The Drake Equation

This week, I stumbled upon something that really caught my eye. The Drake Equation. Before this week, I had never heard of this incredible equation, and didn't even know what this equation did was possible. The Drake Equation is the formla for estimating the number of intelligent alien civilizations in the galaxy. When Frank Drake first realized the need for a formula like this, aliens and the want/need to discover aliens in the universe was still considered "fringe" science. However, in the 50 years since that equation has written, several changes have come upon it. First, the terms in the equation have evolved slightly in their meaning as well as the fact that several of the terms still are undefined. Hopefully soon, when we do figure out values for the terms, we will be able to find and locate some other species out there, just waiting for us.

Storms On Saturn

Recently, there has been what I like to call, A Stupendous Super Strong Saturnian Storm. This storm, which began to form early last year, reached a peak when last December wrapped all the way around the planet, and remained in that state for over 200 days. It was so powerful, it actually tore a hole through the atmosphere of Saturn that is large enough to be visible by telescope. In fact, the storm could fit all of Saturn's moons inside it and probably a few Earth's as well. This storm also seems to baffle scientists, as they have yet to figure out what causes it, but most do agree it seems to be similar to a storm caused by a volanic eruption, which would be a plausible theory if Saturn was not a giant gas planet.

The effects of Dipping

In high school, many people, myself included, dip tobacco. This blog is about the dangers and fun things about dip. Unfortunately, the dangers still heavily outweigh the pros, but its a fun little thing to do. The obvious and most important dangers of dipping are all out on the tin. For example, on my tin of Copenhagen Black Long Cut, it clearly states "WARNING: SMOKELESS TOBACCO IS ADDICTIVE". But not only is it addictive, it also can cause cancer. On other tins of dip I have, it will say things like "WARNING: THIS PRODUCT CAN CAUSE MOUTH AND GUM DISEASE AS WELL AS CANCER CAUSING AGENTS". So, the question is, why do people dip? THis is where the science part comes in. The main reason people dip is to get a "buzz" and because they get addicted to nicotine. That begs the question, what is nicotine? Nicotine is an alkaloid, and usually makes up about 1% of dry tobacco, although is can be as low as .5% and as high as 3%. Nicotine primarily affects the central nervous system, by increasing the amounts of dopamine, which are responsible for the"buzz" experienced. It also causes an addiction, which can make using any products with nicotine in them very dangerous. Also, interestingly enough, nictotine has a much higher toxicity level than other harder drugs such as cocaine.



A pyramid of used dip cans. THe user is probably addicted.

Physics Blog-Things that go bump in the night

In keeping with the fact that it is mid October, Halloween is just around the corner, and my fascination with all things supernatural, this is about scientific explanations that may or may not explain why things go bump in the night.

Scientific Explanation Ghosts- The most widely accepted theory about the "feelings" of being watched, unexplained dread, chills etc. It has to do with something called infrasound. Infrasound is sound that registers just below our hearing levels, and when we hear it, induces very bad feelings. The explanation for this may be in our evolution. Certain animals, such as tigers, make noises in that frequency. Therefore, after being eaten by tigers for millinenia, we have come to know anything within that sound frequency should make us run, so we dont die.

Scientific Explanations for Demon Posession-Demon possesion can be potentially attributed to many different causes. Most attribute it to a long list of one or more mental illnesses, such as tourettes, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and multiple personality disorder. A leading reason that people believe this is that people seem to being posessed less and less as time and medical treatment goes on.

Scientific Explanation for Deja Vu- Deja Vu is one of the more common strange experiences. Deja Vu is the sense that one has done something  before. There are several explanations for it including chemical imbalances, misfirings of the brain, and epilepsy.

Whehter you believe in the supernatural or not, these are possible explanatins for things that are unknown.

1st Blog Quarter 2-Awesome Natural Phenomenon

This week's blog is going to focus on some really incredible things that happen in nature, usually either breathtakingly beautiful, scary as hell, or a combination of both. Here are some of the coolest things that happen in nature....

1) Aurora Borealis.
The Aurora Borealis is one of the most wickedly cool and naturally beautiful things in the world. Another name for it is "The Northern Lights". This awesome light fest occurs when the sun gives off super-highly charged particles called ions. These ions are blasted at up to 1200 kilometers per second. A bunch of ion particles all fired at once form a cloud of plasma. The stream of plasma coming from the sun is called Solar Wind. When the particles get trapped in Earth's atmosphere, they start to collide with different gases. The result is beautiful.

2) Supercells
Supercells are one of the scariest things to see. Ever. In my opinion. Supercells are continuously rotating updrafts usually located within the bowels of a severe thunderstorm. They are extremely scary looking and usually produce severe wind, hail and tornados. Also, they are usually isolated in the thunderstorm, which means they are very photogenic, and several amazing pictures have been taken of them. Finally, they are known to last for hours, even splitting up and traveling in different directions, usually wreaking havoc on whatever is in their path.

3) Fire Tornados
Fire Tornados, AKA Fire Whirls, are possibly the most epic thing God ever created. Whirling tornados. Of fire. That's just awesome. Fire Whirls are formed when a warm updraft and a convergence from a wild fire meet. The most deadly fire tornado in recorded history occured in 1923, when a city sized fire storm produced a gigantic fire whirl, which killed over 38,000 people in less than 15 minutes.

Blog about ghosts

I have a strange fascination with the paranormal. Perhaps its because I have a fascination with things that are unknown, strange, and scary. Maybe its not. I dunno. But today's blog is about probably the most well known of the paranormal, ghosts. the belief in ghosts goes back almost as long as humans have existed, and started around the times humans began believing in an afterlife. Every single culture around the world believes in ghosts, or spirits of those who are deceased in some way. Today though, is about interpreting scientific data relevant to ghosts. There are many supposed scientific ways to "prove" that ghosts exist. Some say that through EMF detectors, some say through EVP, and many others. However, there is no conclusive evidence that these indicators mean that ghosts are present. Next, on to more digital media. Specifically, photos. These have been bother harder and easier to debunk than other forms of evidence. The main reason that photos are not considered "evidence" is because through modern devices like photoshop, ghosts are easily inserted into many different photos. There is even an iPhone app thats sole purpose is to make fake ghosts appear in photos. Because of that, most photos are considere fake. However, there are those 1% of photos that cannot be explained....

Blog

This week's blog is about something I have always been kind of curious about but always forget to research. Hypnosis. I've always wondered whether hypnotism is effective, and whether it works to the extent seen in movies and more recently "Call Of Duty: Black Ops" where one of the main characters seems to be hypnotized in some way to kill a certain group of people. My questions while doing research for this blog were A) Is hypnosis actually possible in any way? and B) Is there a military application that would allow implantation of "kill" commands in a hardened soldier's brain. For part A), after doing a fait bit of research, there is still no universally accepted answer. However, in my personal opinion, I feel that suggesting things to a susceptible and open mind is quite possible. There are many weak and middling minded individuals that would be open to many suggestions if in the right mental state. However, I also believe from my research that suggestions that would go against the hypnotized person's moral standings, such as murder or any form of physcial harm (assuming doing such things WAS in fact against the person's morals) would not work. Harmless suggestions=possible, killing,torturing, etc= not possible unless hypnotizing a psychopath. Overall, hypnosis seems entirely possible, and I will be trying several self-hypnosis videos in the near future and write a blog on my findings in the next few weeks....

Blog 6

This week, I read something very interesting about several mysterious things that had always been presented to me in a way that made me believe something supernatural or paranormal was going on. But..here they are... 3 modern mysteries easily explained by science...

1) Corpse Lights.
                           Corpse Lights often appear in marshy or swampy areas as small, glowing balls of fire. The people who try to get close, possibly due to too much alcohol in their system, find out that the little balls of fire go away from them, no matter how hard they try. Also, some people who have managed to get up close and personal to them say that they are cool to the touch. These are often attributed to ghosts, or wandering spirits that like to roam around causing mischief in the physical world. However, there is a much more reasonable scientific explanation.
                           The science behind marsh lights is basically marsh gas. AKA methane. In marshes and swamps, where there is a large amount of decomposing organic matter, methane is let off as a by product of decomposition, as well as the element phosophine. And since phosophine ignites on contact with air, it takes a quite small amount to set off the highly flammable methane in the surrounding area.

2) Cattle Mutilation
                      For many years, random cows having been turning up extremely mutilated and extremely dead at strange times and places. Theories such as aliens, demons, and Satan worshippers have abounded, fueled especially by the prime days of "The X-Files". However, the scientific explanation is quite simple and quite accurate.
                     The appearance of almost surgical cuts can be attributed to the bloating of the animal after it dies. After it dies, it swells up and sometimes bursts, causing the surgical appearing cuts. The blood and internal organs are eaten by maggots, which gives the cow a disconcerting look to them.

3) The Nazca Lines
                      The Nazca Lines are lines drawn in Nazca, Peru, and seem to be created by someone who can see far from above, possibly by flying, which no one at that time was able to do. People say that it could have to do with aliens, wizards, or gods telling the creators of the lines what to do.

                        Spikes dated from that time period show that properly placed spikes can account for the straight lines.

Blog (for 0 in gradebook)

This blog is about time travel.
For many years, time travel has been a fairly constant source of material for science fiction writers, who would write about some hero going back in time to change the world, or just to see how the world had changed by jumping into the future. The realistic views of time travel though are much more complex than many people might realize, definitely more complicated than a definite "yes" or "no" that time travel is or is not possible. There are several possibilities about time travel, but one that seems to be most universally accepted is that it is almost certainly impossible to travel back in time in our current dimension, but it IS possible to go back in time into a parallel universe. However, it seems that many people believe that time travel into the future is possible. One question that seems to be asked quite often is "If time travel is possible, why are we not consistently visiteed by travelers from the future?" There are many answers to this, but honestly, I don't really want to discuss them on here because they make my brain hurt. Suffice it to say that it seems to be possible, but don't ask me how.

Blog 3: Weirdest diseases

This science article was found on oddee.com and is the 10 weirdest diseases.
They are...
Elephantitis: Grossly enlarged limbs due to infection of a parasitic worm
Progeria: where children's life processes speed up and they have the same body at 13 as most 80 year olds
"Werewolf" Syndrome: People with thick hair all over their entire body.
Blue Skin Disorder: A trait where people have blue skin, passed from generation to generation with no harmful lasting effects
Pica: The urge to eat non-food substances such as dirt, glue, clay, and crayons. Possibly related to a mineral defiency
Vampire Disease: People who have such sensitive skin that they blister from exposure to sun (not actually vampires)
AIWS (Alice In Wonderland Syndrome): Where the brain distorts what the eye sees, making objects appear strangely sized. Examples include thumb tacks the size of a refridgerator or a dog the size of a mouse.
WCS (Walking Corpse Syndrome): Related to depression, where the sufferer believes he/she is dead
JFOMD(Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Disorder): rare psychological disorder where if given suddenly enough, the sufferer would obey any command given.

Some of these dieases are interesting, some are deadly, but all share the trait of being some of the weirdest possible diseases ever known to man. Something that I did not know about or had any idea existed was Pica and Jumping Frenchman Syndrome. I always knew that kids did that, but I didnt realize it affected adults just as much as kids. Another thiing about all of these illnesses is that most are EXTREMELY rare. Most have under 100 cases worldwide, which may be part of the reason that they are so obscure.

 Blue People of Troublesome Creek.

Physics Blog Post 2

Here is my second blog post for physics, taken off of my first blog that has so far been entirely messed up.

This week I read about black holes. I read about them on an article titled "Black Holes" by Ted Bunn

What I learned this far, is that black holes are much more confusing that I originally thought. At first, I thought very little of the science involved and accepted the fact that black holes were exactly what their name suggests. Black holes of nothingness that we knew very little about. However, after reading up on the article, I learned a couple of very interesting things about black holes. But just because I learned some facts about black holes doesn't mean that I understand the concepts behind them at all. One concept that is particularly confusing about black holes is that it gravity is just a manifestation of the bend of space time, but because black holes are so powerful, it distorts gravity even further, which apparently causes black holes to have some extremeley weird properties. Another interesting thing I learned was the concept of the "event horizon" I always assumed that black holes slowly sucked up everything and anything arond them, and would eventually consume everything. What I did not realize is the fact that unless you cross the threshold into the event horizon, you never actually get sucked in, and it is quite safe. This is purely hypothetical of course, as no one has actually been able to fly into/near/around a black hole. A different but even crazier fact that I learned was that there is a very strong possibility of a MASSIVE black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Massive being millions of times bigger than our sun.
Black holes are very interesting to me, and it would be very cool if we could talk about it more inclass.

Blog 1. Science Article on Zombies

This is my first blog (albeit reposted since my first blog malfunctioned and Mr. Goertz didnt seem to be getting any of my emails)

This week, I read an article on the possibility of zombies, and how likely a diesease or some sort of transmittable organism could evoke the symtoms of zombies, although in real life cases the subjects would more likely than not still be alive, just with decreased brain function. I was surprised to find out how this alread happens in rats, and how a small parasite that can only survive in the inside of a  cat will take over the brain of the rat and actually make it run TOWARD the cat until it gets consumed, where it will spawn in the intestine of the cat and repeat the process. The article also talked about how several contaigions have the
 potential to decrease the brain function the absolute barest minimum of basic life functions, basically creating ravenous beasts that resemble mad cows infected with mad cow disease. Luckily, as the article points out, the chances of any of these actually turning into a mind controlling zombie disease is slim to none. Even if it did happen, there are several reasons we would be alright. A) There has been enough zombie killing games to know that headshots ALWAYS work. B) Were Texan. That means there are an awful lot of guns and people who know to use them. But in all seriousness, even if this happened, most experts agree it would be difficult to transmit and should be able to be contained rather quickly.