Top 10...Errr, Top 4.5 Science Links For August

Here are my top 4.5 favorite articles I've read online this past month.  With them I've included a brief summary and why I enjoyed it.  (Note, they are not really ranked, I enjoyed all of them, so the numbers are just to keep track.)  I was going to do top 10, but the month got away from me, with the move.  The reason it is 4.5 is because I included another link without comment.  Perhaps we could have a discussion about link 4.5?  Read it, and let me know if you have any questions.

1.  Mission discovers multiple planets orbiting two suns

     This article discusses the recent discovery of planets orbiting a binary star system.  We've seen this type of system in the movies but this is the first time we have observed multiple planets around a system like this.  This discovery was made by the Kepler Mission, a NASA mission to discover exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars.  (exo-meaning outside of our solar system) AKA extrasolar planets).  Why did I include this?  Well not only is this REALLY COOL science, but it pushes our understanding of how a solar system forms.

     Remember, science is like cleaning out a closet, the room is going to get messy when you pull all the stuff out of the closet, but in the end everything is better.  Asking questions in science is the same way, the answer you think you are going to get is often not there, instead you find more questions which you must then answer. 

2. The Algorithm That Finds Connections Scientists Never See

    Why I loved this article is because it highlights an interesting side of science.  Basically this:  Scientists like small easy to manage problems.  Sounds good right?  The problem is that the real world is very interconnected, there are a lot of variables that are hard to manage and to measure all of them all the time.  This is one reason that the weather report is highly variable.  Calling for rain all week?  Well it was cloudy Monday...  Then it was sunny all week.  There are many global variables to track in weather prediction.  The same is true for all areas of science.  When you get down to real world systems there are truly thousands (if not infinite) of variables to keep track of.  

     In medicine, not only what the person eats, how much they exercise, what kinds of exercises, bathroom habits, sleep patterns, stress levels, emotional stability, family history, genetics, home life, weather, air quality, levels of communication between the patient and the doctor, etc all effect the delicate balance of human life.  It is nearly impossible to always account for all these things when treating someone. 

3. Is it possible to learn while asleep?

     One of my favorite books is A Brave New World and this reminded me of that.  I have always found the idea of learning while sleeping fascinating.  I love learning and would love to do it around the clock.  However learning to sniff when I hear a specific noise isn't what I was going for.  That doesn't mean this isn't a cool study, it is very cool.  Of course I instantly thought of Pavlov's dog (Pavlovian conditioning) when I read this. 

      Side note: In A Brave New World they use hypnotic conditioning of children to teach their beliefs while the children are asleep.  That's why I thought of it.

4. Chemical Exposure in the Womb from Household Items May Contribute to Obesity

     Chemical exposure during development can be very complicated.  When the embryo's cells are developing they are more reactive than an adult's cells.  In the early stages especially when the cell signaling is crucial.  From one cell we get millions that end up being sectioned off into to different organ types.  This means that from early signals the cells begin to organize and form the first tissues of the babies.  This is why chemical exposure can have such a dramatic effect, cells signal each other with chemicals.  The likely conclusion here is that the exposure to PFCs stimulates fat storing cell production.  Of course this is just my educated guess, I have not done any personal research into this.

4.5. Compounds activate key cancer enzyme to interfere with tumor formation

So let me know if there are any questions/comments about 4.5 (Or any of them of course). I would love to clear anything up or start a discussion.

What's on tap for this month?  Well I plan on doing a Top ten list at the end of the month/beginning of October.  Since I have a few Astronomy programs scheduled I will be doing an Astronomy related post.  Also, I want to get some serious work done on a particle physics entry that I promised I would write.

Keep your questions coming.
Alison

Fire: Why Blue is hotter than Red and What it Is.

When it comes to understanding fire, the first point I must make is that fire is a chemical reaction.  The physics/chemistry involved in fire is just fascinating. 


Here's what I'm going to cover:

• How Fire is a chemical reaction.
• Why Fire produces light and heat.
• What the different colors in fire mean.

To truly understand how it works we need to understand a few things about atoms.  Atoms are of course made of particles called electrons, protons and neutrons.  Which one plays an important part in chemical reactions?  Electrons have the most influence there.  Protons can play a large part in chemical bonding.



So what's the deal with electrons?  As you know they have a negative charge and they orbit the nucleus of the atom.   What you may not have known is that electrons orbit at specific energy levels.  If an electron moves to a different energy level it must either gain or lose the exact difference in energy levels.

A simple atom in ground state.  The blue is the electron (-) and the purple/pink is the proton (+).

What happens when the energy is gained?  Well the energy must come from somewhere.  "Energy cannot be created nor destroyed" it can only change form. This is why fires can start when it's hot.  If you heat something that is combustible you a giving the electrons energy in the form of heat.  Heat is a form of light, contained in the infra-red spectrum.  Our body interprets infra-red as heat.

This shows hoe our simple atom is excited, and the difference in the energy levels.

All forms of matter prefer being in an non-excited state (the ground state), the state that requires the lowest form of energy it can.  So after an electron is excited it wants to return to the ground state.  Thus the electron gives away the energy it absorbed by releasing it in the form of light.  The light can be all along the spectrum of light.  What states the electron changes between determines the wavelengths of light produced.

This shows how the electron returns to the ground state.

Here we have the spectrum of light, from Radio to Gamma waves, in increasing energy.  Showing how the visible red light is less energetic than visible blue or purple light.

The color of the visible light results from the energy. Blue light is more energetic than red light, which is why a blue fire is hotter than a red fire, it has more energy it is giving off.

This also is true in Astronomy, a blue star is much hotter than a red star. But “what burns twice as bright burns half as long” and maybe the numbers are not exactly true, the idea is, a blue star burns out much faster than a red star.  The hotter a reaction is the more fuel is used up at once. When the fuel is gone the reaction is over.

At night a blue light is much more blinding than a red light because our eyes have adjusted to the dark by dilating or expanding to let more light in.  When we are exposed to that energetic light we receive a lot more energy than our eyes were expecting.  This causes our pupils to shrink very quickly, the combination of all the light and the rapid shrinking causes pain and overwhelms our eyes which is why it is difficult to see afterwards.  When exposed to red light our eyes don't need to shrink much, if at all, so we can stay dark adapted.

To summarize...
Fire:

• A chemical reaction resulting in heat and visible light
• Purple/Blue Fire > Yellow/Red Fire (in energy)

Additional Information
 NASA explains Fire

Need more clarification?  This Richard Feynman video should help!

Let me know if anything was confusing, and always keep asking questions!