meehawl

Diamorphine, also known as heroin, was first synthesized for commercial use in 1897. The men who discovered it, Felix Hoffman and Arthur Eichengrun, had also, a couple of weeks earlier, invented aspirin; for some years, heroin could be bought over the counter and aspirin required a prescription.

Irony is intense here, and the article is “technically” correct in that heroin was first synthesised in 1897 for commercial use. However, G.H. Beckett and C.R. Alder Wright were the first people known to have actually synthesised heroin, a generation earlier in 1874.

Tags: acetylsalicylic acid, Arthur Eichengrun, Aspirin, Bayer, C.R. Alder Wright, diacetylmorphine, Diamorphine, Felix Hoffman, G.H. Beckett, heroin by mike
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[Brazil] already churns out what many consider to be the world’s cheapest and most efficient mass-produced biofuel … In the United States, a 54 cent-per-gallon tax blocks most Brazilian ethanol from reaching U.S. consumers. Similar tariffs also block access to Europe, China and other major energy markets … the United States continues to block Brazilian ethanol while boosting production of ethanol made from corn, which produces much less ethanol per acre than sugar does, cuts into food supplies and does little to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions … an acre of sugar cane in Brazil produces about 800 gallons of ethanol, while an acre of corn produces 328 gallons … corn also must be converted into sugar before it can be turned into ethanol … sugar-cane ethanol produces 8 units of energy for every 1 unit of fossil fuels invested in its production, while the ratio for corn ethanol is 1.3 to 1.

Tags: corn, corporate welfare, ethanol by mike
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“I can confirm that we conducted a strike in Sadr City this morning,” a US military spokesman told AFP. “The targets were known criminal elements. Battle damage assessment is currently ongoing.” However, witnesses and an AFP reporter at the scene said the main Al-Sadr hospital had been badly damaged and a fleet of ambulances were destroyed.

Tags: Baghdad, Iraq by mike
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