Learn chemistry = make money

A little real world application to make science relevant for 18-year-olds. Hey, at least I'm not teaching them how to make bombs or Meth...

A cash-strapped, yet resourceful chemistry student found 1915 g of silver nitrate. She also read that silver metal is currently worth $12.70 per troy ounce on the metals market. She decided to make a little spending cash by convert all of the silver nitrate into silver metal by reacting the aqueous silver nitrate in with iron metal, which gives aqueous iron (II) nitrate and silver metal as products.

A. Write the balanced equation for the reaction.

B. If the student has 3.00 x 102 g of iron nails to react with the silver nitrate. How many grams of silver nitrate will react with this much iron?

C. Identify the limiting reactant and explain how you know that this will be the limiting reactant.

D. How much money can the chemistry student expect to make from the silver that is produced from this reaction? (1 troy ounce is equal to approximately 31.1035 g).

E. When the student took the silver to a jeweler she was paid $408.23. What was her percent yield?

Curse you, farmers!!

Do we live in an agrarian society? I pondered this question while heading north on I-5 this morning. I think that answers is NO. Please then, leave my clocks alone. Yeah, I know it’s really to do with saving energy, blah, blah, blah. But I already do my part – I walk to the grocery store, dry cleaner and the farmers market (where I buy organically grown produce from local producers). I take a shuttle to work (saving 116.2 miles of driving a week). But please, please, please leave my clocks alone. Now it will be dark in the morning when I go to work and dark by the time I get home.

Being in CA makes me miss the libertarian ways of AZ. I can’t get a burger cooked less than medium – even at “gourmet” hamburger places. Can you make a “gourmet” hamburger is it isn’t cooked correctly?

We saw the best parade this weekend! On Saturday night we went to Wine Steals and from our table on the front patio we had front row seats for the procession of Halloween costumed patrons of Hillcrest’s dance clubs. A Marilyn Monroe in drag serenaded us with Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend. A very evolved arrest was executed against the wrought iron railing by the cops of Reno P.D. And lots and lots of assless chaps (sometimes with jeans on underneath, sometimes not). But as the bartender stated “not much different than any other Saturday night in Hillcrest”.


More on members of the Sedaris family: We went to see David Sedaris on Friday night. He is hilarious. I would highly recommend going if he’s coming to a town near you. I would also highly recommend Holidays on Ice. Pick it up to enjoy during your holiday visit with the ‘rents. Pour yourself a warm mug of coco, curl up on the couch in front of the tree and read Dinah, the Christmas Whore, a heartwarming (really) story about the Sedaris family welcoming a stranger into their home during the holidays. If you are suffering from Monday Morning Work Aversion you can listen to his NPR boradcasts.

I like you

An open fan letter to Amy Sedaris:

Dear Amy,

I thoroughly enjoyed your book, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. It is a refreshing pragmatic guide for inviting those people you call “friends” into your home. In fact, I liked it so much I think you should have your own magazine devoted to the topic. I suggest this because I’m sure you have a zillion more crafts that make use of old pantyhose and because I am a magazine whore who could use one more fix. I can’t get enough of those gloss pages and colorful photos with relatively few words. Especially if they can tell me, in 1000 words or less, how my current life could be improved by a new recipe/paint color/outfit/black and white picture collage/flower arrangement. That’s why I enjoyed your book so much – high picture-to-word ratio with sound advice to boot.

Just in case you need some additional entertaining ideas (and let’s face it – even at 250 words a story it’ll still take a whole lotta words and ideas to fill a mag every month), here are a few of my own that you are free to use. And of course you could always pass these off as your own ideas. You could just be like, “Whatever, Kristen N. in San Diego – I had that same idea years ago”. Plus most of these are ideas I stole from my friends anyway.

1) Puff pastry squares: These things rock. Seriously. Your friends will be amazed at the fancy sh*t you can make with these. Just make a filling, glob a spoon full into the middle, fold over into a triangle and bake at 425 for 20 min. As for filling pretty much anything goes. It is a great way to use up random stuff left in the back of the frig (check for mold first). Here are just a few ideas, but feel free to include your own:

Feta & frozen spinach
Brie & apple slices (or frozen raspberries)
Mozzarella, pepperoni & tomato sauce (or just buy Pizza Bites)
Any random fruit that is about to go bad (sprinkle with cinnamon sugar)
Sautéd mushroom & onions with Swiss cheese
Bananas, peanut butter & caramel sauce
Canned pie filling

Of course, they make big sheets of puff pastry that can be cut into squares, but that never seems to work well for me. The sheet tears, or it cracks in the creases because I don’t let it defrost enough before I unfold it, or the squares turn out lop-sided (M.S. suggests using a ruler to cut even squares, but I don’t own one). Puff pastry squares can also used to top individual ramekins of chicken pot pie or fruit cobbler. Oh, make sure to squeeze out the extra water from frozen items like spinach & raspberries.

2) Beer-mosa: For the brunch hostess with just a touch of class, but then Costco stopped selling the $4.59 magnum of champagne. Mix OJ with light beer, preferable Miller High Life (it is the champagne of beers, you know). Other Miller brand beers are acceptable, such as Miller Lite, but don’t ever ever use Coors Lite.

3) Squashages: This is a brand new addition to autumnal repertoire, inspired by a recipe in Bon Appetite and a need to use up a large amount of squash. On a recent trip to a pick-your-own-pumpkin pumpkin patch I bought X number of squash for $1.50 lb and I paid $27. Each squash weighs, on average, 3 lbs. How many squash did I buy? (Answer: 6 squashes). The B.N. recipe was vegetarian, so it originally contained very little sausage. Plus the original recipe was so long and complicated I didn’t read it all the way through.

Cut acorn squash in half. Oil, salt & pepper. Place cut side down & roast at 425 for 40-ish min. Meanwhile prepare filling. Brown Jimmy Dean sage flavored sausage (use at least twice as much as is called for in the vegetarian version). Remove sausage from pan & sauté chopped onions, garlic, fennel, mushrooms and green apple. Get instant wild rice packet from Trader Joe’s & microwave 2 min. Mix sausage, veggies & rice, then stir in Parmesan cheese & feta cheese. Fill cavity of squash with filling (really pack it in there & mound it up) then bake upright at 350 for 15 min. If the squash are wobbly make them an aluminum foil nest. Wine suggestion: Three Buck Chuck Shiraz, also procured from Trader Joe’s.

4) Halloween activities: Bobbing for drunken apples. Get standard bobbing for apples set up (bucket, water, towels). Take apples and make a hole in the bottom using an electric drill with a spade bit. Insert various liquor mini-bottles into the hole (for easy of insertion use only round mini-bottles). Bob away.

5) Baby shower activities: Baby Beer Bottle Boat Races. If you are throwing a Baby Shower Kegger a really fun game is to fill plastic baby bottles (2/$1 at the $0.99 store) with beer and have a boat race. Standard boat race rules apply, but enlargement of nipple is grounds for disqualification. Mom-to-be may substitute beer for O'Douls. Variation: Sippy Cup Tippy Cup. Related non-sanctioned craft project: Baby Bottle Bong Making (requires aluminum foil & Bic pen).


Kisses, Kristen N. in San Diego

This item that will not only fill that empty space on the table but the one in your life, too. I'd buy that

Refreshingly Honest Crate and Barrel Catalog Descriptions

Better than picking up sticks...

More info from the Income in the Life Sciences survey. I find this stuff kind of interesting.

By employment status, the median incomes of life scientists were as follows:
Self-employed full-time (35+ hours/wk) $87,000
Employed full-time (permanent) $82,000
Employed full-time (contract/temporary) $50,300
Post-doctoral or other fellowship $40,000

By general type of organization, life scientists had the following median incomes:
Publicly-held organizations (not a start-up) $92,000
Start-up organizations (whether privately- or publicly held) $83,500
Governmental organizations $73,000
Privately-held firms $71,000
Nonprofit organizations $70,000

Income of life scientists varies more widely by specific industry or service of the organization. The five highest-paying areas are:
Health Practitioners Office $155,000
Law Firm $110,000
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing $110,0000
Chemical Manufacturing $102,200
Consultant (independent) $98,250

The five lowest-paying types of employer are:
Independent Testing Laboratory $45,000
Hospital (state) $50,000
Secondary School $52,000
Hospital (for-profit) $52,500
Hospital (university) $53,000

Median incomes in the 35 remaining types of employer range from $57,189 to $95,700.
Although the correlation is not strong, there is a tendency for life scientists to make more in larger organizations and less in smaller ones.

On the other hand, there is an almost-perfect correlation between total years of professional experience and income of life scientists, ranging from $35,584 for those with under one year of experience to $110,000 for those with 30 years of experience or more.

Income in the life sciences varies even more widely by level of education. In descending order, the income of holders of the highest-paying (single) doctorates are:
Medical Doctorate $149,000
Pharmaceutical Doctorate $119,000
Dental Doctorate $102,270
Veterinary Medicine Doctorate $101,900
Juris Doctor $95,500
Non-Science/Non-Engineering Doctorate $85,000
Science/Engineering Doctorate $80,000

Interestingly enough, the holders of medical, veterinary medicine, and pharmaceutical doctorates plus another doctorate made less than if they did not have a second doctorate (the exception is those who hold two science/engineering doctorates). As shown in the complete report, this is explainable as they tend to have less experience since their highest-level degree.

Income is lowest for those life scientists with the following levels of education:
Some college but no degree $45,450
A.A./A.S. degree $48,250
Bachelor-level non-science/engineering degree $50,643
Bachelor-level science/engineering degree $55,050
Two B.A./B.S. degrees $56,500
Masters-level science/engineering degree $59,450
Masters-level non-science/engineering degree $65,000
Two Masters-level degrees $80,000

Dallas Sucks!!

Hell Yeah!

Dallas 24 Eagles 38

Fly Eagles Fly

Thank you Lito Sheppard

The Dallas Cowboys' Terrell Owens, left, looks on as Philadelphia Eagles' Lito Sheppard makes an interception of a Drew Bledsoe pass intended for Owens in the fourth quarter of a football game Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006, in Philadelphia. With one minute remaining in the game, Sheppard returned another interception 102 yards to seal the Eagles' 38-24 victory. (AP Photo/Tom Mihalek)







T-3 weeks until the impending TO implosion.

Walk in the park

For our nightly walk, we took the Rock-star to a park in the next neightborhood. It is a beautiful park with huge magnolia trees. We stumbled onto a plaque, stating that Pioneer park was a convereted cemetary. They moved the gravestones, but left the bodies.





Calvary Cemetery (now Calvary Pioneer Memorial Park, or just Pioneer Park) in Mission Hills was a Catholic cemetery primarily in use between 1875 and 1919. Burials continued until 1960 however. In 1970 the cemetery was converted to a public park and the grave markers (but not thebodies) were removed. A group of some of the gravestones were clustered together and a central memorial was placed in the southeast corner of the park. The exact number of people buried at Calvary Cemetery is not known. Complete records nolonger exist in one place. Research has documented almost 4,000 burials. More than 1,500 of theburials occurred before July 1, 1905 when California established specific statewide requirements forregistration of deaths.

What day is it today?

Must be Sunday.












And it is also my pop's birthday. Happy birthday, Dad!