Vandal Science

For the next several days, I’m going to try something new on the Vandal Science blog. I’m going to tell you a story.

Frank Andres during his military days.

There are several reasons for telling you this story. First and foremost, I think it’s a damn good story. Secondly, it’s about research that has not yet developed far enough to warrant a press release or pitch to the media. But it’s interesting and promising enough that it needs to be told somewhere. Lastly, there’s some small part of me that hopes some reporters actually read this blog now and then, one of which might get interested in writing a piece about this research.

The story is about an old man living just north of Spokane. His name is Frank Andres, and he has led a life full of incredible experiences. It’s almost a series of events like Forrest Gump. (Okay, so it’s not quite that extraordinary.)

Frank attended high school in the small town of Salem, Ohio. Afterwards, he bounced around many colleges and many degree programs: Mount Union College in Ohio, the University of California in Los Angelis, Yuba College in Marysville and the Akron School of Art in Ohio, to name a few. During that time, he studied a range of topics from petrographic microscopes to nuclear energy to commercial arts.

He never graduated, but instead entered the United States Marine Corps. Afterwards he worked on a range of projects. In sequential order, he researched the bearings for atomic submarines, the fabrication of fuel plates for nuclear propulsion aircraft engines, the first attempts to grow single crystal emeralds for communication lasers and plasma engines.

Despite all of these cutting-edge areas of research, the story begins in the 1974 at the Yuba Goldfields, a 10,000-acre valley on either side of the Yuba River in northern California. Frank was working as the general manager of the site, overseeing a massive gold dredging operation. He would often find interesting pieces of rocks, gems or minerals, and hold on to them for curiosity’s sake.

One day, Frank discovered a gold nugget with an odd white material growing in the cracks and fissures. He put the nugget in a Petrie dish with hydrochloric acid, where it remains to this day. He held on to the odd piece of gold and forgot about it for more than two decades. Then he made a curious discovery.

For some reason or another, the mysterious white substance had purified his nugget into 24-karat gold.

Frank found this fascinating, and decided to see what would happen if he put the white substance in the same acidic environment with a piece of copper. The result? The copper turned clear – nearly invisible.

By this time, Frank had retired from his long list of careers, and had plenty of time on his hands. Intrigued by his new finding, he grabbed a microscope and camera, and began conducting research on the substance in his garage.

However, the location proved to be too windy, so he moved to a more secure location – the laundry room in his basement.

Over the years, he has taken microscopic pictures, trying to figure out what the heck is going on. The stack of pictures now weighs well over 10 pounds.

So what has he found? Tiny, mysterious objects he has nicknamed AB bubbles…

Tags: AV Bubbles, Frank Andres

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 3:29 pm and is filed under AB bubbles, Biology, Cool Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. This blog is focused on science and posts and comments are encouraged to stay topical. This is an English-language blog; we are not staffed for translation. Comments and content that appears here is posted by individuals and does not necessarily represent the views or policies of the University of Idaho. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.