The Prometheus Club - a gentlemen´s club for mad scientists

[Dimitry]

Cat: This is mine; that's mine, that's mine, that's mine, that's mine... I'm claiming all this as mine ...except that bit.  I don't want that bit.  But all the rest of this is mine!  Hey, this has been a good day!  I've eaten five times, I've slept six times, and I'd made a lot of things mine!  Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can't have sex with something!

[Dr. makebot]

I watched that video earlier of the reanimated dog. It was quite interesting to see the organs continuing their functions outside of the body. I was thinking, other than oxygen what would be required to keep a brain alive in a jar for a while?

firstly, the brain would have to be "hooked up" with in 6 minutes of death, or the cells will be dead beyond the current reaches of mad medical science.
next, the device you would need is the mutant offspring of a heart and lung machine, and a dialysis machine. for the purposes of simplicity we will call it "the life engine".
the life engine pumps blood (or some blood substitute) around the brain, it keeps it at body temperature, keeps it oxygenated, makes shore there are no bubbles in it, adds anticoagulants to stop it clotting, removes toxic chemicals like urea, and keeps the right balance of minerals etc in the blood.

[Nikola Tesla]

Welcome to the Glass House.

And as a favorite comedian put it: "People who live in glass houses, shouldn't!"

At risk of also being redundant, people who live in glass houses need to take chainsaws to their Realtors...

As to Death Rays, they are the grunt work of being a mad scientist.  One needs to have one, and preferably several backups.  They can be a bit labor-intensive, and of course depending on one's style of experimentation may well also be the loudest part of being a mad scientist, and thus the most likely to draw the attention of neighbors (pronounced "PLAIN-tiffs") or society (pronounced "LAW en-FORCE-ment").  That plus the frequent need for a shroud of secrecy over one's best experiments might well give the impression one does little else.

Of course, the fact that the sale of these devices can be lucrative enough to fund one's other endeavors has nothing to do with it... 

[Dr. makebot]

Yes it was Tom Strong I was thinking of. Also changing the muscles must be possible. The arrangement of muscles that apes have make them much stronger than us humans. Gene modification must have some potential for that.

but, what is to prevent us from graffting extra muscles into a person?
just so long as they are kept on antirejection drugs (like transplant pacents) then we have a cheep and easy root to strong assistants.
(because levers are so hevey these days)

[Kittybriton]

If only it was as simple as grafting extra muscles! Extra muscles demand stronger bones and additional blood supply which in turn places additional demands on all the supporting systems. But I should say I've seen people who work every day lifting weights which most body builders would struggle with, and their physiques were well-defined and balanced, but not extreme by any means.

[Herr Klinger]

Who needs muscles when you can have this??

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=real-life-iron-man-exoskeleton

[Dr. makebot]

I want one
 

[Herr Klinger]

Now, to use our MK-Ultra mind control on the ones wearing the suit, and finally! Henchmen worth their weight(and then some)!

[Dimitry]

I just discovered that my mind-control device was set to Reverse when I was experimenting with it on my wife. I think that explains why I've been doing the dishes and wanting to go shoe shopping.

Note to self: force minion to liquidate wife Paint house

[Nikola Tesla]

I just discovered that my mind-control device was set to Reverse when I was experimenting with it on my wife. I think that explains why I've been doing the dishes and wanting to go shoe shopping.

Note to self: force minion to liquidate wife Paint house

Not to mention when you got home and there was your wife watching the game, and demanding a beer.  That funny noise in the car was fixed though, so there are benefits...

And make sure it isn't still on Reverse!  Awful embarrassing, when your wife liquidates your ultra powered minion! Why do they even have that infuriating setting, anyway?!

Note to self:  sell house...

[clockwork creation]

Who needs muscles when you can have this??

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=real-life-iron-man-exoskeleton

I could use one of them..

[Dr. makebot]

http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,17624.msg391664.html#msg391664
made this recently to inspire me until I put a real brain in a jar.

[DrTom]

Looks nice!  Depending on the species, real brains can be quite accessible.  Up until very recently, I've kept pig, sheep, and cow brains in individual containers on my desk, which are available for as little as about $8.00 at a biological supply shop. 

[Herr Klinger]

OK< not really mad science, but just madness. I was bored at work today(filling time cleaning .062mm PVC sheets with a rag), and realized that each PVC sheet gained a little static charge. I made four piles of said sheets, and placed a tiny scrap of cardboard in the center. The static charge caused the cardboard bit to stand on end , and changing the heights of the piles would cause it to point towards the taller pile(more charge). Then I was waving my hand over the piles, altering the magnetic field and moving the cardboard. The co-workers think I'm crazy, but it was enough to entertain me for a half-hour. Science? A little. Mad? A lot. Worthy of this thread? I thought so. The PVC/cardboard voltmeter will never be a big seller, I suppose.

[Herr Klinger]

http://io9.com/387274/curator-forced-to-kill-out+of+control-bio+art-exhibit


If this isn't mad science, I don't know what is.

[Atterton]

Uhh, I do like that. Who knows what kind of horrors that coat could have unleashed on the world.

[Herr Klinger]

Yeah, it reminds me of Bill Cosby's story about the chicken heart that ate Brooklyn.   

[Prof Eumides Blakehurst]

Anyone here know where I can get some fluorine(in compound form, i know by itself it can just become horribly poisonous) and some phosphorous?
Also some lime? (as in the chemical not the fruit)

If by lime you mean sodium hydroxide, get ye to a soapmakers, man. For the others, your best bet is probably looking for a supplier of chemicals to schools and the like.

I'll look quickly through the rest of this topic, but I wont be able to all at once. However:

Lime is calcium oxide (quicklime) or calcium hyrdoxide (slaked lime). Heating pure limestone is the traditional method of making the oxide, though you need a kiln to get above 850C. Brickyards will also sometimes have it depending on what sort of cement they play with. The hydroxide is used in sewerage treatment (and the white powder used in mass graves and so on in the movies about olden times). Both should still be easily available.

Fluorine - glass etching compounds and also some rust/calcium/scale removers. I'll check with my Mum on this one as she's a chine/porcelain painter and uses some sort of fluorine compound to remove fired on glazes when they go wrong. Check with an art shop or in the descalers/rust removers at a hardware store.

Phosphorus - hard to get nowadays mainly because the simple forms aren't used much. Red matches have a tiny amount that you can carefully 'distill' out in a test tube. Basically heat the matchheads to about 40C and the phosphorus will condense at the top of the test tube. Not all matches have phosphorus any more, and the fumes are nasty. The usual way in olden times was to burn bones (mainly calcium phosphate) to ash and extract from there.

More later...

[Prof Eumides Blakehurst]

I'm going to give you one list of ingredients for this ... experiment.
And if you know what I'm planning, don't say, that goes for all who do know!!!
It's more fun to see peoples reactions and speculations as to ... The List.
(I'll note on which I've acquired)

What temperature does odd bits of wood burn at?

Not enough to make lime if the airflow is good.  A lot of the heat of a good fire is because wood buried under the other wood is reduced to charcoal first, and then that burns at a far higher temperature.

And given that I know what you're making, I look forward to seeing the mixing bowl you're going to use!

[Dr. malcolm moriarty]

Don’t let this get around but the secrete is to,
 bang the bricks together in till you achieve the desired results.

[Augustus Longeye]

You know back on the topic of brains in jars (even I never thought I would say that...) you wouldn't need blood or any organs really... just a filter and pump to move nutriant and oxygen rich jelly round the blood/brain barrier... which it would probably be a good idea to keep as a filter of sorts... after that not much else is realistically required surely?

[Flynn MacCallister]

Filter, pump and oxygenator... that's just a set of artificial kidneys, heart and lungs. Whatever you're using to produce your nutrient broth.... artificial digestive system. It's all the same thing. Unless the internet is indeed sentient, the only bit you can't replace is the brain.

If you try to pump a jelly, though, you're going to wind up with an aneurysm or three pretty quickly. It has to be blood-consistency. That's what the system is capable of dealing with.

[Augustus Longeye]

Hmm... good point... But using a regular blood (from an existing source, for example) would lead to either the need for a few more homeostatic organs or the possibility of clots occuring, especially due to the fact the change of setting would throw off most hoeostatic control anyway... you would need to redesign blood! Or simply change it a lot and get fresh blood...

[Nikola Tesla]

While we're on the topic of biological experimentation, there's this project with my minions that has been teasing my brain...

...I want to put wings on them and make them into angels.  Shouldn't be that hard.  I start with a (brainless) minion (you all know what my starting material was); I already have the basics and if I go the biological route I can get some turkey DNA from one of those slaughterhouses.  Problem is, as you well know I've mostly been an electrodynamics man.  I have no doubt I could do the experiment either way, but the problem is the decision part:  clockwork wings or the regular kind?  Should I make some minions into each and watch the inevitable infighting turn into an entertaining battle for dominance?  Or is that a bad idea, considering that the real estate collapse has led to a dearth of said starting material?  This has always been my issue:  decision making concerning the most precious commodity (my own free time), as the rest of you well know, one cannot delegate any of the actual idea work to minions.  One can only give them grunt work, or put wings on them and watch them fight to the death.

[Flynn MacCallister]

While we're on the topic of biological experimentation, there's this project with my minions that has been teasing my brain...

...I want to put wings on them and make them into angels.  Shouldn't be that hard.  I start with a (brainless) minion (you all know what my starting material was); I already have the basics and if I go the biological route I can get some turkey DNA from one of those slaughterhouses.  Problem is, as you well know I've mostly been an electrodynamics man.  I have no doubt I could do the experiment either way, but the problem is the decision part:  clockwork wings or the regular kind?  Should I make some minions into each and watch the inevitable infighting turn into an entertaining battle for dominance?  Or is that a bad idea, considering that the real estate collapse has led to a dearth of said starting material?  This has always been my issue:  decision making concerning the most precious commodity (my own free time), as the rest of you well know, one cannot delegate any of the actual idea work to minions.  One can only give them grunt work, or put wings on them and watch them fight to the death.

Natural selection can always be relied upon to produce desirable results with a maximum of entertainment.

Add a lightning storm and sell tickets, and you also have the finances to build a complete army once the matter has been decided. As for waste or not? It isn't as though you lose anything by using patched-up reanimated ones.