16 DEC 2011 by ideonexus

 Thomas Paine and George Washington Conduct an Experiment

The muddy bottom of rivers contains great quantities of impure and often inflammable air (carbureted hydrogen gas), injurious to life; [begin page 309] and which remains entangled in the mud till let loose from thence by some accident. This air is produced by the dissolution and decomposition of any combustible matter falling into the water and sinking into the mud, of which the following circumstance will serve to give some explanation. In the fall of the year that New York was evacuated ...
  1  notes

They light aflame methane gases stirred up from the Millstone River as part of a bet.

30 AUG 2011 by ideonexus

 While the Patient is Alive, the Urine is Ours

When the patient dies the kidneys may go to the pathologist, but while he lives the urine is ours. It can provide us day by day, month by month, and year by year, with a serial story of the major events going on within the kidney.
  1  notes

Addis remarks on learning about the state of the patient's kidneys from urine tests.