A Small Dose of Science

Drug Resistant Bacteria-- Intelligent Design?

2011-03-05T15:43:00.000-08:00

Here’s another thing I don’t understand about Creationism or maybe it’s Intelligent Design. Does God decide to make a bacteria species suddenly resistant to an antibiotic for a reason? And if he does—why? Why doesn’t he make us resistant to environmental pollutants like Dioxin? Seems like a better use of his time and a lot more helpful. Creating a nasty bug like MRSA, which can make visiting a sick friend in the hospital downright dangerous, is not nice.

Don’t we have enough problems?

Bacterial Evolution

2011-03-04T16:50:00.000-08:00

Out of Creationist curiosity I took a look at the website Conservepedia. I was confused by a statement made as fact, but unfortunately not backed up by data, that evolution has never been shown in the lab.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I admit I am a biologist with considerable experience in microbiology, immunology, and virology. To say that evolution has never been shown in the lab is a bit startling considering that even the layman knows that bacteria easily mutate into antibiotic resistant strains. Labs are where these evolving bacteria are studied.

The very definition of evolution is the ability of organisms to adapt to a changing environment, i.e. developing antibiotic resistance, through mutation.

Am I missing something? Please explain.

Roses are Red, violets are blu...

2009-11-09T15:39:00.000-08:00

Image Flickr Matt Denton

Have you ever wondered why most of us admire the beauty of flowers and even think they smell good? As a matter of fact some of us wear perfume made from the essence of flowers.

What makes this all so peculiar is that flowers and their scent's purpose is to attract insects-not humans.

Lookout-It's a Germ!

2009-11-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

Image Flickr_Germ

TV commercials try to make us believe that the only good germ is a dead germ. According to them flesh eating, lung clogging, stomach churning germs are everywhere, on telephones, in kitchens, bathrooms and even on dogs, cats and canaries.

The facts are that 99.9% of germs, AKA bacteria, are harmless and without them life on Earth would not be possible. Nitrifying bacteria in the soil convert nitrogen into forms plants can absorb through their roots. Bacteria in our gut produce vitamins we need to stay alive. Harmless bacteria coat our skins crowding out bacteria that are harmful, to name just a few of the good deeds done by germs.

So take it easy with the antibiotic soaps, the sprays and cleansers hyped to sterilize everything in the house including the dog.

Large Hadron Collider

2009-10-31T15:03:00.000-07:00

Drive along the two lane Route de Meyrin from Saint-Genes-Pouilly, France to Meyrin, Switzerland, just outside Genève, and you'll see a massive complex of buildings, looking out of place in the quiet pastureland and stands of trees, straddling the French-Swiss border (I haven’t actually be there: I Googled Earthed it). What you can’t see is the 27 kilometer circular tunnel buried deep below the complex. This is the site of the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest machine built to discover the universe’s smallest particles and hopefully catch a glimpse of what the proto-universe looked like a billionth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. Working at the LHC will be 7000 particle physicists, half the particle physicists in the world.

Construction

The sheer size of the LHC is staggering, as are the tolerances to which its gigantic components are assembled. Components the sizes of small apartment houses are built to vary less than a fraction of a millimeter from specifications.

The business end of the LHC consists of twin beam pipes buried inside a 3.8 meter concrete lined tunnel circling under the French Swiss border at depths of 100 to 300 meters. Surrounding the two beam pipes are 9300 magnets, some weighing several tons. The magnets are super-cooled to 300 C degrees below room temperature with thousands of kilos of liquid nitrogen and helium. Super-cooling makes the magnets superconductors allowing massive magnetic fields-100,000 times as strong as the Earth’s-to be generated without loss due to electrical resistance. The enormous magnetic fields bend and accelerate streams of protons or lead nuclei to a hairs breath below the speed of light. These particle streams make the 27 kilometer round trip 11245 times per second, in a curve precisely matching the curve of the beam pipes. To prevent the speeding particles from colliding with molecules of air, air is pumped out to create a vacuum like that in space. In addition to the magnets which bend the beam around the beam tubes are magnets which pinch and focus the streaming particles tightly so as to keep the beam from touching the sides of the tubes. The streams of particles are so energetic they can punch a hole through a 30 meter thick chunk of copper. If they were to touch the tubes the high energy particles would destroy them.

The two beam pipes allow for two separate beams to be accelerated in opposite directions. At four places along the circle the counter racing beams cross and it is here that head-on collisions of particles occurs and it is at these crossing points detectors are located to capture data from the shower of exotic particles created. The energy released by the particles smashing into each other will generate tiny areas 100,000 times the temperature of the sun for minute fractions of a second.

Tens of thousands of computers around the world are connected in a grid allowing scientists around the world access to the Everest sized mountains of data collected.

Results

Scientists will be looking for particles that will reveal the mystery of gravity, dark matter and why matter has mass. Among these exotic particles they hope to find the elusive Higgs Boson, a particle theorized to exist, but as yet undiscovered because particle accelerators so far have not accelerated particles to high enough energies to produce them. The discovery of the Higgs boson will help fill in the blanks as to why matter has mass and particles of light called photons, do not.

Scientists also believethe massively energetic collisions will produce particles that can explain why gravity is so weak. I don’t know about you but I have never thought of gravity as weak! But, compared to say magnetism it is. Try holding a refrigerator magnet over a pin and see which is stronger, the force of gravity or magnetic force.

It is also hoped that the nature of dark matter will be discovered. There is too much gravity in galaxies to be accounted for by the matter scientists can detect. So, scientists conclude that most matter in the universe is invisible or dark matter.

Another question the physicists will ask-Are there more than the four dimensions we are familiar with-depth, width, length and time?

This is an amazing time we live in, to have the opportunity to witness clues to the secrets of creation, and maybe of time itself.

Note

The LHC is expected to be re-started sometime in November of 2009. The LHC was shut down by an electrical problem late in 2008.

Bee Smart

2009-10-09T15:38:00.000-07:00

Reading time about 30 seconds

A scientist studying honey bee behavior decided to see just how smart bees are at finding a source of food. To do this he placed some sugar water in a dish and set it near a hive. Of course, the bees found it right away. He just wanted to give them the idea. Each day the scientist moved the dish containing the sugar water 10 meters or about 30 feet farther away from the hive. The bees proved to be very clever at finding the dish taking little time to find it even though it had been moved 10 meters away from its last position.

The experiment ended when the next time the scientist moved the dish 10 meters he found the bees waiting for him.

Zero Gain or Net Gain?

2009-08-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

Reading time about 50 seconds

There has been a lot of talk about carbon dioxide lately since it plays such a large part in climate change as a greenhouse gas.

We hear about net carbon gain and zero carbon gain as applied to the burning of fuels which are carbon based, meaning the burning of material that was once alive, whether it is coal, natural gas, biodiesel or corn based ethanol.

The business about carbon gain or net zero carbon gain is all about whether the fuel burned has been stored in the ground as say coal or petroleum or recently grown like corn or swithchgrass.

If we’re talking about coal or oil then we are talking about burning a carbon fuel that was alive some time ago and grew by removing carbon dioxide from the air and then storing it upon being buried under sediments. When it is burned it adds to the carbon dioxide content of the air because it releases back to the environment carbon that has been locked away in the ground, so there is a net gain over what was there before.

If we are talking about burning a fuel that grew using carbon dioxide recently and is burned soon after it is harvested then all that is happening is that it’s burning releases back to the environment what it recently took out to grow and the net gain to the atmosphere is zero. It releases back to the atmosphere what it just took out, not what had been locked away in the ground.

The Flu Pandemic of 1918

2009-07-31T17:42:00.000-07:00

In light of the resurgence of the 'Swine Flu'; I thought I might repost this blog for folks who may have missed it.

I had a little bird,Its name was Enza.

I opened a window,And In-flu-enza.

The Centers for Disease Control, (CDC) and other government agencies were aggressive in their response to the so called ‘Swine Flu’ of 2009 partly because of what happened in 1918. The epidemic of 1918 was caused by a variant of flu virus that had not been seen before. As a result those exposed had little or no immunity to this novel virus. Because the Swine Flu virus is also a new strain, government agencies were afraid that millions worldwide could be infected and die just as they did in the early part of the 20th century.The flu of 1918, like the Swine Flu, first appeared in the spring and like the Swine Flu was mild. So mild it was called the ‘three day fever’. Few deaths were reported and most patients recovered in a few days. The following fall the 1918 flu returned with incredible virulence. Millions were infected and millions died. Many of the affected died within hours or days. People told of visiting a neighbor one day only to find the next day the person was dead.

The so-called Swine Flu is a variety of the Influenza A N1H1 strain similar to the one that caused the 1918 flu, but that does not mean it will be as virulent. Many factors affect the virulence of a flu virus and even though they are the same subtype, they can be very different.The N1H1 subtype is simply a description of two proteins found on the surface of most viruses and is used to differentiate between different strains of Influenza, such as Influenza A, one of the viruses responsible for seasonal Flu. The H refers to a protein called Hemagglutinin (He-ma-glue-tin-in). The Hemagglutinin helps the virus particle stick to the cell it will infect. There are 16 types. The N refers to an enzyme called Neuramidase (Nur-am-eeh-daze). There are 9 types. The Neuramidase helps the newly formed virus particles release from the surface of the infected cell. This enzyme is inhibited by anti-flu medications such as Relenza and Tamiflu. If the new virus particles stay stuck to the infected cell they can’t go out and infect more cells.

In light of the loss of life in 1918-19, the government was cautious in its approach to this latest novel virus. This is not to say that the Swine Flu will be just like the Flu of 1918 just because there are similarities, such as both being a strain of Influenza A H1N1 and starting out mild in the Spring.Luckily, unlike the victims of the 1918 Flu, we have effective antiviral drugs, better public health and communication abilities, as well as the capability of producing a vaccine.

Unfortunately these were not available to the millions who died in the 1918 pandemic.

Our Ancestors the Bacteria

2009-07-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

Reading time about 90 seconds

Scientists are not yet sure as to where life on Earth first appeared or how it began. The closer they get to the time, some 3-4 Billion years ago, when the first organization of organic molecules became something we would recognize as being alive, the more difficult it is to understand.

The one thing they do know is that our ancestors were single celled organisms best described as primitive bacteria. Yes I said bacteria. I know that a lot of folks argue that we humans are not descended from apes, they're right we aren’t, but the truth for those folks is probably worse. All of us, every living thing on Earth whether plant; animal or insect share a common bacterial ancestor which appeared at least 3.5 billion years ago. They know that because these early bacteria left chemical signs in rocks that old.

These bacteria solved most of the problems of cell chemistry and developed the mechanisms of heredity long before multicellular organisms evolved. By the time they did most of the hard work of living had been done. How did they do it? Well, by trial and error. The things that worked were preserved and the things that didn’t perished. This process did not happen quickly or easily. Countless billions and billions of experiments were made by those primitive bacteria over billions of years. The reason so many tries could be accomplished is because of the rapid rate of reproduction by such simple creatures. Today a bacterium under ideal conditions can produce a new generation every 20 minutes, three each hour, 72 new generations per day and 25,632 per year. Can you imagine how many generations can be produced in 2 billion years? How many experiments can be tried?

So how did these experiments come about? Well, through a thing called mutation. Every time a bacteria or a modern cell divides it copies its DNA and passes along a copy to the new cell or bacteria. Sometimes an error in copying happens and that is passed to the new cell. If this error results in the new cell being better able to survive to reproduce, then it is preserved and passed along to its offspring. If it harms the organism’s chances to live to reproduce then it probably won’t be preserved in the population.

At 3 generations per day for 2 billion years you can see where a lot of errors can be passed along even if the rate at which an error in copying is made happens say once every million generations. That sounds pretty iffy at only one error per million generations, I know. But, we are not just dealing with one bacterium multiplying over the span of 2 billion years, but untold trillions of billons of trillions of bacteria dividing and subject to an error. You can see how over deep time there were many opportunities for copying errors and many, many experiments.

Maybe the lowly bacteria deserves a bit more respect.

Baby Steps on the Moon

2009-07-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

Reading time about 30 seconds

Forty years ago today the human race reached another world. Neil Armstrong stepped off the Eagle’s landing pad into history. I remember watching the fuzzy, ghostly image while waiting to ship out for Vietnam. Even though my thoughts were primarily about where I was going, and how much I didn’t want to go, that image griped my attention and jammed everything but it to the back of my mind.

What an achievement for a species that a little over a century ago dreamed of powered flight. The landing on the moon will be remembered as one of the greatest achievements of the human race. It has been pointed out to me that 200 years from now people will speak of it with the same reverence given to Isaac Newton, Christopher Columbus, and the Wright brothers, maybe more so.

It is truly an amazing time to be alive. To have witnessed our landing on the Moon is like being present for the discovery of the New World.

Sea Ice and Climate Change

2009-07-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

Reading time about 40 seconds

Why are scientists so worried about melting of sea ice at or near the poles?

Well, aside from the fact that it's melting is a pretty good indication that the planet is warming, it’s scary because of a thing called ‘positive feedback’, which despite sounding so upbeat is in the case of global warming a potential catastrophe.

An example of Positive Feedback is when an event such as warming of the oceans creates more warming of the oceans. So, how does sea ice come into this? We all know that a dark object absorbs more heat from the sun than a white one does. As the sea warms and melts more white sea ice there is less ice to reflect heat and more dark sea surface to absorb it, the sea warms melting more ice exposing more sea surface to absorb heat, etc. The dangerous part is that this vicious cycle increases in speed until it is at a ‘tipping point’ beyond which there is no going back.

And that’s why scientists are worried.

Happy Light Year?

2009-07-10T11:57:00.001-07:00

Reading time about 90 seconds

A light year isn’t a measure of time, like ‘Happy New Light Year!’ or ‘That’s not gonna happen this Light Year’.

A light year is a way to measure distance. Astronomers deal with such large distances it is more convenient to use light years when talking about how far away astronomical bodies are. It is defined as the distance light travels in one Earth year. The speed of light is about 300,000 kilometers per second or about 186,000 miles per second. At that speed light can cover about 9,500,000,000,000 (9 1/2 trillion) kilometers or about 6,000,000,000,000 (6 trillion) miles in one year.

Astronomers sometimes speak of light seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months as well.

If we want to get technical a light year is the distance light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year, which is 365 ¼ days. That ¼ is the reason we add a day every four years -- Leap Year. It keeps the calendar right. The reason for measuring the speed of light in a vacuum is that the speed of light can vary depending on what it is passing through. For instance, the speed of light through water is 225,000 kilometers per second (140,000 miles/sec) and in glass about 200,000 kilometers per second (124, 000 miles per second).

So how do we use light years to describe the distance of astronomical bodies? Well, we can say the Earth is 26,000 light years from the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, which is 100,000 light years across. The nearest star, Proxima Centuri, is 4.22 light years from us. We can also use light minutes to describe the distance to our sun as 8 light minutes. Our Moon is 1 ¼ light seconds away. The visible edge of the universe is around 13 billion light years away.

Another way to look at light years or light minutes is as a way of looking into the past. For example, if it takes light 8 minutes to get to our eyes from the sun, that means we are seeing the sun as it WAS 8 minutes ago. So, if the sun were to explode right now, it would be 8 minutes before we knew it and no sooner, no way, no how.

Skylab

2009-06-26T14:08:00.001-07:00

Reading time about 70 seconds

The International Space Station is the second U.S. space station
to orbit the Earth. Before the ISS was Skylab, launched by NASA after a string of successful Apollo Moon missions.

Launched in May of 1973, it was occupied by three successive crews of three astronauts using an Apollo capsule staged on a Saturn V.

The 100 ton Skylab launched as a 'dry' third stage of NASA's mighty workhorse the Saturn V. It was an aluminum cylinder 118 feet long and 22 feet wide orbiting at an altitude of about 270 miles. Skylab was divided into two compartments with a workstation on the 'top' floor and living, sleeping and kitchen facilities on the 'lower'.

One of Skylab's solar panels was lost on launch and another held tightly against Skylab's thin skin by a troublesome retaining strap preventing it from unfurling and leaving the Lab with a severe power shortage. That and the overheating of the Lab from sunlight led to a harrowing space walk by two Skylab astronauts to jerry rig a sun shade and cut the strap keeping the solar panel from unfurling. The sun shade was rigged successfully and the solar panel was freed and deployed saving the mission.

Skylab was just what it's name implied, it was a lab in the sky. A telescope was used to study the sun and celestial objects while an Earth Resources Experimental Package or EREP was used to study forestation, crops, meteorology and conduct a search for mineral deposits. Skylab's crew's also established that man can live and work in a weightless and space environment for extended periods of time.

Skylab's final mission ended with the return to Earth of the last crew in February of 1974. Skylab reentered the Earth's atmosphere on July 11th 1979. Most of it burned up, but some of the bigger bits landed in Australia where lucky Aussies collected some remarkable souvenirs of Phase One of NASA's space program.

Water, Water Everywhere

2009-06-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

Reading time approximately 90 seconds

In Mrs. Irksums English class, I learned some lines from the poem The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Our old sailor laments, 'Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink'. He was surrounded by a salty ocean and developed not only a mighty thirst, but an appreciation for that vital liquid.

We should all have an appreciation for this remarkable compound which, due to its oddness, makes life possible on Earth.

Water is a very simple molecule made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. This simple combination allows unique chemical and physical properties without which we simply wouldn't be here.

So what makes water so different?

Well for one thing, unlike other liquids, when it freezes, it floats. If ice sank, ponds and oceans would freeze from the bottom up making most life impossible in water. Instead it stays on top forming an insulating layer keeping the water under it from freezing.

Not only that but, unlike other substances, it absorbs a huge amount of heat before it gets hot and releases that heat slowly. Water also conducts heat easily. Heat moves easily in water from hot spots to cold spots reducing extremes in temperature. These two properties allow water to move heat around moderating the Earth's temperature and letting organisms more easily control their tissue temperatures.

One really amazing property of liquid water, putting it in a class by itself, is its ability to act as a universal solvent. It can dissolve just about anything-even gold- better than anything else. It is estimated that about 20 million tons of gold are dissolved in the oceans. Only problem is that it costs more to extract it than it is worth. Darn. This ability to dissolve nearly everything, along with its ability to flow, allows water to carry and move all sorts of things around. Plants, for instance, find this useful when water dissolves nutrients from minerals in the soil and carries them to their roots.

But, as the guy on TV selling the slicer and dicer says, “That’s not all folks.” Liquid water is a great place for chemical processes to take place. It provides a physical and chemical medium which facilitates many vital processes within cells as well as supplying hydrogen for such things as photosynthesis. The oxygen we breathe is what is leftover after green plants split a water molecule to get hydrogen. The very air we breathe comes from water.

As a famous naturalist once said, “There is magic in water.”

Water and Life on Mars

2009-06-12T14:14:00.000-07:00

Of all the planets one has inspired emotions and inflamed the imagination like no other. The ancient Egyptians called it the Red One, the Babylonians the Star of Death, to the Greeks it was the Fiery One, the Romans called it Mars.

Humans have speculated about the possibility of life on mars for a long time. One of NASA's stated missions is to find out whether or not life exists or has existed on Mars. A Viking Lander in the 1970’s directly sampled the soil of Mars for microbial life, but found none. So NASA decided to take a different approach and took as a theme “Follow the Water.” If life as we know it does or has existed on Mars then there had to be water. This is not a new idea. Water has played an important role in the search for life on Mars for over a hundred years.

In the fall of 1877 an Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, saw through his small telescope fine lines that appeared and disappeared as he strained to see detail on the Martian surface through our atmosphere’s dancing air. He called the fine lines he thought he saw canali, channels or canals in Italian. An English translator chose canal as the meaning of canali implying a construction by intelligent beings.

In 1894 a Boston businessman, Percival Lowell, built an observatory outside Flagstaff Arizona dedicated to the study of his all consuming passion, the planet Mars. Lowell believed that the canals Schiaparelli saw were built by intelligent creatures to bring precious water from the planet’s ice caps to irrigate the desserts of their arid and dying planet. He spent his life trying to prove it.

The writer H.G. Wells further fired the public’s imagination about intelligent life on Mars with his story, War of the Worlds, where Martians in giant machines come to conquer the Earth.

To answer the question of water on Mars NASA took several approaches. They looked for the geological signs such as those found on Earth associated with water. After all they reasoned, the effects of oceans or rivers would most likely leave the same marks on the rocks and soil of Mars as they did on Earth. Probes were launched to photograph and remotely study in detail the surface.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) launched in 2005 employed high resolution photography to photograph the surface for physical features similar to those found on Earth caused by liquid running water such as gullies and river beds. (See Photo - Mars) Ground penetrating radar equipment aboard the MRO probed up to a half mile deep searching for signs of ice and finding it near one of the Martian poles. Another instrument package aboard the Orbiter detected chemical signs of water in the form of carbonates. The scientists at NASA believe the carbonates were formed by the action of water on rocks in the Martian soil. Strong evidence of water ice had been found but more proof was needed.

Finally in 2008 the Phoenix Lander found the proof NASA needed It scraped a small trench in the red soil of Mars and found water ice. The case for life on Mars was now strong.

Following the discovery of water ice on Mars NASA plans to launch the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) in 2011. MSL is a roving chemical laboratory that can drive around Mars similar to the two current rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, but much more sophisticated. One of its objectives is to determine if conditions on Mars now or in the past has or has ever supported life.

Percival Lowell would be pleased.

Swine Flu and the Pandemic of 1918

2009-05-29T12:24:00.000-07:00

The year is 1918. American troops have joined the allies fighting the war raging in Europe. By the end of The Great War over 100,000 American soldiers died. But it was not only bullets, bombs or poison gas that slaughtered them quickly and terribly by the tens of thousands. A ruthless killer too small to be seen by the most powerful microscopes of the age and too illusive to be known by the best scientific minds was responsible for the deaths of half of the U.S. troops killed in the European theater. The killer was influenza.

The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more humans worldwide in one year than died in the four years of the Bubonic Plaque in the mid thirteen hundreds. Between the years 1918 and 1919, 20-40 million died of influenza. Twenty-eight per cent of Americans were infected, 675,000 of all classes died, the rich and the poor. The flu raced around the world along trade routes and shipping lanes infecting twenty per cent of the population of the planet. It was a true pandemic.

So prevalent was the disease small children skipped rope to this grim rhyme.

I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza.
I opened a window,
And In-flu-enza.

The Centers for Disease Control, (CDC) and other government agencies were aggressive in their response to the so called ‘Swine Flu’ of 2009 partly because of what happened in 1918. The epidemic of 1918 was caused by a variant of flu virus that had not been seen before. As a result those exposed had little or no immunity to this novel virus. Because the Swine Flu virus is also a new strain, government agencies were afraid that millions worldwide could be infected and die just as they did in the early part of the 20th century.

The flu of 1918, like the Swine Flu, first appeared in the spring and like the Swine Flu was mild. So mild it was called the ‘three day fever’. Few deaths were reported and most patients recovered in a few days. The following fall the 1918 flu returned with incredible virulence. Millions were infected and millions died. Many of the affected died within hours or days. People told of visiting a neighbor one day only to find the next day the person was dead.

The so-called Swine Flu is a variety of the Influenza A N1H1 strain similar to the one that caused the 1918 flu, but that does not mean it will be as virulent. Many factors affect the virulence of a flu virus and even though they are the same subtype, they can be very different.

The N1H1 subtype is simply a description of two proteins found on the surface of most viruses and is used to differentiate between different strains of Influenza, such as Influenza A, one of the viruses responsible for seasonal Flu. The H refers to a protein called Hemagglutinin (He-ma-glue-tin-in). The Hemagglutinin helps the virus particle stick to the cell it will infect. There are 16 types. The N refers to an enzyme called Neuramidase (Nur-am-eeh-daze). There are 9 types. The Neuramidase helps the newly formed virus particles release from the surface of the infected cell. This enzyme is inhibited by anti-flu medications such as Relenza and Tamiflu. If the new virus particles stay stuck to the infected cell they can’t go out and infect more cells.

In light of the loss of life in 1918-19, the government was cautious in its approach to this latest novel virus. This is not to say that the Swine Flu will be just like the Flu of 1918 just because there are similarities, such as both being a strain of Influenza A H1N1 and starting out mild in the Spring.

Luckily, unlike the victims of the 1918 Flu, we have effective antiviral drugs, better public health and communication abilities, as well as the capability of producing a vaccine.

Unfortunately these were not available to the millions who died in the 1918 pandemic.

Moving to Friday

2009-05-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

I am going to move this post to Fridays. Oh, if there is a science subject of particular interest to you let me know via comment and I'll see what I can find.

lyle

Robert Malthus and the Irish Potato

2009-05-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

In 1798 Robert Malthus published a book entitled, An Essay on the Principle of Population.

As I understood it, the principle stated populations of humans grew in number until food became too scarce to sustain further growth. At this point people were able to stay alive, but just barely. Anything that reduced food production caused starvation until the population dropped to the level the amount of food available could sustain, again just barely. Making the problem worse, he maintained, was that the food supply can only increase arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4…) while populations grow geometrically (2, 4, 8, 16…).

In everyday terms, Malthus’s Theory states that the population rises to the level of sustainability. Increase the amount of food the population rises, decrease the amount of food and the numbers of people drops.

An example is the potato famine in Ireland.

Around 1590 the potato was introduced to Ireland. By the 1800’s the potato had become the staple crop of the poor with approximately 3 million subsisting on it alone. This was possible because the potato is rich in protein, carbohydrate, minerals, and vitamins including vitamin C. So, while a boring diet, it was nevertheless a healthy one. The Irish poor subsisting on the potato were healthier than the British poor living mainly on bread. The danger for the Irish poor was that the potato increased the food supply and as a result the population doubled from 4 million to 8 million. A large segment of the Irish population was now dependent on a reliable potato crop. This dependency resulted in a disaster of colossal proportions.

In the year 1835, a disease struck the potato crop wiping it out entirely by 1837. Nearly one million starved. The Irish population dropped by 25% due to starvation, disease caused by malnutrition and by emigration, many to America where the food supply was more than adequate for the growing number of people.

This tragedy had been predicted by Malthus. The population had grown as the result of an increased food supply and when that food supply disappeared the population shrunk back to a number that could be sustained by the available food supply.

There is a lesson to be learned here for our rapidly growing world population. Feeding people is not the way to save lives, as the more you feed the more you have to feed until you simply cannot feed them all. Of course, we cannot let people starve as a way of helping them, but we must come up with some means of stabilizing our population. To my mind it is the greatest threat our planet faces. Nearly all the problems we face, energy shortages, food shortages, disease, war, pollution, and destruction of habitat are made worse by our rapidly growing population.

And despite what many say, this is not a problem technology can solve. Eventually old Robert is right.

Swine Flu

2009-04-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

Take it from me; a guy who worked with dangerous viruses for many years, a good way to avoid the Swine Flu is to KEEP YOUR HANDS AWAY FROM YOUR FACE.

Pardon me for shouting, but it’s important. Washing your hands is important too, but does little good if you subsequently touch a contaminated surface and then rub an eye, nose or an ear. Even if your hands were covered with flu virus it would be tough to infect yourself if you didn’t transport the bugs to your face. Flu germs do not infect you through your skin.

So, try to remember while in public to keep your hands away from your face.

By the way, this helps in preventing colds as well.

Health Disclaimer

This above is provided in an informational and educational manner only, with information that is general in nature and that is not specific to you, the reader. The contents of this site are intended to assist you and other readers in your personal wellness efforts. Consult your physician regarding the applicability of any information provided to you.

Three Questions

2009-04-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting survey conducted by the California Academy for Sciences.

The results of a survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences reveals that Americans don't know a whole lot about science.
- Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
- Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
- Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.*
- Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.

I don’t know what significance can be attached to the results reproduced above. People are busy trying to stay whole in a universe that sometimes seems bent on destroying them.If you asked me three science questions there’s a good chance I might not know all three. Maybe the point they were trying to make is that in a world coming to be dominated by science, we need to do a better job teaching science.

Here are the answers I found with a little research.

The Earth takes 365.25 days to revolve once around the Sun, the extra quarter of a day is dealt with every fours years by adding a day to February—leap year. I wonder if you had to know about the quarter of a day to get the answer right?

Humans came along around 65 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs. The extinction event is believed to have been caused by the impact of an asteroid six miles across in the vicinity of the Mexican Yucatan peninsula.

The Earth’s oceans cover approximately 75 percent of the Earth’s surface. We are really a water planet.

A Miss is as good as a Mile?

2009-04-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

Between the paths around the sun (orbits) of Mars and Jupiter lies the asteroid belt, a swarm of debris left over from the formation of the inner planets- Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars- some 4.6 billion years ago. Occasionally the planet Jupiter’s gravity nudges some of this debris toward Earth.

Asteroids nudged so that they pass within 121 million miles of the sun are called Near Earth Asteroids(NEA). The ones that get our attention are those that cross the path of the Earth.

In 1908 a NEA about 300 feet across exploded over Siberia leveling over 500,000 acres of forest. About 65 million years before that a really big one, maybe over six miles across, hit near the current location of the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and is implicated in the extinction of the dinosaurs. So, these NEA’s not only cross Earth’s orbit around the sun, but sometimes get there at the same time we do.

The nearest most recent approaches of NEA’s was in 1998 when one about 1500 feet across came within 64,000 miles of Earth, and in 2002 when another came within 74,000 miles. The Moon is about 240,000 miles from us, so they passed relatively close. Luckily close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades, but the fact remains, these things do hit us.

In order to detect NEA’s that may be of significant danger, the U.S. Air Force, NASA and others are running surveys to detect and plot the orbits of NEA’s. So far a few thousand have been surveyed; luckily none of these is given much of a chance to hit us. But, as in most things, it is not what you know, but what you don’t know that can get you. A few thousand have been found, but we haven’t found all of them.

In addition to detecting possible impact NEA’s, scientists are researching ways to intercept and destroy or change the course of an asteroid that is heading for a rendezvous with Earth. Several robot spacecraft have been sent to determine just what these things are made of, such as the NEAR Shoemaker mission. The spacecraft flew by and photographed the NEA Eros in 1998 (see image) and landed a probe on its surface in 2001.

Should we worry about getting clobbered by a NEA? I don’t think so, but just to be safe I think it would be a good idea for Earth to keep looking over her shoulder.

It's All Stars!

2009-03-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

On an average clear night you can see a few thousand stars. Every one of them belongs to our galaxy, the Milky Way---which by the way, was thought as late as the 1950’s to be the entire universe.

The Milky Way Galaxy has more than a few thousand stars in it. It is estimated to contain approximately 100-200 billion stars. The one’s we see with our naked eye happen to be close enough or bright enough to be seen. Even a modest pair of binoculars will show you thousands more.

So, how many stars do you think you could see if you could see them all?

Well, the astronomers tell us that they estimate there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe each with at least 100 billion stars. That’s 100 billion times 100 billion which equals—a lot.

This sort of begs the question--- if there are so many stars—are we alone?

Re-Cycle

2009-03-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

Once we establish a colony on the Moon we will be dealing with the same problems of human input and output as the ISS. We eat and drink and then as a result we have--output. The ISS is already trying out a urine recycler, still a source of controversy among the spacies. One has been know to remark he didn’t mind drinking his own purified urine; he just didn’t want to drink some other guys.

I got to wondering what kind of quantities we’re dealing with and found these data in a book titled ‘The Moon’.

Input in pounds

Oxygen 1.84
Food 1.36
Water in Food 1.10
Food Prep Water 1.58
Drinking Water 4.09

Wash Water 12.5

Total 24.47

Output in Pounds

Carbon Dioxide 2.20
Respiration & Persperation Water 4.02
Urine 3.31
Feces Water 0.20
Sweat & Urine Solids 0.17
Feces Solids 0.07
Hygiene Water 12.00

Total 24.47

So, about 25 pounds in and out per day. Looks like a lot of that stuff out can be recycled or used for plant fertilizer-the Chinese have been using ‘Black Gold’ in rice patties for centuries.

But, ya know, I keep wondering about the guy who didn't want to drink his buddie's recycled urine. Wonder how he'd feel about his buddie's, uh-you know.

How do plant stems know to grow toward the sun?

2009-03-14T14:03:00.001-07:00

They don't, it's built in.

Stems grow toward the sun because that is how the leaves they bear get the energy to produce the sugars they need for food. If they grew the other way they’d be roots. Important, yes, but not what we’re up to today.

Plants contain hormones (special cells release chemicals-hormones-which travel to another part of the organism to cause an effect). Light causes the plant hormone-auxin-to travel to the shadier side of a stem. Only blue, white or ultraviolet light will do, green, yellow or red don’t work. Obviously a pigment is involved to absorb those particular colors.

The auxin causes the plant cells on the shady side to grow somewhat longer. If the cells on the shady side of the stem grow longer while those on the sunny side don’t, then the stem is forced over toward the sun.

Many chemical weed sprays are actually synthetic auxins. When they are sprayed on growing plants they accelerate the growth to the point where the plants grow too fast and die.

Ooopppsss!

2009-03-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks for your comment, Patrick, and thanks for reading. Unfortunately when I tried to publish your comment--it vanished. Again, my apologies.

Lyle

Sorry

2009-03-11T15:44:00.000-07:00

I've got a deadline for an article I'm writing and won't make my Wed blog deadline. I'll try to have something on what makes plants grow toward the sun by Friday.

Lyle

Deadly Air

2009-02-25T13:29:00.001-08:00

About two billion years ago, a deadly case of air pollution threatened to wipe out most life on Earth. The poison gas was released into the atmosphere by photosynthetic single-celled life forms like those in the picture---cyanobacteria. (Photosynthesis is the name of the process some single celled creatures and all plants use to turn sunlight into a form of energy they can use… carbohydrates for instance).

The deadly gas has a familiar name--- OXYGEN.

Oxygen? We need that stuff don’t we? Yes we do and so does most life. Without it we would perish in minutes. So how did oxygen go from a killer gas to a life sustaining one?

First, why was oxygen so dangerous and is it still dangerous? Yes it is because it can produce things called free radicals. Free radicals of oxygen are very aggressive, ripping up molecules used by cells for food, enzymes which cells need to do their work, vitamins, fats and a bunch of other molecules cells need to work properly.

(Free radicals may sound familiar because they have been mentioned a lot in news stories about nutrition along with anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants are found in many foods, blueberries for instance. They neutralize some of these free radicals before they can do any harm.)

Something had to be done to combat this toxic threat. Fortunately nature is remarkable able to adapt. Billions of years ago, a mutation occurred in a cell’s photosynthesis genes, an error was made yielding two copies of that same gene when the cell divided.

Duplication of a gene is something a cell can exploit. It already has a working copy, so if one of the twins mutates further the cell is probably going to be OK and the new mutation may even be useful. One of the pair mutated further to produce a second kind of photosynthesis. This new process depended on the toxic gas and used up much of the oxygen before it could harm the cell. Talk about a lucky break. Life on the planet would be very different without those fortunate mutations. There are also structures in cells that neutralize oxygen photosynthesis doesn’t need.

This second kind of photosynthesis did not replace the first method, instead they work together. The older method produces the toxic oxygen in a process that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. (Plants combine carbon from carbon dioxide in the air with the hydrogen to form carbohydrates).

If you are wondering why an organism would produce a toxic gas that could kill it in the first place, here’s the deal. Photosynthetic cells need lots of hydrogen to make carbohydrates and billions of years ago Earth was running out of easily available hydrogen. Photosynthesizing cells solved the problem by splitting a molecule of water, using light energy from the sun, into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen was discarded as a waste product into the atmosphere. Minerals in the Earth’s crust combined with the oxygen for a long time, but eventually it could absorb no more and oxygen levels in the air grew to a toxic level. Fortunately the concentration of oxygen grew slowly enough for some organisms to adapt by way of those fortunate mutations.

(There are still many types of bacteria that are killed by exposure to oxygen. You’ve probably used hydrogen peroxide on a wound. Hydrogen peroxide breaks down into water and oxygen. The bubbly stuff you get when you pour it on a cut is you’re right--- oxygen.)

This second kind of photosynthesis not only uses up a dangerously toxic gas, the process using oxygen is also very, very efficient at producing energy. The new and improved cells really took off eventually covering the Earth. Is this lemons into lemonade or what?

Animals also have a process for using up oxygen before it can be harmful as well as tapping into a more efficient means of producing energy. The process is called cellular respiration, not to be confused with breathing. We animals are descended from cells that could exploit oxygen.

So, the next time you take a breath, think about that deadly gas your inhaling and the amazing way life on Earth adapted to —OXYGEN.

Fit to Drink?

2009-02-11T15:30:00.000-08:00

I promise this will be the last of the fresh water blogs and I’ll make it short.

Some facts:

40 % US rivers are too polluted for fishing or swimming or aquatic life

46% of US lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming or aquatic life

Every year approximately 1,200,000,000,000 gallons of untreated sewage, storm water and industrial waste are discharged into US waters.

Each year 250,000,000 people become sick from water related diseases worldwide

Each year about 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 people die of water borne diseases worldwide

Remember we are talking about water, a substance that no living thing can live without. Given that, we should be more careful how we manage it. Fresh water is not only in short supply, but we are making a large percentage of it unusable.

Doesn’t seem like a good idea.

If you would like more information try this link http://www.flowthefilm.com/ a really great documentary on the world of water.

Hold the Salt--Just Water, Please.

2009-02-04T15:50:00.000-08:00

Last week I gave the example that if ten full glasses represented all the water on Earth, the fresh water portion would only be about one-third of one of the glasses. And keep in mind we share that with every living thing from bacteria to sequoia trees, plus a good portion of the fresh water we have is frozen at the poles or cruising around in icebergs or flowing along in glaciers. In countries that receive little rain like Sub-Sharan Africa or in states like Nevada or in Southern California, which are really desserts with loads more people than the local water supply can accommodate, at some point the taps will run dry unless a way is found to make fresh water.

Nature does it for us by evaporating water from the oceans. The water vapor goes up the salt stays behind, and eventually the water vapor turns to clouds and fresh water fall from the sky, free.

That worked pretty well until there were too many of us using billions of gallons of fresh water for watering golf courses, lawns, filling swimming pools and billions and billions of gallons a day making stuff, like cars and ironically water bottles.

So what do we do now that we are literally running out of fresh water? Well, we can make fresh water out of sea water just like nature does, but the catch is that it is expensive. Right now the Middle East and Saudi Arabia make up to 70 % of their fresh water from sea water, but then the Saudi’s have plenty of money and lots of cheap oil to run the de-salting plants. (Wonder how they got so rich? A few decades ago the Saudis lived in tents barely making ends meet selling stuff to tourists on the way to Mecca.)

Anyway, there are two main ways water is de-salted---by evaporation or by a process called reverse-osmosis.

The evaporation method is pretty straight forward, you heat sea water, collect the water vapor, cool it and you have liquid fresh water and a really salty brine to get rid of, probably by dumping it back into the ocean, hopefully not on marine organisms that will be injured by high salt concentrations.

The other way is reverse osmosis which is pretty simple too. Basically you have a tank divided by a membrane, a membrane in this case is something that lets water through but not salt, put about 1200 pounds per square inch on the side with the salt water and collect the de-salted water on the other side of the membrane. That requires pumps to provide the pressure and they use energy.

Both methods are expensive, but if you or your industries are thirsty enough you’ll pay what you have to pay.

As of today there are 1200 de-salting plants in the United States with more in the planning stages. What water makers would really like to do is hook up de-salting plants with Nuclear Reactors to supply power. But, the problem here is, that safe as they claim the plants may be, nobody can agree where to store the thousands of tons of radioactive waste for thousands of years.

Not in my backyard, dude.

Water--Cool, Clear, Water

2009-01-28T15:44:00.000-08:00

An alien race looking at the Earth from space would classify our Earth as a water planet, nearly 70% of its surface is covered by water and we human inhabitants are 60% water. Unfortunately for thirsty Earthlings, all but 0.3% is too salty to use. To put that in a way I can understand, if ten glasses of water represented all the water on Earth, only one-third of one of the glasses would represent all the fresh water we have. Considering there are now over six billion humans and counting, each of us shares fewer and fewer amounts of drinkable water.

So what kinda numbers are we talking about? Well, there are about two billion cubic miles of fresh water, mostly in lakes, rivers and ground water. Ground water is water that is underground and usually available by wells or springs.

If we distribute the fresh water equally among the six billion or so people alive today it comes out to about 330 million gallons each. Of course, a lot of the fresh water is used by industry, washing cars, taking showers and all the stuff we use fresh water for besides drinking.

The World Health Organization states that each person needs 264,000 gallons per year or about 700 gallons per day for basic human needs. That comes out to 1,500,000,000,000 gallons per year or one and a half trillion gallons.

In the U.S each of us personally uses twice the world average and we use 408 billion gallons each DAY for all purposes. Over one- fourth of that amount is used by only three states, California, Florida and Texas.

So, it is pretty obvious that somebody is going get pretty thirsty, by 2025 it is estimated that 48 countries, 22 of them sub-Saharan, will be critically short of fresh water.

Next week we'll talk about how fresh water gets recycled and how we can make more of 'the new liquid gold'.

The Spheres of the Atmo-sphere

2009-01-14T15:23:00.000-08:00

This week I'm going to write about the spheres of the atmosphere, but only four of the more important ones---the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and the thermosphere.

The sphere we spend most of our time in and where most of the weather happens is the troposphere. This is the lowest layer of the atmosphere and extends up from 5 to 10 miles. This sphere is characterized by a decrease in temperature as you go higher and is the layer where most of the atmosphere’s water vapor is found. So, it’s not surprising that most of the clouds are found here.

The layer just above the troposphere is the stratosphere which is characterized by an increase in temperature as you go higher. Passenger jets like to fly as near to this layer as they can get as it is above most of the weather in the troposphere. The stratosphere extends from the upper boundary of the troposphere to an altitude of about 31 miles. It is in this layer that most of the ozone in the atmosphere is found. You’ve probably heard about the ‘depletion of the ozone layer’. The stratosphere is where most of this endangered molecule, ozone, is found. The importance of ozone is that it absorbs ultraviolet light before it reaches the Earth’s surface where it can do mischief to living things—like you and me.

Above the stratosphere is the mesosphere. This layer stretches between 31 and 50 miles and again you find a temperature decrease as you go higher. It is in this sphere that most meteors burn up, the ‘shooting stars’.

The next layer is the thermosphere. This layer begins about 50 miles up to around 435 miles. Somewhere in here is, I think, where the old ionosphere used to be, but I guess they don’t call it that any more. As the old name implied this layer has in it ionized gases .They get that way because radiation from the sun knocks loose one or more electrons from atoms of gas. These ionized atoms have an electric charge and can therefore reflect radio waves of certain frequencies allowing, for instance short wave radio waves, to travel thousands of miles. This was obviously more important before the days of communication satellites.

Nature doesn’t care what we call these various parts of the atmosphere; they are just names we give things so we all know what we are all talking about. And just because you know the name of something doesn’t mean you know anything about it. Hopefully now the names mean more and the next time your on an airplane and the pilot tells you that you’re flying at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet you’ll know you may be in the lower reaches of the stratosphere and probably won’t have to worry about bumpy air until you descend into the troposphere.

Why is the Earth Still Hot?

2009-01-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

According to the folks who know a lot about such things, the Earth is over four and a half billion years old. So, it does make you wonder why it is still so hot. There are still many places where volcanoes shoot up molten rock and geysers of boiling water erupt. Some countries like Iceland even use this heat for heating and power.

If you go down into a deep mine, you will find that the temperature increases about one degree Fahrenheit for every 60 feet you descend. If you do the arithmetic that would make the core of the Earth one hundred thousand degrees F., which it is not, your thermometer will read only around eleven thousand degrees. So, the degree of heating must slow down at a level much deeper than we can dig. But, that is still hotter than the surface of the sun which comes in around ten thousand degrees F. Where does that heat come from?

The major source of heat is from the decay of the radioactive isotopes of Thorium, Uranium and Phosphorus occurring naturally in the Earth’s mantle, an 1800 mile thick layer lying under the Earth’s crust—the part we live on.

An isotope is another form of the same element differing only in the number of neutrons. Chemically they behave the same, but the additional neutrons can make the nucleus of some elements unstable. This instability results in the emitting of rays or particles in an attempt to become more stable. Nature doesn’t like instability.

When the radioactive isotopes of Uranium, Thorium and Phosphorus decay they release heat in the same way as the Uranium isotopes do in a nuclear reactor.

This heating will not go on forever. In a few billion years the isotopes heating the mantle will all have decayed and the planet will cool and become as cold as the moon, but by that time the sun will have become a red giant, its surface extending well beyond Earth’s orbit.

That will heat things up again and if we’re still around we had better have moved out of the neighborhood.

Is it a Theory or is it a Theory?

2008-12-17T13:09:00.000-08:00

It’s really too bad the word theory has two very different meanings. To a scientist it means one thing to a non-scientist something vastly different.

The non-science meaning, according to old Merriam Webster, is “abstract thought, Speculation”. To the scientist it means something formed from testing a number of hypotheses (what would happen if I did this?) investigating a happening in nature.

For instance, the Theory of Gravity. Scientists over the years have tested a number of what ifs (hypotheses) relating to gravity, like what if I drop these two cannon balls of different weights off a building? Or does this mathematical formula predict the motion of the planets? Or does a lead ball and a feather fall at the same velocity in a vacuum? After enough what ifs are proven to be true a theory begins to take shape to describe the thing being investigated, whether it is the Theory of Gravity, The Germ Theory of Disease, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or The Theory of Evolution.

Scientists do not assign the title ‘Theory’ casually. To achieve this high level of trust it must be rigorously and ruthlessly tested, again and again. This does not mean that scientific theories are never rejected. Some have been in the past as we have come to better understand how things are. For instance, the Phlogiston Theory of Combustion which tried to explain burning as the release of a substance called Phlogiston and its absorption by air. The argument was that burning stopped in a closed container because the air inside the container could only absorb so much Phlogiston and when it had absorbed all it could, burning ceased. Other hypotheses tested the role of oxygen in burning eventually proving the Phlogiston Theory false.

Scientific theories are also modified as new hypotheses are tested and new information is discovered.

However, the Theory of Gravity, Theory of Relativity, Germ Theory and Theory of Evolution have survived many, many years of brutal scientific challenge and while they may be modified they will not be disproven.

Why do we have a moon?

2008-12-10T15:22:00.001-08:00

If you asked one of my second grade buddies that question they might say, ‘because’.

That answer usually works pretty well, but I thought if I poked around some I could do a little better.

I found four ‘becauses’.

An early theory explained the moon by saying it formed from the same gas cloud from which the Earth and other planets formed. This explanation doesn’t fly because the moon contains very little iron. The Earth has a lot, mostly at its molten core. If the moon formed out of the same stuff as the Earth, the moon ought to have more iron.

A second theory explained away the Moon’s small amount of iron by suggesting the Moon formed somewhere else, where there wasn’t much of that pesky iron, and captured by the Earth’s gravitation as it swung by. This one didn’t work out either. When samples of the moon were brought back by Apollo astronauts and analyzed, it was found that they had a chemical composition almost identical to Earth’s making it unlikely that it came from somewhere else.

A third idea tried to explain away the Moon’s ‘iron deficiency anemia’ by suggesting the early Earth spun so fast that some of its surface was flung off and went into orbit. The hole it left was the Pacific Ocean basin. Since most of the Earth’s iron is at its center, the flung off material would not have a lot of iron in it. Nice try, but when they crunched the numbers relating to the Moon’s orbit, they found the math didn’t work out.

The latest theory is that a chunk of debris, leftover from the formation of the Solar System, slammed into the Earth and knocked a large amount of the iron poor crust loose. Scientists estimate that the piece that hit us was a third to half the size of the Earth. The material blasted loose formed a ring around the Earth which clumped together to form the moon. This is the currently accepted theory.

It’s interesting that even after decades of head-scratching, scientists are still not really sure how the moon came to be.

Maybe ‘because’ isn’t such a bad answer after all.

Are we really descended from Apes?

2008-12-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

The quick answer is NO! Apes are more like cousins than ancestors. At some point in deep time we went one way, they went another. We share the same common ancestor, but they are not our ancestors.

As a matter of fact, all life on Earth shares a common ancestor whether you’re human, an ape, carrot, broccoli (echhh), fish, bird, oak tree—you get the idea. The common ancestor of all life on Earth was a single celled organism that lived billions of years ago.

How can we be related to a broccoli? That’s a plant not an animal.

All life on Earth shares the same cellular chemistry, cell structure, DNA and is either a single cell or made up of cells working together. What makes sense is that the problem of deriving energy from food, a means of passing on heredity, reproducing and all the necessary structures of a cell were solved by single-celled organisms, probably around two and a half billion years ago.

Some of their descendants branched off to become plants or animals, branching and branching through billions of years of evolution to populate the Earth with all the millions and millions of species living or extinct. The odds that millions of different living things evolved the same chemistry, hereditary material, and cellular structure independently are so beyond astronomical as to be non-existent. That means we are related to every living thing, even broccoli, because all living things descended from those single celled ancestors.

What about our supposed Ape ancestor? Well, we branched off from the nearest ancestor common to both of us around five to seven million years ago.

You know, if you think about it---we do kinda look alike.

Is it a meteor or a meteorite? And where do they come from?

2008-11-26T14:30:00.000-08:00

A meteor is a small, solid object that burns up upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The bright streak it makes is commonly called a shooting star. If it makes it to the ground it’s called a meteorite. I don’t think that definition includes objects lost from the Space Station, like a wrench or tool bag.

Some meteors are the remnants of the early formation of the Solar System, bits and pieces that didn’t get incorporated into planets or moons. Since they burn up in our atmosphere or land on the ground you could say they are now being incorporated.

Comets, which are kind of like big dirty snowballs, since they are made up of ice and some dust, are the source of a few meteors. Comets orbit the sun out beyond the orbit of Pluto, which used to be our most distant planet, but is now called a planetoid---a really long story. Sometimes the gravity of big planets like Jupiter will disturb a comet’s orbit and it will pass close enough to the sun to warm up and shed a trail of debris. When the orbit of the Earth passes through this trail we get a meteor shower.

Most meteors come from the asteroid belt, that bunch of stuff making a ring of debris around the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Some are of interstellar origin, from outside our solar system, or even pieces of our moon and Mars, dislodged by an asteroid impact.

Most meteors are made of stony material. A few per cent are mostly iron and nickel. The majority of meteors range in size from specks of dust to sand-grains. Luckily only a rare few are much larger, such as the six miles in diameter meteor that gouged out the huge crater in Arizona. That left a mark, a crater three-quarters of a mile in diameter and six hundred feet deep.

Why doesn't the International Space Station fall back to Earth?

2008-11-19T15:14:00.000-08:00

Funny you should ask, I was wondering the same thing, so I did a little research and this is what I learned.

The answer is it’s falling all the time. Huh, what??

Here’s what’s going on. Let’s say we have a cannon and we can put any amount of gunpowder in it and shoot a cannon ball as fast as we want. We take it to the top of an impossibly high mountain, to get away from the drag of the atmosphere, make sure it’s level and fire it. There are two forces acting on the cannon ball, the straight-out force given to it by the cannon and the downward force of gravity. The result of these two forces is a downward curve. If we use more powder and shoot the ball faster it will travel farther before hitting the ground. If we fired the cannon ball at the right velocity, it wouldn’t hit the ground at all because the result of its forward motion and downward motion is a curve that matches the curve of the Earth. Our cannon ball would fall around and around the Earth because the ground is falling away at the same rate as it is falling, so it just keeps missing the ground.

The International Space Station’s velocity is about 17,000 miles per hour at a height of about 200 miles. At that speed and altitude its path or orbit is a curve that matches the curve of the Earth, so it is falling and falling and falling around the Earth and so is everybody and everything inside, even those M&M’s they try to catch in their mouths.

Ant Plant

2008-11-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

We all know that insects eat plants and some plants return the favor and eat them, like the Venus Fly Trap. Plants eat insects (actually absorb) in order to get nutrients that may be hard to come by where they live. But, there is a plant that gets extra nutrients by simply providing a home for insects --- in this case ants. It is known commonly as the Ant Plant (Dischidia pectinoides). This native of Western Asia and the Western Pacific, for instance the Philippines, grows not in the ground, but on tree trunks and limbs as do many orchids. Botanists call them epiphytes, which means in Greek, epi-upon, phyte-plant.

The home the Ant Plant provides is a bladder-like structure that is really a modified leaf (See Photo). The ants enter and leave through a small hole at the base of the bladder where it attaches to the stem. In return for a home, the ant provides the plant with the carbon dioxide plants use to make food, using sunlight, through a process known as photosynthesis (Greek again), photo-light, synthesis placing within.

It also gets nutrients from the detritus (a fancy name for ant poop and the other good stuff the ants track in) the ants bring into their bladder home. These nutritious tid-bits are absorbed through the walls of the bladder as is the carbon dioxide exhaled by the ants. The ants probably benefit somewhat from the oxygen exhaled by the plant and no doubt by the shelter provided. Organisms benefit when they don’t have to expend much energy to gain something they need for their survival. It gives them a nice advantage.

Now why in the world did this amazing plant evolve such a unique way of earning extra income? Kinda like renting out a spare room. Maybe it’s not extra. Maybe in a habitat that is crowded with plants there is a lot of competition for carbon dioxide, all the other plants are sucking it up too as well as nutrients. Maybe to make ends meet, the Ant Plant really needs that extra income provided by its renters-- the ants.

Any other ideas as to why the Ant Plant goes to all this trouble?

How Does Soap Work, Anyway?

2008-11-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

Soap’s been around a long time, at least six thousand years, but how does it get that spot of gravy off your favorite shirt?

A molecule of soap is a long chain of carbon and hydrogen atoms with some oxygen atoms tacked on at one end. The end with the carbon and oxygen likes to attach to water molecules and the other end, which is just hydrogen and carbon, likes to attach itself to oils. This oil the carbon-hydrogen end likes so much is what can make dirt mixed with it so hard to remove because the oil likes to stick to the fibers of the material in your shirt.

When you dissolve soap in water the oil loving ends attach to the oil in the gravy stain and the water loving end (the end with the oxygen), attaches to a water molecule. Usually what happens is that a bunch of soap molecules surround the oil to form a glob of soap-oil-dirt with the dirt-oil in the middle of the glob and the water loving ends of the soap molecules sticking out hanging on to the water. Now when you stir things up, like when you slop your shirt around in the soapy water, the soap and oil glob is lifted from the shirt and suspended in the wash water.

When you rinse your shirt, the soap-oil-water combo is washed away and hopefully you have a clean shirt and no one will ever know you dripped gravy on it.

Is Global Warming the only problem with too much of a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide?

2008-10-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

That’s bad enough, but there is more bad news.

The large amount of carbon dioxide produced by our activities is also finding its way into the world’s oceans as an acid—carbonic acid. That’s pretty much the same stuff as in sodas where carbon dioxide is used to make them fizzy. There’s not enough dissolving in the ocean to make it fizzy, but enough to begin to make it more acid. (What I intended to say is carbon dioxide makes sodas fizzy, not carbonic acid-I need to proof read better!)

That’s bad news for small critters like plankton, coral and other organisms that have shells which they make out of a substance called calcium carbonate-we all know it as the chemical that makes up limestone and eggshells. Why? Because as the ocean becomes more acid, it is harder for them use this compound to make their shells and without shells it is hard if not impossible for them to survive.

What sort of marine organisms? Clams, oysters and corals are probably the ones we all recognize right off, but those small plankton we mentioned earlier are really important too because they are the base of the food chain for many animals. Small fish feed on them, which in turn are fed on by dolphins, some whales, penguins, birds, humans, and the like. The point is that as the ocean continues to grow more acidic, many of the sea’s creatures will simply not be able to survive.

That’s the other worry about an excess of carbon dioxide.

Why Does the Sun Have Spots?

2008-10-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

The simple answer is that planet sized areas on the sun’s surface are cooler than the rest of the surface and appear darker. Taken away from the brighter background they are still really bright. It’s simply a matter of comparison.

Why they are cooler is a little more complicated. If the simple answer is all you want, great. If not, please read on.

It has to do with stuff called plasma and a thing called magnetism.

Plasma is an atom—in the sun’s case usually an atom of hydrogen or helium-- that has lost electrons because the sun’s intense temperature tears them loose. The loss of electrons leaves the atom with an electrical charge. This is because an electron has a negative charge, so when one or more electrons are torn from an atom the atom is left more positive. The sun’s magnetic field can now influence it. Here’s where the sunspots come in.

In some places the sun’s magnetic field gets twisted--scientists are still trying to figure that one out--and pokes out through the surface, called the photosphere, and arch back in. Under the surface of the sun is an area, called the convection zone, where the hot plasma heated by the sun’s core rises to the surface--like water boiling in a pot. The place where the magnetic field comes out and the place where it in goes back in slows the plasma’s rise to the surface. These places are cooler than adjacent areas where the plasma rises to the surface uninhibited.

The cooler spots look darker because they are cooler and give off less light.

And that is why the sun has spots.

Why is the Grass Green?

2008-10-15T14:35:00.000-07:00

One of the kids at the elementary school where I volunteer asked me why grass is green.

Good question for a seven year old. I think I was at least sixteen before I thought to wonder about that.

Anyway, the answer has to do with pigments. Pigments are any substance that absorbs light. We have all seen rainbows so we know that sunlight is made up of many colors. The ones we can see run from red to violet with all the other visible light between those two. The frequency of light a pigment absorbs determines its color. What’s a bit confusing is that the color of the pigment is actually the color of light it doesn’t absorb. If the pigment looks red, then it has absorbed all the colors but red, which it reflects.

Plants have pigments which don’t absorb much green, which they reflect. So plants, including grass, look green.

Global Warming and Sea Ice

2008-10-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine asked me why scientists are so worried about melting of sea ice at or near the poles.

Well, aside from the fact that it's melting is a pretty good indication that the planet is warming, it’s scary because of a thing called ‘positive feedback’, which despite sounding so upbeat is in the case of global warming a potential catastrophe.

An example of Positive Feedback is when an event such as warming of the oceans creates more warming of the oceans. So, how does sea ice come into this? We all know that a dark object absorbs more heat from the sun than a white one does. As the sea warms and melts more white sea ice there is less ice to reflect heat and more dark sea surface to absorb it, the sea warms melting more ice exposing more sea surface to absorb heat, etc. The dangerous part is that this vicious cycle increases in speed until it is at a ‘tipping point’ beyond which there is no going back.

And that’s why scientists are worried.

I Was Busy

2008-10-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

I had promised myself to do at least one new entry per week, but got blindsided by an unexpected brain surgery, of all things.

Somehow I thought that having diabetes for 35 years was enough. Guess not.

Anyway, I'm back and now somewhat knowledgable regarding benign meningiomas; if anybody has any questions.

Lyle

How Lungs Work

2008-06-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

Imagine our lungs as a very thin sheet of tissue about the size of a tennis court (about 400 square feet) surrounded by air and connected to your bloodstream.

Now imagine your heart pumping blood to, from and through this rather large sheet of tissue. One side of your heart receives blood carrying carbon dioxide from the cells of your body and the other side of your heart receives blood loaded with oxygen collected by passing it through this large tissue sheet. The blood loaded with carbon dioxide is sent by your heart through this sheet of tissue where the carbon dioxide is released from your blood through the very thin tissue walls by a process called diffusion. The same process that causes perfume to spread from where there is a high concentration of perfume (like when you drop and break a bottle) to the rest of the room where there wasn't any to start with. Gases like carbon dioxide and oxygen work the same way.

OK, now we’ve gotten rid of the carbon dioxide, but now we need to get that oxygen our body needs.
Blood cells contain a molecule called hemoglobin. This molecule is what gives our blood its red color. Hemoglobin loves to grab onto the oxygen molecules diffusing (remember the perfume?) through this thin, flat really big piece of tissue from the surrounding air. The ‘oxygenated’ blood is returned to your heart and pumped throughout your body to your cells. The hemoglobin releases the oxygen to the cells which 'burn’ it, to provide the energy for all the things our bodies have to do, and in the process convert it to carbon dioxide which our amazing plumbing system returns to our large sheet of tissue to begin the process all over again.

Now it would be a little difficult to try and drag this tennis court sized tissue around all day, so the body does something very clever. It achieves the high surface area it needs, to do all this diffusion, by dividing it into about three hundred million tiny, hollow sacs called alveoli (little balloon-like sacs the size of grains of salt) which line the walls of two larger sacs called lungs. Although the surface area of each of these tiny sacs is small, with millions of them you can get the same surface area as our flat sheet of tissue. The tiny sacs are lined with really tiny blood vessels called capillaries that allow the exchange of the carbon dioxide and oxygen.

Air enters our lungs by way of what we commonly refer to as our windpipe which branches into ever tinier and tinier tubes eventually branching into tubes tiny enough to lead into the tiny air sacs, the alveoli. When you exhale the alveoli deflate expelling carbon dioxide laden air in to the lungs and when you inhale they inflate taking in oxygen rich air. This is what we call breathing.

But you probably already guessed that.