The Spread Of The Word For ‘tea’ Across The World.

Molecule of the Day: VX

VX (C11H26NO2PS) is a colourless, odourless, oily liquid under room temperatures. It is a member of the V-series of nerve agents, and is an extremely potent poison - only 0.01 grams of it is needed to kill a person by skin contact. VX was recently implicated in the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in Malaysia.

VX is a potent inhibitor of acetylcholinesterase, which breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine into acetic acid and choline. The normal function of the enzyme is to regulate the concentration of acetylcholine within the synaptic cleft, so as to control the frequency of binding of acetylcholine to cholinergic receptors on the postsynaptic cell membrane and hence the transmission of impulses across the synapse.

Consequently, the inhibition of acetylcholinesterase results in a rapid increase in the synaptic concentration of acetylcholine, as the presynaptic knob continues to synthesise it and secrete it into the synaptic cleft. As a result, the cholinergic receptors on the postsynaptic cell membrane are continually stimulated, and a rapid series of action potentials are triggered. This results in muscle spasms and eventual paralysis, leading to death by asphyxiation due to paralysis of the diaphragm.

VX exposure is usually treated using an injection of atropine and pralidoxime. Atropine inhibits certain cholinergic receptors, reducing the binding of acetylcholine to receptors and thus the triggering of action potentials. On the other hand, one end of pralidoxime binds to acetylcholinesterase and the other binds to the phosphate group of VX, which causes the VX molecule to detach from the enzyme together with the pralidoxime molecule (see below). This restores the ability of acetylcholinesterase to hydrolyse acetylcholine, hence reducing its synaptic levels.

VX is synthesised from phosphorus trichloride over multiple steps; first, it is methylated, reacted with ethanol, then transesterified with N,N-diisopropylaminoethanol to produce QL. This is then oxidised with sulfur, and isomerised via heating to produce VX.

In general I am a casual observer and usually do not make comments, especially since I am here to learn and have no background in linguistics. But in this case I feel strongly compelled to put my 2 cents' worth of thoughts in.

Although I cannot say that I am anything like fluent, I do have a reasonable amount of Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, and I have to say the first thing I thought when I saw this article was "ah". Because although I can see how katakana is derived from Chinese, using the rather restricted stroke combinations that is the basis of all Chinese characters, the same cannot be said for hiragana, because at the very least, squiggles do not exist in Chinese, at least by the time it was exported to Japan. What you might think are squiggles in Chinese are in fact just our possibly lazy, or perhaps more elegant way of writing, the way cursive would look compared to printed letters. Hirangana bears only a superficial resemblance to Chinese and always feels like it must have another source of inspiration.

Also keep in mind that Chinese was basically an imported language into Japan, and an attempt to shoehorn Japanese sounds into Chinese characters (which I think I can safely say did not sound the same) must have been unwieldy at best. In fact, today, Japanese pronouciations of kanji differ so much from the Chinese, and often their usage too, that I would use my knowledge of the characters only as a rough starting point as to what they might mean in Japanese.

Also, I looked up Kūkai, and, to cut a long story short, he was a Japanese Buddhist monk who went to China to study the sutras, and, to quote from the Wikipedia page directly:

Kūkai arrived back in Japan in 806 as the eighth Patriarch of Esoteric Buddhism, having learnt Sanskrit and its Siddhaṃ script, studied Indian Buddhism, as well as having studied the arts of Chinese calligraphy and poetry, all with recognized masters. He also arrived with a large number of texts, many of which were new to Japan and were esoteric in character, as well as several texts on the Sanskrit language and the Siddhaṃ script.

And a quick look at the Siddham script shows that it has its roots in the Aramaic alphabet.

This is the man to whom the invention of the kana system is attributed to, and if that is the case, I see a possible connection that is as not as far-fetched as it seems.

The History of Hiragana

In Japanese language, we have three types of letters, Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana.

Hiragana’s root is from old Ivrit and Palmyra letters.

The first column:  Phoenician alphabet The second column: Ostracon The third column: Old Aramaic The forth column: Imperial Aramaic The fifth column: Dead Sea scrolls The sixth column: Palmyrene script The seventh column: Palmyra

The first column: Hiragana The second column: Consonants The third column: Vowels The forth column: combined with the consonant and the vowel The fifth column: Sousho-tai (a hand writing style) The sixth column: Kanji

Awesome infographic work by designer Yang Liu. Check out her book ’East Meets West’ (Amazon).

This is great :) My favorite is proof by ghost reference, what is yours?

How to dress Yukata (for men)

Julie D’Aubigny was a 17th-century bisexual French opera singer and fencing master who killed or wounded at least ten men in life-or-death duels, performed nightly shows on the biggest and most highly-respected opera stage in the world, and once took the Holy Orders just so that she could sneak into a convent and shag a nun.

(via Feminism)

Superfluid Helium

It was previously thought that superfluid Helium would flow continuously without losing kinetic energy. Mathematicians at Newcastle University demonstrated that this is only the case on a surface completely smooth down to the scale of nanometers; and no surface is that smooth.

When a regular fluid like water is passing over a surface, friction creates a boundary layer that ‘sticks’ to surfaces. Just like a regular fluid, when superfluid Helium passes over a rough surface there is a boundary layer created. However the cause is very different. As superfluid Helium flows past a rough surface, mini tornados are created which tangle up and stick together creating a slow-moving boundary layer between the free-moving fluid and the surface. This lack of viscosity is one of the key features that define what a superfluid is and now we know why it still loses kinetic energy when passing over a rough surface.

Now we can use this information to help our efforts on applications of superfluids in precision measurement devices such as gyroscopes (I think this was on the Big Bang theory where they make a gyroscope using superfluid Helium that can maintain angular momentum indefinitely because it would flow across a smooth surface without losing kinetic energy) and as coolants.

Dublin streetscapes from 1900 (John J. Clarke collection) 

Useless Indonesian Chiken facts: Ayam Cemani

Hi tumblr, meet one of the most expensive chiken In the world from Indonesia; Ayam Cemani

No we not paint it black with our excessive coal resources

It simply have unique genes that makes it whole body, meat and even organs all black

It’s chiken so yeah you can eat it, and it said to be very delicous. thou all these years living in Indonesia, I never actually tried it to tell you how it taste

I mean.. It cost up to Rp. 100 Million or about 10.000 USD for one of this chiken…so…..

The extravagant price mostly come from  myths that surround these beautiful chiken. said it’ll bring you luck, health and every benefits you can imagine people would said about this emo chiken

pic sc: err…Internet

- J -

Molecule of the Day: Chloroform

Chloroform (CHCl3) is a colourless, dense liquid that is immiscible with water at room temperature and pressure. Popularised by movies and dramas, it is often cited as an incapacitating agent in popular culture.

Chloroform was used as a general anaesthetic due to its ability to depress the central nervous system, a property that was discovered in 1842. This produced a medically-induced coma, allowing surgeons to operate on patients without them feeling any pain.

However, chloroform was found to be associated with many side effects, such as vomiting, nausea, jaundice, depression of the respiratory system, liver necrosis and tumour formation, and its use was gradually superseded in the early 20th century by other anaesthetics and sedatives such as diethyl ether and hexobarbital respectively.

While chloroform has been implicated in several criminal cases, its use as an incapacitating agent is largely restricted to fiction; the usage of a chloroform-soaked fabric to knock a person out would take at least 5 minutes.

Chloroform is metabolised in the liver to form phosgene, which can react with DNA and proteins. Additionally, phosgene is hydrolysed to produced hydrochloric acid. These are believed to cause chloroform’s nephrotoxicity.

Chloroform is often used as a reagent to produce dichlorocarbene in situ via its reaction with a base like sodium tert-butoxide. This is a useful precursor to many derivatives. For example, the dichlorocarbene can be reacted with alkenes to form cyclopropanes, which can be difficult to synthesise otherwise.

Chloroform is industrially synthesised by the free radical chlorination of methane:

CH4 + 3 Cl2 –> CHCl3 + 3 HCl

It can also be synthesised by the reaction of acetone with sodium hypochlorite in bleach by successive aldol-like reactions: