Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2010 October 13

= October 13 =

Water being included as a test subject
Why would water be included as a test subject in a Benedicts test or biuret reagent test? Isnt it already confirmed that water is neither a protein nor a reducing sugar? (the experiment was done using many other solutions- each solution was tested seperately) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.86.167.133 (talk) 03:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Is it? You sure that label is correct? Sure that no one dropped a little sugar into the water bottle when they were carrying the weighing paper back to their work bench? In the case of something like a high school biology assigment, it's probably just to show you what a negative result looks like. In real world applications, it's important to confirm that the chemicals you use to prepare or dilute a sample have not themsleves been contaminated with the very chemical you're testing for. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:50, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The OP can read more about this in our article on scientific control. Someguy's point is that the water is being used as a "negative control." --- Medical geneticist (talk) 15:52, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * While it may seem absurd to do an experiment on water, which you made up the reagent in to begin with, for the colorimetric tests the rationale should actually be quite apparent: you literally want to see what a negative reaction looks like. It's not enough to say that a test should be purple rather than blue: you want to see how purple.  If you're doing a reasonably elaborate test, you might take the water-only tube and measure it in a spectrophotometer, then measure with various quantities of protein (a standard curve), and plot out all the numbers on a sheet of graph paper.  (ehhm, I mean a spreadsheet.  I suppose graph paper just doesn't get used much nowadays ;) ) The water gives you a direct measurement of the point where the concentration crosses zero.  This extra data point at the end will help you do a better linear regression to make the best fit of not entirely accurate data, if you come to that. Wnt (talk) 06:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Sanpaku
Does anyone have any information on the incidence of sanpaku? Is it at all genetic? Both Kennedys apparently had it, but I seem to be the only one in my family who has it. Google hasn't turned up anything useful. 74.15.136.172 (talk) 04:02, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * See Culture-bound syndrome for some possibly-relevant context. 109.155.37.180 (talk) 16:58, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Is it a fungus?
I'm afraid my descriptions on File:Nikaufungus1.jpg and File:Nikaufungus2.jpg are dismally vague, as I have no idea what was actually going on there. This cluster of sickly nikau and silver ferns were in the middle of a perfectly healthy nikau grove. Does anyone have any idea what the black stuff is? Sorry about the poor photographs, I was curious and thought someone here might know. sonia ♫ 09:57, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Possibly a secondary fungus known as 'sooty mould' related to an infestation by something like mealy bugs. Mikenorton (talk) 10:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Incinerating raw sewage using liquid oxygen?
Could raw sewage mixed with LOX and ignited be instantly reduced to its harmless elemental constituents using such a method, with some of the energy released used to create more liquid oxygen to continue the process? The ultimate "chemical" toilet for the Glastonbury festival perhaps? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.1.88.10 (talk) 10:57, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The Wikipedia article on Sewage treatment mentions incineration as possible but uncommon because of air emission concerns and the amount of fuel needed to burn the low calorific value sludge and vaporize residual water. The article Glastonbury Festival notes that Network Recycling manage refuse on the site, and in 2004 recycled 300 tonnes and composted 110 tonnes of waste from the site. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:29, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Oxygen by itself is not flammable, and liquid oxygen requires very low temperatures or tremendously high pressures to be maintained. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 02:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course oxygen is not flammible, but can make something of low calorific value burn completely. For example a calorimeter completely oxidises food-this is what gave me the idea. The advantage would be instant disposal of the waste with no unpleasant gas as in the case of organic and chemical methods. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.1.80.7 (talk) 06:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Gas can be easily absorbed. I would just add concentrated hydrogen peroxide. It kind of works like liquid oxygen, especially at 98% concentration (30% is already strong). John Riemann Soong (talk) 08:07, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The "new" method of treatment is to use the nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous in the sewage and co2 from power plant emissions to grow ethanol and oxygen producing algae. In this way many goals are served. A usable fuel is produced without killing the algae and The nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium and co2 do not harm the environment while oxygen is released into the atmosphere or compressed and bottled as well as the ethanol gas. A win-win-win-win-win-win scenario.

speed and distance of expansion
What is the formula that relates the increase in speed of expansion of the universe with distance space away from Earth? for instance is it percent redshift times something or another or what? --96.252.213.127 (talk) 12:59, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hubble constant -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

"pass through" versus "bounce"
When some stars collapse depending on the amount of matter evolved either form a Black Hole or explode of "bounce". If you view this graphically as a cone with the narrowest point being the point of greatest density and the cone extending through this point to form another cone as in a classical conic section representation diagram for a hyperbola then isn't it possible that instead of a "bounce" the collapse could result in simply a  "pass through", meaning that the momentum of the collapse transfers through the point of greatest density rather than "bounce" back off of it? --96.252.213.127 (talk) 13:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You are describing a Type II supernova. Our article notes that the gravitational collapse is stopped by degeneracy pressure (among other forces).  There's no plausible reason to expect that matter passes through this extremely dense core rather than rebounding. &mdash; Lomn 13:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Naturally I realize to observe such a phenomenon with sufficient precision to denote the difference between "bounce" and "pass through" does not offer at this time a plausible reason. However, if you think mathematically in terms of a Gravity well with infinite density at the bottom then emergence on the other side has certain advantages in regard to the law of conservation of momentum for a collapse than does a "bounce". --96.252.213.127 (talk) 20:00, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * (Fixed your confusing repeated spelling error.) --Anon, 06:03 UTC, October 14, 2010.


 * As Lomn says, the core of stars are much too dense for anything to pass through. The material in the core is an ultra-high viscosity fluid (closer to a solid than a gas really).  Each particle will collide with others about a quadrillion times per second.  Those collisions ensure nothing could pass through.  Dragons flight (talk) 10:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * When particles of a collapsing supernova approach the core, the density of the material as well as the force pushing inward increase exponentially, so it becomes much harder for particles to simply pass through the core as doing so would mean neutrons passing through each other. The core during its collapse also becomes denser very rapidly, so any matter attempting to pass through would have a much harder time doing so, as iron atom nuclei are produced at this point. In supernovae that from black holes, the imploding matter hits a gravitational singularity and is shrunk to an infinitely small point, but is not swallowed by the new singularity quickly enough to prevent rebounding of the star's collapsing core and outer layers. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 01:59, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Not only did you find my spelling too confusing but to correctly conceive what I am speaking of. (If you like you can change "speaking" to "saying" or to "writing.") The idea of "pass threw" and "bounce" are not applied here to matter but to energy or more precisely to force and momentum and reference the space-time grid diagram of a gravity well where as you correctly say that infinite gravity is not reached within the time and space constraints which will allow a black hole to form or stay formed. The concept of "bounce" is that this depression in the grid is like a depression in a net into which a ball is dropped that reverses rather than being stretched to an infinite point and "locking" or staying there. The concept of "pass threw" or "pass through" as your preference refers to the side view of the hyperbola and the perpendicular edges of the conic and hyperbolic sections of the gravity well to show that indeed a singularity was achieved but that due to the time and space constraints represented by the diagram were not able to "lock" or to stay singular but rather "pass threw" or "pass through" to the other side of the point of infinite intensity as represented by the grid diagram of the gravity well. --96.252.213.127 (talk) 00:27, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

In other words, it might help to think of the place of infinite gravity as the bottom of the well but the well not being at the bottom of the diagram but in the middle of the diagram such that the top and bottom represent least gravitational intensity - two universes if you will in the space-time continuum. --96.252.213.127 (talk) 01:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC) i.e. criteria for a worm hole. --96.252.213.127 (talk) 08:29, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Conductive Napalm
I was looking at railgun and it got me thinking that it may be possible to fire napalm using a railgun if the gel was conductive. Is it possible to do this? ScienceApe (talk) 14:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thinking about anything is possible. But napalm in the form of jellied gasoline does not have the high conductivity needed to carry the extremely high current required in a railgun and there is nothing to stop it breaking into an aerosol. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:37, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It would also be a questionable weapon, pragmatically speaking. napalm could already be dispersed by fairly standard flame throwers; the only advantage to a rail gun would be speed and distance, but speed is irrelevant (it's a continuous stream that's not particularly aerodynamic, so any initial velocity differences will quickly be neutralized), and how far does one want to be shooting a stream of napalm?  remember, everything in the range and general direction of the weapon would be subject to accidental splashes from wind gusts and such; a weapon like that would be almost as dangerous to nearby troops as to the enemy.  -- Ludwigs 2  17:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm just asking if it's possible to make a conductive napalm. Perhaps by adding electrolytes or something. ScienceApe (talk) 19:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the intention is not practicality, but to be as cool a thing as a railgun that squirts napalm. ScienceApe brought up electrolytes. What would strong acids, like HCl, which dissassociate in solution do to this mixture? Mac Davis (talk) 19:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You probably want a polar but lipophilic but flammable solvent. Acetamide or acetonitrile, maybe? John Riemann Soong (talk) 21:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Humans in North America

 * ''Moved from Talk:Human --Cyber cobra (talk) 15:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

If the human race originated from Africa, how come the Red Indians were there in North America. As we are aware of the fact that America was discovered by Columbus and the Red Indians were found to be original habitats of the continent. If the human race originated from Africa, how come they reached to America before Columbus did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.79.203.51 (talk) 13:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Columbus didn't discover the Americas; the Indians came there first, a few thousand years ago. (And after that, the Vikings also got there before Columbus.) Ucucha 15:24, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly when the first group of people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. Asian nomads are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge (Beringia), now the Bering Strait and possibly along the Northwest coast. see the articles Pre-Columbian era and Settlement of the Americas. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Humans originated in Africa between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago. That means that Native Americans had at least 249,598 years to move through Asia and arrive in America on time to greet Columbus. The earliest Archeological remains in the American continent date to around 14,000 years ago, and even those archeologists who argue for an early entry of humans in to the Americas do not believe that they could have arrived earlier than 40,000 - 30,000 years ago. That would mean that there is a timespan of 210,000 years between the rise of humans in Africa and the first possible date of arrival of humans in the Ameircas. Do you understand now?·Maunus· ƛ · 15:41, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I believe that the problem with understanding this comes from a religious belief that the entire human population is only about 3,000 years old. Then, there simply hasn't been time for populations to move from Africa to Asia and then to completely populate the Americas before Columbus showed up.  Science doesn't necessarily obey religious beliefs.  So, when confronted with an argument based on a religious belief, I use the "God did it" variant of "a wizard did it".  People originated in Eden in Africa.  Then, God picked up a bunch of them and put them in North and South America.  He is all powerful, so you can't argue that it is impossible for God to simply redistribute human populations as he sees fit. --  k a i n a w &trade; 15:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well the Bible doesnt say anything about him doing that though.·Maunus· ƛ · 15:45, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There may have been some sarcasm in Kainaw's answer. The OP should have a look at our article on Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans, which explains the current theory of when and how different global populations were established. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 15:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * And surely, pre-Columbian translators of the holy texts did not know the ancient Hebrew, Syriac, Aramaic, or old Greek word for "Bering Sea" or "Meso-America"; obviously, they mistranslated any section of the representative texts that explained that part. Any pure biblical literalist should insist on proper name/glyph reassignment to help the "original" text coincide with established fact.  I'm pretty sure that Bible scholars have historically had no problems with such scholarly "literal" reinterpretation. Nimur (talk) 16:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Genesis 11:8... God scattered the people all over the Earth, which probably includes the Americas since God certainly knew he created them. -- k a i n a w &trade; 15:49, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * There are other possible settlement routes than the Bering Land Bridge. While that was certainly one method, there are of course variances in ideas on when people crossed the land bridge into the Americas, whether it was one event, multiple events, or a continuous migration back and forth over many millenia.  Dealing with the OP's other misconceptions, there is also evidence of other pre-Columbian contacts between the Americas and other parts of the world.  Of course, there were the Viking contacts, see Norse colonization of the Americas, esp. Vinland and L'Anse aux Meadows, which occured c. 1000 AD.  From the other direction, there were also clear evidences of Polynesian contacts with the Americas, see Polynesian_navigation and Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact, which occured even earlier than the Vikings, there were South American sweet potatoes in the Cook Islands as early as 1000 AD, which means they had to have gotten there much earlier.  There are also things like pre-Columbian Chickens (native to S.E. Asia) and boat construction techniques known to the Chumash people of the Pacific coast of N. America which show polynesian influences.  Besides these two confirmed cases of pre-Columbian contacts, there have also been some less certain ones.  Brendan of Clonfort allegedly visited the Americas, and some mysterious sites in Connecticut have been attributed to him.  The Olmec heads have been speculated to indicate African contact with Mesoamerican peoples, and certain people have speculated that the Quetzelcoatl myth shows European influences.  -- Jayron  32  16:07, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think "Clear evidence" of Polynesian contact is overstating the case. It would be safer to say there is some evidence suggesting Polynesian contact. thx1138 (talk) 23:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sweet potatoes don't swim... -- Jayron  32  02:06, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Coconuts swim. Are you sure no sweet potato could have viably endured such a journey without assistance?   Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  02:39, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sweet potatoes don't have large air pockets which make them bouyant. -- Jayron  32  02:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, I now see that the article says (uncited): "The theory that the plant could spread by floating seeds across the ocean is not supported by evidence." I will, therefore, yield the point (and because for another thing I do not have a sweet potato exemplar on hand, nor ocean water to float (or not) it in.) Sorry for the distraction from your overall and well-stated point, Jayron32, with which I fully agree. :)  Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  02:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The deal with the evidence for Polynesian contact is that it is approaching the level where Occam's razor begins to take hold. Yes, it is possible that the sweet potato could have migrated ONLY to polynesia over 3000 miles by nothing but ocean currents, and somehow not anywhere else.  It is possible that, likewise, a bird native to South East Asia (the Chicken) could have made the opposite journey equally as well, again, with no evidence that it ever made this journey to any other part of the world.  Or, an oceangoing civilization, known to range widely through every other part of the Pacific Ocean, carried the potatoes one way and the chickens the other.  You decide which is the more likely explanation.  Admitedly, the potatoes and the chickens could have been carried by Native American peoples instead, but this seems less likely than the Polynesians, because only one of these two groups of people are known to have an entire civilization built on boat travel... -- Jayron  32  03:15, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if maybe already mentioned elsewhere, but are there gene studies showing higher "Polynesian" allele frequency among native South Americans than among, say, native North Americans? (I realize that the potential yam-acquisition-event easily might not also have led to any sexual congress between members of the two groups.)  Wiki Dao  &#9775;  (talk)  03:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You know, I am not sure about that. It's a valid question, and a very good one.  I just don't have the answer yet.  The article Polynesian_navigation has noted a genetic study done on the pre-Columbian South American chickens, indicating that they did come Polynesia, and not from say Europe or Africa.  But I am not sure of any similar studies on humans.  This evidence has been disputed by some. -- Jayron  32  03:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The final out-of-Africa dispersion of modern humans is thought to have happened about 100,000 years ago. Their spread across Europe and Asia can be traced: they reached Australia by 50,000 years ago and northeast Asia by around 40,000 years ago. There is no convincing evidence that they made it into North America (via Alaska) until about 14,000 years ago; but then they spread very rapidly down along the Pacific coast and reach the tip of South America in less than 2000 years. Looie496 (talk) 17:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Archaeologists always underestimate the capabilities of human ancestors, because they're nervous to hypothesize things that haven't been found in the record. But I'd bet that there were very impressive watercraft a very long time ago, and that humans could have gotten around the Bering bridge on water, hunting sea mammals, if they were so minded.  But they were also awesome survivors in Arctic environments and surely could have bulled through on foot if that was their preference.  P.S.  Jayron — thanks for some really interesting information! Wnt (talk) 19:57, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There is also evidence of Solutrean contact with Eastern North America several thousand years ago. No matter how you cut it though, Columbus certainly did not discover the New World.  Columbus also did not discover that the world was round.  That was well known by pretty much anyone with any kind of education before he set sail. Falconus p  t   c 21:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Blood tranfusion
Why is blood always taken out from veins and not from arteries? Since the veins carry blood lacking oxygen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.183.255 (talk) 15:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * When donating blood the oxygen isn't important since the recipient's lungs will oxidise it again. Regards, --— Cyclonenim | Chat 15:41, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * (after EC, same answer) It is easier, safer, and less painful to perform venipuncture than taking blood from an artery. While it is true that venous blood is less oxygenated than arterial blood, it is not completely devoid of oxgyen (see Oxygen-hemoglobin_dissociation_curve), and this doesn't really matter to the recipient of a blood transfusion since their lungs will happily oxygenate the newly received blood just as they will all the other blood in the recipient's body. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 15:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The pressure inside an artery is much higher than in a vein, so it is very difficult to puncture an artery without creating a mess. Also artery are generally placed deep inside the body where they are more protected, so they are quite a bit harder to access than veins. Looie496 (talk) 17:00, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In addition to various practical matters as discussed above, I can tell you, from having had artery-level blood drawn a couple of times, it hurts like hell and you practically have to put a tourniquet on it. So it's to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps a more direct answer is that transfused blood does not pass through any capillaries before reaching the lungs, where it gets fully oxygenated in one pass (if the lungs are normal). It may not be intuitively obvious that blood does not need to be oxygenated except when it passes through capillaries in tissues that need oxygen, and that does not happen immediately with transfused blood.  Blood passing through peripheral veins, where it is harvested for donation, is already de-oxygenated and on its way toward the heart.  That's also where blood is given to the recipient during transfusion (sometimes it's delivered to a central vein, but the effect is pretty much the same) .  Oh and by the way, Bugs, Radial artery puncture is not always very painful - it depends on many factors including the skill of the person holding the needle.  -- Scray (talk) 01:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

If it's not in UniProt, does it still exist?
If I can't find 'small glutamine-rich tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR)-containing protein' on UniProt for Gallus gallus, does that mean it's safe to say that it is not known to exist in chicken? Seans Potato Business 18:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Not necessarily. It depends a little on which UniProt database you were using, but my experience with UniProt is that it tends to be somewhat more conservative about the genes/proteins included.  I like the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) a little better.  When I searched Entrez Gene for "small glutamine-rich tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR)-containing protein" I came up with SGTA and SGTB.  Is that what you're looking for? --- Medical geneticist (talk) 19:24, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * That and PubMed are great ways to do this. Though in truth, I think it's always best to sniff around for sequence homologies yourself, in case there's something better that was missed before.  It's not uncommon for a gene to be annotated as if it were an orthologue but it's not an ortholog, it just dates back to a time when only one of the type was known from a species.  (I'm not saying that's true here though)


 * The chicken genome coverage is 6X, which isn't perfect.  I'm sure there's a very simple statistical rule to relate that to a percentage of missing clones, which, alas, I don't recollect - if you cover 1X in little bits, how much is left uncovered?  I don't remember the number and had a little trouble finding it, but I think it was something like 36% - to use that as a crude guess, 6X would mean you miss 0.2% of all the genes.  But that's under optimal conditions - a genome can be mis-assembled based on repetitions (about 25% of the chicken sequence).  On the other hand, someone might have helpfully sequenced through problem spots and connected the gaps in the random assembly.  You'd have to look up the exact methods for the sequencing project to estimate such things (see ).


 * But it's more likely that the gene is just not annotated, or not annotated under that name. What protein has less than three names?  What database ever lists them all?  And your request is no ordinary catalytic domain, but simply a motif defined by four alpha helices which can be rather extensively substituted.  Nonetheless, there are some truly awesome bioinformatic tools on the task, most notably the combination of EBI and PFAM:  see e.g.


 * Now at the end this trails out in many directions because I can't know exactly what you're looking for, but I think you might find what you want. Wnt (talk) 19:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Identify device
What is the device featured in this clip? Note, VERY non-safe for work link


 * Erotic electrostimulation electrodes. Red Act (talk) 20:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * So the next time the OP's babe tells him he needs to "jump start it", there's an actual way to do that. Ya learn something new every day. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

What happened to my apple juice?
It fizzed and tasted like vinegar.

I was gone for three days and didn't open the bottle during that time. It is true I refilled the bottle several times. But I figure it was empty when I poured new juice into the same bottle. Right now I'm using a bottle I just opened which is harder to hold. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 19:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Sounds like you made it from apple juice→cider→cider vinegar, impressive in three days. Mikenorton (talk) 19:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It wasn't true vinegar. It just had a strange taste. I did finish it. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 19:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * As Mikenorton implied, it fermented, which is not harmful unless you have zero tolerance for alcohol. The longer something ferments, the more sour it gets, but it's very unlikely it would reach the vinegar stage in three days even if you left it in a warm room.  Apple juice ferments pretty readily, though. Looie496 (talk) 19:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Apple cider vinegar might be a useful page, although it is about cider really turned into vinegar. Apple cider has more info about the process. Unfortunately, the terms "apple cider" vs "apple juice" have more to do with filtering rather than pasteurizing, if I understand right. The page does say about unpasteurized apple cider: "Within a week or two refrigerated it will begin to become slightly carbonated and eventually become so-called "hard cider" as the fermentation process turns sugar into alcohol." Assuming you had "cider" and not what I would call "juice", and that it wasn't refrigerated, three days would probably be enough to significantly alter the taste in the direction of "vinegar". In the village where I grew up, in western New York state, there was an old village mill that made real unpasteurized apple cider every autumn. It tasted so much better than apple "juice". At least, I remember it tasting better. Perhaps the mill people just knew their craft very well, and it wasn't about pasteurization. But yes, the stuff did turn "hard" quite readily. Once "hard", some people put the gallon containers in the freezer. It wouldn't freeze due to the alcohol. Where I live now, near Seattle, real cider like this is not so easy to come by, even though Washington is a major apple growing region. Stores around here sell so-called "apple cider", especially in the autumn. But it is just unfiltered pasteurized apple juice. If you have access to unpasteurized cider, count yourself lucky! It's not just that it turns hard, it tastes better...or so my experience tells me. But remember how quickly the stuff goes hard. If what you had was in fact pasteurized, the ignore me. I have no idea. Pfly (talk) 08:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason I asked the question was that it is the normal apple juice one buys in the stores and has to refrigerate after opening. It wasn't old, though the bottle had been around a while. I was reusing it. I will say the juice, after those three days of being out of town, looked like the glass on the left in the top photo in the apple cider article. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 18:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)