The coolest new science inventions

The coolest science inventions blog kind of came to me this week after seeing some new military inventions, and I thought it would be a cool thing to write the blog about. My favorite military invention is what ST-6 used when they took down Osama. For several months now, rumours have been circulating around the military community about Night Vision contacts. Night Vision contacts are now very real, and are the future of night time war fighters. Less bulky than NVGs and with a much higher visual rate, even able to see if perfect darkness, they are very important for the future. one drawback is that they are around 10k per pair, which will keep them, for now at least, out of everyone's hands except the special operations personnel, but one day they will be in every soldier's aresenal, and make a huge differece. The next invention, the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper. The Reaper is the newest, state of the art predator drone. It has a 915 Horsepower engine, is bigger than all previous drones, and is considered around the world to be the most elite drone currently in use, (that is, out of the drones that are allowed to be known to the public. In conclusion, these are some of the greatest new weapons in the world.

Best Ice Cream

Since we did a nice little experiment in class this week, I decided to go and figure out what makes the perfect ice cream. Unfortunately, its impossible to figure out a scientific way to determine what makes a perfect ice cream, as I found out, but I did figure out which ones were the most popular. In order, they are vanilla, chocolate, butter pecan, strawberry, chocolate chips, and french vanilla. My personal favorite is cookie dough. ICe cream has a very interesting history, and even though this blog is a bit short, next weeks will make up for it about the history of ice cream.

The New Study about Pot

Personally, I don't use any illegal drugs. Never have, and never will, but pot smokers around the world can now rejoice. A new study said that moderate smokers of weed did not suffer any lung damage or lasting effects of air loss to their bodies. However, something smokers do not have to rejoice about is the amount of damage that marijuana does to the brain. The first thing to be hit when one smokes a large amount of pot is the short term memory. The levels of THC that the brain absorbs messes with the hippocampus, which really screws up the memory. Also, pot messes with people's emotional responses to situations. Part of the emotional impairment results in the high that users describe. Basically, the lesson here is never smoke weed.

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.