Things I never noticed before.

And the goats are green and blue in color.

 

In Errand of Mercy? Yeah, it looked like somebody threw paint at them while they were running.

 

Could copper based blood actually work? Copper as a substitue in the stead of iron, to bond and transport oxygen?

I never noticed this possibility before. That is my tie-in to this thread.

 

I read in a book on biology (not remotely related to Star Trek or science fiction) that blood molecules built around an atom of Copper instead of Iron was theoretically possible.

 

Theoretically possible? It actually happens. Octopi and squid (among other species) have hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemocyanin

 

Oh, way cool then. I suppose this is what you get reading your grandfathers textbooks.

 

I remember seeing something on PBS about horseshoe crabs having blue blood and it containing copper. So Spock's blood ahould really be blue? If it's supposed to be copper-based.

 

^^ Furthermore, hemocyanin is fine for mollusks and arthropods, but it’s an inefficient carrier of oxygen compared to hemoglobin. It simply wouldn’t work in warm-blooded vertebrates.

 

That reminds me. my wife is still saving a set of 1925 encyclopedias that her father passed on to her. Maybe I should take a look through them and see what science thought back then, for a laugh.

 

I cames across a set that was published just prior to 1938. It was vey strange to see an entry about Adolph Hitler discussing him as an up and coming politician.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

I'm still using a set that in the section on Space Travel has artists concepts about what a manned Lunar landing might look like.

Hang on to them. They could be very useful someday.

 

Re. CU-blood. "Fascinating."

Cyan = blue. So crabs are the real blue-bloods of the world? Hence their regal bearing.

And as to old science, I picked up a 1926 (iirc) PopMechanics in a flea market, with the distinctive checkerboard tops to the skyscrapers and . . . biplanes landing on them. Still waiting on my hovercar, by the way.

Wait, here's the pic. Pretty accurate: http://chexydecimal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ElevatedLanding.jpg

 

Well, he was Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" in 1938.

 

Just imagine!

 

They weren't mine. I spotted the set while waiting as my grandmother was visiting a friend in a local nursing home. (There's a perverse sense of symmetry there.)

Sincerely,

Bill

 

Just watched "Wink of an Eye" yesterday...noticed when Kirk gets off the examination table, there is what looks like a 4x4 piece of wood painted grey to match the setpiece for Shatner to stand on so that his head lands squarely on the pillow at the top.