Radical Barbatilo

<<< Return to Spanish version   T he coffee plant uses caffeine as a defense mechanism, being toxic to most insects. But not for the coffee berry borer whose extreme tolerance toward the alkaloid makes it the most devastating plague of coffee. Caffeine is the psychoactive substance most consumed in the world. The caffeine content of coffee varies depending on how you prepare it and mainly on the type of grain, even within the same plant can vary their concentration. In general, an espresso (30 ml) has about 40 mg of caffeine, while a Starbucks’ Venti (about 600 ml) has more than 400 mg. There are sources suggesting that larger amounts of caffeine are safe most healthy adults.

<<< Return to Spanish version   Oxygen (O 2 ) is approximately 21% of the Earth's atmosphere, but this has not always been the case: the primitive Earth's atmosphere contained only small amounts of this compound, probably as a result of the reaction of sunlight with steam water from volcanoes. One only could find oxygen in water molecules (H 2 O) or attached to the forming iron oxides, but never freely. The oxygen-rich atmosphere of today (eon up, eon below) is the result of one of the deadliest weather disasters in the history of our planet. About 2.5 million years ago the Earth was very different: there were no green plants neither, of course, animals or insects. The only forms of life were bacteria and they lived in the old way, ie, under anaerobic conditions. These primitive organisms thrived in the absence of oxygen, using sulphur for their energy needs. Under these conditions, iron is capable of dissolving in water, resulting in oceans rich in thi...

<<< Return to Spanish version   You are in a small windowless room, lying on a pale turquoise gurney. On each side of the gurney there is a metal table against the wall, and in one of them there are scissors, a small red beaker and a gauze strip. Neatness of the room is strangely disturbing and doesn’t release comfort. There is also a clock just above the gurney ticking to announce something terrible. You can see everything because in front of you there is a mirror. And you can imagine that behind must be your execution witnesses, some of your family and possibly several families of your victims. Prison officials tie you to the gurney straps and clean your arms with alcohol before insert an intravenous cannula in each (the one main and the other for security, if the first fails). You can see yourself helpless in the mirror. You're a murderer but you are also afraid, something that is part of our deepest and most primitive animal nature, probably the sam...

<<< Return to Spanish version [Press PLAY to listen "Hymn to the sea" while you read the post] Sometimes things occur around the world of such intensity that resonates over time, producing a kind of echo. The story of the Titanic causes a particular effect on who listen it, almost as if it were a Bible story: that huge ship, all those people in the ocean at night, the iceberg... The Royal Mail Steamer Titanic was the product of an intense competition between British shipping companies in the first half of the twentieth century. White Star Line was in a battle for supremacy of steamship with Cunard Line, famous for the construction of two of the most sophisticated and luxurious ships of that time. On the one hand, Mauretania had set a speed record in transatlantic crossing. On the other hand, Lusitania, whose tragic final came in the annals of history when a torpedo launched by a German submarine sank it, precipitating the entry of the United S...

<<< Return to Spanish version Germans Max von Laue and James Frank received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 and 1925, respectively. The first was a clear opponent of the Nazi regime and the second was Jew. When World War II began, these two physicists sent their commemorative medals awards to Niels Bohr’s Laboratory (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922), in Copenhagen, so that he had a safe place until the end of the war. But medals are gold and gold export from Germany was a very serious offense at that time. Regrettably, Denmark was invaded and as the Bohr’s lab had become a refuge for Jewish physicists and would received a Nazi visit, so he had to hide medals but the name of the winner was recorded in them. To avoid the capture and the likely punishment to these researchers, the Hungarian George de Hevesy (Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1943) chose the chemistry way “to hide" the medals. But gold, being a noble metal, does react with almost nothing, adding ...