A month ago we discovered that our local supermarket sells wild smoked salmon from Alaska. It looked much darker than the Scottish smoked salmon we normally buy and the slices seemed less delicate, much thicker... but we were curious, so we bought a packet.
A few packets later, I don't think we can go back to the anemic, almost transparent slices of farmed North Atlantic smoked salmon. Now we understand why they make such a fuss about salmon in the last frontier!
As a proper gourmet cat, Pirouette wholeheartedly agrees!
[I have another post coming up later. It's a celebration!]
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
His and hers poems
Tumbleweed sent me these poems:
A WOMAN'S POEM
Before I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man who's not a creep,
One who's handsome, smart and strong.
One who loves to listen long,
One who thinks before he speaks,
One who'll call, not wait for weeks..
I pray he's rich and self-employed,
And when I spend, won't be annoyed.
Pull out my chair and hold my hand..
Massage my feet and help me stand.
Oh send a king to make me queen.
A man who loves to cook and clean.
I pray this man will love no other.
And relish visits with my mother.
A MAN'S POEM
I pray for a deaf-mute gymnast nymphomaniac with
big knockers who owns a bar on a golf course,
and loves to send me drinking & gambling. This
doesn't rhyme and I don't care.
*****
Thank you, Tumbleweed.
Labels:
funnies
Monday, 23 January 2012
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Beautiful and useful
This beautiful thing has practical applications. Here are some examples:
Electronic devices
Ferrofluids are used to form liquid seals around the spinning drive shafts in hard disks. The rotating shaft is surrounded by magnets. A small amount of ferrofluid, placed in the gap between the magnet and the shaft, will be held in place by its attraction to the magnet. The fluid of magnetic particles forms a barrier which prevents debris from entering the interior of the hard drive.
Aerospace
NASA has experimented using ferrofluids in a closed loop as the basis for a spacecraft's attitude control system. A magnetic field is applied to a loop of ferrofluid to change the angular momentum and influence the rotation of the spacecraft.
Medicine
In medicine, ferrofluids are used as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging and can be used for cancer detection. The ferrofluids are in this case composed of iron oxide nanoparticles and called SPION, for "Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles."
There is also much experimentation with the use of ferrofluids in an experimental cancer treatment called magnetic hyperthermia. It is based on the fact that a ferrofluid placed in an alternating magnetic field releases heat.
(Music: Gluck's Dance of the Spirits, from Orfeo et Euridice)
Labels:
science
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