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.