Because our lungs regularly deal with carbon dioxide, they see nothing wrong with absorbing its cousin, SiO2, which … - Sam Kean

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

Pakistan is a nation, which, if it falls apart, if it becomes a failed state, there are nuclear weapons there and you've got terrorists there who could grab their hands onto those nuclear weapons.

Sam Kean

Because our lungs regularly deal with carbon dioxide, they see nothing wrong with absorbing its cousin, SiO2, which can be fatal. Many dinosaurs might have died this way when a metropolis-sized asteroid or comet struck the earth 65 million years ago.

Cousin, Earth, Fatal, Regularly, Sio2, Years

Same Author Quotes

Never underestimate spite as a motivator for genius.

Genius, Motivator, Spite, Underestimate

If anything runs deeper than a mathematician’s love of variables, it’s a scientist’s love of constants.

Deeper, Mathematicians, Running, Scientist, Variables

In these days before antiseptics, doctors themselves also suffered high mortality rates. Florence Nightingale, a nurse during the Crimean War (1853-1856), watched one particularly inept surgeon cut both himself and, somehow, a bystander while blundering about during an amputation. Both men contracted an infection and died, as did the patient. Nightingale commented that it was the only surgery she'd ever seen with 300 percent mortality.

Contracted, Cut, Cutting, Men, Rates, War

Lithium tweaks many mood-altering chemicals in the brain, and its effects are complicated. Most interesting, lithium seems to reset the body’s circadian rhythm, its inner clock. In normal people, ambient conditions, especially the sun, dictate their humors and determine when they are tuckered out for the day. They’re on a twenty-four-hour cycle. Bipolar people run on cycles independent of the sun. And run and run.

Cycle, Independent, Interesting, Lithium, Normal, Running

So if big enough droplets fell far enough fast enough, someone floating right near the metallic hydrogen layer inside Jupiter maybe, just maybe, could have looked up into its cream and orange sky and seen the most spectacular show ever--fireworks lighting up the Jovian night with a trillion streaks of brilliant crimson, what scientists call neon rain.

Neon, Night, Orange, Rain, Seen, Show