Evidence Detection Unit on the job - live in Wilmington

Why was there an abandoned looking green van parked out in front of my house on Sunday? Why was there a policeman dusting it for fingerprints? A Wilmington police car and the Evidence Detection Unit truck were bracketing a car in front of my house on Sunday afternoon. They peered into the van and dusted it for fingerprints. I was fearing what they would find, with the recent propensity in Delaware for vans showing up with bodies in them.

I combined my crappy Treo camera with binoculars and a steady enough hand to prove that it was in fact the Evidence Detection Unit. After some investigation, another police car arrived with a civilian in it. He consulted with the police and looked around the van before getting in. Apparently, it was his van.

The owner looked very Puff Daddy getting in and out of his van while talking on the cell phone. This picture shows the roof of the van was rusted and the van was in generally poor shape. Not sure why anyone would try to steal this one, maybe it was a joyride.

After the police left, the owner looked confused as he tried to start "his" vehicle and drive away. He did finally accomplish this. I was unable to find any police report in the News Journal related to this, so I have to assume it was simply a recovered lost, or stolen vehicle.

I am glad that we have Wilmington police presence in the neighborhood, even if it appeared that they were investigating a crime at the time. At least it was non-violent.

tags: Wilmington Police, Delaware, Wilmington, Evidence Detection Unit

Superman's Metropolis is in Delaware!

During Superman Returns, a map of the east coast almost shows the location of Metropolis and it certainly places it on the east coast. I had always thought of Metropolis as Chicago because it seemed to need to be near Smallville Kansas, and New York City is taken (as Gotham).

Imagine my surprise when Metropolis is placed in Delaware. From Wikipedia: "However, a map onscreen portrays it as possibly near or taking the place of Dover, Delaware." I am looking for the a wider area picture of the map from the movie. Wikipedia also mentions a role playing game placing Metropolis in Delaware as well. The DC atlas (excerpt shown left) has it around Lewes, but my vote is for Wilmington.

Being so close to Metropolis, I need to start looking up for a bird, a plane, no, for Superman!

tags: Metropolis, Delaware, Wilmington, Lewes, Superman, Superman Returns

Fireworks at the Ice Cream Festival

Last night amid the biting bugs and 1000% humidity we watched the fireworks go off from Rockwood park during the Ice Cream Festival. They really provide a nice presentation though I miss the years when they have the orchestra play the 1812 overture with cannons.

Even with my crappy Treo camera I got some good pictures of the fireworks. The trick is to not click too soon or too late. Too soon and it floods the picture with light, too late and you have a picture of nothing but very faint spots. The camera seems to take some time to take the picture, so it makes the timing even trickier. Thank goodness for digital cameras where the memory costs nothing. That way I can take a bunch of pictures and only show you the good ones. Thus only 10 of the 44 pictures were judged "just right", the rest failed by being too bright, too dark or were almost good enough.


Let's look at the statistics.


Some more pictures of the fireworks. Red like the devil and white like the angels.









tag: Delaware, Wilmington, fireworks, Rockwood Park, Ice Cream

Superman returns to philosophical discourse and the imaginations of science fiction fans

Because I had conscientiously avoided trailers and spoilers for the Superman Returns movie, I wasn't sure how the newest installment would mesh with the earlier movies or if it would even try. Certainly the Batman franchise has been completely reinvented in the movies at least twice. The movie picks up in modern times where the others left off, but after a long absence by Superman. The premise works and was updated a little. At least he doesn't look for a phone booth to change in. What would he do, change in front of a cell phone? The movie seemed to know there was a tremendous amount of history before it. For instance, Lex Luthor is suitably maniacal but he even seems to know he exists in a cliche, and milks it for what it is worth.

In one scene, Superman performs a lifesaving rescue in Germany and the German speaking announcer calls him Zuperman. We turned to each other and said, "shouldn't that be Üœbermensch?" Or would that be a mistranslation? What were the writers thinking. He is a superhero, not soup!

The superman myth has collected a huge amount of science fiction arcana around it. I can't explain further without spoilers, but now I know why everyone was referring to the Larry Niven Essay, "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" about Superman's prospects for love on this planet.

The german lauguage in the movie reminds me of another story, "Üœbermensch!" by Kim Neumann (Year's Best Science Fiction, 9th annual collection), where superman lands in the forests of Bavaria in Germany instead of the farmlands of Kansas and becomes Üœbermensch (with a secret identity, Curt Kessler) and helps the fascists fight against the enemies of fascism. It is written to be jarringly opposite the "Truth, Justice and the American Way" myth built up around an American landing. He ends his days in a war crimes prison a la Rudolf Hess. Perhaps upbringing makes all the difference for superherodom. Is it still called alternate history if you change history in a science fiction myth?

The greatness of the Superman myth lies in musing about what you would do with that power. Thomas Cahill in "Desire of the Everlasting Hills : The World Before and After Jesus" (Hinges of History) comments on two types of "supermen", Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar, and Jesus Christ. Our comic book hero Superman myth seems to combine the power of Caesar or Alexander with the sacrifice and sensibility of Jesus. perhaps it is exactly that which makes this myth so powerful.

tags: Superman, Üœbermensch, Science Fiction, Larry Niven, Kim Neumann, Superman Returns

At least one other person with Cthulhu on the brain

Exploding Aardvark suggests we all go to Hotsoup, which is developing a "community of influence", and express that our largest concern is

The impending rise of Great Cthulhu from the vasty deep

How does she know that Cthulu's rising is an important concern of mine, remember "Who will be eaten first?"

On a similar note she notes that the Department of Homeland Security has issued lifejackets to every American. Perhaps in anticipation of his rising.

tags: Lovecraft, Cthulu, The Onion, lifejackets

Natural asbestos deposits affecting residential areas

The industrial asbestos story continues with the defeat of the national fund to compensate workers harmed by the presence of asbestos and now a new asbestos risk due to naturally occurring deposits of asbestos may be rearing its ugly head. Recently Science News reported about a town in California plagued by naturally occurring asbestos as they dug into ores while building new residential housing. Asbestos contamination is so scary because it can cause Asbestosis (lung scaring) Mesothelioma (a lung cancer), and other types of Cancer. These diseases also have long latency times so exposure can result in illness 20 years down the line.


From the introduction to the USGS report,

"Natural asbestos occurrences are of concern due to the potential exposures that may result if the asbestos-bearing rocks are disturbed by natural erosion or human activities."

The map centered on Delaware above is excerpted from a larger USGS map of naturally occurring asbestos on the east coast. Are any of these sights near where you live? Do you think some clever lawyer defending a company responsible for exposing its workers to asbestos might try to use naturally occurring asbestos exposure as a way to dodge responsibility?

The map and much more information can be found in the USGS report, "Reported Historic Asbestos Mines, Historic Asbestos Prospects, and Natural Asbestos Occurrences in the Eastern United States" authored by Bradley S. Van Gosen. (the map in a large .pdf is here, and the text portion of the map in .pdf is here)

tags: asbestos, USGS, natural asbestos

"Integrity" costs Archmere a half mil, while crafty Capano slips parents' names onto a plaque for $200,000

After the recent controversy over putting the Capano family name on their student life building in return for a $1 million donation. Archmere has decided to name the building the McLaughlin/Mullen Student Life Center in honor of two former headmasters.

Capano has reduced his gift from $1 million to $500,000. There are now three plaques for the front of the building that can be reserved for gifts of $200,000. The Capano name will still appear on campus on the plaque for a $200,000 donation in honor of his parents given by Louis Capano, Jr. I wonder if the Archmere parents and alumni realize this. Do they object to the name in lights on a large building on campus, or to it anywhere? Possibly we can finely divide the acceptability of this gift by font size of the name on a building or plaque.

St. Edwards Academy remains unapologetic about accepting $1 million to put the Capano name on one of their buildings.

tags: Delaware, Archmere, Capano, moral dilemma

Swinging a dead cat collects even more Crazy Delaware Blue Hen news roundup

I can't even begin to keep up with the crazy Delaware happenings.

Woman killed when her own car backs over her

This poor woman failed to take her car out of gear properly and received a capital punishment for her mistake. From the police report:

"At about 11:45 p.m. Sunday, Reader stopped a 1997 Astro van she was driving on the interstate north of U.S. 13 near New Castle. The vehicle was left in gear and as she walked away from the van it began to roll towards her. Richard Cutler, 37, of New Castle was in the van and attempted to stop the rolling vehicle. It accelerated, struck and killed Reader."

No explanation of why the car accelerated or why the person left in it didn't try to hit the brake, or emergency brake or something. These stories always sound suspicious and horrible to me.

116 dead cats and a body dead for a year at this smelly house of horror

Neighbors complained for months about the smell from this house, but only when authorities gained access to the inside did they find the 83 year old mother's body in a box and 116 dead cats. The two daughters disappeared for a while but then turned themselves in to face charges of abuse of a corpse. You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting another dead cat in this house. Add 90 euthanized cats to the 116 dead cats that they pulled out of the house. The mother's body had been in the box for a year.

Fish get a lift out of draining lake, eels are on their own

Here is your dam lake, you should take as many dam pictures as you want because the dam is leaking and the lake will be gone soon. Delaware state fishery workers are capturing and saving all of the sportsfish in the lake, but they say they will not try to save the eels,

"We did not attempt to move the eels, because the eels will do just fine in the remaining water, or they'll move out on their own," Miller said.

I guess eels are not a protected class and can be discriminated against. Besides, they are slimy and icky.

tag: Delaware, highway, cats, chickens, fishing, eels

Ketchup on everything.

I like ketchup on nearly everything, except for eggs. The Utility Fog Blog points us to Ketchup World. So now I even have ketchup on my blog.

I must say that I am partial to Heinz, ketchup, it is the only true ketchup, all others are heresy. I may have spent too long in Pittsburgh and driven past the factory one too many times, and the ketchup brainwashing took. Don't even get me started on catsup.

Will someone please get me this t-shirt?

tags: ketchup

Will drinking heavy water (deuterated water) kill you?

Back in graduate school I used an experimental technique called Small Angle Neutron Scattering. Essentially, you take a beam of neutrons (say from a hole in a nuclear reactor, really!) and pass it through a test sample. A detector measures the scattering of neutrons by the samples. Analysis of the scattering pattern yields information about the microscopic structure of the sample.

It turns out that different nuclei scatter neutrons differently, and you can use these differences to good effect in your experiments. An especially important difference is that between deuterium (a hydrogen atom with a nucleus that contains a proton and an extra neutron) and hydrogen. Since we studied aqueous dispersions of colloids and surfactants we would replace regular water (with hydrogen), with heavy water (with deuterium). Long nights (sometimes all night) watching the experiments gave us time to think.

We often wondered if drinking a bottle of heavy water would kill someone, or how much of the water in our bodies we could replace with heavy water without ill effects. Unlike other isotopic substitution, putting in deuterium for hydrogen actually has a chemical effect because you double the weight of the nucleus. Heavy water isn't radioactive so it wouldn't hurt you that way. We figured it would disrupt the action of important enzymes because the dielectric constant and solvent properties would be different.

An article in the Candian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology referenced in Wikipedia actually explores some of these questions. Finally, answers for us, more than a decade later.

Bacteria and algae can handle 100% heavy water substituted for normal water.
Protozoa can live in up to 70% heavy water.
Mammals 50% heavy water kills, 25% sterilizes, but 20% is survivable.

It turns out the symptoms of heavy water poisoning still looks like radiation damage, but that is because the enzyme effects we hypothesized above show up as eukaryotic cell's inability to repair DNA damage. It is too bad heavy water is expensive, $65 for 8 onces.

It would be an expensive way to poison someone, since you would need almost a quarter of the person's body weight to do it. I should have bet someone back in graduate school that I could drink a bottle and have it do no damage, because now I know it wouldn't. Too late.

A recent article in Popular Science showing heavy water ice cubes (which are denser than normal water) sinking to the bottom of the glass reminded me of this discussion, and inspired the post.

tags: heavy water, neutron scattering, science, biology