I’d not caught onto this story before (probably because I haven’t been following much world news) about Human Feet washing up on the shores of Westham Island near Vancouver – article from the Guardian 21st June 2008.

Five human feet have washed up on the island coastline around Vancouver since August last year, including two in the last four weeks. All but the one on Westham Island have been right feet; all but one appear to have been male and all have been wearing trainers – Reeboks, Nikes and Adidas. The first four were all size 12…

…But the most recent foot turned out not to be human at all. A prankster had stuffed an animal paw into a trainer and then planted it on the beach. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were not amused…

…DNA profiles of the first three feet, found last year, do not match any missing-person cases, according to the coroner’s office. While the evidence has been gathered, there are few clues to the origin of the five feet…

…
Theories about the origins of the feet abound. Some suggest that they belong to victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami, or that they may be from the victims of maritime or air accidents.

Others point to the large numbers of missing people in British Columbia. According to police there were 2,371 people listed as missing in the province at the end of May, with gang-related crime, drugs and homelessness all contributing to the problem. The exploits of a Vancouver area pig farmer, Robert Pickton, loom large. Pickton was convicted last year of the murder of six women, and according to the prosecution at his trial confessed to the murder of 43 others.

The suggestion that there may be a criminal element connected with the appearance of so many feet is bolstered by the conclusion of Ebbesmeyer and other oceanographers that the feet have most probably been carried down the Fraser river – which flows from the Rocky mountains before reaching the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver – swelled by the spring snow melt…

…Back at Westham Island, the man who found foot number five has few doubts about its origin.

“This is coming down from the river, no question about it,” he said. “There’s someone doing this all right. Think about it: if they tied a chain around someone’s ankle and threw them overboard, the foot would just pop off. That could explain it. Maybe they got a lot of bodies stored up in a container and they got washed out. We don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff goes on over there,” he added, nodding toward the city.

It’s all very puzzling, rather creepy, and disturbing

However, it reminded me of a story relating to european dairy farmers. I don’t have a link for it unfortunately, but it goes something like this:

The EU concluded that there was too much milk being produced by dairy farmers to the point that it was being called a “Milk Lake”. To address the problem they legislated that a certain percentage of dairy cattle would have to be slaughtered, though the farmer would be compensated by the EU for every cow he had slaughtered. The way they would be paid was simple; the slaughter house would give the left ear (it may not have been that specific or even been the right ear) of every cow and a certificate to the farmer to send off to collect his money.
The scheme appeared to have been successful as the uptake had been very high after several months. Shortly after the scheme had been stopped, it was noted that were a lot of cows roaming fields with only one ear! The cows were still alive producing milk, with the only problem that they were missing an ear so slightly deaf.
I’ve heard it told as Italian farmers, though I believe the French were the biggest culprits.

Anyway, that was what sprung to mind, but I do hope something more is discovered about the the mystery in Westham Island

20 years ago today the Great Storm hit the UK as the remnants of one of the storms from the 1987 Hurricane Season in the carribean. It was Hurricane Floyd from the bay of Biscay which crossed the atlantic and hit the UK.
The worst storm in 284 years: 23 people died from the storm and much devastation was caused
I remember it very vividly – I was 8 years old at the time and it knocked down our huge apple tree in the back garden

However, the thing I remember was the mistake british weatherman Michael Fish made the night before

Youtube link for those reading on RSS or those who don’t see the video above

A flock of Rose ringed parakeets in London – their population has grown to 30,000 now and it has got to the point where they are threatening indigenous species.
The RSPB agree and a spokesman’s quote below:

Mr Webb said that, at 16 inches long, a parakeet was larger than many garden species so shooting them “should not prove too difficult”. But he added: “Of course, many people would be distressed to see any animal shot.”

They seem to be all over london and the south east devouring fruits and seeds which indigenous birds eat.

Where did they all come from?
There are three theories mentioned in the article among others, but nobody really knows, but it looks like they’re here to stay.
1) Rose-ringed parakeets started breeding in the wild in the UK is that an entire flock escaped from Shepperton studios, Surrey, during the filming of The African Queen in 1951. It is thought around 20 birds vanished from an aviary on set.
2) A pair of the birds were released by Jimi Hendrix in Carnaby Street in the Sixties as a symbol of peace,
3) They are the descendants of domestic pets which escaped their owners’ cages

They’re very noisy birds, and I’ve seen them for myself roosting in the trees of Hampstead Heath

A bit of a current news event for today’s post
The UK is currently experiencing a bit of turmoil with potentially contaminated petrol being sold in certain petrol stations
So far, it has mostly been reported as being sold by Supermarket Chains Tesco and Morrisons though it has been all across the country:

So what is it?
The latest investigations are suggesting that the petrol is contaminated with Silicon which is causing damage to the oxygen sensor. The sensor measures the amount of oxygen in exhaust gas, and once damaged it means that the ECU (the computer in the engine) no longer knows how much oxygen is present so goes into a kind of shut down mode.
I’m told that because of this there is a huge shortage in the UK of oxygen sensors in garages. The repair costs roughly £200 and there are likely to be many car owners suing those responsible.

Interestingly, when I heard what the problem was my first reaction was different from what others are suggesting. “Experts” are mostly talking about variations in petrol composition and contamination during transport.
My first thoughts were in the process of producing petrol.

So, I thought I’d do a little Chemistry lesson in how you convert crude oil into petrol:
(Images all from Wikipedia)

In the olden days, after digging your oil out of the ground:

You heated it in an industry version of a fractionating column:

Each component in crude oil has a different point which it can be distilled off so you can split it into fuel gas, LPG, petrol, light cycle oils used in diesel and jet fuel, and heavy fuel oil.
The problem is that the biggest earners of all of these are found in the smaller quantities in crude oil, so in the late 19th Century they developed Cracking
Let me summarise:
The simplest of these processes is Thermolytic Cracking – also known as Pyrolysis.
The process enables you to convert the heavier fuel oils into lighter fuels such as LPG, petrol and diesel which are in greater demand
In 1936, the first commercial Thermal Cracking refinery was set up to get more out of crude oil.
Essentially you heat at temperatures up to 1000 degrees C and high Pressure (~700kPa) in absence of Oxygen, and the heavier components of oil are released leaving the lighter ones available for extraction.
The process contains many reactions many relying on free radicals – more details in the article

By 1942, the process had been refined and named Fluid Catalytic Cracking. The advantage of this is you get a higher octane rating at a lower temperature and without need of exerting high pressure. It uses a Zeolite Catalyst (A catalyst is a substance that speeds up a reactions and remains unchanged at the end). Zeolites are Aluminium-Silicon based materials, often containing Sodium, and used as Molecular sieves due to their structure:

Sometimes they will also use Silicon (IV) Dioxide

It is here where I think it is possible that the contamination could take place

Just my 2 English pence, but it seems more feasible than some form of contamination during storage – I just can’t buy that when there’s so much Silicon being used in the manufacture

It’s been over a month since my last I made my last blog post from Italy. Since coming back it’s taken a while to get used to the shock of going back to work.
Anyway, onto topic.
I’ve been thinking a lot about climate change because while I was in Italy it was unseasonably warm, there was very little snow in the mountains in Europe. There has been a general increase in concern about the environment & energy in parliament and then there’s the hype around global warming.
This got me thinking about electric cars, because many point the finger at petrol/diesel cars as being major polluters. And in some ways rightly so.
As a chemist by degree I know a lot about the nasty stuff that cars produce, and as a car driver I know why I think I need one.

First off lets take a few steps backwards and looks at the Greenhouse Effect:

The main greenhouse gas which we can control is Carbon Dioxide
However, I find that a lot of people don’t really know what it’s all about – in fact many intelligent people don’t know the difference between The Greenhouse Effect and Ozone Layer Depletion
Ozone Layer Depletion is entirely caused by humans by the use of fridges and aerosols which give off CFCs and others. It was particularly prevalent in the 70s-90s, but changes in coolants used mean that the ozone layer hole is no longer increasing and is actually healing itself back ie the hole is shrinking.
The Greenhouse effect occurs naturally without human intervention, but has been exaggerated by humans burning fossil fuels (coal, wood, petrol, gas etc.) producing Carbon Dioxide. This causes the planet to warm up rapidly over a period of time.
Note, there are other greenhouse gases but they are largely not human caused so largely out of our control.

Back to what I was trying to talk about
Electric Cars
Now, my normal comment on electric cars is that it’s just distributing the pollution elsewhere as in most countries the electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal etc.).

However, when I did a bit of research it appears that electric cars are significantly more efficient according to the stats than their petrol counterparts. On top of that, it’s said that it’s easier to maximise the efficiency of a power station than an internal combustion engine in a petrol car.
However, I’m still not convinced that:
a) The calculations are accurate
b) That all the inefficiencies are being taken into account

On my way back from italy I started planning on doing some real life calculations on how efficient electric cars are based on how much energy they really consume from the point of burning the fossil fuels vs petrol cars. I will need to either get some of the data online or find someone who owns an electric car to make it a reality. Should make for an interesting comparison, and either way I think it will be surprising to me.