“
The planet’s famous red colour is from iron oxide coating everything. So it’s not just a desert. It’s a desert so old it’s literally rusting.
”
”
Andy Weir (The Martian)
“
Mars is a barren wasteland and I am completely alone here. I already knew that, of course. But there’s a difference between knowing it and really experiencing it. All around me there was nothing but dust, rocks, and endless empty desert in all directions. The planet’s famous red color is from iron oxide coating everything. So it’s not just a desert. It’s a desert so old it’s literally rusting.
”
”
Andy Weir (The Martian)
“
The words we did not shout, the tears unshed, the curse we swallowed,
the phrase we shortened, the love we killed, turned into magnetic iron ore,
into tourmaline, into pyrite agate, blood congealed into cinnabar, blood calcinated, leadened into galena,
oxidized, aluminized, sulphated, calcinated,
the mineral glow of dead meteors and exhausted suns in the forest of dead trees
and dead desires.
”
”
Anaïs Nin (House of Incest)
“
All around me there was nothing but dust, rocks, and endless empty desert in all directions. The planet’s famous red color is from iron oxide coating everything. So it’s not just a desert. It’s a desert so old it’s literally rusting.
”
”
Andy Weir (The Martian)
“
iron inhibits the absorption of important growth factors such as zinc. Furthermore, iron is an oxidative substance that can exacerbate the production of free radicals and might even increase the risk of pre-eclampsia.9
”
”
Michel Odent (Birth and Breastfeeding: Rediscovering the needs of women during pregnancy and childbirth)
“
Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, were the first photosynthesizers. They breathed in carbon dioxide and breathed out oxygen. Oxygen is a volatile gas; it causes iron to rust (oxidation) and wood to burn (vigorous oxidation). When cyanobacteria first appeared, the oxygen they breathed out was toxic to nearly all other forms of life. The resulting extinction is called the oxygen catastrophe. After the cyanobacteria pumped Earth’s atmosphere and water full of toxic oxygen, creatures evolved that took advantage of the gas’s volatile nature to enable new biological processes. We are the descendants of those first oxygen-breathers. Many details of this history remain uncertain; the world of a billion years ago is difficult to reconstruct.
”
”
Randall Munroe (What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions)
“
These atom substitutions happen naturally inside other crystals too. A crystal of aluminum oxide is colorless if pure but becomes blue when it contains impurities of iron atoms: it is the gemstone called sapphire. Exactly the same aluminum oxide crystal containing impurities of chromium is the gem called ruby.
”
”
Mark Miodownik (Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World)
“
Other elements are critical not for creating life but for sustaining it. We need iron to manufacture hemoglobin, and without it we would die. Cobalt is necessary for the creation of vitamin B12. Potassium and a very little sodium are literally good for your nerves. Molybdenum, manganese, and vanadium help to keep your enzymes purring. Zinc—bless it—oxidizes alcohol.
”
”
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
“
he words we did not shout, the tears unshed, the curse we swallowed,
the phrase we shortened, the love we killed, turned into magnetic iron ore,
into tourmaline, into pyrite agate, blood congealed into cinnabar, blood calcinated, leadened into galena,
oxidized, aluminized, sulphated, calcinated,
the mineral glow of dead meteors and exhausted suns in the forest of dead trees
and dead desires.
”
”
Anaïs Nin (House of Incest)
“
NATO paper: Modification of Tropospheric Propagation Conditions, detailed how the atmosphere could be modified to absorb electromagnetic radiation by spraying polymers behind high flying aircraft. Absorbing microwaves transmitted by HAARP and other atmospheric heaters linked from Puerto Rico, Germany and Russia, these artificial mirrors could heat the air, inducing changes in the weather. U.S. Patent # 4253190 describes how a mirror made of “polyester resin” could be held aloft by the pressure exerted by electromagnetic radiation from a transmitter like HAARP. A PhD polymer researcher who wishes to remain anonymous told researcher William Thomas that if HAARP’s frequency output is matched to Earth’s magnetic field, its tightly beamed energy could be imparted to molecules “artificially introduced into this region.” This highly reactive state could then “promote polymerization and the formation of new compounds,” he explained. Adding magnetic iron oxide powder to polymers exuded by many high flying aircraft can foster the heat generation needed to modify the weather. Radio frequency absorbing polymers such as Phillips Ryton F 5 PPS are sensitive in the 1 50 MHz regime, HAARP transmits between two and 10 MHz. HAARP's U.S. Air Force and Navy sponsors claim that their transmitter will eventually be able to produce 3.6 million watts of radio frequency power. But on page 185 of an October 1991 “Technical Memorandum 195” outlining projected HAARP tests, there is a call by the ionospheric effects division of the U.S. Air Force Phillips Laboratory for HAARP to reach a peak power output of 100 billion watts. Commercial radio stations commonly broadcast at 50,000 watts. Some hysterical reports state that HAARP type technologies will be used to initiate
”
”
Tim R. Swartz (The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla: Time Travel - Alternative Energy and the Secret of Nazi Flying Saucers)
“
In the water-thickets, the path wound tortuously between umber iron-bogs, albescent quicksands of aluminum and magnesium oxides, and sumps of cuprous blue or permanganate mauve fed by slow, gelid streams and fringed by silver reeds and tall black grasses. The twisted, smooth-barked boles of the trees were yellow-ochre and burnt orange; through their tightly woven foliage filtered a gloomy, tinted light. At their roots grew great clumps of multifaceted translucent crystal like alien fungi.
Charcoal grey frogs with viridescent eyes croaked as the column floundered between the pools. Beneath the greasy surface of the water unidentifiable reptiles moved slowly and sinuously. Dragonflies whose webby wings spanned a foot or more hummed and hovered between the sedges: their long, wicked bodies glittered bold green and ultramarine; they took their prey on the wing, pouncing with an audible snap of jaws on whining, ephemeral mosquitoes and fluttering moths of april blue and chevrolet cerise.
Over everything hung the heavy, oppressive stench of rotting metal. After an hour, Cromis’ mouth was coated with a bitter deposit, and he tasted acids. He found it difficult to speak. While his horse stumbled and slithered beneath him, he gazed about in wonder, and poetry moved in his skull, swift as the jewelled mosquito-hawks over a dark slow current of ancient decay.
”
”
M. John Harrison (The Pastel City (Viriconium #1))
“
Of all the metals there is none more essential to life than iron. It is the
accumulation of iron in the center of a star which triggers a supernova
explosion and the subsequent scattering of the vital atoms of life
throughout the cosmos. It was the drawing by gravity of iron atoms to
the center of the primeval earth that generated the heat which caused the
initial chemical differentiation of the earth, the outgassing of the early
atmosphere, and ultimately the formation of the hydrosphere. It is molten
iron in the center of the earth which, acting like a gigantic dynamo, generates
the earth's magnetic field, which in turn creates the Van Allen radiation
belts that shield the earth's surface from destructive high-energypenetrating
cosmic radiation and preserve the crucial ozone layer from
cosmic ray destruction…
Without the iron atom, there would be no carbon-based life in the cosmos;
no supernovae, no heating of the primitive earth, no atmosphere or
hydrosphere. There would be no protective magnetic field, no Van Allen
radiation belts, no ozone layer, no metal to make hemoglobin [in human
blood], no metal to tame the reactivity of oxygen, and no oxidative
metabolism.
The intriguing and intimate relationship between life and iron, between
the red color of blood and the dying of some distant star, not only indicates
the relevance of metals to biology but also the biocentricity of the
cosmos…
This account clearly indicates the importance of the iron atom. The
fact that particular attention is drawn to iron in the Qur'an also emphasises
the importance of the element.
”
”
Harun Yahya (Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an)
“
While iron oxide makes up over 6% of the Earth’s crust, it took a long time for mankind to figure out how to convert dirt into something as useful as steel. The first smelting of iron from ore was probably accidental when some iron-bearing ore was mixed in with the copper ore during the smelting of copper. Iron ore is composed mostly of various iron oxides which need to be reduced – have oxygen removed – to form metallic iron. The iron ore was mixed with charcoal, which is mostly carbon, and fired. The carbon dioxide produced by burning charcoal combines with the hot carbon in the charcoal, forming carbon monoxide. The hot carbon monoxide turns again to carbon dioxide by stealing oxygen from – reducing – the iron oxides, leaving metallic iron behind. But the heat needed for melting copper isn’t nearly sufficient to melt the iron that may be present in the copper ore. The reaction from ore to iron occurs while in a solid state when the iron forms into a solid, ugly mass of spongy metal called a bloom. The bloom’s cavities were full of slag (molten impurities from the smelting) that needed to be removed. Someone must have recognized the spongy mass as a metallic substance, probably by using appropriate scientific methodology such as hitting it with a rock. Eventually, the bloom was processed by heating it to the slag’s melting point and hammering on it until all of the slag had squirted out. This would be hard, dangerous and resource-intensive work as the iron was reheated and beaten over and over to produce wrought iron. This process was the way iron was made from late B.C. to early A.D.
”
”
Anonymous
“
One event that is both history and myth is the rain of blood around the year 1000 in Aquitaine and elsewhere in France. Reports exist from the early eleventh century of a blood rain that “fell upon the clothes of many men, and so stained them with gore that they shuddered at the sight of their own garments and tore them off.” Fulbert of Chartres wrote that account in a letter to King Robert of France, after the worried king received a report from Duke William V about a rain of blood that fell in Aquitaine. Scientists today believe that historical reports of blood rain may have been due to dust containing iron oxide,
”
”
Joseph Finley (Enoch's Device (Dragon-Myth Cycle Book 1))
“
We belonged to the sandstone and snow created by change. The sands of ancient water bodies and high deserts settled and compacted by other minerals and colored by iron oxide. People traveled there to the sculpted sandstone to see it, to be changed by it, made more serene. We told stories about the place to find our place in it and grew possessive and protective, wary of too many tourists, too many hiking feet, too many souls seeking quiet salvation, adding noise with their footfalls.
”
”
Jenny Forrester (Narrow River, Wide Sky: A Memoir)
“
The Indians painted their faces and bodies for several different reasons—sometimes for protection against the sun, wind, and insects. Some of the markings indicated memberships in various political or religious societies; others represented brave deeds done by the wearer. Many times the designs were merely personal decoration without any particular meaning.
The dry coloring matter was carried in small buckskin bags and was mixed with bear or buffalo fat before being rubbed on the skin. Clays containing oxide or iron were used for red; kaolin clay was used for white; black was made from wood charcoal; and green from powdered copper ore. Colors did not represent the same things in every tribe, but generally most tribes used black to represent death, red for human life, blue for sadness or trouble, white for peace or purity, and yellow for joy.
”
”
W. Ben Hunt (Indian Crafts & Lore)
“
When things were wet, the minerals calcite, CaCO3 (carbonate with a calcium atom hooked on), and hematite, Fe2O3 (iron oxide, also known as rust), dissolved in the ancient water and cemented every sand grain into place.
”
”
Bill Nye (Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation)
“
13 Reasons to include Curry Leaves to your Diet
Sambar. Upma. Dal. Poha. What do they all have in common? A tempering rich in curry leaves. But curry leaves – or Curry leaves, as they are commonly known in India – do more good than simply seasoning your food.
Curry power benefits include weight loss and a drop in cholesterol levels.
But there’s lots more that the Curry leaves can do. Here are 13 reasons to chew on those curry leaves that pop up on your plate.
To keep anaemia away
The humble Curry leaves is a rich source of iron and folic acid. Anaemia crops up when your body is unable to absorb iron and use it. “Folic acid is responsible for iron absorption and as Curry leaves is a rich source of both compounds, it’s the perfect choice if you’re looking to amp up your iron levels,” says Alpa Momaya, a Diet & Wellness consultant with Sunrise nutrition hub.
To protect your liver
If you are a heavy drinker, eating curry leaves can help quell liver damage. A study published in Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Research has revealed that curry leaves contain kaempferol, a potent antioxidant, and can protect the liver from oxidative stress and harmful toxins.
To maintain blood sugar levels
A study published in the Journal of Plant food for Nutrition has revealed that curry leaves can lower blood sugar levels by affecting the insulin activity.
To keep your heart healthy
A study published in the Journal of Chinese Medicine showed that “curry leaves can help increase the amount of good cholesterol (HDL) and protect you from heart disease and atherosclerosis,” Momaya says.
To aid in digestion
Curry leaves have a carminative nature, meaning that they prevent the formation of gas in the gastrointestinal tract and facilitate the expulsion of gas if formed. Ayurveda also suggests that Curry leaves has mild laxative properties and can balance the pitta levels in the body. Momaya’s advice: “A juice of curry leaves with a bit of lime juice or added to buttermilk can be consumed for indigestion.”
To control diarrhoea
Even though curry leaves have mild laxative properties, research has shown that the carbazole alkaloids in curry leaves can help control diarrhoea.
To reduce congestion
Curry leaves has long been a home remedy when it comes to dealing with a wet cough, sinusitis or chest congestion. Curry leaves, packed with vitamin C and A and rich in kaempferol, can help loosen up congested mucous.
To help you lose weight
Curry leaves is known to improve digestion by altering the way your body absorbs fat. This quality is particularly helpful to the obese.
To combat the side effects of chemotherapy
Curry leaves are said to protect the body from the side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. They also help protect the bone marrow and halt the production of free radicals in the body.
To improve your vision
Curry leaves is high in vitamin A, which contains carotenoids that can protect the cornea. Eating a diet rich in curry leaves can help improve your vision over time.
To prevent skin infections
Curry leaves combines potent antioxidant properties with powerful anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and antiprotozoal properties. It is a common home remedy for common skin infections such as acne and fungal infections of the nail.
To get better hair
Curry leaves has long been used to prevent greying of the hair by our grandmothers. It also helps treat damaged hair, tackle hair fall and dandruff and add bounce to limp hair.
To take care of skin
Curry leaves can also be used to heal damaged skin. Apply a paste on burns, cuts, bruises, skin irritations and insect bites to ensure quick recovery and clean healing.
Add more Curry leaves to your diet and enjoy the benefits of curry leaves.
”
”
Sunrise nutrition hub
“
Of course that’s inevitable anywhere,” her husband explains. “Tourism is a self-degrading process, kind of like oxidation of iron.” Joe has a fondness for scientific metaphor, the precipitate of undergraduate years as a biochemistry major.
”
”
Alison Lurie (Foreign Affairs)
“
Bog iron ore is limonite or goethite, deposited with the aid of iron bacteria in anaerobic swamps. The iron is carried in by waters containing CO2 as soluble bicarbonates. The organic matter reduces it to oxides, which make characteristic iridescent patches on the water, then precipitate on the bottom of the marsh to form an iron-rich layer. It was smelted at Lynn, Massachusetts with oyster shells and charcoal to be hammered into bars to be traded for slaves in Africa, which were sold in the Caribbean for sugar to be brought to New England for fermentation and distillation into rum to be sold to the Indians, making the fortunes of Boston and Providence. The Lynn ironworks have been reconstructed, but with questionable fidelity.
”
”
L. Pauling (Fortschritte Der Chemie Organischer Naturstoffe 11 / Progress In The Chemistry Of Organic Natural Products, Volume 11 (German Edition)
“
A crystal of aluminum oxide is colorless if pure but becomes blue when it contains impurities of iron atoms: it is the gemstone called sapphire. Exactly the same aluminum oxide crystal containing impurities of chromium is the gem called ruby.
”
”
Mark Miodownik (Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World)
“
Its iconic red color is the result of centuries of weathering, during which the iron-oxide banding within the rock discolored. It was this scarlet rock that inspired John William Burgon, the English poet and Dean of Chichester Cathedral, to describe Petra as ‘‘the rose-red city, half as old as time.
”
”
Charles River Editors (Petra: The History of the Rose City, One of the New Seven Wonders of the World)
“
From the data presented in the preceding chapters and in this comparison of the primitive and modernized dietaries it is obvious that there is great need that the grains eaten shall contain all the minerals and vitamins which Nature has provided that they carry. Important data might be presented to illustrate this phase in a practical way. In Fig. 95 will be seen three rats all of which received the same diet, except for the type of bread. The first rat (at the left) received whole-wheat products freshly ground, the center one received a white flour product and the third (at the right) a bran and middlings product. The amounts of each ash, of calcium as the oxide, and of phosphorus as the pentoxide; and the amounts of iron and copper present in the diet of each group are shown by the height of the columns beneath the rats. Clinically it will be seen that there is a marked difference in the physical development Qf these rats. Several rats of the same age were in each cage. The feeding was started after weaning at about twenty-three days of age. The rat at the left was on the entire grain product. It was fully developed. The rats in this cage reproduced normally at three months of age. The rats in this first cage had very mild dispositions and could be picked up by the ear or tail without danger of their biting. The rats represented by the one in the center cage using white flour were markedly undersized. Their hair came out in large patches and they had very ugly dispositions, so ugly that they threatened to spring through the cage wall at us when we came to look at them. These rats had tooth decay and they were not able to reproduce. The rats in the next cage (illustrated by the rat to the right) which were on the bran and middlings mixture did not show tooth decay, but were considerably undersized, and they lacked energy. The flour and middlings for the rats in cages two and three were purchased from the miller and hence were not freshly ground. The wheat given to the first group was obtained whole and ground while fresh in a hand mill. It is of interest that notwithstanding the great increase in ash, calcium, phosphorus, iron and copper present in the foods of the last group, the rats did not mature normally, as did those in the first group. This may have been
”
”
Anonymous
“
viv·i·an·ite n. a mineral consisting of a phosphate of iron that occurs as a secondary mineral in ore deposits. It is colorless when fresh but becomes blue or green with oxidization. early 19th cent.: named after John H. Vivian (1785-1855), British mineralogist, + -ITE1.
”
”
Oxford University Press (The New Oxford American Dictionary)
“
In particular, raising blood sugar will increase the production of what are known technically as reactive oxygen species and advanced glycation end-products, both of which are potentially toxic. The former are generated primarily by the burning of glucose (blood sugar) for fuel in the cells, in a process that attaches electrons to oxygen atoms, transforming the oxygen from a relatively inert molecule into one that is avid to react chemically with other molecules. This is not an ideal situation biologically. One form of reactive oxygen species is those known commonly as free radicals, and all of them together are known as oxidants, because what they do is oxidize other molecules (the same chemical reaction that causes iron to rust, and equally deleterious). The object of oxidation slowly deteriorates. Biologists refer to this deterioration as oxidative stress. Antioxidants neutralize reactive oxygen species, which is why antioxidants have become a popular buzzword in nutrition discussions. The
”
”
Gary Taubes (Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease)
“
To sum up, we lose the ability to transport copper because we don’t have access to the ceruloplasmin taxi, which feeds copper to the cells and to the mitochondria. If ceruloplasmin cannot get copper to the cells and their mitochondrial power grids, the result is a general breakdown of ATP production. And if enough copper is not available, we cannot regulate oxygen metabolism and cytochrome c oxidase is not going to be able to activate oxygen to create energy. If that happens, then we’re not going to be able to regulate iron metabolism. The end result is that our mitochondria are not able to make energy, and the body is not going to be able to make heme and iron sulfur clusters, which are created as a part of the mitochondrial actions. Given that iron is a terminal destination in the mitochondria, we’re going to have a serious problem because this iron will build up inside the ferritin storage proteins, both inside the mitochondria, as well as inside the cells. Then we’re going to lose the ability to regulate the reactive oxidative stress that takes place. And we’re not going to have enough antioxidant enzymes to break down the oxidative stress that’s building. This is why both copper and ceruloplasmin are so important for proper energy production that does not result in iron buildup and oxidative stress, particularly in Complex IV, but in all mitochondrial complexes of the ETC.
”
”
Morley M. Robbins (Cu-RE Your Fatigue: The Root Cause and How To Fix It On Your Own)
“
airship smash,” replied the lad, somewhat proudly. “It’s an oxide of nickel battery, with steel and oxide of iron negative electrodes.” “What solution do you use, Tom?” asked Mr. Swift. “I didn’t get that far in questioning you before the crash came,” he added. “Well I have, in the experimental battery, a solution of potassium hydrate,” replied the lad, “but I think I’m going to change it, and add some lithium hydrate to it. I think that will make it stronger.” “Bless my watch chain!” exclaimed Mr. Damon.
”
”
Victor Appleton (Tom Swift #5: Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout: The Speediest Car on the Road)
“
molten oxide electrolysis: Instead of burning iron in a furnace with coke, you pass electricity through a cell that contains a mixture of liquid iron oxide and other ingredients. The electricity causes the iron oxide to break apart, leaving you with the pure iron you need for steel, and pure oxygen as a by-product. No carbon dioxide is produced at all. This technique is promising—it’s similar to a process we’ve been using for more than a century to purify aluminum—but like the other ideas for clean steel it hasn’t yet been proven to work at an industrial scale.
”
”
Bill Gates (How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need)
“
Another thing that can make flour and dairy products so pleasurable and addictive, ironically, is their ability to cause more uncomfortable reactions than just about any other foods. . .They can comfort us from both digestive and/or respiratory distress. Remember how endorphins are released when we've had an injury? Same principle here. . .the body begins to comfort us from this chronic allergic irritation and damage. Ironically, this makes these foods irresistible.
. . .After the extraction process, most of [the] beneficial nutrients are gone. What's left are the crystallized concentrate, not unlike other plant concentrates we're familiar with, like cocaine or opium . . .
. . .[Vegetable oils are] very unstable - that is, they can become dangerously rancid very quickly. Rancid means oxidized, and in your body, oxidized means damage to your cells and tissues. . . If you eat vegetable oils that are already oxidized from heat and light in processing, you are exposing your own healthy tissues to a volatile substance that will damage them,
”
”
Julia Ross (The Mood Cure (The 4-Step Program to Rebalance Your Emotional Chemistry and Rediscover Your Natural Sense of Well-Being, 1))
“
And soon we’ll need even more power, as we pursue another way to reduce emissions: electrification, which is the technique of using electricity instead of fossil fuels for some industrial processes. For example, one very cool approach for steelmaking is to use clean electricity to replace coal. A company I’m following closely has developed a new process called molten oxide electrolysis: Instead of burning iron in a furnace with coke, you pass electricity through a cell that contains a mixture
”
”
Bill Gates (How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need)
“
What explains their advantage? Contrary to one popular theory, it’s not a high red-blood-cell count. Compared with Caucasians, Sherpas actually have fewer red blood cells per liter of blood. Nor is the difference explained by diet, acclimatization, metabolism, iron-deficiency, or environmental factors. At sea level, Sherpas have such a low red-blood-cell count that they are technically anemic, but, curiously, they don’t show symptoms. Overall, Sherpas require as much oxygen as anybody else, but they have less of it dissolved in their blood. Scientists initially found this puzzling. Red blood cells ferry oxygen around the body, and other populations well adapted to altitude, such as the Quechua and the Aymara of the Andean highlands, have veins teeming with red blood cells. How do Sherpas manage with less at a much higher altitude than the Andes? Probably by circulating blood faster. Sherpas have wider blood vessels. They breathe more often when at rest, providing their blood with more oxygen to absorb, and they exhale more nitric oxide, a marker of efficient lung circulation. There is also a genetic explanation. Sherpas’ red-blood-cell count stays low because of Hypoxia Inducible Factor 2-alpha, a gene that regulates response to low oxygen and turns on other genes. In addition, Sherpas have inherited a dominant genetic trait that improves hemoglobin saturation, allowing their red blood cells to soak up more oxygen. Sherpas’ thin blood, in turn, may prevent the sort of clotting that crippled Art Gilkey on K2. This genetic advantage only enhances the Sherpa mystique. Lowlanders clutching the Lonely Planet guide are convinced they want to hire “a sherpa,” even if they don’t know what a Sherpa is, and, after three generations of gathering tourist dollars, Sherpas now rank among the richest and most visible of Nepal’s fifty or so ethnicities. They didn’t start out that way.
”
”
Peter Zuckerman (Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day)