Aqua regia (Latin, lit. "royal water" or "king's water") is a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, optimally in a molar ratio of 1:3. Aqua regia is a yellow-orange fuming liquid. Aqua regia was so named because it can dissolve the noble metals gold and platinum. However, titanium, iridium, ruthenium, rhenium, tantalum, niobium, hafnium, osmium and rhodium are capable of withstanding its corrosive properties. == Applications == Aqua regia is primarily used to produce chloroauric acid, the electrolyte in the Wohlwill process. This process is used for refining the highest quality (99.999...

Aqua regia (Latin, lit. "royal water" or "king's water") is a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, optimally in a molar ratio of 1:3. Aqua regia is a yellow-orange fuming liquid. Aqua regia was so named because it can dissolve the noble metals gold and platinum. However, titanium, iridium, ruthenium, rhenium, tantalum, niobium, hafnium, osmium and rhodium are capable of withstanding its corrosive properties. == Applications == Aqua regia is primarily used to produce chloroauric acid, the electrolyte in the Wohlwill process. This process is used for refining the highest quality (99.999...

A gun is a normally tubular weapon or other device designed to discharge projectiles or other material. The projectile may be solid, liquid, gas or energy and may be free, as with bullets and artillery shells, or captive as with Taser probes and whaling harpoons. The means of projection varies according to design but is usually effected by the action of gas pressure, either produced through the rapid combustion of a propellant or compressed and stored by mechanical means, operating on the projectile inside an open-ended tube in the fashion of a piston. The confined gas accelerates the movab...

The AK-47 (also known as the Kalashnikov, AK, or in Russian slang, Kalash) is a selective-fire (semi-automatic and automatic), gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known in the Soviet documentation as Avtomat Kalashnikova (Russian: Автомат Калашникова). Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year of World War II (1945). In 1946, the AK-47 was presented for official military trials, and in 1948, the fixed-stock version was introduced into active service with selected units of the Soviet Army. An early development of the...

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion (thermonuclear weapon). Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission ("atomic") bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT (see Trinity (nuclear test)). The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10,000,000 tons of TNT. A thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 2,400 pounds...

LOL or lol, an acronym for laugh(ing) out loud, or lots of laughs, is a popular element of Internet slang. It was first used almost exclusively on Usenet, but has since become widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication and even face-to-face communication. It is one of many initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular laughter, as text, including initialisms for more emphatic expressions of laughter such as LMAO ("laugh(ing) my ass off") and ROFL (or its older form ROTFL; "roll(ing) on the floor laughing"). Other unrelated expansions include the now mostly obsolete...

A mafia is a type of organized crime syndicate whose primary activities are protection racketeering, the arbitration of disputes between criminals, and the organizing and oversight of illegal agreements and transactions. Secondary activities may be practiced such as gambling, loan sharking, drug-trafficking, and fraud. The term was originally applied to the Sicilian Mafia, but has since expanded to encompass other organizations of similar methods and purpose, e.g., "the Russian Mafia" or "the Japanese Mafia". The term is applied informally by the press and public; the criminal organizations...

Elizabeth Armstrong Wood (1912–2006) was an American crystallographer and geologist who ran a research program at Bell Telephone Laboratories that led to the development of new superconductors and lasers. She was known for the clarity of her writing and her efforts to educate the general public about scientific subjects. == Education == Elizabeth Armstrong "Betty" Wood was born October 19, 1912, in New York, New York. She went to Barnard College for her B.A. and Bryn Mawr College for her master's degree and doctorate in geology. She went on to become an instructor in geology at Bryn Mawr for the...