Posted on 08/12/2006 2:55:36 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Q From an Oregon reader: "If I put a bottle of beer in the freezer (for a little too long), when I take it out the beer is still liquid until I pop the cap, whereupon the stuff begins to freeze and ooze out of the bottle. Why the sudden phase transition? I know if I leave the bottle in far too long the beer will freeze with the cap on."
A Depending on its alcohol content, beer will freeze at 2-10 degrees colder than water so it freezes slower, which is why you can usually remember to take it out before solidification -- unless you've had one too many! -- say Alan Benesi and Bernie O'Hare of Pennsylvania State University.
If the beer is right around freezing, the sudden pressure decrease upon uncapping is drastic enough to drop it below its freezing point. So you end up with a beer ice cube that keeps frothing as the carbon dioxide gas escapes.
Recall that ice melts under pressure just as the pressure in the capped bottle helps keep the drink in the liquid state.
Beers and cheers!
Q How has eating honey, that prototypical "health food," been known to bring armies to a sickening halt?
ATravel back to 400 B.C. when Persian King Artaxeres II defeated an army of Greek mercenaries. Retreating, the soldiers pitched camp on hills covered with rhododendrons and feasted on nearby honeycombs and honey, says Dr. Joe Schwarcz in "The Fly in the Ointment." Soon (by the general's journal) the men lost their senses, vomited and couldn't stand up. The "mad honey" effect didn't last long, he wrote. The soldiers recovered within 24 hours.
Today certain emergency hospitals post signs reminding physicians that "mad honey" poisoning can resemble a heart attack. Turns out that nectar from flowers of the rhododendron family can contain "grayanotoxins," causing weakness, slow heart beat, perspiration and nausea -- like a heart attack.
In Turkey, hospitals still report cases of such poisoning, with complaints starting an hour after a person eats at least 50 grams of honey.
"Sometimes atropine is needed to boost the heart rate and in rare cases a pacemaker has been temporarily installed." Most poisonings can be traced to producers with only a few hives, says Dr. Joe, so the average consumer's risk is remote, because commercial producers pool the product from many sources, diluting any grayanotoxins.
Xenophon's 10,000 made it back to the Black Sea whereupon they split up and went their separate ways. Hallucinogenic honey was the least of their problems.
Dont know if it is true or not,but in Texas when you kill a rattler,the old timers say you need to bury the head.The reasoning behind this,I am told,is certain bees eat the meat off the head,and supposedly,if they sting you,you can get very sick.Don't know if it is a wives tale or not,but I bury them anyway.
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