ThunderSnow.us

• New Hampshire is cold.
• Break was wicked awesome. Savannah is beautiful, warm Georgia weather was amazing, we never really got rained on (although it came close that one morning). I got more sunburned than I’ve been in years. RPI boys are sweet. RPI and Binghamton and Buffalo girls are awesome.
• I get my kitties back from their forced stay at the terrible terrible kennel.
• I have two papers (one on “Does pharmacology have an important role in the treatment of alcoholism?” and one on the kinetic depth effect (yay writing a paper that I already half wrote for the UROP proposal)) due next week. And I have a math test. Whee school.

The convention of measuring the concentration of alcohol in “proof” originated in the British Army, where they would test the potency of their beverage by pouring it on a small pile of gunpowder. If the gunpowder would still ignite, it was “proof” that there was a proper concentration of alcohol. The threshold amount of alcohol that is necessary for this is actually a bit more than 50% (57%, I think), but the U.S. standardized some time ago on 50% alcohol being 100 proof. (The Brits use a system with the above-mentioned 57% being 100 proof. More accuracy, but more math. There is undoubtedly some conclusion to be drawn here about the fundamental differences between Americans and Brits, but I have homework to do.)
Courtesy of my rocking Psychopharmacology text.

But if you want to proofread, thats fine too. I’m applying for a UROP grant for a research project for next fall. These do not necessarily get read by people in my department, but by faculty from across the college. So, I’m trying to explain the fairly technical phenomenon I want to look at in clear and concise terms for folks who don’t have a background in this. If you want to play, take a look at the project definition and tell me if parts of it are confusing or unclear.