Or capsaicin, AKA chili pepper. Actually toxic but humans eat it on purpose anyway because they like the taste and have too much body mass to suffer ill effects beyond mild diarrhea.
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
Apparently there is a yearly "Dance your Ph.D" contest, which is exactly what it says on the tin, and seems like a fun way to present scientific ideas.
This year's winner (Kangaroo Time) involves studying the social dynamics of kangaroos: the quick summary is that kangaroos behave a lot like people do, but the video has more dancing.
The 15 January 2022 Hunga (Tonga) eruption: A gas-driven climactic explosion
rather than a steam explosion as we all thought. Article posits that a lot of gas had been trapped below clay-like rocks, until they gave way like a pressure cooker sans safety valve tends to explode after a while.
After watching Volcano I've always wondered if it would be possible to set up a bunch of concrete riverbanks to direct the lava flow from an active volcano to somewhere safe for people living under an active volcano.
Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.
The problem would be predicting where the lava flow is going to go long enough before hand to construct concrete pathways.
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
The lava would flow in-between the concrete blocks. And the lava might just rise higher than the concrete blocks. Or it might push the concrete blocks over, since lava is liquid rock, it's very heavy.
I've seen that movie, too, and the ending makes no sense.
Redmess
Digging ditches can be a valid solution though, by redirecting the flow. Concrete blocks could help raise the lower side of the bank for that.
It seems plausible under the right conditions, at least.
Optimism is a duty.
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
By the way, this is the scene in question:
They're not even redirecting the lava, they're just blocking it. It would definitely flow between, melt through, topple, and/or flow over those thin little concrete barriers. And then the plan is just to dump a ton of water on it from point-blank range, the steam produced from that would cook all the people in the area.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on May 7th 2024 at 7:33:34 AM
In which I tell a shortened tale of Mount Etna's 1669 eruption, its largest eruption in recent history.
After a few weeks of increasing earthquake activity, around midnight between March 10 and 11 1669 a fissure opened up on Etna's southern flank. Lava began to pour out, burying one village after another over the following few weeks. At some point, inhabitants of a nearby town attempted to breach a lava tube and succeeded; but inhabitants of another town nearby, now threatened by the diverted lava flow, chased them off by force, the breach healed, and the lava continued its way to Catania. In April, the lava flow reached Catania's city walls, ran along them and entered the sea. After a few weeks, enough lava had piled up against the walls that it spilled over them and flooded parts of the city. The Spanish viceroy had sent an emissary as a crisis manager, both to handle the flight of people and attempts to stop the lava in the city. Fortunately, inside the city the flow advanced only 200 metres or so. The next attempt to divert a lava flow was only in 1983 and drew a lot of media attention.
The coda is that attempts to block a lava flow can succeed, providing that the topography is favourable, the eruption not too voluminous and the lava flow not too thick; otherwise, it will simply push the obstacle aside or overtop it. There have been discussions to construct a city wall of sorts around Hilo in Hawaii, to stop incoming lava flows.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I was wondering if LA could use the old dry riverbed where the car races go could direct the lava flow.
Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.
"The lava would flow in-between the concrete blocks"
The problem is that no one can know for sure where exactly the lava will be coming out of the mountain, how much is coming or under what pressure. The exact nature of an eruption depends upon dynamic interactions between masses of rock miles below the surface. So knowing ahead of time where to put the barriers, what kind of barriers to use and how large they must be, are non-trivial problems.
That's what flesh eating venoms are for probably
Granted from what I've seen the "next" step for most medicines seems to be to make their targeting more accurate and thus reduce nasty side effects and improve their performance .
Secret Signature