Tag Archives: cold

Ice prism in a wheelbarrow

I’d heard of ice spikes before — those strange horns that grow out of ice cube trays. And a quick internet search pulls up the rarer ice pyramid, too, like this one. But I’ve never heard of a trapezoidal prism being reported, but that’s what I found in my wheelbarrow recently. It was extremely smooth and organized, plus was thin-walled and filled with liquid water. I’m not at all confident the formation is even related to ice spikes and such. I’m sharing photographs and videos in in case anyone can tell me more.

I’d estimate its dimensions at 4″ long, 1 1/5″ wide, and 3 1/2″ high. The temperature the night before dropped to approximately 26 °F. Below is some video footage from different angles, plus shows that the structure is filled to the top with liquid water.

After another cold night it formed a cap and lost most of its liquid filling.

And on the day after that, the roof started to break apart.

If anyone can explain to me how it formed, I’d be grateful.

Antibiotic Awareness Week poster

Ten interesting facts about antibiotics, for Antibiotic Awareness Week (Nov 18 -24, 2013).  Below is an image that can be used for presentations. PDF version for printing: facts-about-antibiotics.pdf.

Antibiotic Awareness Week poster

I’ve tried to craft the above poster with information that is mildly interesting, with the hope that people (people like you?) might pass the link along. There are 100s of posters on the internet … but they seem to be completely ineffective at educating the public (according to an experiment). In my view, the problem is that all of these posters use “antibiotics” instead of the correct term, “antibacterial.” Please see my page, “Curbing the misuse of antibiotics” for details on why antibiotic/antibacterial choice matters for the public, even if it doesn’t matter to you (who probably have a higher degree).

Below are some links that explore some of statements in the PDF above. I’m putting them below the fold because they are probably TMI for 99% of the people who might be interested in the above PDF. If you are that 1%, go crazy.