-hungry electrolysis process. We were not much use, so we were ignored by the people in charge of our training. We spent our copious down time reviewing our cla.s.s notes. Not only were the students bored, but so were many workers in the factory, who were actually paid for doing nothing.
One day I was a.s.signed to walk doc.u.ments from one department to another. Along the way, I spotted two men crafting a wooden coffin. I was accustomed to all kinds of crazy sights, but a coffin . . . ? Was the aluminum factory branching out into funeral supplies?
”The coffin is for a comrade who accidentally removed himself from the gene pool,” the woodcrafters told me. And how had this accident come to pa.s.s?
Two men in their twenties, recent hires, were fiddling with the pressurized air hose used to power industrial air tools. They swept the dust off their dusty clothes, and this was so much fun that one of them dropped his pants to feel the air sweep across his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. He bent over further, and bet his comrade that he had the guts to pressurize his guts, and maybe experience some fun farts. He proceeded to stick the hose in his a.n.u.s and release six bar (atmospheres) of pressure, inflating and rupturing his intestines.
[image]
He did not believe his comrade would be so stupid as to proceed.
He died within minutes from internal hemorrhage. Even if he had been goofing off in a hospital corridor, he would not have survived: Several meters of his colon and intestines had ruptured.
The employee was posthumously found to have broken internal (heh) company regulations. His ”scientific collaborator” stated that he did not believe his comrade would be so stupid as to proceed and thought he was only goofing off.
Reference: Florin Ungureanu, who says it wasn't covered in the media because it happened during Communist times
Fun fact: In powdered form, aluminum catches fire quickly when exposed to a flame. In powdered form, aluminum catches fire quickly when exposed to a flame.
INDUSTRIAL SCIENCEAluminum is a very important metal in modern society. The main natural source of aluminum is aluminum oxide, Al2O3, a very stable compound. You can't extract the aluminum just by heating the oxide-you need more energy.
The Electrolytic ProcessA method of smelting aluminium was discovered in 1886 by Charles Martin Hall, a twenty-one-year-old college student. The aluminum oxide is melted, and forms ions of aluminum and oxygen. A positive and a negative electrode are immersed in the molten liquid, and electrical current (a flow of electrons) flows out of the cathode. Positively charged aluminum ions pick up negatively charged electrons and deposit on the cathode as pure aluminum metal, while oxygen gas combines with the anode to form carbon dioxide gas.The melting point of aluminum oxide is more than 2,000C. Modern smelters save energy by dissolving a small amount of aluminum oxide in cryolite (Na3AlF6)which melts at a much lower temperature, closer to 1,000C. An electrical current is pa.s.sed through this molten mixture and, as described above, aluminum ions combine with electrons to form liquid aluminum metal that is siphoned from the bottom of the tank. The oxygen ions combine with carbon from the anode to form carbon dioxide, CO2 (which is much safer than O (which is much safer than O2 ). ).
[image]
Merits Discussion: Saw It Coming!
Confirmed-Or Is It?
Featuring electricity, alcohol, and a chainsaw!
27 JUNE 2009, NEW YORK
A severe storm damaged power lines and left seventeen thousand homes without electricity. Mieczysaw M., sixty-four, was one of the affected parties. His power line serviced only seventeen homes and therefore was one of the last to be repaired. Seven hours after the line fell, the disgruntled man finally lost his patience.
The old man had been shooed away repeatedly by firefighters who were guarding the power line. ”Police and firefighters literally chased him away, did everything [they] could,” said the Sullivan County commissioner of public safety. But they were not prepared for the homeowner's sudden bold move.
Mieczysaw emerged from his home shortly after midnight with an industrial power saw in his hands and plastic bags on his feet. He stood in a puddle of water and attempted to saw through a 4,800-volt feeder line that was dangling off the pole. One thing led to another, and soon he was on intimate terms with the hissing and buzzing live wire. While emergency responders waited for utility workers to shut down the power, Mieczysaw was busy dancing his way to death's door.
<script>