The Schiensh of Bond: Licence to Kill

In the latest installment of The Incredible Suit’s monthly exercise in self-harm, Bond – like so many spies before him – Goes Rogue. Here at Schiensh, we try to find some Schiensh in Licence to Kill in a post subtitled Revenge is a dish best served dissolved in petrol and covered in shark.

He disagreed with something that ate him

When Felix Leiter is partially fed to a shark, Bond goes out to seek revenge. Revenge by feeding someone else to a shark. Overall, unprovoked shark attacks and fatalities from shark attacks are pretty low. There are some lovely squishy statistics over here. As an example, worldwide between 2000 and 2011 there were 807 recorded shark attacks worldwide, of which 66 were fatal. The shark that people keep getting fed to is identified by Bond as being a Great White Shark. The Great White is a notorious maneater, thanks –  in part – to post-Jaws paranoia. Film depictions of Great whites are somewhat unfair; as apex predators they are used to being able to eat pretty much anything. But some divers have successfully filmed Great Whites and not suffered attacks. Filmmakers Ron and Valerie Taylor, diver/photographer George Askew, and Piet van der Walt found that the sharks tend to be scared of the divers, even though they had been exposed to blood and exposed flesh. Great Whites mostly bite people out of nosiness. They don’t actively seek out human (unlike the evil revenge-mad shark from the Jaws movies). ”Sharks don’t eat humans,” says shark expert Peter Kimley of the University of California, ”They spit out humans. Humans aren’t nutritious enough to be worth the effort.” However, there doesn’t seem to be much scientific consensus on what actually causes a shark to attack. If there is food about, the shark is probably going to try and eat whatever is put in front of it like Leiter or Killifer. Although blood doesn’t necessarily cause the legendary feeding frenzies that the films have us believe.

What we do know about sharks is that they have colour vision, have a really good sense of smell, taste and exceptionally good hearing. More interesting though is there ability to sense electric fields. They have a special sense organ. All animals possess electric fields in the form of muscle contractions and heart beats, although this is only useful over very short distances (this totes refers back to my day job ) In addition they have an exquisitely sensitive sense of touch and pressure sensors. This information is from the fabulous Shark Foundation website. Go there, they know LOTS.

Shocking encounter with an electric eel

Some hapless henchman get electrocuted to death by an electric eel sitting around in a tank. The electric eel isn’t actually an eel at all, it is actually a species of knifefish. Amongst all the crazy facts, they are air breathers. As to whether an eel can kill anyone, the answer is yes. Using their electrical organs, the eel can generate 600 volts of electricity and 1 amp of current, which is sufficient to kill a human.

The eels produce electricity using electrocysts located at two sites: Hunter’s organ and Sach’s organ. These electrocysts are a lot like batteries. The eel can control the intensity of the shock.

Death by explosive decompression

When Sanchez find the money planted by Bond in the hyperbaric chamber , he throws Krest – whom he suspects of treachery – into the hyperbaric chamber. First, Sanchez turns up the air pressure, and then forces it to drop rapidly by having one of his heavies break one of the tubes, letting the air escape. As a result, Krest’s head explodes.

Would Krest’s head have really exploded? Well, the most similar real life incident was on board the Byford Dolphin. There was a repid decompression from nine atmospheres to one in less than a second. Here’s how wikipedia describes it

Diver D3 was shot out through the small jammed hatch door opening and was torn to pieces. Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined D4, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, violently exploded due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominalorgans, and even his thoracic spine were ejected, as were all of his limbs. Simultaneously, his remains were expelled through the narrow trunk opening left by the jammed chamber door, less than 60 centimetres (24 in) in diameter. Fragments of his body were found scattered about the rig. One part was even found lying on the rig’s derrick, 10 metres (30 ft) directly above the chambers. His death was most likely instantaneous and painless.

Not in any way pleasant.

Cocaine smuggling.

Sanchez plan for distributing cocaine involves dissolving it in petrol (gasoline), transporting it, and then having the recipient reconstitute the cocaine. I very carefully watched it to see if I could figure out what was going on with the cocaine, given how bad my knowledge of chemistry is. Is this possible and would it work.

On the internet, I stumbled across a method for extracting and cocaine from coco leaves. It just so happens that petrol is used as one of the agents to extract the cocaine from the leaves. Cocaine is insoluble in water (its hydrochloride salt however is soluble in water). Adding baking soda to this solution makes a putty, not unlike the putty we see in the laboratory in the film. This putty is mixed with hydrochloric acid in order to make the salt – addition of ammonia precipitates out the cocaine hydrochloride salt – so this method could actually work.

Licence to Kill has been a bizarre viewing experience – it being one of the more scientifically accurate Bond films.

Let’s see if it lasts when we continue. The Schiensh of Bond continues next month in GoldenEye.

The Schiensh of Bond: The Living Daylights

Finally, BlogalongaBond has at last seen the end of Roger Moore. And we welcome our new Daltonian overlord. This month, again, I struggled to find the science in Bond, and failed. I did however get distracted by the companion accompanying James and Kara around their foreign climes: Kara’s unnamed Stradivarius cello.

Interestingly, Ian Fleming’s half-sister, Amaryllis, was named in her
Obituary as one of Britain’s foremost cellists owned a Stradivarius cello that now bears her name. The part of The Living Daylights pertaining to the Stradivarius cello is based on the Fleming story of the same name.

Antonio Stradivari – what’s in a name?

Stradivari was a Cremonese luthier during the 17th and 18th centuries, known more for his violins, although he did make violas, cellos and guitars. He was one of the earliest luthiers to make cellos as we now know them

Stradivari’s instruments, along with those of other contemporaneous luthiers from northern Italy, are highly sought after by players, and are venerated for their apparently superior tone. Given the age and value of Kara’s cello, I winced at Bond and Milovy dragging it across the snow, and even more when it got a bullet hole through it.

Cellos – how do they work?

Like all stringed instruments, when a string is bowed or plucked, the vibration of the string causes a sound, but because the string – and the vibration – is so small, it isn’t very loud. This quiet vibration is transferred to the body of the instrument, which, because it is larger, moves more air when it vibrates (and sound is just vibration in air), therefore the sound is louder. The pitch of a note can be altered by the characteristics of the string: its stiffness and it’s length. Changes in the density of the wood in the body of the instrument change the way it vibrates and produces sound. Things like bullet holes are not going to make your cello sound good. And anyone who owns wooden instruments will know that you’re not supposed to let it get too hot, too cold, too dry or too damp, as the wood is prone to cracking.

What makes a Stradivarius so special?

The Stradivari name is legendary in music circles – the fact that many of Antonio Stradivari’s instruments that survive are still playable. Because of their age and prestige, they are worth millions – the Lady Blunt recently sold at auction for £9.8 million.

Some theories have been put forward to explain their apparent superiority. Stoel and Borman theorised that the growing conditions for the trees used to make cellos and violin in 18th century Cremona that resulted in different densities of wood. Using x-ray scanning of old violins and violas and comparing them to new instruments found no differences in the median densities of the wood, however there was a much smaller variation in the individual old Cremonese instruments (including some Stradivari instruments). Whether this is what causes the distinctive sound properties of old violins remains to be seen.

Nagyvary et al suggested that treatment of the wood is responsible for the superior sound of Stradivarius instruments – they examined the chemical composition of several instruments that had been repaired and found that chemical composition of Stradivarius instruments differed significantly from both other old instruments and new instruments. As the sample size was quite small, the results are difficult to draw actual conclusions from.

The entire case is completely moot though given that, under most cases of blind testing – where either the listener was blinded to whether they were listening to a Strad – or double blind test – where both the player and the listener are unaware of the identity of the instrument – listeners are unable to tell the difference. In additional tests where expert violin players were asked to play a selection of new and old instruments, there was no overall preference for old Strads over new, very well made instruments.

I’m currently on holiday in Europe, and last week I actually saw a full Stradivarius quartet in the Royal Palace in Madrid. Infuriatingly, they will not allow you to take photos inside the palace, so this is from Merriam-Webster.

The Schiensh of Bond: A View to a Kill

This month in BlogalongaBond, under the leadership of The Incredible Suit, we say goodbye to someone who has been a constant throughout the last half year. This individual hasn’t been much loved by many of the BlogalongaBondoliers, I have been especially vocal in my distain, but it would seem he is to leave us. That’s right, in A View to a Kill Roger Moore’s mole is absent. Whether the removal was for aesthetic reasons, concerns about skin cancer or the result of a Circus Mole Hunt led by Le Carre’s finest – the Moore is now moleless.

Which is how we will begin with A View to a Kill - Wrong, wrong, wrong, on so many levels.

I’m not quite sure how they managed to get from cheating racehorses to earthquakes via microchips. However…

My Lovely Horse

Bond and Tibbett go to Ascot in order to investigate why Zorin’s horses are running so fast. After some ill-advised laboratory exploration, they discover that Zorin is having microchips implanted into the horses. These microchips are used to dose the horses with “horse steroids” during races and can be activated remotely, potentially by the jockey. This, Bond states, overcomes fatigue in the horse.

However, the rationale here is flawed. Normally, training (whether equine or human) depending on the type of training, results in increased muscle mass. The individual muscle cells get bigger because the amount of protein they contain increases. Using anabolic steroids (like what the cheating athletes do) increases the size of muscles even more than training alone. Steroids do this by increasing protein synthesis and by inhibiting muscle breakdown by the hormone cortisol, this results in stronger muscle which is more resistant to fatigue. You can see why this would be beneficial for a racehorse. Curiously, although it’s been illegal to use steroids in racehorses in the UK, their use was only banned in the US in 2009.

So far so shiny. Steroids act by changing protein synthesis. Protein synthesis isn’t the instantaneous process one would require when desperately tired during a race. It would involve a lot  of protein synthesis, something that would take hours to days. Therefore, injections of steroids during a race is not the most appropriate way of cheating. You should either give Dobbin steroids during training, this would actually increase muscle mass and reduce muscle fatigue or give a proper stimulant during the race making him faster in the short term. On the plus side for Zorin, really good tests for horse steroids weren’t available in 1985, so cheat away!

Earth Movers

Zorin wants a microchip monopoly,  but those pesky clever clogs over in silicon valley are too good at doing their job. Zorin’s plan is to flood the Hayward and San Andreas faults by blowing up some lakes. The water in the faults then supposedly causes earthquakes, which, according to our young attractive geologist Stacey Sutton, will flood silicon valley, wiping out Zorin’s competition.

Hang on a minute, would that actually work? And what is a “Geological Lock”? Google was unable to find any references outside of A View to a Kill and the tinfoil hatwearers’ society. You get similar results if you ask your preferred search engine if you can cause an earthquake by flooding geological faults.

First off, a geological fault is a gap formed by the meeting of 2 or more tectonic plates. In the context of geology, earthquakes are caused by adjacent plates moving past each other, making epic crunching noises. I can find no references to flooding faults causing earthquakes, and also bear in mind that some geological faults are underwater. For instance, sections of the San Andreas fault are under water.  However, there are numerous ways in which humans can cause earthquakes. There is quite a nice description here. Wired pretty much ruled out using nuclear bombs along fault lines causing earthquakes – this is Lex Luthor tries to do in Superman.

The two most relevant activities by which humans can cause earthquakes are building dams and by injecting liquid into the ground.

There are some suggestions that the building of the Three Gorges Dam in Sichuan in China precipitated or exacerbated the 2008 earthquake in the area, although this is disputed. The idea being that a massive amount of water increases the stress in the rocks beneath it. This stress can cause fluctuations in seismic readings and potentially cause earthquakes if they are near a fault.

The US Army were  injecting fluid into the ground as a disposal method of waste material. However, they ceased when apparent seismic activity of the the surrounding area increased . Their conclusions are rather interesting:

…as fluid pressure increases, the apparent strength of the fault decreases… as a result, the potential for induced earthquakes also increases

Nicholson and Wesson, 1987

However, this is different from Zorin’s explosives driven fault-flooding method. The water would flow into the fault in an undirected manner so the water pressure is unlikely to be great enough to stress the rocks around the fault. The method here seems very flawed, if he had done his research, he’d be injecting liquid into the ground.

And so endeth Roger Moore. I’m looking forward to Timothy Dalton…

The Schiensh of Bond: Octopussy

A Bond film a month until Skyfall next October. BlogalongaBond. I continue through the Roger Moores like wading through so much treacle. I was enjoying Octopussy until all that mucking about on the circus train, then I got bored. And while I was musing on potentially perverse definitions of the word “octopussy” I realised that, in fact, the octopus is the most interesting thing about this film. Incidentally, I was not brave enough to put “octopussy” into google without the SafeSearch on.

What’s in a name?

My first stumbling block in Octopussy is the pluralisation of octopus: octopuses or octopi. Well, the origin of the name “octopus” stems from the greek for eight footed. Okto- : eight, pous-: feet. The use of the suffix -us is common in latin and the standard pluralisation of latin words ending in -us is to replace it with -i. Hence cactus -> cacti. There are common exceptions, for example the commonly used plural of campus is campuses, rather than campi. Octopus however has its etymological origins in greek rather than latin, so many object to the pluralisation octopi on these grounds.

There are three plural forms of octopus: octopuses [ˈɒktəpəsɪz], octopi [ˈɒktəpaɪ], and octopodes [ˌɒkˈtəʊpədiːz]. Currently, octopuses is the most common form in the UK as well as the US; octopodes is rare, and octopi is often objectionable.

Wikipedia

Many sources agree that while “octopodes” is technically correct, it is pedantic and there is the general impression that the sort of people using the word “octopodes” don’t get out enough. Furthermore, although many argue that octopus is a greek word, some bright spark has pointed out that octopus is actually a latinised-greek word. The word octopus wasn’t used to refer to the animal it describes until 1758, long after the Greeks and Romans were conjugating language.

Therefore, octopuses is generally accepted.

It does, however, bring the following exchange to mind.

Biology

Octopuses are cephalopod molluscs with no form of skeleton (like other molluscs) so they are able to squeeze through very small gaps. When it comes to dealing with predators, they have numerous defence mechanisms: they produce ink, have the ability to change colour and they are venomous.

Their physiology is, frankly, bizarre by our standards – an octopus has 3 hearts. Two brachial hearts pump blood through the gills and the third pumps blood around the body.

I have borrowed this pictograph to show you the inner workings of an octopus:

The blood contains coppers rather than iron to carry oxygen around the body. Also, the haemocyanin protein that carries the oxygen is dissolved in the blood rather than being contained within red blood cells as is in mammals. This give their blood a bluish colour.

The blue-ringed octopuses – as featured in Octopussy - are a group of 3 (possibly 4) species of octopus. They are quite small in size and they have numerous chromophores in their skin which are normally brown to aid camouflage. If the octopus is threatened, these patches turn blue. Octopuses produce ink which is contained in their ink sacs (located just below their gills), the ink contains the pigment melanin and mucous and is squirted out with the help of a jet of water from the funnel. In the blue-ringed octopus species, the ink sac has shrunk during evolution. Young blue-ringed octopuses can still effectively squirt ink, however the adults of two of the species do not produce ink at all, a third species can but is pretty crap at it.

Toxic bite

Blue-ringed octopuses are the only group of octopus with venom that can kill humans. The list of chemicals in the venom are:  tetrodotoxin, 5-hydroxytripamine, hyaluronidase, tyramine, histamine, tryptamine, taurine, acetylcholine and dopamine. The most important of these is tetrodotoxin, known to a bunch of lazy pharmacologists and neuroscientists as TTX. TTX is the same toxin found in pufferfish and is around 100 times more toxic than cyanide. It’s produced by bacteria that live in the octopus’ salivary glands. TTX blocks nerve transmission, so once someone is bitten, paralysis ensues. The patient is unable to breathe, so unless they are ventilated they will quickly die. Treatment is by artificial ventilation; the body is able to break down the toxin so after about 24 hours of ventilation, the patient will most likely make a full recovery.

A clever little bastard

Experiments have shown that octopuses are highly intelligent, far more so than other invertebrates. They are adept problem-solvers, showing both short- and long-term memory, although they learn next-to-nothing from their parents as they have little or no contact. In science laboratories, octopuses have show fear directed a specific individuals. This gives them the same level of protection under the law as vertebrates with respect to scientific experiments.

Their intelligence makes them problematic as pets as they have a tendency to escape from aquariums.

I wouldn’t want to encounter one of these guys on the run…

Barring encounters with poisonous octopodes, Schiensh will return for Roger Moore’s penultimate outing as Bond in A View to a Kill.

The Schiensh of Bond: For Your Eyes Only

On film 12 of BlogalongaBond, there is less than a year to go until Skyfall and everyone is upset with The Incredible Suit right now. Roger Moore is still about, but we’re past Moonraker, I thought it would be downhill from there. However, For Your Eyes Only turned out to be a bit of a dull slog. And with its back-to-basics attempt to reinvigorate the franchise after Moonraker, they managed to remove all the bad science. This left me a little bemused and reaching for the mulled wine.

An hour into the film something struck me as rather odd. Despite the numerous offers, Bond – who would consider lying with a feminine goat – has failed to make it with a woman. Bibi the seventeen-year-old ice skater propositions him while naked in his bed and Bond still says no. Granted Bibi is a little annoying, but that has never stopped him before. It’s not like 007 to be picky. But perhaps he is starting to feel his age. When For Your Eyes Only was made, Roger Moore was in his early 50s – he does a pretty good job as an action hero for his age, but he is much more like your loveable uncle than your sexy cousin. Your loveable uncle that you do not want to picture having sex. [Passes the mind bleach]

Some wary Googling (other search engines are available, but who the hell uses Bing) has brought me to the NHS pages. (I think I am safe here):

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is the inability to get and maintain an erection that is sufficient for satisfactory sexual intercourse. ED is also known as impotence.

The NHS comment on its frequency in the general population:

ED is a very common condition, particularly in older men. It is estimated that half of all men between the ages of 40 to 70 will have some degree of ED.

Under risk factors, the NHS suggests that erectile dysfunction can be an indication of underlying health issues that cause thickening of blood vessels and concommitant reduction in blood flow, not just in the penis, but elsewhere in the body. It can be an indication of cardiovascular disease – high levels of circulating cholesterol – which can lead to heart attack or stroke.

Other things that can affect *ahem* Little Roger standing to attention, include malfunction or damage to the nerves, drugs – including alcohol – and diseases such as diabetes. In a healthy man, arousal causes the blood vessels in the penis to expand and fill with blood, anything that affects the signalling to increase the size of the blood vessels can lead to erectile dysfunction.

While Commander Bond leads an active life in his fifties, he is still very much at risk of cardiovascular disease. Although not overweight, Bond’s smoking and drinking increase his risk of heart disease. Also, being male and over the age of 50 are contributory factors. His is also a high risk and stressful job, and dicing with death is highly likely to raise his blood pressure. All in all, it’s no wonder he’s having problems with little Roger.

But help is at hand! Viagra, or sildenafil, is a drug that opens up blood vessels. It does this by preventing the breakdown of one of the signalling molecules that tells the penile arteries to open up. Sadly, this came too late for For Your Eyes Only, Viagra wasn’t available until 1998.

In the treatment section of the NHS website, they offer the following advice:

Vacuum pumps that encourage blood to flow to the penis and cause an erection are also successful in 90% of cases.

He does, after all, get it on with Countess Lisl at 1:09 – probably with the help of the vacuum pump.

Good luck Roger Moore!

The Schiensh of Bond: Moonraker

BlogalongaBond – a Bond film a month until Skyfall is released (I hate The Incredible Suit so much right now).

I think the plots have been ropy for a while – they’ve mostly involved a crazed megalomaniac destroying life on Earth while allowing a subset of the beautiful and the vacuous to survive underwater/underground/underwater/in space, while Bond goes on a weird array of nonsensical trips to Switzerland, Japan and generic South America. Moonraker dispenses entirely with reason, logic and comprehensible plot, to cash-in on the late ‘70s obsession with all things space. George Lucas, Stanley Kubrick, you have a lot to answer for.

But I realised what bothers me most is that Bond has the inability to die in precarious situations. Read on as I continue on the ill-advised task of whining about the Schiensh of Moonraker, subtitled WHY WON’T YOU DIE?

Bond fails to die pt.1 – jumping out of an airplane without a parachute

The film’s opening is rather promising: Roger Moore falls out of an aeroplane without a parachute. It had so much promise. That bastard Bond pulls a parachute of a defenceless henchman and leaves him to fall to his death. The odds surviving a fall from a plane are pretty slim.

According to Wikipedia, the higher someone falls, the more severe any injuries. The chances of survival increase if the faller lands on a surface with high deformity. Survival is also strongly dependent on anything that may slow descent; even a partially open parachute may mean the difference between life and death. There is a site called The Free Fall Research Page which lists accounts of survival from falls from height. There is a section dedicated to Unlucky Skydivers it’s rather astonishing how many people do survive. Many of them survive because their falls are broken by power lines, corrugated roofs etc. Some people are lucky enough to survive without such things breaking their falls – Bear Grylls survived a fall in the desert, but he was in pieces for months afterwards. From the accounts that exist, it would seem plausible that Jaws could survive a fall from a plane by landing on a circus tent. The fate of the anonymous henchman seems less certain, he almost certainly dies unless he has the good fortune to land on a barn.

Bond fails to die pt.2 – death by centrifuge

Shortly after his arrival at Drax’s lair, Dr Goodhead *headdesk* leads Bond to the high-G training centrifuge chamber thing. Scary Asian henchman turns the knob on the centrifuge up to 13 g. Dr Goodhead is good enough to explain that most people pass out at 7 g, and if the g is high enough for long enough, the poor sod stuck in the centrifuge will die. Bond, however, does not have the decency to die. Damn him.

Why does high g cause someone to black out? Well, it is all to do with blood flow to the brain. Normally, blood pressure remains fairly constant – it is carefully maintained in a narrow range by a group of autonomic reflexes. These reflexes adjust. For example when you go from lying down to standing up, your blood pressure needs to increase to ensure that your brain receives sufficient blood. Your reflexes are able to increase blood pressure to the required level. You may have noticed that occasionally, if you stand up too quickly, your vision will go fuzzy, or you may even faint. This is when your reflexes don’t quite compensate quickly enough.

In the centrifuge for high-g training and in instances of high g caused by high speeds, your blood tends to collect in your legs. Your reflexes compensate by raising your blood pressure up to a point, but this isn’t sustained. A second reflex takes over and blood pressure falls, in a similar manner to what happens during blood loss. The fall in blood pressure means that there is a decrease in blood flow to the brain which leads to gradual loss of vision, followed by loss of consciousness. If the blood flow to the brain becomes insufficient for longer than a few minutes, the brain will start to die. So close. Why won’t you die, Mr Bond?

Bond fails to die pt.3 – death by nerve gas

Bond goes nosing around a lab in Venice. Honestly, sneaking into a lab and carelessly jabbing at things at random without so much at a latex glove. Annoyingly, Bond nonchalantly shoves the most lethal chemical in the lab into his top pocket. In the process, he leaves a vial of the same toxic substance in a precarious position thereby killing a bunch of innocent scientists with his carelessness. Lab safety is in force for a reason. Now kids, never enter a lab without due supervision. And don’t touch anything. Health and safety is about other people’s safety as much as your own.

Q analyses the vial that Bond has stolen from the lab. He waves the chemical structure around. Bond observes that it is a “chemical formula of a plant” he is of course totally wrong. Plants have many components: DNA, proteins, sugars, cellulose. None of which are summarised by the chemical structure. What he means is “that looks like a plant-derived toxin to me, and by the way, I never told you about that degree I have in pharmacological chemistry”.

I have no idea what this is and I did chemistry A-level. I am, quite frankly, baffled that Bond knows. I can tell you that it is not DNA, a protein, an amino acid or a sugar. Fortunately, I just happen to know a lecturer in Forensic Toxicology. I handed him the formula for analysis.

Nerve agents come from a group of compounds called anticholinesterases and they affect the way that nerve signals are relayed in the body. Irreversible nerve agents contain a phosphate group and are classed as organophosphates. This compound above does appear to contain phosphorus atom, however, in an organophosphate, the oxygen atom (O) would be double-bonded to the phosphate atom (P) in the phosphate group.

Firstly, the drug is entirely fictitious, being impossible to make. Secondly, the DS doesn’t equate to a chemical element, it may be a molecule of sulphur (S) connected to a molecule of deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen; but why not use H, which is standard notation). They might mean Darmstadtium (Ds) and the capitalised S is a typo. Darmstadtium is very unstable existing for mere secong –  this is unlikely to occur in nature, though the chaps at Drax laboratories may have added this to the formula.

According to Wikipedia, effective organophosphates would have 2 lipophilic (fat-soluble) groups bonded to the phosphorus (this would enable the nerve agent to pass though the skin. In contrast – Drax’s nerve agent has a polar carboxyl group, although the three carbon rings in the middle (tricylohexane group) are very non-polar and may counteract this.

The poor unsuspecting scientists do appear to die in a manner consistent with nerve gas poisoning. The liquid (which is usually quite volatile) vapourises. When it is inhaled, it gets into the body where it interferes with the signals that go from the brain to the diaphragm and the victim can no longer breathe. They asphyxiate and DIE.

Bond fails to die pt.4 – death by cable car

Bond randomly bumps into Dr Goodhead *cough* on Sugarloaf mountain, followed by Jaws. Jaws being notable for having metal teeth, being rather large and being apparently very strong. Jaws attempts to kill Bond and Goodhead by biting through the cable suspending the cable car. It’s clear when you watch the film that the cable has already been cut before Richard Kiel “bites” through it. Fortunately for me Mythbusters have already dealt with this one. They found that even when applying 20,000 lbs of pressure, they were unable to cut through one inch of cable with metal teeth; they tried sharpened teeth as well as the blunt teeth Jaws appears to have in the film. It took a purpose designed hydraulic cutter to go through the cable. 20 tonnes of pressure could not possibly be applied through a set of human jaws.

Sadly, despite the efforts of Hugo Drax and his own ineptitude, James Bond fails to die.

That aside, here are the highlights of Moonraker.

Still, we’re halfway through the Moore, and it won’t get this bad until Die Another Day. BlogalongaBond is looking up.

 

Follow the Lemur wishes to acknowledge the help of the University of Dundee Centre for Forensic and Legal Medicine for their input on Drax’s deadly nerve toxin.

The Schiensh of Bond: The Spy Who Loved Me

After a dispiriting viewing of The Man With The Golden Gun, it’s with deep trepidation I attempted The Spy Who Loved Me, or, as it should be known from now onwards SUBMARINES: Fuck Yeah! Thus continues BlogalongaBond, a Bond film a month until Bond 23.

Dive! Dive!

I suppose scientifically, the most important thing about a submarine is its ability to change its buoyancy. Usually, things either float or sink in water, this floatiness, or buoyancy, is determined by the density of the object. Submarines change their buoyancy by varying the amounts of water and air in their ballast tanks. When the submarine dives, the ballast tanks are filled with water, to return to the surface, air is released into the ballast tanks, it displaces the water in the ballast tanks. The air is stored as compressed gas.

Pushing the limits

If you think about it, there are two factors that would limit how deep a submarine can dive. The first is how much water it can take on in the ballast tanks – when the ballast tanks are full, that’s it, the sub is as heavy as it can possibly get and can go no deeper. The other problem is water pressure. At normal atmospheric pressure, the air pressure inside the submarine equals that outside the sub. As a submarine dives however, the pressure exerted by the water outside exceeds the air pressure inside. If you had a balloon and took it deep underwater, it would shrink because it is being squished by the greater pressure of the water outside it. The same thing happens with submarines. Their hulls are designed to withstand a certain amount of force, beyond these depths, the submarine would be crushed.

The nuclear option

Nuclear submarines were developed in the 1950s, they have massive advantages over battery and diesel powered subs because they don’t need refuelling as much. Indeed, submarines nowadays need never refuel, while electric subs need a recharge every few days. Subs still need to restock for things like food though. this isn’t to say that nuclear powered subs are problem free, some tragic accidents have involved nuclear submarines. While nuclear powered subs can stay at sea for long periods of time, there is one flaw – in fact it is the method by which Q is able to track the lost submarine in the film – its heat signature. The nuclear reactor must be constantly cooled with sea water, so the sub leaves a thermal wake behind it which can be seen with thermal imaging system much like this.

Submarine car

If you’ve always wanted a submarine but don’t have the space (and you have a tonne of money to burn) you could get yourself a car that turns into a submarine. Sadly, Lotus don’t make these. The Esprit does not come with a submarine option. For the film, they used different models in various states of undress, finishing with the modified submarine car. According to Lotus Esprit World Perry Submarines constructed a mini-submarine with 4 electric propellers attached to the back. They couldn’t just modify a Lotus Esprit as there would be huge problems with water getting into the car. Bear in mind what happens in Top Gear anytime they build boat-cars. It wasn’t terribly manoeuvrable either.

As a road car, the design of the Esprit includes elements to help the car stick to the road, things that enhance downforce. It uses the same principles as wings on a plane, but in reverse – the air pressure below the car is lower than the air flowing over the car, pushing the car to the ground. The amount of air flowing above and below the car can be altered by structures on the car, like spoilers and wings and stuff. The designers were concerned that the downforce would have the same effect on the car in the water making the thing sink. Modifications were made at the front and back of the car to ensure this didn’t happen.

If you would like your own submarine car, sQuba exist. It will set you back $1.5 million and no one has taken it to market. The petrol engine has been replaced by three electric motors, one for the back wheels and the other two for the propellers. On land it can reach 75mph, while on water it can reach 4mph and underwater only 2mph. It can dive to 10 metres and can stay underwater for 2 hours.

I really enjoyed Submarines: Fuck yeah, join me next month for Space: *headdesk headdesk*

The Schiensh of Bond: The Man With the Golden Gun

Blah blah blah wasted Christopher Lee, blah blah blah bollocks, BlogalongaBond – The Man With The Golden Gun.

Golden Gun, Golden Bullets

Gold is a fascinating metal, it’s rare, it’s precious and most important of all it’s shiny. Wikipedia tells me that it has a melting point of 1064.18 °C (1337.33 K), and it is also a very good conductor of heat and electricity, and very dense (more so than lead). Scaramanga’s gun is custom made, it is assembled from a cigarette case, a fountain pen and a lighter with a cufflink trigger. He uses gold bullets in the film – these being his calling card.

What are the logistics of using gold for these? Well, for a gun, you probably wouldn’t want a firing pin in a metal as malleable as gold; it would likely change shape during repeated firing. The force involved in firing a bullet originates from some form of explosive pressure. In a gun made of gold, you’d lose a lot of the heat to the barrel because it is such a good conductor of heat. The gun would therefore be rather inefficient. It would also get quite hot, so it would be difficult to hold. If you were going to make a gun out of gold, you wouldn’t have a gold firing pin or barrel.

Things get a little fuzzy around the bullets. Lazar makes custom 4.2 mm diameter bullets (~.17 calibre) that are 23 carat gold. Cartridges have been used for many years, they encapsulate a bullet and an explosive propellent in a casing. Presumably, Scaramanga’s bullets come in a gold casing with some sort of explosive powder to provide thrust for the bullet. This isn’t discussed at all in the film so I can’t really comment. More information can be found here.

There’s a nice explanation here.

Trying to find out anything on the behaviour of gold bullets is tough work, principally because gold is rather expensive (over £1k per ounce). However, some bored genius on Yahoo Answers has. Lead, a normal material with which to make bullets, is soft and has a tendency to flatten on impact, causing a huge amount of damage. Gold does much the same thing as it is also soft and dense. If it had a casing made of a tougher material – like copper or tin, it wouldn’t come apart so much.

Car Stunt Skills

One of the coolest things about this decidedly sub-par film is that car stunt (which some pillock decided to add a swanee whistle to)

This stunt has a rather cool history: it was originally developed by Raymond McHenry using a mathematical model,  details of which can be found here. The genius thing about the compter model is how well it matches up with the reality. The stunt had been performed before TMWTGG, and MGM bought the rights to it. The stunt was done in one take using eight cameras.

Physical Impossibilities

I got a bit bored after the car stunt, so I was practicing guitar. But then I noticed this piece of glaring stupid.

The temperature absolute zero? Like -273 °C? With all due respect, BOLLOCKS.

The Maguffin in this film is a Solex agitator, an integral component in Scaramanga’s highly efficient solar power generator. Scaramanga describes his set up for generating solar power, and as part of the process, there are superconductivity coils cooled by liquid helium. I have absolutely no idea how this set up works.

There are two methods by which it is possible to generate solar power. One way is by using solar panels which heat in the sun, this heat is then used to boil water and turn turbines (which generates electricity in the same way as nuclear power and fossil fuel power plants do.) The second method is by use of the photoelectric effect using photovoltaic cells. When light shines on a material, a semiconductor, the energy of the photons is transferred to electrons within is, giving the electron enough energy to break away from their associated atoms. This means the electrons in the semiconductor are free. The material solar cells are made of have very special characteristics that mean that the electrons can only move in one direction. A net flow of charged particles (in this case electrons) produces an electrical current.

Back to the liquid helium being held at absolute zero. This is impossible. Absolute zero – 0 degrees Kelvin (0 K) is -273.15 °C. Temperature is a measure of energy in a system, energy has to be removed for temperature to drop. When the energy of a material decreases, the movement of atoms falls – so theoretically ast absolute 0, all movement of molecules ceases. Even deep space has a temperature of ~3 K. But absolute zero cannot be reached – this would violate the third law of thermodynamics. However,  Aaron Leanhardt’s team at MIT managed to reach 450 picokelvin (0.000 000 000 45) degrees above absolute zero in 2003.

Weird things happen when you reach really low temperatures  - helium becomes a superfluid around 2 K. In this state, it becomes a perfect thermal conductor and has no viscosity, so it has a tendency to creep out of containers.

It was more fun relearning A-level physics than watching The Man With The Golden Gun. I really hope The Spy Who Loved Me is better.

The Schiensh of Bond: Live and Let Die

So Connery is no more. BlogalongaBond lurches forward to the Roger Moore era with Live and Let Die

I thought I’d never seen a Roger Mole Moore Bond film before, but I was reminded that I had previously seen a special screening of The Spy Who Loved Me introduced by Richard “Jaws” Kiel. I have totally erased this from my memory. I have discovered a heretofore unknown skill; the ability to remove a Roger Mole Moore film from my mind. It’s going to be a long 7 months ’til we get to Dalton…

First off, there’s the MI6 officer who dies when his earpiece is swapped, someone who dies from a plastic snake bite and Roger Mole Moore is given a magnetic watch that can deflect bullets and can be used as a rotatey saw thing… What else happens? Mole Bond has a bug detector- it’s no use! I have no idea what’s going on! My attention is being moley wholly absorbed by this monstrosity:

Let’s take a look at that mole in detail:

On his FACE!

Moley Moley Moley

What causes such a vile abomination? Well, perhaps it is time that I discuss the science of moles.

Moles – most of us have them. Medically, they are called melanocytic naevi. They contain groups of melanocytes. Melanocytes are the skin cells that contain the dark pigment, melanin. They can be raised, flat, small, large, round, with a smooth or rough edge, and may have hair growing out of them. Some moles appear shortly after birth, but most of them will appear sometime during the first 30 years of life. Curiously, moles start to disappear later in life.

This is a picture through a mole as seen with a microscope

In the top picture, the clusters of brown cells indicated by the arrowheads are melanocytes. From Kittler et al 2000, Archives of Dermatology. The diagram underneath shows the layers of the skin. Normally, moles result from the presence of groups of melanocytes in the skin – the epidermis (top layer) or the dermis (lower layer) or both. Freckles, on the other hand, are just patches of skin where there is more melanin, whereas moles are clusters of melanocyte cells. There’s some nice info here. Your moleage is genetic, and is dependent on how many moles your parents have.

Moles and Cancer

Malignant melanoma (the cancer of moles) is the 6th most common cancer diagnosed in the UK. Although it’s not the most common form of skin cancer, it is the most deadly. Of the approximately 2500 people who died of skin cancer in 2008, around 2000 died of skin cancer. Stats from Cancer Research UK.

During melanoma, changes in the DNA of melanocytes in the skin (which can be caused by UV rays from sunlight), cause them to multiply in an uncontrolled manner. The growing population of melanocytes spread, causing  damage to surrounding tissue. If the  spreading mass of cells reach a blood vessel or a lymph node, the cancer can spread. If spotted early, treatment by removing the dubious mole will prevent spread of the melanoma. Skin that is sensitive to sunburn is more susceptible to skin cancer. Pale and pasties, as well as redheads are therefore at a higher risk. And if you have more than 50 moles, there is a greater chance that you may have a mole that is more likely to become cancerous.  However, many melanomas do not develop from existing moles.

Roger Moore had better be putting sunblock on that thing.

My arm (OK, I’m worried now).

Magical Moles

I stumbled across a website on “moleosophy” – the shape, size, colour and location of one’s moles can allegedly be used to tell a person’s future and identify personality characteristics – which is about as believable as being killed by a plastic snake bite, Solitaire having magical fortunetelling powers and voodoo. It’s all bollocks.

Moles and Longevity

It’s not all bad news though, I stumbled across a couple of press releases for a paper declaring that people with more moles may live longer. Intrigued by my potential immortality (seriously, I have a lot of moles) I dug a little deeper. Anyone can access freely access the paper here. Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes that protect them from damage during ageing. The telomeres shorten with age and are thought by some scientists to perhaps cause the physical signs of ageing. But it would seem that women with more moles have longer telomeres. Which is rather interesting. Moleyness, however will do nothing for your longevity if you get fed to sharks via an unnecessarily slow dipping mechanism.

Assuming Roger Moore avoids skin cancer and sharks, he will return in The Man With The Golden Gun, where we will continue to discuss why he is rubbish.

The Schiensh of Bond: Diamonds are Forever

Do I really have to watch Diamonds are Forever?  I’ve read the book, surely that counts? But no, I have to watch it for BlogalongaBond (a Bond movie a month until Bond 23 is released).

All I remember from the book is diamond smuggling and horse race fixing. However:

While the book featured a straight-forward diamond smuggling plot, the film featured the diamonds being used in a laser satellite.

Wikipedia

Huh?

The film seems to have trouble deciding whether it’s about diamond smuggling or lasers. I figure I discuss both.

Diamonds

Diamonds are made up of carbon. That’s right, simple, humble carbon. Like soot or pencil lead. But clearly not like soot or graphite. Diamond is the hardest known substance to man and it also has extraordinary properties as a heat conductor (though it does not conduct electricity).

The only difference between diamond and other, less fancy forms of carbon is its molecular structure. Diamond, graphite and fullerenes (teeny-tiny footballs made of carbon atoms) are allotropes of carbon. More recently, carbon atoms have been arranged into nano tubes and graphene (sheets of carbon a molecule thick). Anyway, the point is that the structure of diamond is what gives it its unique qualities.

Graphite is sheets of interconnected hexagons arranged in sheets, which are held together by weaker forces:

The sheets can slide across each other, so the graphite in your pencil can leave behind a layer of graphite when you drag it across a piece of paper.

In contrast to graphite, which is quite soft, diamond is incredibly hard. What makes diamond hard is its structure – each carbon atom is bonded to four other carbons in three dimensions (rather than just a sheet).

Diamond is also fairly inert, meaning that it doesn’t tend to react chemically. This, combined with its hardness and its ability to conduct heat, mean that there is a massive demand for industrial diamonds. They are also transparent to visible light, infra red and ultra violet light. Some diamonds, because of their impurities, can act as semiconductors (though most are electrical insulators).

Lasers

I remember nothing of lasers from my A-level physics so I looked it up on Wikipedia. I didn’t understand Wikipedia so I had to resort to Baby’s First Book of Physics (that’s clearly a lie – I used Physics by Ohanian and Google).

Laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

The first thing I need to explain is light.

Visible light is one part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which also includes radio waves, microwaves, gamma radiation and x-rays. The difference in wavelength is why blue light is blue and red light is red. Also, consider that light waves can oscillate in more than one plane:

In a you’ve got one photon travelling in a wave going up and down. In b there are several light particles, all travelling as waves, but at different angles or planes.

If these waves of light are at the same wavelength, but out of phase (or out of sync), the light is incoherent:

Light from a light bulb is incoherent. The atoms in the bulb emit photons, but they all emit photons at different times, so that the waves of light are out of sync.

If the waves are in phase, the light waves are coherent:

In a laser, because of a process called stimulated emission, photons are emitted in sync by the atoms; the light waves are coherent.

My understanding of it is that when one photon is released, it passes other atoms and it causes them to emit photons in sync. It’s something to do with quantum theory (which no-one’s prepared to explain to a biologist). Because the light waves are in phase they combine constructively, making the light beam very intense.

You can stimulate a material to emit coherent light with a flash of visible light. The first lasers used rubies. But not natural rubies, synthetic ones. The laser consists of a long cylindrical crystal of ruby; the chromium impurities within it are the part of the ruby that emit the coherent laser light. The ends of the ruby cylinder are mirrored, although one end is only partially silvered so the light can leave the ruby. The mirrors reflecting the laser light enhance the beam.

This type of laser also consists of a high intensity flash lamp which is used to excite the atoms in the ruby. Like this.

Apparently this is what Blofeld wants diamonds for.

But hang on a minute: in 1971, people didn’t use diamonds to build lasers. While it is true that diamond’s semiconductor, heat conductor, and optical properties make it ideal for building lasers, natural diamonds are too expensive, their quality isn’t consistent enough and they need to be big. It was only in 2008 that diamonds of sufficient size and quality could be made and utilised in Raman lasers, and this is only due to advances in the production of synthetic of diamonds.

The main question is this: how destructive are they? The answer: pretty destructive.

You can cut diamonds with lasers. Apparently, the US Navy were working on a laser that can shoot down artillery shells and missiles (before it was decided that this was a waste of money), although that was an electron laser rather than a light laser.

Oh, ok. We’ll stop there. This is all you really wanted, isn’t it? Destroying sh*t with lasers?

Fine.

Join Schiensh next month as I endure my first ever Roger Moore film in Live and Let Die.