Actually, you can manufacture your own...sort of.
You need any combination of welders' glass (that normally would slide into the traditional welder's helmet) that totals at least 14.

That is, you could combine two 7's, an 8 & 6, three 5s, etc.

As long as the value of the glass totals at least 14, you should be safe to view the eclipse through the glass.

Now, and even safer way to view the eclipse, is either through television (the weather channel or other science-oriented channel that will handle it) or make yourself a pin-hole camera.

You can do this by either poking a small round hole in one end of a shoe box and looking at the pin-hole of light that falls on the far wall of the box..... or, punch a small round hole in a paper plate, and use that one to shade another white paper plate, and look at the image that falls on the white plate.

That way you are not actually looking at the sun, but at the focused image of the sun which is projected onto a viewing screen/plate/wall reflector.

There's probably more radiation coming from your smoke detectors than will be residual in any hard goods you get from Japan. Unless you were buying uranium, there's not much to worry about.

You don't mention what kind of products you ordered from Japan. The greatest concern would be, of course, for agricultural goods grown in the area of the radiation release. For manufactured and hard goods, in general, you would have very little to be concerned about. Be aware that Japan is extremely concerned about their image in the global commerce community and have taken extensive steps to ensure that exported goods are safe (right from the beginning).

The act of "worrying" in and of itself often implies concern and discomfort without any plausible means of be able to change the situation. Your best tool is knowledge.

I suggest you read through this page of the US Food and Drug Administration (updated within the last week)

http://www.fda.gov/newsevents/publichealthfocus/ucm247403.htm

and pay special attention to the section titled,

"What is FDA doing to ensure the safety of products imported from Japan?

Frankly, I doubt it, Kristin.
Remember that the leak was in a specific city in the north, and Japan has lots and lots of manufacturing and other cities throughout the country and beyond.

There's no real reason to think that workers are being allowed inside the hot zone to work on products or materials that are still restricted.

If you're really worried, you might take your package to the unversity radiation lab or whoever might have a giger-counter (maybe a rock hound or mineralogist?) and ask them for a quick scan.

But I really don't think you should loose any sleep over it.

(Also, it's not like you're going to sleep with the item you ordered, or have it next to your body for long periods of time, is it?) If it hangs on your wall, and you live in the rest of the house, your exposure is even less. If you're consuming it, that might be another matter.

More info would be needed.

I have only worked on cadavers and never observed living brain tissue in real life.
My impression of its appearance is confirmed by this statement from Wikipedia:

"Living brain tissue is pinkish on the outside and mostly white on the inside, with subtle variations in color."

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

Impossibly rigid. So, we're talkin' blue balls here, right? If yes, really curious to learn why you feel compelled to swing your 'questionlandium' around in a perfect circle? Is that to distract you from the fact that you have no relief in sight...? Oh yea, you totally lost me on the one-light-year-long part. But I've never been that good at science. p.s. Maybe if you aim to hit something you'll feel better.

I dunno about music, other than different strokes for different folks.

But your friend - It could be that the music is simply being misheard or partly missing.
When was the last time he was tested for hearing damage?
I have a friend who's low end of their hearing is gone, and as a result, he can't hardly hear the 'beat' of music anymore -- For a while he was always complaining how "music used to be dancable, and felt strong, now it's all tame and quiet" until he got his hearing checked and realized he wasn't hearing the same anymore.

There are hearing test iPhone apps that can give you a cursory check - and maybe spur him into the doctor's office?

Are we doing this in a perfect vacuum/clean room and assuming no heat friction?

I didn't get this question at all at first but after thinking about it for a minute, it is a pretty good one.

You're going to need someone who actually knows physics for a real answer but I think the core flaw in the question is that there is no such thing as anything that is "impossibly rigid" so the experiment is meaningless.

Force propagates just like anything else (sound, light, etc) depending on the medium, so you'd start swinging the pole from the center, and the swinging force would reach the end of the pole (and move it) at 99.9% the speed of light (at the fastest). So, no, you don't get FTL travel.

One possible explanation for lack of interest in music is that individuals may be particularly sensitive to environmental stimuli because of physical peculiarity. I know that for me, as a migraineur, background noise can be very uncomfortable and sometimes even actively painful. One of the more recent theories about migraines is that those who suffer from them have abnormally reactive brains- a lower set point for a "comfortable" or "normal" level of stimuli, and that when this low threshold is exceeded the migraineur's brain reacts with a flurry of neural activity. This is a good working explanation for why many migraineurs have such intense and sudden reactions to environmental triggers (noise, light, movement, scent). I don't mind low music or other noise as long as I am actually paying attention to it (and I can certainly enjoy music), but when I am trying to focus on another task and there is music playing it makes me feel scattered, physically uncomfortable, and irritable even when the noise level isn't high enough to actually provoke a migraine. This is particularly noticeable for me when I am spending time with friends and they all want music to be playing at all times no matter what we're doing (driving, eating, sitting around and talking, etc.) and I feel like the extra stimulus is actually physically sucking the energy right out of me. While this isn't really an explanation for people who say they receive no enjoyment from music whatsoever, it may help explain why some people are less enthusiastic about it or comfortable with it being played constantly.

I know of no reason to think that your friend's dyslexia and his distaste for music are linked by anything other than both being traits which belong to him.

I couldn't track down any information about dyslexics disliking music, although I did find an article about the difficulties of teaching music notation to someone with dyslexia. If your friend had a frustrating experience in music class when he was young, he might have stopped enjoying music altogether.

A more likely explanation: some people just don't like music or have a hard time hearing complex musical patterns. I'm completely tone deaf and have a hard time keeping up a rhythm. I like some sounds that are considered annoying or grating (bagpipes, accordions, squeaky fiddles, scratchy voices) and get annoyed by sounds that some people consider soothing (most classical and jazz music). Some people just have a strange taste in music or no taste at all.

You might find it interesting to know, and share with your friend, that the novelist Vladimir Nabokov disliked music. He specifically detested "soft music", as might be found in an elevator or other public place as background, but even quality music -- his son was an opera singer -- left him utterly unmoved.

So he's in good company.

I suspect that this person experience with music is that it presents as cacophonous chaotic sound and not an enjoyable sensory input.

The simplistic explanation is that we all organize our connection to the world through our interpretation of our sensory experience. Each of us have strengths and weaknesses of attention to, awareness of, or ability to interpret detail through our various senses. The continuum is broad and much is an outward manifestation of the organization of the central nervous system of the individual.

When working with students with various disabilities in the university environment I found out that some of those students with learning disabilities could not properly interpret the visual cues of facial expressions or recognize the nuances (change in speech pattern, etc.) that indicate various stages of a conversation (like the winding down and ending process). I remember a student walking away from my office with a look on their face like they were wondering why I had stopped talking.

I have a friend now who, long ago I realized records little visual detail or notices differences from the present to any visual memory. I wanted him to recognize how much better one of my birds looked through improved plumage care and diet and he barely records any environmental differences of the house in general. I could move the furniture around and paint the walls a different color and he would not notice.

What one person might feel is a comfortable setting visually might be totally disruptive for another. That can be true of sound or touch or taste. Think of the person that has difficulty with the feel of some kinds of fabric or the ability to have their feet touched. Some food that you think is fabulous may be totally unacceptable because of taste or even texture (or appearance) to another. The extension to something as complex as music is quite understandable.

My thought is to wonder what auditory experience does this person find relaxing or enjoyable? The sound of wind in the trees or surf on the coast, crickets, rain, etc. How about listening to the playing of just one instrument solo (perhaps in person with a musician to make it more than a auditory experience alone). I would suspect that they do not interpret the beat of the music or dance easily. Most popular music compositions involve so many instruments, drum beat, and vocals all mixed together. Try the simplistic experience first and see where you may go from there.

There are a lot of questions here.

First of all, -COOH is chemical shorthand for a carboxyl group, so yes, they are the same thing.

As for the amount of THC and THC-COOH in chronic users and the rate at which detection declines see these graphs:

1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3159863/figure/F2/

2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784185/figure/F1/

The first shows the decline of THC levels in patient plasma during a 7 day abstinence.The second a larger sample group under similar conditions.

The important thing to understand is that THC-COOH is the byproduct of THC metabolism in the body after release from tissues. This ratio of THC/THC-COOH can be used as a measure of the rate at which THC is removed from the blood.

As for what levels will result in impairment, that is a complicated question. First you have to define impairment, then take in to account the fact that everyone has a different physiology (body size, metabolism, whether or not you are accustomed to cannabinoids) and finally that this sort of question isn't easy to study. It isn't scientifically ethical to tell people to light up and then see how well they drive for instance.

Here is one paper I found that gives an idea of limits(3):

"Limited epidemiological studies indicate that serum concentrations of THC below 10 ng/ml are not associated with an elevated accident risk. A comparison of meta-analyses of experimental studies on the impairment of driving-relevant skills by alcohol or cannabis suggests that a THC concentration in the serum of 7-10 ng/ml is correlated with an impairment comparable to that caused by a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05%."

You're final question about how long it takes for THC to be detectable is really going to depend on the same physiology variables I mentioned above. It also depends HEAVILY on how much you smoke and I can't quickly find much information on it.

I did, however, find a study where the injected a pig with massive amount of THC and looked at how it was distributed throughout the body(4). Crazy.

1) Implications of plasma Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol, 11-hydroxy-THC, and 11-nor-9-carboxy-THC concentrations in chronic cannabis smokers.
Karschner EL, Schwilke EW, Lowe RH, Darwin WD, Herning RI, Cadet JL, Huestis MA.
J Anal Toxicol. 2009 Oct;33(8):469-77.

2) Do Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol concentrations indicate recent use in chronic cannabis users?
Karschner EL, Schwilke EW, Lowe RH, Darwin WD, Pope HG, Herning R, Cadet JL, Huestis MA.
Addiction. 2009 Dec;104(12):2041-8. Epub 2009 Oct 5.

3) A study investigating the acute dose-response effects of 13 mg and 17 mg Delta 9- tetrahydrocannabinol on cognitive-motor skills, subjective and autonomic measures in regular users of marijuana.
Weinstein A, Brickner O, Lerman H, Greemland M, Bloch M, Lester H, Chisin R, Sarne Y, Mechoulam R, Bar-Hamburger R, Freedman N, Even-Sapir E.
J Psychopharmacol. 2008 Jun;22(4):441-51.

4) Postmortem redistribution of THC in the pig.
Brunet B, Hauet T, Hébrard W, Papet Y, Mauco G, Mura P.
Int J Legal Med. 2010 Nov;124(6):543-9. Epub 2010 Jan 7.

ps. Please forgive spelling/grammar errors. I'm writing this on the quick.

pps. "J Anal Toxicol" heh.

Seattle Astronomical Society is having one of their Greenlake Star Parties tonight. http://www.seattleastro.org/obsgreenlake.shtml

Don't get your hopes up though. Last I checked the supernova in M101 peaked at not quite 12th magnitude. While that is damn bright for a supernova, getting to that magnitude in the city is going to be hard. Really you'd need to be out in the Issaquah Alps or further to see it.

Not knowing your application I went right to my old familiar motorcycle/automotive concoctions. This stuff:
http://www.permatex.com/documents/GasketMakerSelector.pdf
I have used in lieu of actual oem standard gaskets in a diverse range of vehicles and applications. and it's readily available at any auto parts store.

Steve Poole on KOMO said after midnight. I saw one about 12:15 AM last night.

UTC is GMT.

Greenwich Mean Time was deemed "un PC" a number of years ago and replaced with Universal Coordinated Time, inexplicably abbreviated UTC. This is also known, especially among pilots, as "ZULU" time.

GMT = UTC = ZULU

Seattle is UTC -8 hours.

Bear in mind that UTC/GMT/ZULU also operates on a 24 hour cycle, so 1:00 means 1:00 AM UTC. There is no such thing as 1:00 PM UTC, that would be 13:00 UTC.

So, to answer your question, 1:00 UTC = 5:00 PM in Seattle

Perseid Meteor Shower Information via UW astronomy department:

http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/balick/perseids.html

I assume you mean "packed together from a loose film state"? As in recovered waste or bags or something?

Because the solid stuff weighs a ton, almost literally - by my calculation a cubic yard of solid LDPE bar stock would weigh 1,568 pounds (it's 0.93 grams per cubic centimeter).

Presumably you wouldn't be able to compress loose bags anywhere near that far without special machinery, though.

(-125)^2 is positive.
-(125^2) is negative.

The initial expression you wrote should be shown as:
(-(125^2))^(1/3).

Thus, the answer is negative.

Note: you can put mathematical expressions into google and get the result.

I was told there would be no math.

this was the first hit I got with "sunrise sunset charts"

http://www.sunrisesunset.com/custom_srss_calendar.asp

It'd take some doing, but you can create a calendar for different locations that list day length.

Someone has homework they need help with. Go to your TA or read your class materials.

It's based on, like, Science, man.

Blick is on the corner of Pine/Broadway. They will have everything you ever wanted plus stuff you never knew you needed.