tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31072750217859740862024-02-02T02:58:33.926-08:00Nerd Out!Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-86366199753165153742023-02-20T12:19:00.001-08:002023-02-20T12:21:40.620-08:00<p> <span style="font-size: 16pt;">I’m doing
the damn thing and finally embarking on a PhD journey! Ever since I
transitioned from working in industry to working in academia a little over 3
years ago now, I’ve been slowly cracking away at a master’s degree in chemistry
and I finished this December. So now I’m working on a PhD for the foreseeable
future. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Won’t it be
a lot of extra work? Yes, it will.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Don’t I
already have a full-time job? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, I do.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Why am I
doing this?!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Because:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want the freedom to do whatever I want for
my entire career, and I believe having a PhD will help to enable that kind of
freedom.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Learning is a spiritual journey for me. This
is how I make the world a better place. I believe learning raises the vibration
of <i>the oneness</i>, ie: it makes God happy. It feels like this is my mission
on this planet: to collect as much knowledge and experience as possible and dissolve
it back into the source. I think the universe loves to be examined and
explored. She’s beautiful and sexy and she loves to be checked out. She wants
us to find out every little thing about her. The universe loves to be loved and
appreciated. Haven’t you ever noticed that when you intentionally shift your
mindset to one of gratitude, your life starts going better? When you love and
appreciate the universe, she will love and appreciate you right back. Every
human, animal, mineral, plant, piece of technology…we’re all just little
fractions of the God holograph lovingly gazing at each other, trying to take it
all in. Learning is a spiritual act of love for me and it’s what I’m here on
this planet to do.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c.)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The research area of the lab I joined is
renewable energy, which feels like a noble cause. What could be a more
important pursuit in the face of impending planetary doom?</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">d.)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The principal investigator in this group is
ambitious as hell. He’s a big ideas kind of guy and he gets shit done. I think
watching how he works will be inspirational. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">So here I am
to write about what it is that this lab does because explaining things to
“other people” in writing is the best way that I learn (and when I refer to “other
people”, I mean mostly myself but also the bots that leave comments on my blog posts with sketchy
links that probably gave me a million viruses when I clicked on them.) </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And, to be
honest…so far, I don’t actually know much about what they do in that lab other
than they all seem really smart, and it has something to do with renewable
energy. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">But there
are all kinds of topics that fall under the category of renewable energy. What
does this group do in particular? I don’t really know, let’s take a look at the
content they have online and do a little copy/paste, shall we?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">“</span><span face=""Open Sans",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666;">The
Boettcher electrochemistry and </span><a href="https://uoregon.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=16d13111-b99d-442d-b87d-ad8b0174e4c2"><span face=""Open Sans",sans-serif" style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #2ea3f2; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">solar</span></a><span face=""Open Sans",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666;"> materials
laboratory is focused on designing, synthesizing, and understanding materials
for applications in solar energy conversion and electrochemical energy
storage/conversion. Specific interests include the synthesis and study of
heterogeneous electrocatalysts for water oxidation with defined molecular and
nanoscale structures, the use of computer simulation and direct electrical
measurements to understand semiconductor-electrocatalyst interfaces, and the
development of high-performance III-V semiconductor solar conversion
architectures using scalable and inexpensive deposition processes. Recent new
projects include the development of alkaline membrane electrolyzers for
low-cost scalable hydrogen production as well as fundamental aspects of bipolar
membranes and electrolyzers.”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Lots of big scary
words in there. I need to break this paragraph down word-by-word to absorb it.
Let’s start with heterogeneous electrocatalyst.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">A <b>catalyst</b>
is a chemical that increases the rate of reaction without itself undergoing any
significant physical change. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">An <b>electrocatalyst</b>
is a specific type of catalyst that functions at an electrode surface. So, on
the surface of some conductor that can be hooked up to a power supply and charged up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">A <b>heterogeneous
catalyst </b>means the phase of the reacting chemical at the beginning of the
process is different from the phase at the end. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Changing
phase…does that mean we are going from a solid to a liquid? Or a liquid to a
gas? Yes, that’s exactly what it means! In fact, here, we are talking about
water oxidation, which is the process of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen.
This is a liquid turning into a gas. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Note, hydrogen
is a proton. I’m going to use those two words interchangeably throughout this
piece. Don’t get confused!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">So, to sum
up the first half of that big, wordy paragraph: this lab is trying to create
and test materials that use electrical and chemical reactions to turn water
into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. This process is called water electrolysis.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Why would we
want to turn water into hydrogen gas? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Because,
when used in a fuel cell, hydrogen gas generates electrical power and emits only drinkable
water and warm air. It’s just about as efficient as gasoline and has near zero greenhouse
emissions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">How does a
fuel cell work? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;">There are a bunch of different technologies for fuel cells, I'm going to explain how PEM fuel cells work.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4pXAmljdUA ">This</a> video
gives a pretty good introduction. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I grabbed
some screenshots from that YouTube to explain what’s going on.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">A fuel cell
is essentially a sandwich with two metal plates (an anode and cathode) as the
bread, and this thing called a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) in between. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">The PEM is a
material made from a special type of polymer designed to let through protons and
block electrons. I am not clear on how it does that, exactly! It looks like
I’ll need to teach myself some serious chemistry to begin understanding what’s
going on here.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s start with
understanding what a polymer is. Well, it’s just a material that’s made from
large molecules consisting of a bunch of repeating subunits. I remember my
biology 101 professor holding up a stack of Legos as an analogy to polymers;
Little repetitive building blocks that link together to make a larger
structure.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>DNA is a polymer! It’s just a long, twisted
ladder with the same 4 components repeating themselves in different
combinations over and over. There are also ton of synthetic polymers:
polyesther, polystyrene, nylon, Teflon…the list goes on and on.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Proton
Exchange Membranes are made of a special type of polymer called an ionomer, which
means that some of the subunits sprinkled throughout the matrix have an
electric charge to them. Often, a product called Nafion is used. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">The chemical
structure of Nafion looks like this: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZINn_cO6NrBrkH9QKjrH1cj7FZD-fO8mAUuuEnxq6vvxsozEqs5OgfiIhtUUZn1O--XvImb0axo2nm1Eo-moUvsrDLRmMOC5DG4VMy_4irDGk7voF4mqqAniGC3K95kj5dXcF2wE8XBM_S3_XW8iB1I1yy1UXcHzB018StvkqjaabdghpgpdRPqQv" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="672" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZINn_cO6NrBrkH9QKjrH1cj7FZD-fO8mAUuuEnxq6vvxsozEqs5OgfiIhtUUZn1O--XvImb0axo2nm1Eo-moUvsrDLRmMOC5DG4VMy_4irDGk7voF4mqqAniGC3K95kj5dXcF2wE8XBM_S3_XW8iB1I1yy1UXcHzB018StvkqjaabdghpgpdRPqQv" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So…what’s
going on here with this big jumble of sticks and letters? I’ve never
taken organic chemistry, so this is a lot for me… but what I’m gathering is
that when you take this big ugly ionomer structure and soak it in water, the
part that I circled in pink (the sulfonic acid group) loses protons and those
protons start hopping around from one acid site to another. If you apply an
electrical bias, you can get all the protons to move in one direction. This is
an electrical current!</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Pressurized
hydrogen from the fuel is forced through the anode while pressurized oxygen
from the atmosphere is forced through the cathode.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4f2lbH4-Y7O9MknR7DHcJ5t0UYz5mOHN3Ca8TkZoveqsqcWwG7h9jNXwPAJjzXTPNAxgjaZd2pb3fVMhH2s8SbLq9WEepoK-ytqGS4gquq8BrbQb7MX57GvkFEmCLFD_rAy3Uz0WoNLZlV38TKKauUwgBj2X8W4CthaBmUm_3B1rxaqjFz5P8dJ62/s936/fuel%20cell.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="936" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4f2lbH4-Y7O9MknR7DHcJ5t0UYz5mOHN3Ca8TkZoveqsqcWwG7h9jNXwPAJjzXTPNAxgjaZd2pb3fVMhH2s8SbLq9WEepoK-ytqGS4gquq8BrbQb7MX57GvkFEmCLFD_rAy3Uz0WoNLZlV38TKKauUwgBj2X8W4CthaBmUm_3B1rxaqjFz5P8dJ62/s320/fuel%20cell.png" width="320" /></a></span></span></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">An acid is
used as a catalyst to split the H2 molecules into protons and electrons. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">I had to go
into a Wikipedia worm hole to remind/teach myself what it means to be acidic.
Remember how the pH scale works? I didn’t. Here’s what I found out: pH is an
acronym! It stands for potential of hydrogen. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Acids have
high concentrations of free hydrogen ions floating around, which means they are
hungry for electrons. An acid will slurp up the electrons from the hydrogen, leaving
only positively charged protons, which can move across the Nafion membrane.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Ok, so now
the protons have made their way across the membrane to hang out with the oxygen
molecules on the right side of the fuel cell and they leave their electrons
behind on the left side.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLozNMHM0VLE3sPatz02kwmsnFlj-6J2u55niRxCUhtvAuuJi4fOmwZIbupEVv8HJQJIcuRRMq9SBwY9sWgy7KZ2woh8N4QjEopWTxw_J-6WpSlVRDrOb7dWOeKISqRDBUQBLKTnbldwJLozfSt1eopZtHcHtk6L8vqwHTSct06vbuZRjJCI5F3PdS" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="975" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLozNMHM0VLE3sPatz02kwmsnFlj-6J2u55niRxCUhtvAuuJi4fOmwZIbupEVv8HJQJIcuRRMq9SBwY9sWgy7KZ2woh8N4QjEopWTxw_J-6WpSlVRDrOb7dWOeKISqRDBUQBLKTnbldwJLozfSt1eopZtHcHtk6L8vqwHTSct06vbuZRjJCI5F3PdS" width="320" /></a></span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">That means the
right side has a positive charge and the left side has a negative charge. This
is a battery! This is exactly what a battery does, it’s just a separation of charge
that creates a potential difference. If we connect a circuit between the two charged
plates, we can force electrons through the circuit. This will power whatever
we’ve got going on in the circuit.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYwF4jT2T2yOfL5NODueV3pwHcvV1t-2ygn0akxfZcTt_CSXe6CkfPhLtxUQnxqJZ-KJm5eb9a6iZW91P_lQ9rPMfLz0fp-VnBmDKrbk02nLbIiexj2lFfFK-fohKKwfW2XMW6daO0heId3BpWFEtOuLy-uvAL4cQMgVF6XuLlhG99zfu0DC-wt92e" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="975" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYwF4jT2T2yOfL5NODueV3pwHcvV1t-2ygn0akxfZcTt_CSXe6CkfPhLtxUQnxqJZ-KJm5eb9a6iZW91P_lQ9rPMfLz0fp-VnBmDKrbk02nLbIiexj2lFfFK-fohKKwfW2XMW6daO0heId3BpWFEtOuLy-uvAL4cQMgVF6XuLlhG99zfu0DC-wt92e" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;">To sum it
all up, a hydrogen fuel cell is just a battery that’s charged up by hydrogen
and oxygen gas. Acid is used as a catalyst to steal electrons from the hydrogen
molecules, making them positively-charged protons which are then encouraged to
move across an ionomer membrane. This creates a separation of charge that behaves like a battery.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 22.8267px;">As an aside, I’d like it to be known that this technology is yet another one of the many gifts given to us by the space industry! Tons of resources were devoted to the study of these Proton Exchange Membranes (PEMs) during NASA’s Gemini project in the 1960’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 22.8267px;">I get on my soap box about this all the time. Space exploration truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Space travel presents us with novel problems that require creative solutions. This forces the development of innovative new technology that we end up using for all kinds of other applications. The list of technology that came from the space industry goes on and on. I don’t know why so many people get all up in arms about how we shouldn’t be devoting resources to space exploration, but those people annoy me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 22.8267px;">Anyway…space rant over. Back to fuel cells!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Why are fuel
cell vehicles way better than battery powered vehicles? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">It takes
hours to fully charge a battery powered vehicle and even with a full charge you
can’t go that far. Most electric cars can barely get half as far as a car with
a full tank of gas. And then when the battery runs out, you have to wait around
for a long time to recharge it. Hydrogen cars can go just as far as
gasoline-powered cars, and you can refill the tank with hydrogen in the same amount of time
that it takes to refill a car with gasoline. There are already hydrogen powered cars cruising the streets in California.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">But we
aren’t just talking about cars for fuel cell applications; Trains, planes,
spacecraft, power for big industrial settings…all of this could be powered by
hydrogen fuel cells to create a completely green economy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Sounds
great, right? A battery that works better and takes less time than the current Lithium-ion
batteries and is also completely carbon neutral?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Wrong! Hydrogen
fuel only counts as renewable energy if the process of making the hydrogen is renewable.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Currently,
hydrogen is primarily made through steam-methane reforming. This is a process
where high-temperature and high-pressure steam is combined with natural gas to
create hydrogen gas. Natural gas is not all that green…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">So, this
lab’s goal is to develop green technology for creating hydrogen fuel using a
process called water electrolysis. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We want to mimic
the process of photosynthesis, using solar energy to split water into oxygen
and hydrogen and store the hydrogen molecules as fuel to power fuel cells.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">As far as I
can tell, the biggest rock star in the group is this woman named Grace. She takes responsibility for getting stuff done and moving the group forward. She’s graduating in spring which
is going to be a big loss to the group, but an enormous gain to the organization
she goes on to work for. She spent a couple hours with me explaining how water electrolysis works. Here's what I learned: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Currently
there are three different technologies out there for water electrolysis and
they each have some big problems. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">We’ve got:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Liquid alkaline</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM’s…yay we already
learned about those above!)</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Anion Exchange Membranes (AEM)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">So, how do
each of these technologies work? Or I suppose I should say…how don’t they work?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s start
with liquid alkaline. I learned a lot from <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=liquid+alkaline+electrolysis&source=lmns&tbm=vid&bih=759&biw=1707&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS866US866&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj0-vet69P8AhWlKX0KHeqSBCEQ_AUoA3oECAEQAw#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:8ae0583f,vid:TiXzp_VEJCQ">this cute Spanish lady</a>. I included a
screen shot of her talk below with a cartoon of the liquid alkaline
electrolyzer. It's helpful to refer to the cartoon while I explain how it works. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_ZTyAZPuKYBFbyz12zdd3c3umDCkxNbV8zNhVw0DbwqhGrffe-ek0zGyEFz_GaYCQWDTvKmWxOM6XIHN1iZ8dyec6LNX4Y5GGOrwE8oH0k9jBG2rb7VSCrF1Hi-BYg8AbZ-ImoxC7UkF4lYEZLE1kRDA0qMug_Po62G2_0-g2YV27q7uSs7728jzu" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="975" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_ZTyAZPuKYBFbyz12zdd3c3umDCkxNbV8zNhVw0DbwqhGrffe-ek0zGyEFz_GaYCQWDTvKmWxOM6XIHN1iZ8dyec6LNX4Y5GGOrwE8oH0k9jBG2rb7VSCrF1Hi-BYg8AbZ-ImoxC7UkF4lYEZLE1kRDA0qMug_Po62G2_0-g2YV27q7uSs7728jzu=w606-h322" width="606" /></a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">In this type
of device, you have two metal plates separated by a porous foil that won’t let
electrons through; only OH<sup>-</sup> ions (these are called hydroxyls). I’m
not going to do a deep dive on how that foil transports ions, but I suspect
it’s some kind of polymer that forces the OH<sup>-</sup> to hop from molecule
to molecule, kind of like I described above with the acid group in the PEM. It
also isn’t supposed to let gas through; only liquid. I guess this is achieved
mechanically with design of the porous foil. The whole thing is submerged in a
highly concentrated solution of potassium hydroxide, which is strongly alkaline.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Alkaline is
on the opposite end of the pH scale from acids, instead of a bunch of free
hydrogen floating around, it has free hydroxyl ions. Instead of wanting to
steal electrons, it wants to steal protons.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">So anyway,
this device is submerged in a liquid that has a strong concentration of
hydroxyl ions floating around, and its functionality leans heavily on those
hydroxyls flowing through the membrane to react with stuff on the other side. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In this
case, we have water flowing in on the right side of the cell. Two water
molecules react with two electrons to form hydrogen gas and two hydroxyls.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Why does the
water react with two electrons and break down into its components? Does water
just do this on its own? No, thankfully! Water doesn’t just spontaneously fall
apart else we’d be in trouble considering how much water our bodies use to keep
us alive. We need to force this reaction to take place by introducing
electricity into our system. When you apply a huge voltage to water and add a
little bit of electrolyte (the potassium hydroxide), you can force a current through the water which
pulls electrons away from the solution at the cathode while forcing electrons
into the solution at the anode. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Great, so
now on the right side we have water flowing in and reacting with electrons from
the electrode to create hydrogen gas and hydroxyls. Hydrogen gas is our product! It
bubbles out and gets stored. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
hydroxyls are a liquid and flow over to the left side through the membrane
where they become water, oxygen, and electrons. The oxygen gas bubbles out,
this is a secondary product! The electrons make their way over to the positive
side via a circuit and this supplies the electrons to continue the process on
the right side. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Liquid
alkaline electrolyzers are great because they are low cost and reliable. They
are already used all over the place in big industrial settings for hydrogen
production and ammonia synthesis for fertilizer. Unlike the other two
technologies we will highlight below, they can be made of materials that are
abundant on earth and cheap, like nickel! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">They suck
because they suffer from this problem called “shunt current”. This is when
current starts going through the tubing instead of the electrode. This becomes
more of a problem as you increase the current: more of it goes through the
wrong pathway. This is a problem is exacerbated because liquid alkaline electrolyzers have to be constructed as a huge stack containing multiple electrodes
in series. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Another huge
problem that can occur when you vary the current is that instead of bubbling
out, the gas tends to cross over the microporous diaphragm and hydrogen and
oxygen gas will mix. You know what happens when you mix hydrogen and oxygen?</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjTax5rR5QFpnEFgBNF9YZsJmq1J779lvIdrAHX-Rxvw8pi9iORiBZgY4VSSl7uFzHnqyP0gRa3E2ve1wAz1wsHzxE6lNIuNxk0O9glS-ObFOploXq_gqiDuiTua8u4ejpguUTGL9Anmx1ovI0vQLJFfdgqTerJiuIOBx0WT0ghW0_7KaN6ed-6xnIy" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="366" data-original-width="641" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjTax5rR5QFpnEFgBNF9YZsJmq1J779lvIdrAHX-Rxvw8pi9iORiBZgY4VSSl7uFzHnqyP0gRa3E2ve1wAz1wsHzxE6lNIuNxk0O9glS-ObFOploXq_gqiDuiTua8u4ejpguUTGL9Anmx1ovI0vQLJFfdgqTerJiuIOBx0WT0ghW0_7KaN6ed-6xnIy=w320-h183" title="This is a picture of an industrial hydrogen plant in China that went boom." width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-indent: 48px;">This is a picture of an industrial hydrogen plant in China that went boom.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">So, because
of shunt currents and gas cross-over, you must have a steady current and
therefore a non-variable power supply. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Well, you
can’t really ask the sun to shine or the wind to blow in a non-variable way,
therefore this technology can’t be paired with renewable energy. So, if we
stick with liquid alkaline electrolyzers, water electrolysis is never going to
be renewable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">X</span></b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> Liquid
alkaline electrolyzers are out! They can't be paired with renewables! </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">What’s next?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Next up, we
have Proton Exchange Membranes (PEM’s), which I described in depth above when I
was talking about fuel cells. When we were talking about it above, it was
hydrogen in, electron current and water out. But now it’s electron current and
water in, hydrogen out. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Look at this
cute cartoon I found on Wikipedia! Staring at this for a while helps a lot!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0R192BlK1L9qbPIbvzMujqsyYaijfOwWZ5jib2G2CUCntkO_Ya0vFiW2l5oPTswDtUQB7u4daaZqDdXuadXDr075jmg00xOuPmCJjITHNm3_txM95Yneethas6rgytcmI31qACfcyNZy8_ZeBpQmXSQbonH58t9GV9s22gWmSw6KZU9r4rKfBa-X1/s720/PEM_Elektrolyse_5.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="720" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0R192BlK1L9qbPIbvzMujqsyYaijfOwWZ5jib2G2CUCntkO_Ya0vFiW2l5oPTswDtUQB7u4daaZqDdXuadXDr075jmg00xOuPmCJjITHNm3_txM95Yneethas6rgytcmI31qACfcyNZy8_ZeBpQmXSQbonH58t9GV9s22gWmSw6KZU9r4rKfBa-X1/s320/PEM_Elektrolyse_5.gif" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So, as a
reminder, the membrane in the middle moves protons across. Water is fed in and
electrons are pulled out at the anode side, causing the water to break up into
oxygen and protons. The protons move across the Nafion membrane because they
are attracted to the abundance of negatively charged electrons that are being
forced in at the cathode side. The protons gather up those free electrons and
bubble out as hydrogen gas that gets stored. This is our product!</span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">The fact
that the thing in the middle is a membrane rather than a porous thing means we
don’t have the gas cross-over problem that acid alkaline electrolyzers have. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">AND, we
don’t have to have a bunch of electrodes in a stack so we don’t have the shunt
current problem either. Great, so this
technology is both safer and able to be paired with renewable energy!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">So, what’s
the downside with PEM’s? Well, instead of using an alkaline as a catalyst, we
are using an acid. This is a problem because acid will chew away most metals.
The only metals that are stable in an acidic environment are precious metals
like iridium. Since iridium is one of the scarcest metals on earth, this is the
bottle neck in PEM electrolyzer production. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">X</span></b> PEM’s won’t
work either. They require metals that are too scarce and expensive!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Finally,
onto Anion Exchange Membranes. </span><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;">Instead of exchanging protons through the membrane, we exchange hydroxyls...just like with the liquid alkaline electrolyzers! Hydroxyls are ions with a negative charge, the word for that is anions, this is where we get the name Anion Exchange Membrane.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> These devices get rid of the problems created by PEM’s
because they can be used in an alkaline environment rather than an acidic
environment. That means we can construct these with earth-abundant metals. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">The biggest
problem for AEM’s is poor durability. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Many
different polymers have been tried out as the anion-conducting membrane and
they are all trash! AEM’s just fall apart faster than PEM’s and no one is totally clear
on why that is. It sounds like my first project in this lab is supposed to be trying to understand how/why these things break. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">In the AEM
community, it had been thought that the problem with these devices is that the
membrane is limiting. However, it’s interesting that the rate of degradation is
the same no matter what material the membrane is made from. To get a grip on
what’s going on, researchers started incorporating a reference electrode in the
middle of the stack. From this electrical information, they learned that it’s
not the membrane that’s degrading, it’s the anode! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">So, what I'll do is use my Focused Ion Beam to cut a bunch of cross-sections of used
devices and unused devices. We’ll compare the two and see if there is any
obvious physical degradation on the microscale. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Hopefully,
understanding how these devices are breaking will help us to make them stronger.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.35pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">And that’s it! That’s what I’ll be working on for the foreseeable future (on the side of my regular full time job, that is)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.35pt;"><span style="font-size: 21.3333px;">So far, I've sliced up a healthy AEM and put all the slice images together into a movie. <a href="https://twitter.com/BoettcherLab/status/1617912342502871041">Here's </a>what it looked like. Next up, I'll work on a used AEM to look for differences and make improvements on my observation methods. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">If you read this far, I am impressed and grateful
for your mental fortitude! That's enough nerding out for now. See ya next time!</span></p>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-71295974952459648092012-07-21T12:42:00.005-07:002023-02-20T06:45:46.402-08:00The Beetle I Found<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve been given a tool
to feed my obsessive nerdyness. This tool happens to be a
company that makes microscopes and I totally tricked someone into hiring me there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">SO ANYWAY. I found this Beetle. I found it on the black top of some
airport. It was all dead and dehydrated. I picked it up because I thought I could glue it to a canvas and make a cool painting around it. It looked like this:</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3cbdQjFR6q-tQOg97dcpNNRIRywc6hUYNCIIeInhF1IfpSgtlqrX86itjpbx6zFeIKbyr4Mg3Vd9_aWTW_x8yBGqf8uJCTc0ctAa542MiPpilWfEmKoAqoYFQs7sWQLrSBDh5zV7zvaY/s1600/photo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3cbdQjFR6q-tQOg97dcpNNRIRywc6hUYNCIIeInhF1IfpSgtlqrX86itjpbx6zFeIKbyr4Mg3Vd9_aWTW_x8yBGqf8uJCTc0ctAa542MiPpilWfEmKoAqoYFQs7sWQLrSBDh5zV7zvaY/s320/photo.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit to JJ Blackwood</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But I happened to be hanging out with a coworker who suggested we take it to work and look at it. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So then, I cut off it's leg and I cut off it's head and my friend Marc stuck it into his Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). It looked FREAKY. I'll show you in a sec but first you need to know that it was a pristonychus terricola (I think) based on a picture I found in a library book called <u>The Anatomy of Insects & Spiders</u> by Claire Beverly and David Ponsonby. </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNFgT3xTFfC51tJTm5Q9Ks7zAiqmsjIEJWLyMayVD5lh6ADu74WyCLOh4CNE9tuKRJ6nBxmOl6bYn86RVbZk80gbovS-2JYEWeqPlZucUEeUhsXV9pnl73rpHJurUApLjYVRJxFeZJHw/s1600/2012-07-18+21.12.44.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNFgT3xTFfC51tJTm5Q9Ks7zAiqmsjIEJWLyMayVD5lh6ADu74WyCLOh4CNE9tuKRJ6nBxmOl6bYn86RVbZk80gbovS-2JYEWeqPlZucUEeUhsXV9pnl73rpHJurUApLjYVRJxFeZJHw/s320/2012-07-18+21.12.44.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is a really cool book because not only is it full of historical drawings that are from as far back as 1255 but it also talks a lot about uses for these bugs in ancient cultures. Turns out, Egyptians were really into Beetles and their traditions around it are fascinating and worth their own blog which I might get to someday. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span">Ok, so first of all...let's look at it's leg. </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyn9bNXQgNmb1VMSxJowhfPtCD4EVPDE84F4qzTWiRXYbGna0H3wVg3BTOUksuQyeUhIulqT9tBUpf9zCjViswKXWFPPL5x7kk30dU4qiYcYx63Xn0wJ62Y7yhzKJ2zii83IlXjOS6s9c/s1600/Nav-Cam_Leg-1.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyn9bNXQgNmb1VMSxJowhfPtCD4EVPDE84F4qzTWiRXYbGna0H3wVg3BTOUksuQyeUhIulqT9tBUpf9zCjViswKXWFPPL5x7kk30dU4qiYcYx63Xn0wJ62Y7yhzKJ2zii83IlXjOS6s9c/s320/Nav-Cam_Leg-1.tiff" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWoJKtZf_1WjtxZf3GGFGx_uVNYemmb-IZdR6732wU9axn6fJclFMGR4j_jHI3m3a_o8i8R00jdkgWmmoUUb4QLN_TJ01r0iWaWPYeo2r2PgBFhwp7EfTZEmcJbKoZTQv3VgHOaOoW34E/s1600/2012-07-18+21.13.26.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWoJKtZf_1WjtxZf3GGFGx_uVNYemmb-IZdR6732wU9axn6fJclFMGR4j_jHI3m3a_o8i8R00jdkgWmmoUUb4QLN_TJ01r0iWaWPYeo2r2PgBFhwp7EfTZEmcJbKoZTQv3VgHOaOoW34E/s320/2012-07-18+21.13.26.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We are about to look at this part.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtxEWUmQOE7WDzzKPhnY_Aot5OoFSVyC6F_9MWsATigTzxRYyeMmliLKobK-TLWlZGh8AZTkj1TbLtVaT-0aXmqAPBimsREXeIuwsJ1GNBMrK6Qkm6G3_kqk5L4-E8g23yvATkHwvZGok/s1600/hook+at+end+of+foot.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="587" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtxEWUmQOE7WDzzKPhnY_Aot5OoFSVyC6F_9MWsATigTzxRYyeMmliLKobK-TLWlZGh8AZTkj1TbLtVaT-0aXmqAPBimsREXeIuwsJ1GNBMrK6Qkm6G3_kqk5L4-E8g23yvATkHwvZGok/s640/hook+at+end+of+foot.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is the hook at the end of it's foot. I was playing with the cutest june bug that I found when I was in Tennessee last weekend. It was crawling all over me and I kept thinking about how it's digging it's little micro-hooks into my skin but <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">they can't cause me pain because they are too small. <br />That scale bar in the bottom right hand corner says 500 microns. To give you a frame of reference, a strand of human hair can be 17-50 microns for people of European descent and 56-181 microns for people of African descent. If you want to measure the diameter of your own hair, it's really easy! All you need is a laser. <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Measure-Hair-Thickness">Follow these steps</a>. If you are using one of those red laser pointers then it's a helium neon laser and the wavelength, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #414141; line-height: 16px;">λ, is around 633 nanometers. </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4D50Gd2TmDnqp6Bw-FjNRt77lWbGZnfURuccAcDR9AniXBTIfELkeQB_35ZovRJX2oRutpy6S6XyOVaJ395qLUVq2C8chcVyEnhMZK1KXx_k7_m8maQYwxFyVoaD67To8C8rermWomts/s1600/Leg+SE_005.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4D50Gd2TmDnqp6Bw-FjNRt77lWbGZnfURuccAcDR9AniXBTIfELkeQB_35ZovRJX2oRutpy6S6XyOVaJ395qLUVq2C8chcVyEnhMZK1KXx_k7_m8maQYwxFyVoaD67To8C8rermWomts/s640/Leg+SE_005.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is what I like to call the leg vertebrae! See in the drawing above how beetles have a whole bunch of joints on the leg? You know what I just found out about these joints? <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/06/scienceshot-a-beetle-with-screws.html">They work like screws</a>! Instead of a ball-and-socket joint like humans have, beetles joints have threads that screw into place. They can do a full 360 rotation and are much harder to dislocate than human joints.</span> </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHLnjcz5I7-qa_t1-gz8eHQaJxRxZCoUU1VupKsaAfl1qs2oq7k3_5c8LsS-VnIXo5AEbMsu1VjJ_7-jOcy9S9DMNqZ-1RQoKk4Jps9NHRvQIqJDTVL6P5klPKAyjMSM8ACf7b85RCI0/s1600/Leg+SE_009-1.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTHLnjcz5I7-qa_t1-gz8eHQaJxRxZCoUU1VupKsaAfl1qs2oq7k3_5c8LsS-VnIXo5AEbMsu1VjJ_7-jOcy9S9DMNqZ-1RQoKk4Jps9NHRvQIqJDTVL6P5klPKAyjMSM8ACf7b85RCI0/s640/Leg+SE_009-1.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Here is a close-up of one of the leg vertebrae. It's a beetle-knee! I think the spikes are for defense based on the fact that they kind of look like medieval armor. I don't know what enemies beetles have besides birds and things that could just swallow their little 10-micron-wide knee weapons whole...but it probably makes them look tough to other bugs. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The schmutz all over it is probably dirt or dust specks. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg02pZmasEXKXovHvifRgUZ1AR7f0Op6VdtCNsU23IafUNCCiAkUmQmcGrfqz05OQEzU4Vi9-9YxNA4RYkXEggtaU-jtZzAYmY8w7klCZbDFkfC7u6lCrV3JD7_2XMMnI42LX58SoTKkzY/s1600/Leg+SE_004.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg02pZmasEXKXovHvifRgUZ1AR7f0Op6VdtCNsU23IafUNCCiAkUmQmcGrfqz05OQEzU4Vi9-9YxNA4RYkXEggtaU-jtZzAYmY8w7klCZbDFkfC7u6lCrV3JD7_2XMMnI42LX58SoTKkzY/s640/Leg+SE_004.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is one of the coolest pictures in here, in my opinion. It's looking into the inside of the leg from where we cut it off. That's right...EXOSKELETON. Besides the support structures, it's totally hollow on the inside! If this beetle hadn't been dehydrating in the sun when it found me, it would have been full of goo. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Exoskeletons are made out of chitin, which is a long-chain polysaccharide. According to Wikipedia, "chitin has some unusual properties that accelerate the healing of wounds in humans". The Egyptians totally knew about that, fyi. As I learn more, I'm starting to suspect that beetles are actually magical. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQNJHZjKbK-bENsLdhrYYo2SKGIoG8LolDPblHiw7DxNQ7tqkApdXiTPKTMMwjxweTPpg1ch73xk9kec4jFGXQyA1K4cU5dE824d_LTRvCee-fEsG_kAndl4zrd-uL_hvA4OLo3U1Bz54/s1600/2012-07-18+21.13.02.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQNJHZjKbK-bENsLdhrYYo2SKGIoG8LolDPblHiw7DxNQ7tqkApdXiTPKTMMwjxweTPpg1ch73xk9kec4jFGXQyA1K4cU5dE824d_LTRvCee-fEsG_kAndl4zrd-uL_hvA4OLo3U1Bz54/s320/2012-07-18+21.13.02.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ok, next we are going to look at this long antennae here.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX_ciHUiK_A8KhA3AiSg5HDmzBZ8n7SeC4j8KFnYnIumYv76gJCO7mflq9iOnbmLUxwr-n-Rp9eP_f5gEbrlAa4sdPzu9x2kRMn699H_H_CbZT9q2d8WQc16COhEBbdNzA3h9M4dnqbBQ/s1600/SE_003.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX_ciHUiK_A8KhA3AiSg5HDmzBZ8n7SeC4j8KFnYnIumYv76gJCO7mflq9iOnbmLUxwr-n-Rp9eP_f5gEbrlAa4sdPzu9x2kRMn699H_H_CbZT9q2d8WQc16COhEBbdNzA3h9M4dnqbBQ/s640/SE_003.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Look at all the little hair follicles! Antennas are for sensing, and are insects' primary olfactory senses. In other words, these are the smellers. I tried to figure out how they work but then got really confused by all the jargon. Maybe one of you bio people can explain it to me? Thaddaeus, I'm looking at you. </span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">OK, compare the texture of the big antennae to the smaller one.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_v2U0IUgqBEnnh7-ojZm3vlikhrSUGHfykCjT3FS-br9osdRw-khHWMNw4GLmStds_e8fPTgMbY5dOm-pInXXrcimsz1255bjXdDd8Q0oiEQFEIADB2AR2wvZeEo0aeFiMKqRr4Xq0I/s1600/2012-07-18+21.13.06.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu_v2U0IUgqBEnnh7-ojZm3vlikhrSUGHfykCjT3FS-br9osdRw-khHWMNw4GLmStds_e8fPTgMbY5dOm-pInXXrcimsz1255bjXdDd8Q0oiEQFEIADB2AR2wvZeEo0aeFiMKqRr4Xq0I/s320/2012-07-18+21.13.06.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This one.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQluxWpP-lWDyAimhMxAVE_5NE5Vu2L58AUeT_DXggMJE-koTNum-Kx67hJGbfW5DEEQU8K7HZgmRskhM-83uEL_-Ugvy0xgmLxc4JrgeeemJcCLlvRY-plz_wu2m31ndBmwXjB7Gjbh8/s1600/SE_004.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQluxWpP-lWDyAimhMxAVE_5NE5Vu2L58AUeT_DXggMJE-koTNum-Kx67hJGbfW5DEEQU8K7HZgmRskhM-83uEL_-Ugvy0xgmLxc4JrgeeemJcCLlvRY-plz_wu2m31ndBmwXjB7Gjbh8/s640/SE_004.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Super smooth! They must have two entirely different functions. Like, one for sensing and one for collecting particles...or, something like that. I'm not really sure. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJpgrrxBQywgAbA0eu7tLpcrWYzIFhPgn0tuxuSN-cmDFQNQ2NFPpnWLp04aT6MTmt7hQz-FeCfINlCsyaereUNBGa7Y_RsjGEhJWyRW_oC-9Iu1tCRzoZTzUhPbw3CHNfUmjA3QKc1EE/s1600/SE_001-2.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJpgrrxBQywgAbA0eu7tLpcrWYzIFhPgn0tuxuSN-cmDFQNQ2NFPpnWLp04aT6MTmt7hQz-FeCfINlCsyaereUNBGa7Y_RsjGEhJWyRW_oC-9Iu1tCRzoZTzUhPbw3CHNfUmjA3QKc1EE/s640/SE_001-2.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is the end of one of the long antennas. The antennas are jointed just like the knees and this one was broken off at one of the joints when I found it. This is really cool because you can see those screw threads I was talking about where their joints come together! See them?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I think the stuff on the end of it is a little speck of pollen.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVwVe7H65xvrQ0W7Y7pWVx0qXYldUJrU4K9Mqfgj9Ok9191-lQvBq1RcAxC0O8BNw50pb5eIMYNyiNZS7MLdB3sVVnv5AiHV4zG-AGL-vaCecJaxDydVG8GqZ4KZmzBZohFYEhYpE7ysM/s1600/SE_002-1.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVwVe7H65xvrQ0W7Y7pWVx0qXYldUJrU4K9Mqfgj9Ok9191-lQvBq1RcAxC0O8BNw50pb5eIMYNyiNZS7MLdB3sVVnv5AiHV4zG-AGL-vaCecJaxDydVG8GqZ4KZmzBZohFYEhYpE7ysM/s640/SE_002-1.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is that pollen up close. It's also got this thread stuff all over it. Seems too small to be spider web....maybe a bacteria?</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNmj5mamPQd-CMj0bq0bcC-ujQR4LqHFWpEmZTgDJqsPFxRJQhEsliRfGsAMOgS_9-qKpWqU_SELXQUhXrl9bnGZNCmrSZcsLUcuhFB-Ws-_Jpgrq0qlTY_wB6fVH89jZsGbHAb7nNQP4/s1600/SE_008.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="587" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNmj5mamPQd-CMj0bq0bcC-ujQR4LqHFWpEmZTgDJqsPFxRJQhEsliRfGsAMOgS_9-qKpWqU_SELXQUhXrl9bnGZNCmrSZcsLUcuhFB-Ws-_Jpgrq0qlTY_wB6fVH89jZsGbHAb7nNQP4/s640/SE_008.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is that same thread stuff that was all over it. I have no idea what this is. I looked up SEM images of bacteria and spider webs and they don't really look like this. What do you all think? </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFP0lj8RM2OAX1VFW559DOZeWe4RI8Dh_6gL_Xitw2IKF_JITqP8j3Gy-QgZat_8J_o7Y8yPcLC0XsmzbqrX9aRDvslirSikid0hM_G4ykZFVbngUVZR3He3tm0cXeqcfNZl6LkPgf_4M/s1600/SE_009-1.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFP0lj8RM2OAX1VFW559DOZeWe4RI8Dh_6gL_Xitw2IKF_JITqP8j3Gy-QgZat_8J_o7Y8yPcLC0XsmzbqrX9aRDvslirSikid0hM_G4ykZFVbngUVZR3He3tm0cXeqcfNZl6LkPgf_4M/s640/SE_009-1.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Here it is close-up. See how it's kind of braided like rope but then it's got this gooey part like snot? </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwKYxzdKtYw6NqNQCRfXe39o4_f9NeVb5QITGpO1whsMBaNq3Ywu4MqHenIxYxWYpzJhrYdxIBkmfGuuB8TX0VHKsSJVGQJq0gmb3UlpR9iqJqT2T8t86vNUhjd6OWyNX7JHA0zAD0uGI/s1600/SE_006.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwKYxzdKtYw6NqNQCRfXe39o4_f9NeVb5QITGpO1whsMBaNq3Ywu4MqHenIxYxWYpzJhrYdxIBkmfGuuB8TX0VHKsSJVGQJq0gmb3UlpR9iqJqT2T8t86vNUhjd6OWyNX7JHA0zAD0uGI/s640/SE_006.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Here is part of it's head. It's got a chunk of dirt and also a little crawly thing. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9MJ6uLJDW2kCLngjkh2EwQk1_EMuVK6KmUQ5wIpXyR4iOCzEa-GIR0lRPZiThukatEPJPUfSah4GRMLVSRbYIfcx_fmjVN7hSMKK5a1rmSY6olg8zOjaOqCB23rTu38F3fY85g_oh3Fo/s1600/SE_007.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9MJ6uLJDW2kCLngjkh2EwQk1_EMuVK6KmUQ5wIpXyR4iOCzEa-GIR0lRPZiThukatEPJPUfSah4GRMLVSRbYIfcx_fmjVN7hSMKK5a1rmSY6olg8zOjaOqCB23rTu38F3fY85g_oh3Fo/s640/SE_007.tiff" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Here's the crawly thing up close. Maybe a little bacteria? It's got those little leg-looking things. I actually have no idea what this is. It's hard to put "5um long wormy thing with legs" into google and get meaningful results. I wish I knew more about this stuff so I knew what I was looking at!</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">Ok, I guess that's enough nerding out for now. See ya next time!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span">UPDATE: My friend Jessyka told me that the crawly thing might be a nematode. Here is a picture I found online of a nematode:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBVsNKOxLupA9fjryrGc8CEjyEZ5BNNCRTUFZ_s85rWPod54dqshRtcC6eTrWJ0fgWZfVMxOBDSXaDAbe1Y-yyvgaL2g4tyltFxJQHyoiaiBl9N6av8nre39TAw1EOqp9Z8ik3d_ScFwU/s1600/nematode.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBVsNKOxLupA9fjryrGc8CEjyEZ5BNNCRTUFZ_s85rWPod54dqshRtcC6eTrWJ0fgWZfVMxOBDSXaDAbe1Y-yyvgaL2g4tyltFxJQHyoiaiBl9N6av8nre39TAw1EOqp9Z8ik3d_ScFwU/s320/nematode.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yep....looks like it. Nematodes are a parasite to beetles and are used as organic pest control. Maybe that's what killed my beetle. <a href="http://www.arbico-organics.com/category/beneficial-nematodes">Check out nematode pest control</a></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 21px;"><br /></span></div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-91449116487218081372011-06-09T21:08:00.000-07:002011-06-09T21:33:26.769-07:0021 cm cosmologyI haven't blogged in a very long time! I've been spending most of my intellectual energy and free time trying to learn spanish and graduate college instead of nerding out. However, for the next two months I plan on: 1.) Being really broke and 2.) Having lots of free time. This means many more blogs are on the way! Suggestions are welcome. In the meantime, I'd like to share a paper I wrote for my cosmology class this quarter. It used to be full of lots of equations to describe the quantum behavior of hydrogen but I can't figure out how to insert equations in this thing. Does anyone know how to do that?<br />
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It's a little different than the way I usually write in this blog but maybe you'll dig it anyway!<br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 200%;">21 Centimeter Astronomy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Edwardian Script ITC'; font-size: 26pt; line-height: 200%;">The Dark Age<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Applications of quantum mechanics have proven to be of great utility in the expanding field of radio cosmology. As astronomers begin to piece together answers to the question, “what did the early universe look like?”, the quantum model of hydrogen plays a large role. Understanding the nature of hydrogen’s hyperfine structure and it’s interaction with radiation becomes crucial to this investigation.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Hydrogen has a forking energy structure: each branch separates into a different set of branches. This branching begins with electrons, which exist in quantized energy levels, known as orbitals, around hydrogen nuclei. Within these orbitals the electrons are subject to two types of angular momentum: orbital (associated with motion of the center of mass) and spin (associated with motion about the center of mass). While it should be noted that electrons are fundamental particles without interior structure, (and therefore cannot <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">literally </i>spin) this analogy is useful in analyzing the splitting behavior of orbiting electrons. Suffice it to say that electrons carry an intrinsic angular momentum which can alter the total energy. It is spin that creates the hyperfine structure of hydrogen.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">According to classical electrodynamics, a rotating electric charge creates a magnetic dipole. This sets up the electron as a magnetic dipole. The proton, like the electron, has an intrinsic spin, which sets up its own dipole moment in the same direction as the proton’s spin. The dipole of the proton is more complex because it is a composite structure, made up of three quarks, which gives a different gyromagnetic ratio. The proton’s dipole moment creates a magnetic field.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The difference between levels in hydrogen’s hyperfine structure is an artifact of the interaction between the electron’s dipole moment and the proton’s magnetic field. If the dipole moments of the electron and proton point in the same direction (parallel) the energy of this configuration is slightly higher than if the dipoles point in the opposite direction (antiparallel). It is found that the frequency of a photon emitted during the transition from parallel to antiparallel is 1420MHz, which corresponds to a wavelength of c/v=21 cm. This falls within the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFd0GkWK8IcoC_jWp9FSpXMNnsWzV2NfKJ454JOCSxzaTX9Vcf-xgzeVGzpCuTxqIc7Q2GKCQpvMTZciFept9NHkl5M_tnP0vdJryPwzpWPQynsC1c-h0XJPEc4pP6q-NmpaMRgutle3s/s1600/energystruturediagram.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFd0GkWK8IcoC_jWp9FSpXMNnsWzV2NfKJ454JOCSxzaTX9Vcf-xgzeVGzpCuTxqIc7Q2GKCQpvMTZciFept9NHkl5M_tnP0vdJryPwzpWPQynsC1c-h0XJPEc4pP6q-NmpaMRgutle3s/s320/energystruturediagram.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiytBpvH0nBE2JVAGrXUnZyvXPWqaWLV9ky40y_2z7dQP2sDvI4MrbDsckPe8PSjXMf0TzvBl40TNVCmWRIEeyx3gvjsXvJ7_ExnVadoiukUmJm89obZOY_cRV8GHp7EGXvu5Q4RRxFkv4/s1600/spinflip.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiytBpvH0nBE2JVAGrXUnZyvXPWqaWLV9ky40y_2z7dQP2sDvI4MrbDsckPe8PSjXMf0TzvBl40TNVCmWRIEeyx3gvjsXvJ7_ExnVadoiukUmJm89obZOY_cRV8GHp7EGXvu5Q4RRxFkv4/s320/spinflip.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The probability of this transition taking place is so small that it is classified as forbidden. To be precise, the probability of such an event taking place is 2.9*10^-15 1/s, or once every 10 million years. As a result, it can never be manufactured in a laboratory. However, evidence of this transmission is detected pervasively in all directions as astronomers look into space. Carl Sagan and Frank Drake considered the 21cm line to be so ubiquitous and universal that they utilized it on the Pioneer Plaque of the Voyager Mission as a single unit measurement in defining length and time. The omnipresence of this extremely improbable detection indicates that the universe contains a tremendous amount of neutral hydrogen. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEins98ER6nXxBvbwQMMsnQ2gZ1zpEGLyNIIMVLmJ1AFY9qD3Mzc7N_aAja0fLJlh49I4FnSbEPSV-X5cI86WrOh7BnOliBWMfC1TeX8zztCryyfnGRKeysmGOa42VG3BzdeyDW6geZ7e4g/s1600/pioneerplaque.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEins98ER6nXxBvbwQMMsnQ2gZ1zpEGLyNIIMVLmJ1AFY9qD3Mzc7N_aAja0fLJlh49I4FnSbEPSV-X5cI86WrOh7BnOliBWMfC1TeX8zztCryyfnGRKeysmGOa42VG3BzdeyDW6geZ7e4g/s320/pioneerplaque.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The dumbbell looking thing the the upper left hand corner represents hydrogen undergoing a spin-flip transition. For those of you that don't know about this plaque, it's floating out in space with the hopes that someday aliens will find it. This plaque and the rest of the bizarro messages on board the Voyager definitely deserves it's own blog. Hopefully I'll get to that soon!</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Of special importance to big bang cosmologists are the 21cm transmissions detected at redshifts between z=25 and z=10^3. Radiation detected in this range comes from a period between two important epochs of gas phase change in the early universe: recombination and reionization. To give a brief history of the state of hydrogen throughout time, shortly after the big bang, the universe was radiation dominated. During this period, protons and electrons could not combine to form neutral atoms without being quickly ionized by energetic photons. However, the universe cooled as it expanded, eventually allowing for this reaction to take place. This is known as the epoch of recombination and took place around redshift z=1100. For several hundred million years following recombination there were no radiating sources, only cold, dark hydrogen. For this reason, the period is referred to as the Dark Age. In this epoch the universe was transparent, meaning photons could travel unimpeded through space. This is important to cosmologists as it means there is much information retained in the photons. The second epoch of the universe, known as reionization, occurred after the gravitational interaction between neutral hydrogen atoms allowed for the formation of the first structures large enough to radiate and ionize surrounding atoms. Astronomers interested in probing the structure of the universe between these two phase changes, when the universe was dominated by cold, dark hydrogen, must examine the fingerprints of such an era: 21cm photons. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Photon emission due to the spin-flip transition of hydrogen is temperature dependent. This means as 21 cm photons are released they will catalyze other reactions from neutral hydrogen nearby. By mapping the intensity of this radiation, cosmologists can develop a precise picture of the topography of the universe during the Dark Age. This is predicted to provide crucial constraints on current models for dark matter and dark energy. Furthermore, neutral hydrogen that has been ionized by those first radiating structures will appear as dark spots in the 21cm background. By examining these anisotropies, cosmologists can gain a firmer understanding of how the process of universal reionization occurred. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Research involving the 21cm line places cosmology on the verge of a new era. However, this field has a long way to go as observation of this transmission is extremely difficult. After redshift, this line is observed on Earth deep into the radio spectrum. This presents many challenges in collecting data as photons in the 21cm spectrum are drowned out by background noise from television transmission and the ionosphere. In the last few years, progression has been made both theoretically and observationally: theoretically, computer simulations of reionization have achieved larger dynamic range and can make more reliable predictions; observationally, plans have been made for four machines to start sensitive 21cm detection in the near future. Precise observations of the 21cm line from distant redshifts promise to revolutionize our understanding of the early universe. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Sources<o:p></o:p></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt;">Griffiths, David. <i>Quantum Mechanics</i>. 2nd. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2005. Print.</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt;">Pritchard, Jonathan, and Loeb Abraham. "Evolution of the 21 cm Signal Throughout Cosmic History." </span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 9pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt;">Miguel, Morales, and Wyithe Stuart. "Reionization and Cosmology with 21-cm Fluctuations." <i>Annual Rev. Astron. Astrophys.</i>. (2010)</span><o:p></o:p></div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-17640926427974219242011-03-21T23:55:00.000-07:002011-03-22T10:58:34.458-07:00Perception, LSD, and Synesthesia<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">PERCEPTION. It's crazy, right? The way you view the world around you depends so much on your current state of mind. Whether your perception is altered by your mood, illness, or drugs, it’s plasticity is almost frightening. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Of course, one of the easiest and most marked alterations you can make to your perception is via hallucinogenic drugs. I’ve never tried them myself just because the thought of letting my imagination become my reality kind of terrifies me, to be honest. I don’t think I am emotionally mature enough to deal with the monsters that my personal psyche would create for me. Not yet, anyway. At some point in my future, however, I would love to hallucinate. I think it would be a fascinating experience. I’ve heard that some people are forever changed after taking LSD. You can talk to God. You can come to life-shattering realizations about the universe. Your spirituality and worldview might be forever altered. Like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R2dNwih-1s">this guy</a>. On the darker side, however, some people come out of LSD trips with permanent psychosis. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">It’s hard to find accurate accounts of what people actually experience while on LSD. Google will bring up government websites with obvious bias toward scaring people away from drugs or hippy forums that seem pretty sketchy and not very reputable. Since the experiences of those who take acid are so personal and individualized, I think the best resources available to me are personal anecdotes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">I spent a little time watching people take LSD and talk about their trips on YouTube. Apparently to some people it sounds like a good idea to take video of them selves doing illegal things and post it on the internet. It’s amazing how many people will willfully and enthusiastically incriminate them selves. I did find some interesting stories though. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbCxnXdRfVE&feature=related">This one </a>is good.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">He brings up the monumental question, “what is reality?”. Questioning what is real seems to be common among LSD users. Some people, like the hippy I linked above, might challenge the idea of reality for the rest of their lives. You can see, hear, smell, taste and feel “unreal” things while you are on acid. To the tripper, these things are completely tangible. How could that not eff with your perception of reality?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">It’s difficult for our minds to grasp the fact that all sensory perceptions are just electrical and chemical signals in our brains. The reason my computer screen looks the way it does is because photons of a certain frequency stimulate my retina and cause it to send signals to my brain. The same goes for all the information that my brain is taking in from my surrounding: sounds, smells, temperature, air pressure, everything. My brain uses electrical and chemical processes to somehow construct my understanding of what is around me. This understanding of my surroundings is projected into my consciousness and it is the only way I can relate to reality. If the mechanism that allows us to interact with reality is altered, then our personal reality is altered. This can be a significant, permanent change.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">If people are forever changed by taking LSD, then it must be permanently altering the structure or function of the brain somehow. But how?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Well… I guess first of all I need to figure out what LSD is, exactly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">LSD stands for lysergic acid diethylamide. So it’s made from reacting two chemicals: lysergic acid and diethylamide. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">What are those two things?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Looks like lysergic acid is the good part…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Lysergic acid is found in a fungus known as ergot, it commonly infects rye. More specifically, ergot has high concentrations of a chemical called ergoline. It is from ergoline that lysergic acid is extracted. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikP1tBBd5ZX84V7ZGdyyLRSHUZkELHbSDMszHoKfXc9PLxfu4YJGEoXPWiw32NLGvMqrfWI2E_IlAbyRivp_Gqy8kHi1E6yMJuVn4A2xhPeqA1oUJdSuDPsmFghqnUCgIJFCWz29Wybxw/s1600/ErgotonRye.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikP1tBBd5ZX84V7ZGdyyLRSHUZkELHbSDMszHoKfXc9PLxfu4YJGEoXPWiw32NLGvMqrfWI2E_IlAbyRivp_Gqy8kHi1E6yMJuVn4A2xhPeqA1oUJdSuDPsmFghqnUCgIJFCWz29Wybxw/s320/ErgotonRye.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">When ergoline is ingested it does some knarly things to the body including constricting blood vessels, causing convulsions, headaches, nausea, vomiting, and most famously: hallucinations. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">People have known about ergot for a long time. Since the middle ages, controlled doses were used by midwives to induce abortions. There is also evidence of its (intentional?) use thousands of years before this as ergot was found in the stomachs of prehistoric human remains preserved in bogs. Perhaps it was used in prehistoric rituals of spirituality.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">It has also been ingested accidently on several famous occasions. Turns out ergot is a trifling little fungus that may have had a hand in several historical events. Many historians have suggested that the behavior of the young women who were “bewitched” during the Salem witch trials was due to ergot poisoning. It has even been linked to The Great Fear, wide spread panic among peasants that helped spur on the French Revolution. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">As for the D part of LSD, diethylamide, it’s a bunch of carbons, hydrogens, and a nitrogen strung together. You can get it from mixing ethanol and ammonia. I’m not quite sure of its purpose in LSD. It might be a potentiator, a chemical that enhances the hallucinogenic effects of the lysergic acid. With a potentiator like this, you can just take a drop and go on a mental vacation without the unpleasant effects from the ergoline like vomiting, diarreah, gangrene, ect…Diethylamine sounds like a plus.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">OK, so what is it doing to your brain?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Well, LSD is structurally very similar to a chemical called serotonin. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglAXeLYWTZm2fx_M6G06mmMBX8BWy7k996Zm5vrqhtw8yXRJsgUM1borEOfJ0nq8iHVUVVBDRb8jPlqx3Pj9zAfdNCj333R5QrlcPRkaj7ISYy4KKCb5Mq3VRJlC2NpHEfvmvWeGySyPo/s1600/serotonin+vs+LSD.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglAXeLYWTZm2fx_M6G06mmMBX8BWy7k996Zm5vrqhtw8yXRJsgUM1borEOfJ0nq8iHVUVVBDRb8jPlqx3Pj9zAfdNCj333R5QrlcPRkaj7ISYy4KKCb5Mq3VRJlC2NpHEfvmvWeGySyPo/s320/serotonin+vs+LSD.gif" width="304" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, a chemical that transmits signals from neurons. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">This is how neurotransmitters work:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Neurons have lots of little packets of chemicals inside them (like serotonin). When a neuron receives an electrical impulse from the nervous system it converts this electrical signal into a chemical signal by releasing the little packets of neurotransmitters. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90cj4NX87Yk">Here</a> is a really cool animation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXx9qlJetSU&feature=related">This one</a> is not as cool but it explains what is happening.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The neurotransmitters swim around in your brain and bond with receiver cells and this causes many varied responses in your body. In the case of serotonin, it might affect your mood, anxiety levels, appetite…the list goes on and on. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">I didn’t know much about serotonin so I did a few google searches and I found <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/2009/03/the_serotonin_system_and_all_t.php">this great blog</a> by neuroscientist Sheril Kesenbaum that gives a fantastic run down on serotonin. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Man, I tried really hard to understand what serotonin was all about. One thing Dr. Kesenbaum said that made me feel much better is that no one really understands serotonin because the serotonin system is insanely complicated. Serotonin has LOTS of different functions in our bodies and it fulfils these functions in many different ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">When the LSD molecule enters our brain, since it looks a lot like serotonin, it binds to serotonin receptors. This is where LSD gets unpredictable: sometimes it will excite the receptor and sometimes it will inhibit it. The effect is a flood of serotonin or no serotonin at all. This is happening at several serotonin receptors throughout the brain. When a person takes LSD they are messing with their natural ecosystem of serotonin on a grand scale. For reasons no one understands entirely, this causes a marked change in your sensory perceptions. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">LSD distorts sensory perceptions in several ways. My favorite is called synesthesia. This is where sensory perceptions tend to blend together. IE: A person may see music or hear/feel color. This word comes from a real medical condition. Ok, after reading up on it a little, synesthesia is actually my new favorite thing. Synesthesia is a real, documented psychological condition in which the stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to the immediate stimulation of another, unrelated pathway. So, for some people the sound of middle C on a piano might smell like roses or maybe every time they see a humming bird they will taste chocolate or if they have a toothache it will have a color, smell, and taste.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The most common manifestation of synesthesia is that</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> letters and numbers will have a certain intrinsic color. IE: G is orange. 8 is purple. They just are. And yes, they are actually SEEING these colors along with the numbers or letters, not just imagining them. The most compelling evidence is that brain scans reveal the visual color processing sections of a synesthete’s brain lighting up when they are shown a certain number or letter. Furthermore, the colors they report seeing are consistent. If they see J as pink at age 9 it will still be pink when they are 32, and the same goes for all other letters and numbers that have a color. If this were just an artifact of imagination it’s hard to imagine that such remarkable consistency would be maintained throughout a person’s lifetime. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Since you don’t question what you are experiencing until you realize that everyone else is not experiencing the same thing, many people don’t even realize that they have this condition. I found this book on synesthesia called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Frog Croaked Blue</i> and there is this cool quote from a woman who describes the moment when she realized that she perceives the world differently than everyone else,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> “</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">I did not 'discover' my synesthesia until I made a comment to my parents in my mid-twenties about a number. They were disputing some number that I had given them as a statistic and I said, by way of proof, that it could not have been seventy and had to be forty because it was a red number with a warm feel, and it was only halfway up the line to 100. It is extremely strange when the two people who know you better than anyone else regard you as though you were a complete alien. I then went on to describe how my numbers are not only colored, but also have very distinct patterns, as does time - the time of day, days of the week, months within the year, and the years themselves.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Most synethetes view this as a gift that helps them excel at certain tasks such as spelling, arithmetic, memorization, composing... the list goes on. Two famous composers, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Liszt">Franz Liszt</a> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Rimsky-Korsakov">Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov</a> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">once had a public disagreement about what color certain keys were! I have no idea of the circumstances of the argument but I really like to imagine these two heartily debating the color of a sound in a room full of uncomfortable people who have no idea what they are talking about because to everyone else, sounds are not colors. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Many brilliant people have been known to be synethetes. As a child, Vladimir Nabokov insisted that the colors of the letters on his blocks were all wrong. Physicist Richard Feynman describes his colored equations, <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">"When I see equations, I see the letters in colors – I don't know why. As I'm talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from Jahnke and Emde's book, with light-tan j's, slightly violet-bluish n's, and dark brown x's flying around. And I wonder what the hell it must look like to the students."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">One of the things I find the most interesting about synesthesia is that certain perceptions seem to be consistent among different synesthetes. For example, for those who have color/letter synesthesia: S will tend to be yellow, A tends to be red, O tends to be white or black. Different people tend to agree on the intrinsic color of certain letters!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Ok, come with me into the weeds for a sec…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">If one person can observe something that is completely tangible to them, it doesn’t necessarily constitute reality. BUT if several people see the same thing isn’t THAT reality? I mean…if you see something unbelievable the first thing you will probably do is ask someone else, “Do you see that too?” and if they do then you know it’s real and not just in your head. If more than one person can agree on seeing the same thing then …What IS this? Is this a different reality?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Synesthetes’ brains must be different from the brains of regular/boring people like me some how. But how? It seems that no one is really sure. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">If LSD is temporarily inducing these effects in people who don’t have synesthesia and LSD is known to affect the serotonin system…perhaps it has something to do with serotonin?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Do you have synesthesia? I would love to talk to you about the awesome way you see the world around you!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Obviously, much more research should be done on perception, LSD, and synesthesia, but alas, this subject seems to have widely been abandoned by psychologists and neuroscientists. Perhaps it's a reputation ruiner these days. I did find <a href="http://www.maps.org/w3pb/new/2010/2010_Johnson_23146_1.pdf">this 2010 project</a> from the Multidisciplinary Association For Psychadelic Study, though. They used a mysticism scale to quantify spiritual experiences! Imagine that. The mysticism scale was developed by this guy named Ralph W. Hood in 1975. It's 32 questions that are thought to measure mystic experience scientifically. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/1387407">Check it out. </a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">LSD seems to be a powerful gateway toward an understanding of oneself and our role in the surrounding universe and should perhaps be used in that context. However, while breaking down psychological barriers of the mind can be an enlightening learning experience, it should be noted that these barriers exist for a reason. Sounds like with enough LSD use, it's possible to lose your ability to relate to others, to reality, and effectively, to yourself. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">I think a good way to end this post is with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8wWX0asQNo">this</a> interview from Saul Williams on LSD and how to use it. Smart dude. He's got some good things to say. Have a watch.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-40089589705871528752010-12-27T19:05:00.000-08:002010-12-27T19:59:21.865-08:00Was Clay the First Life on Earth?<div class="MsoNormal">I just finished this book called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seven Clues to the Origin of Life </i>by a biochemist named A.G. Cairns-Smith from the University of Glasgow. He’s got this theory that the first life on Earth was clay. It’s pretty intriguing. I’ll try to explain…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cairns-Smith is looking to answer the question: how did life spring up on Earth? It’s an elusive puzzle that even the most well respected biologists don’t know how to begin solving.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> Life is highly complicated and organized. Perhaps this could be chalked up to evolution if it weren’t for the fact that the complexity seems to be vital to the whole way that life works. The crucial elements of life (DNA, proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates) depend on each other completely. They are interlocked. You can’t have proteins without DNA, proteins can’t do anything without the energy from lipids and carbohydrates, lipids and carbohydrates are constructed by proteins, and proteins construct DNA which brings you back to the beginning of this sentence.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">An analogy that I really like is a stone arch.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUgVrTKDzf_-sVV54GbbrXakHoPCm5gNeKUCqxthZu72d2Zrh-FjG8CtQBaBRPEIxS2438FunJnFkwnqjZZ3649xRzMNsV7m1weaTXzapjJAUtpn7vXnTDKHc3Mo1sheRPmmf-KlYE_2Q/s1600/oldarch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUgVrTKDzf_-sVV54GbbrXakHoPCm5gNeKUCqxthZu72d2Zrh-FjG8CtQBaBRPEIxS2438FunJnFkwnqjZZ3649xRzMNsV7m1weaTXzapjJAUtpn7vXnTDKHc3Mo1sheRPmmf-KlYE_2Q/s1600/oldarch.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You can’t take out one stone without the entire structure collapsing. You also can’t build this kind of arch stone by stone. Similarly, all fundamental pieces of life are necessary to the whole so life could not have evolved piece by piece.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The popular example amongst proponents of intelligent design is a mousetrap, it won’t work unless all the pieces are there simultaneously. They call it irreducible complexity. It’s a pretty valid argument, in my opinion. It’s difficult to imagine how even the simplest life form on earth, a single cell, sprung up out of nothing but the oceans. Why would a bunch of atoms spontaneously and simultaneously organize themselves into a complex system in which every piece depends on the other pieces? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You almost can’t blame people for giving up on this question by just throwing their hands up and saying, “God did it!”. The circumstances that would have been necessary to make the first cells are so unlikely that it’s pretty much preposterous to assume that cells assembled themselves by chance. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s take DNA, for example. DNA is made from nucleic acids. In order to synthesize it in a lab you are going to need a primer, which is a strand of nucleic acid that is used as the starter. In order to make primed nucleic acids there are hundreds of steps that need to be performed in a very precise order. Pouring, stirring, heating, concentrating, agitating…ect. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sure, you could imagine all of these steps happening on their own in nature. We could imagine a pool evaporating in the sun to create a concentrated solution, lightning striking the pool to agitate it, rainfall to dilute, filtration through rocks… and so on. It’s not that the occurrence of each individual step is too unlikely, it’s that the sequence of hundreds of these events successfully happening one after another is too unlikely. It’s analogous to flipping a coin and throwing heads 10,000 times in a row… if you can make this happen I want to be on your team. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And this is just DNA! We also have lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins to worry about; Each requiring their own long series of steps for synthesis. Not only that but ready-to-go proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids would have to all be in the same place at the same time in order to assemble themselves into an interlocked cell. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course, even extremely improbable events can happen given enough time and all the resources on Earth. However, there wasn’t enough time and there isn’t enough Earth. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What do I mean by this?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cairns-Smith gives a pretty neat run down of this immense improbability: Let’s say that there are 140 steps to perform in order to synthesize DNA. Let’s also say that the chances of the appropriate event happening naturally at each step is one out of six. Both of these are very optimistic estimates. The chances of, say, lightning striking a certain puddle of chemicals at a certain time, are probably much smaller than one in six. However, if we use one in six we can pretend we are rolling dice, which makes this analogy cuter. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok so now we are rolling a dice 140 times in a row and we need the same number to come up every time. This number represents success at each step in the life-making process. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What are the odds of this kind of miraculous rolling actually happening? Since you can roll a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, there are 6 possible outcomes for one throw. There are 6*6 possible outcomes for two throws, 6*6*6 possible outcomes for three throws and so on. For 140 throws there are 6 multiplied by itself 140 times possible outcomes. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Put this into google: 6^140. You will get, approximately, 10^109. This is a one followed by 109 zeroes. Try writing that number down just to get a feel for how enormous it is. You will get bored and give up after 10 zeroes, max. Five, if your attention span is slightly longer than mine. The chances of you rolling a dice and getting the same number 140 times in a row are 1 out of this huge freakin number. So, you would need a number of trials that is something like 10^109 in order to hit on the ONE successful trial. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well that doesn’t seem like such a big deal…just roll the thing for 10^109 trials. You’ll get the successful one eventually. We have all the time in the world and the whole earth. Sounds feasible…right?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, if you were to roll one dice every second since the beginning of earth’s history you can only get through about 10^15 trails. No problem…get more dice. In order to squeeze in 10^109 trails we need to be rolling 10^94 different dice every second. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Turns out 10^94 is a ridiculous number. That’s more than the number of electrons in the observable universe, which means it’s WAY more than the number of atoms that have ever been present on Earth. Earth just doesn’t have enough stuff on it and it hasn’t been around long enough for these kinds of odds. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So, you see what I mean when I say this is a pretty valid argument for intelligent design? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Personally, however, I think it’s quite lazy to assume that cells were prepackaged and handed over to the earth as a finished product. If there is a god I don’t she is as boring as that. As crazy and unlikely as it seems, life has to have started up via natural processes on this planet and I’d like to learn about the ways this could be possible.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps the very first life was not so interlocked; the pieces not completely dependent on each other. Maybe the stone arch was originally scaffolded, like a wall, and then pieces were gradually subtracted leaving us with the mutually dependent, arch-like system we have now.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Enter this bizarre-o clay theory. I really like it. Maybe you will too!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s start here:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Organisms reproduce by copying the messages that define the organisms. This is what we call passing on genes. Passing on genetic material that is capable of mutating is all natural selection really requires. Of course, the mutations that are beneficial to an organism’s survival are the ones that get passed on and the ones that are detrimental to survival do not get passed on. This is evolution.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In order to pass on genes, or messages, all we really need are the messages themselves. If the messages can be replicated using readily available materials, then we don’t need all the manufacturing machinery of the cell. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cairns-Smith proposes that the very first organisms were “naked genes”, genetic material without a cell. He suggests that the atomic structure of crystals served as the very first genes. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ll explain. Crystals “reproduce” by making layers. The layers are simply repeating patterns of atoms and ions. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A single layer of kaolinite crystal looks like this:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5dON8hoC0MyjgqvYqo9bb4T1wQImNC4-a_CGfYnYUA1doe3NQ6S0oBDh0D112Heqtxa3fPBv_63CZ2iEDnGB66mSbQZcduPsPlEXzlHaJfqaSY1rlYVJ1iN1yG3sO5IhuhmGX38ZQXmA/s1600/Kaolin_structure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5dON8hoC0MyjgqvYqo9bb4T1wQImNC4-a_CGfYnYUA1doe3NQ6S0oBDh0D112Heqtxa3fPBv_63CZ2iEDnGB66mSbQZcduPsPlEXzlHaJfqaSY1rlYVJ1iN1yG3sO5IhuhmGX38ZQXmA/s1600/Kaolin_structure.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Due to the sizes and charges of each of these particles, only certain atoms and ions can stack up on top of this layer and become the next layer. Think of it like legos…not just any lego can go on top, it has to have the right hole size. Take it one step further…think of it as legos with positive and negative charge. You can’t stack two like-charges right on top of each other. Therefore, the next layer of legos (atoms) is pretty much determined by the first. Starting to sound like DNA yet?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If your family wasn’t as dorky as mine and you didn’t get a grow-your-own-crystal kit as a kid here are some cool videos of crystals growing:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKJmBuh-5eg&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKJmBuh-5eg&feature=related</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwqst0aR8D0&feature=fvw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwqst0aR8D0&feature=fvw</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrKThzpJ5hQ&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrKThzpJ5hQ&feature=related</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9OLLrMLdAU&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9OLLrMLdAU&feature=related</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiPplYoH7Q">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiPplYoH7Q</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Don’t they even kind of look like they are alive??</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For a crystal to grow like this it’s necessary for the environment it’s in to be in a state of super saturation. Super saturation is just when there is more stuff dissolved in a solvent than can usually be dissolved… sugar in water, for example. If you add sugar to water while stirring it will dissolve, of course. But if you keep adding sugar the water will get to a point of saturation where nothing else will dissolve. However, if you heat the solution, then EVEN MORE sugar will dissolve and the water will stay more sugary than it ought to be even after cooling… It’s become super saturated! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All we need now is a seed- a small crystal from which a large crystal can be grown. Put a little crystal fleck in the solution and in no time you will have grown a dazzling crystal! In a super saturated solution, crystals can be added on faster than they are dissolved away. If your saturation level is high enough you don’t even need a seed crystal. Spontaneous seeding can happen on little flecks of dust or on the surface of its container.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometimes, especially if the saturation level is very high and crystals are forming fast, the units will add together in the wrong way. When this happens the resulting crystal bit becomes destabilized and it will dissolve faster, not allowing more crystals to grow on top of it. Or maybe the crystals will add together in a way that strengthens the crystal and allows it to last longer. This “mutation” will then repeat itself because, remember, the next layer is determined by the one that came before it. Ahem…evolution by natural selection much?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But even with perfectly constructed crystals, when the stacks of crystals get too heavy they will break off, exposing both ends for continued growth. The crystals “breed” by breaking up as they grow and providing new seeds for more crystals to grow on. So now we have a mechanisms for crystal birth and mortality!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok, but eventually the solution is going to run out of stuff to give, right? The crystals can’t keep growing and reproducing forever because sooner or later everything that was dissolved in the solution will be deposited on the crystal. There will be nothing left to make more crystals from. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is why we need a continuous crystallizer! A continuous crystallizer is a vessel system that allows for inflows and outflows. It just so happens that the whole earth is a continuous crystallizer for clay materials. The earth makes clay all the time…and lots of it!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I know we probably aren’t used to thinking of clay as a crystal but that’s just because the crystals are so small we can’t see them. Here are some pictures of clay way close up:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYuO-ogK7janrAAm3EWqZYnlPz1x08sqgcfRv48U1nG1A7sqT83BtTeyWfzfdx0rPJfh_sPvdwGhuxFYbaegronEvaBRgXVzuBEj42a9qZ4c0FsWPVib4TbihwePUIOj8bomuFFk_4th0/s1600/smectite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYuO-ogK7janrAAm3EWqZYnlPz1x08sqgcfRv48U1nG1A7sqT83BtTeyWfzfdx0rPJfh_sPvdwGhuxFYbaegronEvaBRgXVzuBEj42a9qZ4c0FsWPVib4TbihwePUIOj8bomuFFk_4th0/s320/smectite.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Smectite</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ovysSxTGuFHXfd2cPbvSBr9fk5xO-t01cIe39idwiaV4LqL4d7AOrXb6NDhkbrLP7eeW7EWE2wz57GaZdDsPCl8rMPKMTua3i34gdYIxGCDTkEDjREXsLtQw__WpybNF5i44gVs0qhY/s1600/kaolinite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ovysSxTGuFHXfd2cPbvSBr9fk5xO-t01cIe39idwiaV4LqL4d7AOrXb6NDhkbrLP7eeW7EWE2wz57GaZdDsPCl8rMPKMTua3i34gdYIxGCDTkEDjREXsLtQw__WpybNF5i44gVs0qhY/s320/kaolinite.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kaolinite</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEU-qqCJOfa4t13AEP86L1_AvwUnT5TsMGP-gPa7kzVLxDbK0tZ9t13HZr2OPILGAlJ4ZOYl3LtdZtsOPUsorxEgeJQldlrU8xpjWzfa2xSQIpRi6gtSIPHRCAYrFHAbNpKY41V0dJ4XQ/s1600/dickite9k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEU-qqCJOfa4t13AEP86L1_AvwUnT5TsMGP-gPa7kzVLxDbK0tZ9t13HZr2OPILGAlJ4ZOYl3LtdZtsOPUsorxEgeJQldlrU8xpjWzfa2xSQIpRi6gtSIPHRCAYrFHAbNpKY41V0dJ4XQ/s320/dickite9k.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dickite...haha. God. What am I, 12?</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">See how there are tiny uniform units that get repeated and stacked up? That’s the signature of a crystal. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok, well this whole analogy is cute and all but it doesn’t change the fact that CLAY ISN’T ALIVE. Our genes aren’t made of crystals…they are made of organic molecules. What gives?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Is it possible that modern organic genes could have evolved from crystal genes?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cairns-Smith thinks so!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It just so happens that certain organic molecules could be very useful to an evolving crystal organism. Not only that, but clay is very good at holding onto organic molecules. Let’s look at some of the important life molecules and how they could be of use to clay crystals. Amino acids and formic acids could be used to control acidity and promote crystallization in clay. Sugars, like polysaccharides will soften and harden under certain circumstances and could serve to control the sliminess of the clay, which is useful if the survival of the clay crystals depend on not being dried out. Nucleotides could be used to bind clay crystals together in certain ways. Perhaps the very first DNA molecules were constructed to interact with clay and lock the pieces of the crystals together.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now that we have a mechanisms for all these organic molecules to interact, it’s not so difficult to imagine the organic molecules starting to use each other as templates for reproduction instead of the crystals. DNA-like molecules could have come along to help amino acids join up into chains, all the while being protected and promoted inside the “membrane” of a clay crystal. Sooner or later, cell membranes would have had to evolve to replace the clay cradle and proteins would evolve to aid in the assembly process. All this could have been accomplished with more and more sophisticated crystal growth. Remember, the more well-constructed the crystal, the more likely it is that there will be lots of them. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As organic organisms become the more high-tech and efficient organism, one that can construct itself from air and sunshine, they eventually replaced crystal organisms. This would have happened via genetic takeover. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJnHuFi256oMd9cD8HD6_UGd2OchxZlvnS3pWlhXAzPNlpZG-xJqObfD7oNlSYGWr0mcqWhX5JWvTUcSd13lMg8ShByYD3fV7zBK2Cnn-TmJ-AsrwmqrRMBvm6ZG8i5QnklZASu5weV30/s1600/genetictakeover%2528originoflife.net%2529.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJnHuFi256oMd9cD8HD6_UGd2OchxZlvnS3pWlhXAzPNlpZG-xJqObfD7oNlSYGWr0mcqWhX5JWvTUcSd13lMg8ShByYD3fV7zBK2Cnn-TmJ-AsrwmqrRMBvm6ZG8i5QnklZASu5weV30/s640/genetictakeover%2528originoflife.net%2529.gif" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I found this diagram <a href="http://originoflife.net/takeover/">here</a>. It represents a secondary gene type taking over the original gene type.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Is this what really happened? Was our very first ancestor really clay? Hell if I know. Aren’t there some religious stories about humans being created from clay? That might add a whole layer of beauty and humanity to this theory. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are certainly criticisms of the clay theory but it seems that most of them have to do with the lack of evidence. Unfortunately, we can’t go back in time and watch as the very first life began to evolve. Life springing from clay has also never been demonstrated in a lab setting. Of course, this whole process of evolution from clay to cells would have taken a VERY long time so perhaps it’s not feasible to recreate it in a lab. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Maybe we’ll never know how life began on this planet. And isn’t that great? In a way? Maybe? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well that’s enough nerding out for now! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But before I go…. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I doubt that anyone really reads my blog this closely but I have a few updates and follow-ups. From my <a href="http://valeriesnerderie.blogspot.com/2010/12/alternate-biochemistry.html">alternate biochemistry</a> blog: I got that book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Extraterrestrials, A Field Guide for Earthlings</i> and it’s AWESOME! Tons of cool pictures and hypothetical aliens! It was definitely worth the one penny I paid for it on Amazon, even worth the $4 of shipping. I recommend it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">From my <a href="http://valeriesnerderie.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html">brain waves</a> blog: my eccentric (in the best way) mother bought herself a Mindflex…remember? That maze toy that you control with your brainwaves? It seems to work! I tested it out by doing math problems while the probe was on my head and I made the ball levitate pretty high. Then while I was zoning out and watching TV the ball would fall down. Maybe it has a delay of a few seconds…but overall, I’m a believer! How cool will it be when we develop technology that is even better at measuring and responding to brain activity so that we can begin to control things exterior to our bodies with nothing but thought? YAY! THE FUTURE! Well, someone’s gotta be jazzed about it, right?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">OK see ya next time!</div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-35132914329091081522010-12-05T13:21:00.000-08:002010-12-05T23:36:00.611-08:00Alternate Biochemistry<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This topic was suggested to me by my awesome friend Thaddaeus Buser who is studying marine biology in Alaska. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cool for four reasons: First of all, Someone reads my blog?! Awesome! Secondly, DUH. Aliens and extremophiles are my favorite thing to nerd out about…of COURSE I want to learn about hypothetical alien biology. Also, right in the middle of my research for this blog <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/arsenic-bug-brings-new-meaning-to-life-20101204-18kmj.html">THIS</a> hit the news. Relevant. Finally, remember that meatball looking cave alien in Star Trek the original series? That was my favorite alien in all of sci fi! It was called the Horta and a huge theme of that episode was that is was not carbon based, it had <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">alternate biochemistry</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZoHGRxugiay64r0Ou6DLYkzEJWNYwG4K79wkjgDj66M1vu-fxDXBGUYIsWbT6a11bg_ZG5RKNIALedolCVaAeKSWMsReQexXfYFKT11NJjCMsIC59xMo6zpzYSYE7p0xKKxYEuZcEcPc/s1600/tmhorta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZoHGRxugiay64r0Ou6DLYkzEJWNYwG4K79wkjgDj66M1vu-fxDXBGUYIsWbT6a11bg_ZG5RKNIALedolCVaAeKSWMsReQexXfYFKT11NJjCMsIC59xMo6zpzYSYE7p0xKKxYEuZcEcPc/s320/tmhorta.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">God, and that scene when Spock mind-melds with it and feels all it’s pain and suffering makes me want to cry every time. The only clip of it I could find on youtube has a bunch of fart sounds over it. Way to ruin a beautiful moment of cross-species connection, youtube jackass.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-UUnLpNYkk">Here</a> it is if you are curious.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">But you should probably watch the episode Devil in the Dark sans fart sounds if you haven’t already.</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, I’ll try to break this down with my meager knowledge of biology…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Life (as we know it) requires at least one cell. Cells need four things: </div><div class="MsoNormal">-carbohydrates (provide the cell energy)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhth4rvTa1PeAlZfQ2AJ9MPG1PC6DMrs9YxSMjNRsROgo3kJmU3F6lenzwOfJAB8TShC_5gbcE_dAnYcV1xhQaxSZ7JQD-Pp3wCE7EJUtUABLey_ZMIogTzOp2AKKG35w9_q21N8pKZDIY/s1600/glucose1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhth4rvTa1PeAlZfQ2AJ9MPG1PC6DMrs9YxSMjNRsROgo3kJmU3F6lenzwOfJAB8TShC_5gbcE_dAnYcV1xhQaxSZ7JQD-Pp3wCE7EJUtUABLey_ZMIogTzOp2AKKG35w9_q21N8pKZDIY/s200/glucose1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">-lipids (also called fats. They store energy and make up structures like the cell wall )</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAEwHq3VMebv1vcoCONxOqbVVW_OtgOANhZorHEf0V4tghziBGOYrJ239w3xjE3EXtK9I5RP6MywZ55DEoJAj4ipcMsuZgbqEbryj6Ex4LBNHSazNHzMFAqJ_LwJcwiy7jHVO1Ox7_s8o/s1600/Lipids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAEwHq3VMebv1vcoCONxOqbVVW_OtgOANhZorHEf0V4tghziBGOYrJ239w3xjE3EXtK9I5RP6MywZ55DEoJAj4ipcMsuZgbqEbryj6Ex4LBNHSazNHzMFAqJ_LwJcwiy7jHVO1Ox7_s8o/s200/Lipids.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">-proteins (the machines that do all the work of the cell. They are made up of amino acids, one of which is pictured here. )</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi785ow3kpQiq9mpXbcAQYb-Gwcf9ATskX_kFfQ1uFQhzPsd1nc6umajoWUAwtvHtwYpJQRmcgWA-CBeoKfhVngSJG-Gxr5NsYgWJJDTiGCJilkeYUNObJ2eeuDcJ6C_9OVi9jKVHpAMXQ/s1600/amino-acid-mcat1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi785ow3kpQiq9mpXbcAQYb-Gwcf9ATskX_kFfQ1uFQhzPsd1nc6umajoWUAwtvHtwYpJQRmcgWA-CBeoKfhVngSJG-Gxr5NsYgWJJDTiGCJilkeYUNObJ2eeuDcJ6C_9OVi9jKVHpAMXQ/s200/amino-acid-mcat1.png" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">-nucleic acids (DNA is a nucleic acid. It’s the master blue print that tells the proteins what to do.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhih9knOFnFll2Ru3Y3EW57xZmSqNlfF9QdnWgAyfhSp5bOUx5gocVzIyCMo2Hjq7gSsgUTSBiB5x3A9i9NN8tAgRmuuW_BrtPvV4EmYzzeWzi5Mv5h4-eh3DbWIGRCKb5K4yKvWLHG1f8/s1600/nucleic+acid.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhih9knOFnFll2Ru3Y3EW57xZmSqNlfF9QdnWgAyfhSp5bOUx5gocVzIyCMo2Hjq7gSsgUTSBiB5x3A9i9NN8tAgRmuuW_BrtPvV4EmYzzeWzi5Mv5h4-eh3DbWIGRCKb5K4yKvWLHG1f8/s200/nucleic+acid.png" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There is no need to fully understand what those diagrams mean, I certainly don’t. But I do know that the letters stand for elements and I see lots of C’s for carbon. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All four of these things have one element in common: Carbon. It’s what forms their backbones. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are a few good reasons why life seems to have chosen carbon over any other element.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First of all, carbon’s main gig is forming compounds and carbon is good at what it does. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s why: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Elements can bond with other elements via sharing electrons. All atoms want to have eight electrons in their outer shells and carbon only has four. That means it’s going to want to get close to other atoms and share electrons with them so that everyone has eight.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Having four slots for other atoms to go into makes carbon very versatile. It will bond with all kinds of stuff; hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen…whatever, it’s not picky. It helps that carbon is just the right size to nestle into lots of different kinds of molecules without pushing too much stuff out of the way. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Carbon will also readily bond with other carbon atoms to form long chains or rings. The bonds in these structures are strong and stable and carbon atoms can keep being added on to give you as big and complex a molecule as you need. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is important because it means we can make lots of different kinds of proteins which have all kinds of different functions. Remember, on the most basic level, proteins are what is doing all the work your body does and proteins with different arrangements of atoms will have different functions. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz4lFeqJPdU&feature=related">Here</a> is a cool video I found of proteins doing lots of different jobs. My favorite parts are at 2:48 – 3:09 when they are all forming some kind of chain and then the severing protein comes and breaks it and at 3:41 when the motor protein comes walking by. It really walks along like that!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But seriously, proteins are the reason we can digest food, fight off illnesses, store memories, move our arms and legs…ect. Our body has about 50,000 different kinds all made up of carbons assembled into different combinations. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> And a final reason for basing life on carbon: there’s a lot of it. It’s the fourth most abundant atom in the universe because it’s easily made in the cores of stars. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> Welp, sounds like carbon is the right one for this job. But could any other atoms do the same sorts of things carbon does? Could life be based on something other than carbon?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Silicon might do the trick. Check it out, it’s right there underneath carbon on the periodic table.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9oMzZMAYzr4Ll6o5qKmS3va6YdTKgT4jez1AtfDgXA_pzqFc4rqfGdY7SeAxMAqLp6W1JND25K6thVXTUO0sY3HH_6HrnbWAZxS8kwq3FY4kIco4aB44xFXoM_BHUU_JKUwb0sQn9AjU/s1600/periodic_table_of_elements1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9oMzZMAYzr4Ll6o5qKmS3va6YdTKgT4jez1AtfDgXA_pzqFc4rqfGdY7SeAxMAqLp6W1JND25K6thVXTUO0sY3HH_6HrnbWAZxS8kwq3FY4kIco4aB44xFXoM_BHUU_JKUwb0sQn9AjU/s400/periodic_table_of_elements1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> It’s in that spot because they both have 4 valence electrons…4 slots for other atoms to fill, so it will react (form bonds) with lots of the same stuff that carbon reacts with. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Just like carbon, silicon will form long chains with other silicon atoms. These are called silicates (the silicon analogy to carbonates). So a silicon based life form would have proteins that are made up of silicates instead of carbonates. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If silicon were to be the basis for a life form, lots of the molecules we know and love would be changed a little. For example, the carbon reactions take place when humans take in food and air would be silicon reactions. Allow me to explain: chemicals break apart and make new bonds inside our bodies to turn food into energy and air into whatever we get from oxygen (I don’t actually know, will someone tell me?). Our uh, “exhaust” gasses are carbon dioxide (We breathe it out. It’s a carbon and two oxygens: C02) and methane (FARTS. It’s one carbon and four hydrogens: CH4). Silicon can form very similar molecules: Silicon Dioxide (A silicon and two oxygens: SiO2) and Silane (A silicon and four hydrogens: SiH4). If a silicon based life form metabolized in similar ways that we do, by that I mean…eat food (as we know it) and breathe oxygen, then silicon dioxide and siliane would be some of it’s waste products in the same way that carbon dioxide and methane are our waste products.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Silane is what silicon based life forms might theoretically fart out, then. It’s what’s called pyrophoric, which means it will spontaneously burst into flames in the air! Can you imagine if that’s what farts were like??! It would be way harder to get away with, that's for sure. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Silicon dioxide is what they might exhale. The thing about silicon dioxide, though, is that it’s a solid at earthly temperatures. It’s pretty too! Look:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhibTFYjXGCD2uRF8AxZhd0bHlr5vk3a5DaSjvlnEShVo6ExddICCEYCd9bPsDc9ApskXpf9UByCAdaFJHGud0PeEWddRPUnOtVI7Mz18_rW1fHK3WCLWpjD8N1dJ7bYzPP4mOP2yWHsvw/s1600/silicondioxide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhibTFYjXGCD2uRF8AxZhd0bHlr5vk3a5DaSjvlnEShVo6ExddICCEYCd9bPsDc9ApskXpf9UByCAdaFJHGud0PeEWddRPUnOtVI7Mz18_rW1fHK3WCLWpjD8N1dJ7bYzPP4mOP2yWHsvw/s320/silicondioxide.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s melting point is at 1,650 degrees Celsius, or 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit…HOT. So, silicon based life would either “exhale” a solid crystal, which might prove to be a bit of a respiratory problem, or maybe they would exist somewhere where the temperature is much hotter so the silicon dioxide could be in gas form. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s a cool picture of what the authors of the book, <i>Extraterrestrials, A Field Guide For Earthling</i>s thought that silicon based life might look like. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgguR5Yai-S5NwAhq4xIYf0smQVhJXtIbLBINKgrcvWU4aBOntP7qe9yU4gUiuzZpmHp1t_Qi845M0-hKfy6OdLK93vQiifRE_Ky0t0HeHK2UADWqEvPTstVPhL0LEzMUSZ-6pLIT9JCc8/s1600/silicon_life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgguR5Yai-S5NwAhq4xIYf0smQVhJXtIbLBINKgrcvWU4aBOntP7qe9yU4gUiuzZpmHp1t_Qi845M0-hKfy6OdLK93vQiifRE_Ky0t0HeHK2UADWqEvPTstVPhL0LEzMUSZ-6pLIT9JCc8/s400/silicon_life.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There are lots of used copies of this book on Amazon for a penny. I ordered one just cause I’m hoping it has lots of cool pictures. I’ll let you know if it’s worth the penny.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Following the reasoning that life is all about having four bonds, every element that is in the same column as carbon could theoretically be a basis for life. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However, there are some pretty serious problems with some of them. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Germanium, being the next one down, is a good place to start. Germanium COULD, theoretically, act like carbon. By that I mean, there is a germanium analogy to methane and carbon dioxide (germane and germanium dioxide), and germanium can also form long chains with itself. The pitfall is that germanium is RARE. Which makes sense, I mean…I never hear about germanium in anything, do you? This poses a problem because life needs LOTS of atoms. The likelihood of enough germanium atoms being in one place at one time to assemble into a cell, let alone a creature with trillions of cells, is pretty small. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However, germanium based life might be possible in the future! Heavy elements are fused in the cores of stars. As more and more stars die and new ones are born, the universe is getting more and more metallic. Maybe someday there will be enough germanium around to base life on it. Maybe life will slowly evolve to be based on heavier and heavier elements! Or maybe, due to the present state of the universe, we are in an era of life that will never occur again. Who knows? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The next ones down the column: tin, lead and ununquadium (yes, that’s it’s name!) have the same abundance problems as germanium. There just isn’t that much of them around. Also, it’s hard to imagine how a life form based on such bulky elements would get around. I mean, think about being made of tin or lead…it would pose a pretty serious moving problem, wouldn’t it? I would think it would require lots of energy to move your body because it would be very heavy. Sounds like a pretty inefficient life form to me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It has also been suggested that life could be based on nitrogen or phosphorus because these two atoms have the tendency to form long chains just like carbon. I couldn’t find out as much about these elements as a basis of life. The fact that no one has really done any google-able research on it makes me think that it’s probably not very likely, but I would love to hear about it from someone who knows more about biochemistry than me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All in all, carbon seems to be the atom best suited for life, so it’s really no surprise that all the life we have ever heard of is carbon-based. Furthermore, it’s quite likely that carbon is the only element that can fill this role. I’ve heard people argue that it’s arrogant to assume that all life in the universe must be similar to life on Earth, but I really hate that argument. Here’s why: if we don’t make that assumption then we really don’t have much to go on. What are we supposed to be looking for if not what we know works? Perhaps life could be totally different than us elsewhere in the universe, but how would we recognize it if we saw it? And if we are going to make the argument that the basic chemicals of life are unnecessary, why not make the argument that most things attributed to life as we know it are unnecessary? For example, why should life require cells? I mean, when you think about it…our definition of “life” is pretty vague and sticky. Anything that is able to create offspring that are slightly mutated in order to better survive its' environment counts. Or more specifically, anything that evolves via natural selection. Using that definition of life, is a computer virus life? It certainly mutates and evolves. Is a crystal life? It grows and “reproduces” with altered offspring.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Life, it’s nature, it’s origin…everything about it, is obviously a major source of contention amongst the human race. I think religion is probably the most poignant example I can give here. But whatever you believe, I think it’s safe to say that no one understands life completely. All we can really do is speculate. Which is awesome because it’s a great chance to use those wonderful imaginations we’ve been blessed with!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok, well that’s enough nerding out for now. See you next time!</div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-48878855369798009252010-11-18T01:34:00.000-08:002010-11-18T10:41:32.919-08:00Cosmic Rays<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Did you know that you are getting showered by particles as you read this? Even if you are inside…even if you are hundreds of feet underground! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Violent events in outer space (super novae, storms on the sun…ect) are constantly sending high energy particles into our neck of the galaxy. Sometimes they even come from outside of our galaxy. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s what happens: a really speedy proton will come zooming in from an explosion in a distant part of space and reach our atmosphere. Our atmosphere has LOTS of stuff in it. Chances are pretty high that this proton is going to slam into one of those nitrogens or oxygens that we have hanging out up there. When this collision takes place some crazy stuff happens… </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When a high-energy proton from outer space runs into an atmospheric molecule it creates a shower of secondary particles. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgeBKKktjL1AZ4XwXvGh6n8ztMbYfLxk-REyXkkdZidTW3Gg2j27HpuBgwzp_cuXQ7R6IeEY13xALWzHLx4C4-sht_eiKmEK5ci7zrkcxk7sEkrNco7uzNz7XqOJs83Xzg3R2KrwHZu4/s1600/secondary+showers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgeBKKktjL1AZ4XwXvGh6n8ztMbYfLxk-REyXkkdZidTW3Gg2j27HpuBgwzp_cuXQ7R6IeEY13xALWzHLx4C4-sht_eiKmEK5ci7zrkcxk7sEkrNco7uzNz7XqOJs83Xzg3R2KrwHZu4/s320/secondary+showers.jpg" width="311" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Turns out that if you want to know what something is all about, what you have to do is pummel it. Pummel the nucleus of an atmospheric molecule with a high energy proton and it will release all kinds of things that it’s been holding onto. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is a diagram of the collision:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWR7b-D1PbBMqvLN1xk_EsgeGGiqEzXOck4B-XpbC3gozSiOb7RXRHLefvNpCfNm7FXONfdIQx8gLeKs275349iaFCS9RDL2VDLdcoinbIpoRcFYy59qoWSHGe7Kt617Hb3xVZSDBXOL0/s1600/proton+collides+diagram.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWR7b-D1PbBMqvLN1xk_EsgeGGiqEzXOck4B-XpbC3gozSiOb7RXRHLefvNpCfNm7FXONfdIQx8gLeKs275349iaFCS9RDL2VDLdcoinbIpoRcFYy59qoWSHGe7Kt617Hb3xVZSDBXOL0/s320/proton+collides+diagram.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>See the things labeled with the pi symbol? Those are pions! They were a big freakin deal when they were discovered because they had actually been predicted a decade earlier by Japanese physicist Hideki Yukawa.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The reason why Yukawa thought these things needed to exist is because he was running with the idea that every force has a particle associated with it. There are four fundamental forces in nature: Gravity, the electromagnetic force, the nuclear strong force, and the nuclear weak force. The nuclear strong force is the one that we care about here. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s a run down on the nuclear strong force: We know that like charges repel each other, so protons are not going to want to live next to each other. YET, they do! They are tucked in very close together in the nucleus of atoms. So there must be an entirely different force holding them together that overcomes this electrostatic repulsion force. This is the nuclear strong force. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yukawa argued that pions are the particle associated with the nuclear strong force. Since every particle can be modeled as a wave (wave-particle duality, heard of it?), and since pions have a wavelength that acts within the teeny dimensions of an atomic nucleus, and the wavelength of a particle depends on the mass of a particle… he was able to accurately predict the mass of the undiscovered particle! Bet he felt cool when a particle of exactly that mass was found 10 years later. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok, SO… pions are created in the upper atmosphere after protons from outer space disturb the nuclear force field of an atom in the atmosphere by smashing into it. But pions are very unstable and they decay within a tiny fraction of a second into other particles called muons and neutrinos. Then the muons decay into an electron (or a positron) and neutrinos. Here is a picture of it happening in a lab:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTlDWgLWgbRpWQpKo431E0fi3hiXGJKobDKV1zWOvLixwPGI00oAgZsRwcri8kInZrUa6Sm8ZiZwxu9JQFBVu1AuNNVKi0MXAShSjyeWJshNIQaU1oSLPs6KOl_6L1PSgSznWSQpAs-Mw/s1600/piondecay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTlDWgLWgbRpWQpKo431E0fi3hiXGJKobDKV1zWOvLixwPGI00oAgZsRwcri8kInZrUa6Sm8ZiZwxu9JQFBVu1AuNNVKi0MXAShSjyeWJshNIQaU1oSLPs6KOl_6L1PSgSznWSQpAs-Mw/s320/piondecay.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is a particle explosion inside of a streamer chamber. All this chamber is doing is recording the tracks of charged particles as they move along. The scientists who took this picture launched a positively charged particle in from the left and watched as it collided with a neon atom. The starburst in the middle is where the neon atom released a bunch of pions because its nuclear force field was disturbed. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My favorite is the positively charged pion that sweeps up counter clockwise because we get to watch it decay into a muon. The muon is the one that makes the big spiral. When it got to the middle of the spiral, you can see that the path breaks off because the muon decayed into even smaller particles. Since it was a positively charged muon, it decayed into a positron (the anti-matter twin of the electron, it's labeled e+) which went off to the right, and a neutrino which went off somewhere unrecorded by the streamer chamber because neutrinos don’t have a charge.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So this is what is happening a few miles above our heads. (Except for the spiral pattern…that only happens because of the magnetic field inside of the streamer chamber, in the atmosphere these things go in straight paths). But you get the jist… particles are careening in from space and smashing our atmospheric atoms into little bits and these little bits quickly decay into other little bits that rain down on us. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Muons are the evidence of cosmic rays that we detect down here near sea level. You can think of them as big fat electrons because they have electron charge and are about 207 times the mass of an electron. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I really like muons because I’ve spent a lot of time with them. Two years ago I did this experiment for a physics lab class at WWU where we (my lab partner and I) were trying to measure the lifetime of a muon. This was our apparatus:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMvy8G989NhK8xQ-Xy2VgajPMETT5p4P9frOyxdiQ-Om6ESJtP6cUpxwOAiz2nqaCC16Of95QuxTIarJkPXaFEOjP8rxFJMV9zUvAT_Mm4c18Ix87NoRkGKGm3aLow_4epKHhuXJgACkk/s1600/apparatus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMvy8G989NhK8xQ-Xy2VgajPMETT5p4P9frOyxdiQ-Om6ESJtP6cUpxwOAiz2nqaCC16Of95QuxTIarJkPXaFEOjP8rxFJMV9zUvAT_Mm4c18Ix87NoRkGKGm3aLow_4epKHhuXJgACkk/s320/apparatus.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And this is a schematic of what it looks like inside of that big shiny tube and in the box under the computer that says Muon Physics. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8maNe7EDNjP7gG74XcZRELyO9BY0x76LpIfZh60xmMhdTgnLbx-8nxwaKBt7GdXM-hBSHituJNdXppefLM65piVjPId8bpR0ON3NBvXXZhe2fVhZUWHZYBO0gXr2xRGIVE3kxBRS-FjA/s1600/appararatusdiagram.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8maNe7EDNjP7gG74XcZRELyO9BY0x76LpIfZh60xmMhdTgnLbx-8nxwaKBt7GdXM-hBSHituJNdXppefLM65piVjPId8bpR0ON3NBvXXZhe2fVhZUWHZYBO0gXr2xRGIVE3kxBRS-FjA/s320/appararatusdiagram.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Inside of the aluminum tube is a scintillator and a photomultiplier tube (that’s the thing that says PMT). The muons come in and hit the scintillator, which is just a luminescent material that converts the energy of the muon into light. The photomultiplier amplifies that light and sends the signal off to the rest of the stuff that I don’t really care about. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All I know is that the first signal (a muon hitting the scinitillator) will start a timer, if a second signal occurs within 20 micro seconds, then we know that the muon that hit the scintillator also decayed in the scintillator. This is what we want! Both of those flashes are sent off to the read out software on the laptop and the time between when they occurred is measured. This is the lifetime of the muon. Zing!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you look at what you are getting from the photomultiplier tube with an oscilloscope it might look like this:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkAgG5HX7D_L30k9oN_SQ8qqSpGz8j0q1mHoraGBkLs6OW2sGBczZbu8gijCV6dkIDWIPGiipqziIxyPihadKni1c_wb57g2PBcawfD6eNCVVYz_5gumvUnUe_rvy6Gaps43_MJgS-zSA/s1600/oscilloscope.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkAgG5HX7D_L30k9oN_SQ8qqSpGz8j0q1mHoraGBkLs6OW2sGBczZbu8gijCV6dkIDWIPGiipqziIxyPihadKni1c_wb57g2PBcawfD6eNCVVYz_5gumvUnUe_rvy6Gaps43_MJgS-zSA/s320/oscilloscope.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The first blip is the muon hitting the scintillator and the second blip is the muon decaying.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Do this enough and you can find the average life time of a muon. It works out to be something like 2 microseconds (split a second into a million pieces and take two of those pieces…pretty short). It’s an easy experiment! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Using this lifetime and some assumptions, we can figure out how many muons should be able to make it from their birth place in the upper atmosphere to sea level. We can do this because we know how fast the muons are traveling. We know how fast they are traveling because we know how far a charged particle of a given mass and speed can go through matter. We know the mass, we know how far it goes through the scintillator…we’re in good shape. We found that muons have speeds of .9950-.9954 the speed of light. In case you don’t know…light is really fast! 99% of the speed of light is haulin ass.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But here’s the catch: the lifetime of a muon is so short that they don’t have time to make it from the upper atmosphere to the surface of the earth before they decay…even if they are traveling at the speed of light. BUT they DO make it to Earth. Lot’s of muons make it to sea level. A muon goes through an area the size of my finger nail every minute. Sit still long enough and thousands of muons will go through you. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So they don’t have time to make it to earth, but they do… How are they doing this? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is Einstein’s theory of relativity at work. Because the muons are traveling so fast, they are experiencing time at a slower rate then we are. This is called time dilation. It’s where the fast moving clock runs slower. If you had two clocks that were perfectly synched up and then accelerated one of them to near light speed and let it cruise around for a while, when it comes back to earth you would find that years have passed on the stationary clock while only a few minutes have passed on the moving clock. This happens in Planet of the Apes, remember? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I like to talk about the muon time dilation experiment because I get the feeling there are lots people that think relativity is just some hypothetical, unsubstantiated, frou frou, magic, pretend physics. But no, it’s not. Time dilation happens and the fact that so many muons make it to earth is proof. I think people have a hard time relating to it because relativity only really matters when you are traveling at speeds close to the speed of light. We can’t speed ourselves up to a significant fraction of the speed of light, we are too massive. It’s pretty easy to accelerate a dainty little thing like a muon to near light speed, however. Therefore it’s pretty easy for them to experience time dilation. And they do!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In fact, if you divide the observed muon lifetime by the lifetime we think we should be observing if there were no effects due to time dilation, you get 1/9. This means that muons are keeping time at 1/9 the rate that we are. Nine years in your life is one year in a muon’s life. Neat, huh?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Other cool things about muons:</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">You can do astronomy with muons! Remember, they are the grandchildren of a short fling between an extraterrestrial proton and an atmospheric atom. If you trace back the trajectory of these incoming muons you can figure out where these high energy proton grandparents came from in the first place. Turns out lots of them are coming from the direction of a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Virgo. Inside this cluster is a giant galaxy called M87 which is believed to have a super massive black hole at its center. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You can even see the shadow of the moon in muons! <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Also, muons can cause lightning! As they are making their trek from their birthplace in the upper atmosphere to the surface of the earth they strip away electrons from atoms in the lower atmosphere. This creates a separation of charge and thus, a strong electric field. When the field strength becomes too high, a discharge occurs. This is lightning!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, that’s enough nerding out for now. See ya next time!</div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-16367588953316965442010-10-24T22:32:00.000-07:002010-10-25T21:07:47.812-07:00Brain Waves<div class="MsoNormal">After thinking up that brain alien at the end of my <a href="http://valeriesnerderie.blogspot.com/2010/09/europa.html">Europa blog</a>, I realized I really have no idea what brain waves are all about. So this is me finding out what I can about them!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The wordnet definition is: “rapid fluxuations of voltage between parts of the cerebral cortex that are detectable with an electroencephalograph”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Holy crap, so many questions need to be answered about that statement. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok, first of all. What is the cerebral cortex?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Turns out it’s the biggest part of your brain. It’s all the wrinkly stuff I think about when I think about brains. Actually, it’s a 2mm layer of gray matter that covers the outside of your cerebrum, the walnut-looking part of the brain, shown below. </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivbIYuyRUalDZV83er5zA4Gv4O8N719cWqASTJFAs3EkAAGV_4syrcLDBEr-yatOzDS1E4ZsZTLzbIn_ujZpjeJC_B8V349lGQfON_VKl-6xTAlOjh2zp4f1BRpkbZwrsmTFcFGe3WD0Y/s1600/cerebrum.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivbIYuyRUalDZV83er5zA4Gv4O8N719cWqASTJFAs3EkAAGV_4syrcLDBEr-yatOzDS1E4ZsZTLzbIn_ujZpjeJC_B8V349lGQfON_VKl-6xTAlOjh2zp4f1BRpkbZwrsmTFcFGe3WD0Y/s320/cerebrum.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peduncle?! Really? <br />
That's the cutest word I have ever heard. </td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The cortex is made up of neurons and glial cells. Glial is greek for glue, this is the stuff that is sticking it all together and maintaining the structure of the cortex, it’s good stuff but the neurons are the important part for brain waves. They are cells that use electricity to get shit done. </div><div class="MsoNormal">I really like to imagine neurons as little tiny Electros from Spiderman. Try it, it’s way funnier than reality:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjAbg9tmKAE&feature=fvst">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjAbg9tmKAE&feature=fvst</a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, here’s what they really look like:</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaAqBDZUgnDPi25laO01VrxIoFwexUDTRIgfW9zjTILz4MWLAfAHGt7v0OnmvU2onRU5RoSwca1FqkigtYeRn3YJmSgwXqgk9KNsXesF6XAV9bQSxxDEWK9WViYqwJJyzZ2fmjttaVbMo/s1600/neurons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaAqBDZUgnDPi25laO01VrxIoFwexUDTRIgfW9zjTILz4MWLAfAHGt7v0OnmvU2onRU5RoSwca1FqkigtYeRn3YJmSgwXqgk9KNsXesF6XAV9bQSxxDEWK9WViYqwJJyzZ2fmjttaVbMo/s320/neurons.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They kind of look like Electro</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> And here’s a diagram of what you are looking at in the above picture:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb1JSf-spSGVvYgBUby5CFAkPSIxAfLptPSPT-jPvJZ63zXrzaL0AdbU4PMx9v3TmdANeXfEU8O-1XCcdPTFnAIWXGfJZCUfTy91TRpBO4AgmA2ouopEsdulM3vL9kxetACLaDSE-_1Xg/s1600/Neuron+diagram.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb1JSf-spSGVvYgBUby5CFAkPSIxAfLptPSPT-jPvJZ63zXrzaL0AdbU4PMx9v3TmdANeXfEU8O-1XCcdPTFnAIWXGfJZCUfTy91TRpBO4AgmA2ouopEsdulM3vL9kxetACLaDSE-_1Xg/s400/Neuron+diagram.gif" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All neurons have these basic parts but the shape, size and characteristics will vary depending on what type of neuron it is.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are three types of neurons</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">-<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sensory neurons</b>: these are the ones that are responsible for basically everything we experience in the physical world. Pain, heat, cold, taste, touch, sound, vision, smell…any way you can physically experience the universe is totally up to the sensory neurons. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The dendrites (little spider leggy things) of the sensory neurons in your tongue, for example, gather information from either chemical interactions (how food is reacting with your taste buds) or physical processes (you bite your tongue and the pressure in the tissue activates the neuron). Neurons take whatever information the world gives them and convert it to an electrical signal that shoots out through the axon and is transmitted to the spinal cord and on to the brain.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Aside: I just found out that the pain signal is transmitted to four different areas of the brain in order to sort this experience and compare it with other experiences. IE: Have I bit my tongue before? Is this time worse? </div><div class="MsoNormal">One of the areas that is put in charge of sorting this stuff out is the limbic system which is the emotional center of the brain. That’s way pain can make us cry!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, sensory neurons are the reason we can relate to the world outside of our bodies. SO FREAKING COOL. Can you imagine, if a person’s sensory neurons were wired just slightly different from everyone else’s, the entire world might smell like chicken? Or what they interpret as green might be what I see as pink. And who is to say that doesn’t already happen? I could turn this into a real stoner blog about reality and authentic experiences but I think I’ll leave it at that. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However, I will throw in the interesting fact that there are neuroscientists that believe diseases like schizophrenia, a mental disease that makes it difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, has lots to do with how the sensory nerves are wired. We have no idea what really causes schizophrenia but it’s definitely an interesting theory. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, long story short: our entire perception of reality is balancing on the electrical activity of our sensory nerves. This deserves it’s own blog. Maybe I’ll get to that someday. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">OK…back to the different types of neurons and then hopefully back to brain waves!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Motor neurons </b>transmit impulses from the central nervous system to our muscles and glands. These are the the middle management types underneath the brain who are telling your body to move. The motor pathway is your spine. That’s why spine injuries can paralyze you: motor neurons no longer have a way to communicate with your arms and legs. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Interneurons </b>are pretty much what they sound like. They translate certain information from the sensory neurons to the motor neurons. Sounds like a lame job, but it's an important one. There is so much sensory information constantly bombarding us, the interneurons are the ones that decide what is going to get paid attention to and we are going to act on. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">So, from what I gather it goes like this:</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">1.)<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>Slam your fingers in the door</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">2.)<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>Sensory neurons tell interneurons about the change in tissue pressure that you are experiencing</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">3.)<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>Interneurons tell your brain and motor neurons about the sensory neurons’ message. Sometimes the brain can be passed up entirely and motor neurons will fire without permission from the boss. These are called reflexes.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">4.)<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>Motor neurons stimulate your muscles to make you physically react to the pain- ie: get your fingers out of the door, scream…ect.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All of the communication that gets done is via electricity, the language of the nervous system.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This four step process goes for every experience, smell, sight….ect, it’s just that pain is the easiest for me to understand because the cause and effect chain seems much more direct. The intricate processes that go along with what your brain tells your body to do based on what you see or hear or smell are way more complicated.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok, so now that we know a little about neurons…what do these have to do with brain waves?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, as should be obvious, your brain is constantly responding to millions of bits of sensory information. As you are reading these words, sensory neurons are transmitting the light that reaches your eyes into electrical impulses that your brain interprets as written words, the same goes for the feeling of the chair you are sitting on, the smell of the room, the taste of the inside of your mouth, and all the noises around you. With all these neurons firing at different times and places, your brain is FULL of electrical activity constantly. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What’s surprising to me is that some of this electrical activity is periodic. By that I mean, it repeats itself in a predictable pattern. Every certain amount of time there will be a spike in electric potential. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What is electric potential?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps some of you have seen those gadgets that measure the how good a battery is? They are called voltmeters and are used to determine the electric potential difference between the positive and negative terminals. A greater potential difference between the two terminals means a more charged battery. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What’s happening inside the brain is that there will be a large separation of positive and negative charge caused by brain cells allowing sodium ions to enter their membranes. Since ions have charge, this creates a high potential difference, then suddenly a discharge of ions which lowers the potential difference. This “action potential” gets propagated throughout the brain and happens again and again in several different brain cells. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s all I could really find out about the cellular mechanism of action potentials without delving into journals with too much jargon for me to read. If anyone has a better understanding of the action potential and can explain it to me, please do!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, regardless of exactly why it happens, a graph of this electric potential activity might look something like this:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW4PD1bfhoSZPH_PQTKm1VCZwmfm5-jzBnAKJxfWKZ9XMRsG6G8aq223Gem5Dh96LriGFpJWpwYZxN93mm5WJ42Mw1UippkHXcW3ZREJThhpRESisfD4JZKHe2a2BPr7qaSvU4ZgUCWoc/s1600/brain_waves+graph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW4PD1bfhoSZPH_PQTKm1VCZwmfm5-jzBnAKJxfWKZ9XMRsG6G8aq223Gem5Dh96LriGFpJWpwYZxN93mm5WJ42Mw1UippkHXcW3ZREJThhpRESisfD4JZKHe2a2BPr7qaSvU4ZgUCWoc/s320/brain_waves+graph.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The y axis is volts (how strong of a battery your brain is) and the x axis is time. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Neuroscientists have classified the different types of brain waves based on how often the spikes occur, this is called the frequency of the waves. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Each unique frequency is associated with a different type of thought process. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Delta waves are the slowest ones, 1 to 4 pulses per second. We emit them when we are deep in dreamless sleep. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Theta waves are of frequencies around 4 to 7 pulses per second and they are associated with reduced consciousness. You might emit theta waves when you are day dreaming. If you are walking around or driving and suddenly realize that you can’t recall the last few minutes…you were probably emitting lots of theta waves. We also emit lots of theta waves when we are doing repetitive tasks.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Alpha waves, which are characterized by frequencies of 7 to 13 pulses per second are associated with mental relaxation. Someone emitting alpha waves is aware of their surroundings but not really concentrating on anything in particular. We probably emit alpha waves while we watch tv.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Beta waves have the highest frequency in the above graph and they are associated with concentration and problem solving. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are even higher frequency brain waves called gamma waves that come out when a thinker is involved in cross-modal sensory processing. Meaning, they are combining information from two different senses like sight and sound.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When we are sleeping our brain waves sink to lower and lower frequencies; from beta to alpha to theta and finally to delta waves. When we wake up, the process is reversed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">People that hit snooze over and over go through this entire cycle several times every morning. It’s possible for people who do this to stay in the theta state for an extended period. Apparently, this can be a very productive and creative time where the snoozer has a free flow of ideas, memories, and plans. SO THERE, ex’s who got mad at me for hitting snooze 5 times in a row…my brain was doing good things! I definitely have the weirdest dreams during my snooze hour. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, this is all fine and good but let's get to the real question, how can we use brain waves in a capitalistic society?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Turns out, there are lots of toys that have to do with brain waves!</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">I was working as a math tutor for this kid whose parents bought him this thing:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMznvnMw-ys">Jedi Trainer</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It measures your beta waves. If they strong enough, a fan will be activated under the ball and the ball levitates. This kid had practiced a lot and could levitate the ball. I was really curious about it so I had him try it while I distracted him by clapping and yelling his name right next to him. He couldn’t levitate it while I was doing that. He also couldn’t get it to levitate while he was watching tv. I tried it for a while and couldn’t get it to work. He was telling me I needed to focus on one part of the ball and think about it really hard. Couldn’t do it. Guess I’ll never be a jedi <span style="font-family: Wingdings;">L</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This one is pretty cool...Check it:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teLilQfF5qY">Mind Flex</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Robert Schneider from Apples in Stereo did some electric engineering magic to turn one of these into a synthesizer. Check it:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/10/robert-schneider-teletron/">http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/10/robert-schneider-teletron/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I am very suspicious of this. What you would have to be doing in order to change the frequency of your brainwaves is descending from a state of deep concentration to a state of day dreaming. You couldn’t do this by concentrating on making a pitch go up or down because concentration in general is associated with one type of brain wave, beta. Beta waves aren’t going to change depending on what you are concentrating on, just whether or not you are concentrating. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> So if he’s really doing what he says he is doing and controlling his brain wave frequency, then when he is pointing down he must be concentrating less and when he’s pointing up he must be concentrating more. But it wouldn’t work if he were concentrating on making the pitch go up and then concentrating on making the pitch go down because in both cases he would be concentrating. Make sense?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, if he really is doing what he is saying and controlling the synthesizer with his mind, then he is very good at going from concentration to day dreaming just like that. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Either way, if you don’t already love Apples in Stereo you should probably go download their album New Magnetic Wonder and surrender to an hour of pure pop bliss. They are fantastic. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You know who would have a hard time playing with any of those toys? ADHD patients. People with ADHD show a beta wave deficiency. NASA psychologist Alan Pope has actually done research on video games that might treat ADHD. An ADHD kid will have an electroencephalogram (electro-IN-seff-el-o-gram) probe on their head to measure the frequency of their brain waves. The joystick that controls the game will work better if kids can produce higher frequency brain waves, ie: more beta waves. So kids can play their favorite game and learn how to pay attention at the same time. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Pretty cool!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When my electrical engineer dad was in college his senior project involved brain waves. In preparation for this blog, I asked him about it and this is what he said:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Hi Val,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Yes, my senior project at Virginia Tech, back in 1978, was to design an EEG Telemetry device. The unit I designed accepts the output from up to 20 EEG (Electroencephalography) electrodes (typically at ~10 microvolt levels, 0 - 1000 Hz). These signals were amplified by high-gain differential amplifiers, and then used to modulate 20 Intermediate Frequency subcarriers, then placed on a frequency modulated (FM) 100 MHz RF carrier, thus allowing the signal to be transmitted wirelessly on the commercial FM radio band. The purpose of this unit would be for use in emergency situations, for example head injuries, where the EMT's on-scene could attach the probes, and transmit the EEG to a doctor in the hospital, where he could begin his diagnosis before the patient is delivered to the hospital. We had plans to test the operation of this unit on a cat, but did not get that far with the testing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">My design was entirely analog, as that was the only technology readily available at that time (1978). Digital processes / electronics and wireless communication technology have come a long way since then. These days, this type of instrumentation almost always digitizes the signals fairly early in the signal chain. Then there are many more options for channelizing and transmitting the data.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">As far as what information about brain activity can actually be derived from brain waves (EEG) -- sorry to say, I am not much of an expert on that, but I'm sure there is lots of info out on the web about that.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Love,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Dad</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s probably not good to post someone’s private emails without their consent but I’m pretty sure my dad isn’t going to sue me, he sounds smart anyway. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Obviously, this thing never got built. But if it did I wonder how useful it would be. I’m not sure how much about a person’s state of being we can really interpret from the waveform of action potentials in their brain besides whether or not they are concentrating.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How freaky would it be if we could tell exactly what someone was thinking by analyzing their brain waves? Sounds like an Asimov story. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, there is clearly lots I still don’t know about the mechanisms of the brain. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The brain is intricate and invaluably crucial, definitely the most important organ. But what is it that is telling us that the brain is the most important organ? Oh yeah! The brain! Self preserving propaganda? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Read Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues for the full philosophical rant on this one.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And while you are at it, if anyone can tell me why cats seem to be the popular animal of choice for brain wave experimentation, I would be interested in knowing!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, I think that’s enough nerding out for now! See you next time. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-169922688203334842010-09-30T22:25:00.000-07:002010-09-30T22:25:46.923-07:00Europa<div class="MsoNormal">As promised in my <a href="http://valeriesnerderie.blogspot.com/2010/09/extremophiles.html">extremophiles</a> blog, here is the Europa blog you’ve been waiting anxiously for.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What is Europa?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s a moon of Jupiter!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Europa is one of the (at least) 63 natural satellites of Jupiter. Galileo spotted it through his telescope in 1609 and you can see it too if you look at Jupiter through a telescope. Here’s what you might see:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcDgT3a5lP5W8Arx5NWZ5Q-U88phyphenhyphenWdnzOF1DkawFDS9jARn6OToK1U_qvp-Q4Wpc-ddk8RcEzFrbHFmULYdBXDM5p1OK6k8r-utAyFWpKUnFm43s9dufgqYf10CSQmFgkejisV1PJrDA/s1600/galileansatellites.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcDgT3a5lP5W8Arx5NWZ5Q-U88phyphenhyphenWdnzOF1DkawFDS9jARn6OToK1U_qvp-Q4Wpc-ddk8RcEzFrbHFmULYdBXDM5p1OK6k8r-utAyFWpKUnFm43s9dufgqYf10CSQmFgkejisV1PJrDA/s320/galileansatellites.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s Jupiter and the three other Galilean satellites: Io, Ganymede, and Callisto. These are the big ones, some of them are even bigger than planets in our solar system. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Europa is about the size of our moon which makes it bigger than Pluto and about 70% of the size of Mercury. Not too big but still, it’s got lots going for it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ll tell you straight up, the reason I like Europa so much is because it’s the best candidate for life (as we know it) in the solar system. Check out the close-up:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix2rsRQcYC98fsYEWxx8OLrxuRsEq4r1KmxTcNXIhMoyLf2RtiXD9rlU6-ZCIRvIA-mMzJ7Ro0UKNltL8aA9rMQ2D2vcbXZrIOtRAGokTTl-CTCX8SWXjMs_feK47TaRZwgOGvnONqLGY/s1600/Europa2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix2rsRQcYC98fsYEWxx8OLrxuRsEq4r1KmxTcNXIhMoyLf2RtiXD9rlU6-ZCIRvIA-mMzJ7Ro0UKNltL8aA9rMQ2D2vcbXZrIOtRAGokTTl-CTCX8SWXjMs_feK47TaRZwgOGvnONqLGY/s320/Europa2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">See the cracked blue surface? That’s ice. Water ice! It’s been hypothesized that underneath the icy crust, there is a wide spread liquid ocean warmed by volcanic vents. On Earth there are entire communities of species that thrive near ocean-floor hydrothermal vents. It’s entirely possible that the same thing is going on under Europa’s ocean. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok, but why do we think there is an ocean?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First of all, there is lots of evidence that Europa is resurfacing. IE: water is seeping up through those cracks and freezing on the surface.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For instance, compare Europa to our moon: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6fSfVT78eE_ZmmCAirTlKrYKYF7stCwVP3SXyWEay1dbS4yDI9YNazFdd8pgRV_KZM3JvvjNJHsny2QLCDfkq7NBz36M7Oi53OlRydk2FB3N1UJXWf9W5kmodkgINmsU4lOPH40a56U8/s1600/moon-craters-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6fSfVT78eE_ZmmCAirTlKrYKYF7stCwVP3SXyWEay1dbS4yDI9YNazFdd8pgRV_KZM3JvvjNJHsny2QLCDfkq7NBz36M7Oi53OlRydk2FB3N1UJXWf9W5kmodkgINmsU4lOPH40a56U8/s320/moon-craters-02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">See all the holes and dents? Those are craters from meteor impacts. Europa should look like that too as it is just as likely to get hit by space stuff as the moon. Even more likely, in fact, because it’s next to Jupiter which is so massive that it sucks lots of passer-byers into it’s orbit. The fact that it doesn’t look all pock marked is evidence that the surface is relatively new. The craters have been washed away.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Want some more evidence for resurfacing? Ok, well…Europa has a much higher albedo than the other icey moons around it. That’s science talk for it’s much shinier. Ice darkens in space over time. It shouldn’t be that shiny unless the ice is new. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What other evidence is there for an ocean?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Europa has a significant magnetic field. You don’t get one of those unless you have an electrically conducting liquid on the inside. Earth’s magnetic field comes from our molten iron core. It’s possible that Europa’s magnetic field is caused by a very salty ocean, with the ions from the salts providing the conductivity. Either that or it’s got a molten core…also good for the case of an ocean warmed by under sea volcanoes. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We can get clues about Europa’s interior structure based on what kinds of chemicals are present on the surface. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How do we know what chemicals are present on the surface? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, every element has a certain “finger print”. You can tell what you are looking at based on it’s emission spectra, the light it’s giving off, basically. This has to do with the way the electrons lose energy and eject a photon on their way down to a lower energy state. I talked about this a little bit in my <a href="http://valeriesnerderie.blogspot.com/2010/09/transparent-aluminum.html">transparent aluminum</a> blog. The amount of energy that an electron loses as it falls back down to a ground state is exactly the energy of the photon it ejects. The energy of a photon is what determines its wavelength. Each element emits a combination of different wavelengths that is completely unique. This is because each element has a distinct electron configuration.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So the moral of the story is: want to know what your looking at? Look at the wavelengths it emits or absorbs. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here is the emission spectra of Neon, to give you an idea: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyamgEqU9etj1TgJozmjTbGVWoQQLGcVaK1ug4tM1mfAau1Z9QNm7zUXQE79SNnaghos6Rkr2CssONx_kxGfFfgX_QD1xEfIt__s1Ugf_pMSpuo8VaNqLMH6sstAHknPWU8cqRe-iSJ3U/s1600/neon-emission-sp.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="33" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyamgEqU9etj1TgJozmjTbGVWoQQLGcVaK1ug4tM1mfAau1Z9QNm7zUXQE79SNnaghos6Rkr2CssONx_kxGfFfgX_QD1xEfIt__s1Ugf_pMSpuo8VaNqLMH6sstAHknPWU8cqRe-iSJ3U/s320/neon-emission-sp.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This is the combination of colors (wavelengths) you are looking at when you see a Neon sign. Overall, it will look red due to the domination of red wavelengths. If you see a sign that is not red, it’s got a different inert gas in it but we still call them Neon signs for some reason. Argon and Xenon make blue, Krypton is white, Helium is purple.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, now that y’all know how it works…using spectral analysis, we’ve found carbonates and sulfates (both salts) on the surface of Europa. The saltiest areas are the also the ones that appear the freshest. I’ll spell it out for the dummies: salt water seeped out of the cracks and refroze into these fresh spots! Well, it’s possible anyway.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Hey, wait a sec…did I say carbonates? Carbon! The basic building block for life (as we know it) is present in abundance on Europa. That. Is. Rad.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So, what kind of life would we find on Europa? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, it couldn’t depend on photosynthesis because it’s way too far from the sun – plants just won’t grow there. Chemosynthesis would have to be how life gets by. This is a process of producing energy utilized by several organisms living near hydrothermal vents on the bottom of Earth’s ocean. Basically, biomass gets created from the oxidation of the chemicals spewing up from the volcanic vents. It’s a way of getting energy that has nothing to do with the sun.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Bill Nye named chemosynthesis as one of the 100 greatest scientific discoveries of all time. Probably because up until the 70s we had no idea that life could exist that didn’t depend on photosynthesis. I mean, when you think about it…EVERYTHING lives because of the sun. Meat eaters eat animals that eat plants that photosynthesize due to sunlight. All the food chains we knew about begin with photosysthesis. When scientists first discovered all the life on the bottom of the ocean that is surviving independent of the sun, it was a total shit show. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Aside from chemosynthesizing, Europan life would also have to be mobile. Since volcanic vents don’t last forever, they would need to be able to migrate from vent to vent. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We might get a clue for what kind of life could exist on Europa by studying Lake Vostok, a huge fresh water lake underneath 13,000 ft of ice in Antarctica. This lake has been completely untouched for 5 million years, so whatever life might exist down there has evolved independently of everything outside of it. But before we drill into it and check out what kinds of creatures are down there, we need to get to work on developing ultraclean technology so we don’t contaminate the unspoiled, ancient ecosystem. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Maybe once we have that ultraclean technology we can take it to Europa! Probably not anytime soon though... proposed missions to Europa have been haunted by budget cuts and pushed so far into the future that it seems unlikely that we’ll ever get there. I guess it’s way more important to spend money on war.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, if we did send a probe to Europa, here’s what some artist thought it might look like:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtyedjs26sn0ynxwB2oO6FnU3ZgQyyGKtIQUvk450oTuvz64ISM1tvbvFFIp0M91vcv_1fBwKXTNnflC6xG80XtsdtpZzMjnOogCwhzLkBtyDjqs5oL9wtfuGrLzWjVM2seUxgYBDEPE0/s1600/europa-hydrobot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtyedjs26sn0ynxwB2oO6FnU3ZgQyyGKtIQUvk450oTuvz64ISM1tvbvFFIp0M91vcv_1fBwKXTNnflC6xG80XtsdtpZzMjnOogCwhzLkBtyDjqs5oL9wtfuGrLzWjVM2seUxgYBDEPE0/s320/europa-hydrobot.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span id="goog_645720986"></span><span id="goog_645720987"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But I like to think it would look like this:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRdVa4YA274bwPDNaT4keuoNOv788BWlm2gmJVB-cT5RikYn2gg4DC6TAPDp1qr74bhyiKYaxfRjzLn1rclwxbPFNFjX7iI7SCkOvcvyS52UOxb-Vwj4RCnU7SXyC8iX3W3m_fTT4uzk/s1600/IMG_1393.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRdVa4YA274bwPDNaT4keuoNOv788BWlm2gmJVB-cT5RikYn2gg4DC6TAPDp1qr74bhyiKYaxfRjzLn1rclwxbPFNFjX7iI7SCkOvcvyS52UOxb-Vwj4RCnU7SXyC8iX3W3m_fTT4uzk/s320/IMG_1393.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I labeled things for the people who aren’t able to correctly interpret my breath-taking artistic abilities. The blue things living near the volcanic vents are the central nervous systems of a chemosynthesizing species I have conceptualized. They are basically soft brain matter protected by a shell. They communicate with the detached, moving parts of their body via brain waves. The moving parts swim around swiftly by moving their flagella and bat-like wing-fins. The central nervous systems are capable of modulating the brain waveforms to give the detached body parts any order. It’s similar to the way our brains tell our arms and legs to walk or dance or kick, except it’s a signal that is transmitted through the water rather than being directly connected to the brain by a nervous system. The part of the detached body that receives the brain wave signal is shaped like a star.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There is also a predatory species that grows downward from the bottom of the ice. These predators look like long tentacles and are able to control their interior pressure to create dramatic pressure differences between the outside and inside of their bodies. They can create near-vacuum inside of their bodies and suck in whatever unfortunate Europan creature happens to be swimming by. They digest by putting their captured prey under high pressure and squeezing out all nutrient-rich liquids. Their waste products are what the brain species mold their protective shells from (after super-heating by the volcanoes and reforming).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The brain species are a highly intelligent and sensitive life form. They are able to interpret brain waves of not only themselves but of any other species. As an artifact of what is basically telepathic communication, they are capable of deeply understanding the needs and desires of other living creatures. They have lots of valuable wisdom to share with the universe. </div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-75888836988919299292010-09-21T21:29:00.000-07:002010-09-22T00:38:03.718-07:00Extremophiles<div class="MsoNormal">Ok, today’s Nerd Out is all about extremophiles. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">These are organisms that live under what humans deem to be extreme conditions. Perhaps they live in extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme pressure, extreme acidity…or under any other circumstance that would kill an “ordinary” living creature.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You can find extremophiles living in sheets of ice, near vents at the ocean floor, inside of volcanos…perhaps on a meteorite! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ll start by talking about my favorite extremophile, Water Bears.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5afZ3hohoB7-vTYHju9YKcPeOo5hunMlJ-JX5uGvZkEpd7JQgX0J2FpdtVDvZwo3DHWTOMuoRgLPfKWOrf_-YNyk_sOyQwCjlYBvBIksd564Nj3TlpsXDaJDzfXOT0FuCoJ7L2-CqaFE/s1600/smileywaterbear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5afZ3hohoB7-vTYHju9YKcPeOo5hunMlJ-JX5uGvZkEpd7JQgX0J2FpdtVDvZwo3DHWTOMuoRgLPfKWOrf_-YNyk_sOyQwCjlYBvBIksd564Nj3TlpsXDaJDzfXOT0FuCoJ7L2-CqaFE/s320/smileywaterbear.jpg" /></a></div>Just look how cute they are! Doesn’t it kind of look like it’s smiling?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">These are microscopic organisms with a body length of 1.5 mm. That’s about the thickness of a credit card. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU5tCA2a5o6yeMX95gk7pPEY-qMMytluoulfP_hzqrsOVAFhk3nULBcTrTvm9tz354yxP2wxZER0jJKdqLJD3rjYUzCBhCiifwpw_XKprT4hFGybYnuV30tRf9dJsxfyDWSa8jDib0QUM/s1600/lookslikeabear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU5tCA2a5o6yeMX95gk7pPEY-qMMytluoulfP_hzqrsOVAFhk3nULBcTrTvm9tz354yxP2wxZER0jJKdqLJD3rjYUzCBhCiifwpw_XKprT4hFGybYnuV30tRf9dJsxfyDWSa8jDib0QUM/s320/lookslikeabear.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">They are called Water Bears because they live in water and they look like bears, duh. They also walk like bears. You know how bears kind of trudge along putting all their feet on the right side forward and then all their feet on the left side forward? That’s what these cuties do. In fact, their scientific name is Tardigrada, which literally means slow walker. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Also, they have claws! Look:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0N1vQS-F6Da4WhdYzxJpSQZkfN9uEPNs-XDkLZADg9XZwF6I2fsp4o2IvzUWo9PWYe-jDMq4hcdPI4Odiq78XLR0SQqZ3H9Y5k1GA3J8ouQdLHAoGoL_ntWQBPp5ac3p3HOiwE3fd2ts/s1600/claws!.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0N1vQS-F6Da4WhdYzxJpSQZkfN9uEPNs-XDkLZADg9XZwF6I2fsp4o2IvzUWo9PWYe-jDMq4hcdPI4Odiq78XLR0SQqZ3H9Y5k1GA3J8ouQdLHAoGoL_ntWQBPp5ac3p3HOiwE3fd2ts/s320/claws!.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They can move their claws swiftly the same way a cat does. Maybe they need to defend themselves from tiny microscopic bear hunters?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Water Bears (or tardigrades) are found all over the earth, and the reason is because they can survive pretty much everywhere. They are what’s called a polyextremophile which means they can survive in lots of different kinds of extreme circumstances. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">FOR EXAMPLE, they can survive at a temperature of 35 Kelvin. Just to give you some perspective, at 35 K…oxygen is a solid. Oxygen ice. THAT’S COLD. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They can also survive temperatures up to 424 K, or 303 degrees Fahrenheit. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So there’s two extreme conditions under which Tardigrades are able to live. Survival in the hot temperature makes them hyperthermophiles and survival in the cold temperature makes them psychrophiles. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you are biology-savvy you are probably thinking, “Wait…all living organisms need liquid water. How do Water Bears keep water from freezing or boiling in their cells?”. Many psychrophiles and hyperthermophiles dissolve certain proteins in their bodies to lower the freezing point and raise the boiling point of water. Also, under extreme pressures (like at the bottom of the ocean) the boiling point of water is raised. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Y’all are probably aware of how pressure changes boiling and freezing points…it’s the reason why you can boil water without getting it very hot when you are camping high in the mountains where the air pressure is lower. I’m not sure that this is what keeps water from freezing or boiling the Water Bears’ cells…but it might be! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I do know this: Water Bears are capable of cryptobiosis. I think this is the same thing as being cryogenically frozen. I’m thinking of Austin Powers. It’s basically this form of preservation where all metabolic processes stop and you are in suspended animation. Water Bears will go into cryptobiosis after being dehydrated and can come back to life 10 years later. Possibly longer! I don’t know if anyone’s ever tried for longer. Shit, I should find some of these guys, dry em out and check on them again when I’m old. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ok, so we talked about how they can stand high/low temperatures and dehydration…let’s talk about how they can live in extreme pressures.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Water Bears can survive vacuum. That means no air. Zero pressure. IE: what it’s like in outer space. If humans were to be in the vacuum of space, our blood would boil (cause remember, stuff boils quicker at lower pressures). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Wired Science listed Tardigrades (Water Bears) as #10 on their list of weirdest things launched into space in 2008. They withstood vacuum AND intense solar radiation then came back to earth in perfect health and were able to produce viable offspring. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They can also survive outstandingly high pressures. They have been shown to survive in a cryptobiotic state at a pressure of 6,000 atmospheres. To give you a frame of reference, that pressure would definitely crush a submarine. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">TARDIGRADES! YOU ARE SO FREAKING COOL!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I like to imagine that tardigrades came to earth from a meteor impact. I mean, they could survive all the things they would need to in order to stay alive on a meteor. Are they aliens? Maybe these kinds of extremophiles were the seed to all life on earth and we’ve just evolved to be less and less extreme because we don’t need to survive in all those crazy circumstances. Who knows? Not me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What other kinds of extremophiles are there?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s talk about acidophiles. There are some organisms that prefer to hang out in pools of sulfuric acid. Yeah, sulfuric acid…you know, the stuff that will melt your face? It’s what happened to Two-Face. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Chemists use sulfuric acid as a drying agent because it removes water. In fact, when sulfuric acid reacts with water it releases lots of energy in the form of heat. This is why people get acid burns.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So why aren’t acidophiles getting burned? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They survive by constantly removing hydrogen ions from their bodies at a very high rate. I think that the reason this helps them is because the hydration of sulfuric acid is thermodynamically favorable. That means the sulfuric acid really wants to pick up the hydrogens that H<sub>2</sub>O has to offer. Maybe the acidophiles eject lots of hydrogen ions as a sort of distracter for the sulfuric acid. Like, “hey don’t take my water…eat this instead!”. I’m not sure, I’m not going to pretend that I know enough chemistry to explain this fully but that seems right to me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My favorite acidophile is ferroplasma acidarmanus. It’s a microbe that lives in acid and eats iron. Bad. Ass. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They were discovered by a scientist named Katrina Edwards in the 90s when people were trying to figure out why iron mines were so damaging to the environment. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s the story: sulfide is found naturally in metallic ores. Around iron mines the conversion of sulfide to sulfuric acid is greatly accelerated and no one knew why. This is a problem because it’s not very nice for the environment to have lots of acid run-off from mines. In fact, it has cost mining companies billions of dollars in environmental damage.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So, what’s going on?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As I said earlier, these critters eat iron so they will surely be found in abundance around mines where lots of iron is exposed. Turns out, they are the ones responsible for transforming the sulfide (which is just a negatively charged sulfur ion) into sulfuric acid. Probably by ejecting all those hydrogen ions. I’ll bet the sulfide picks up 2 of those hydrogens that it’s spitting out and gets four oxygens from the air to make H<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4. </sub></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
So this is a microbe that hates the environment. And eats metal. And lives in acid. It's like a bad guy from Captain Planet.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ferroplasma acidarmanus forms a green slime. Check it:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZQetfFpxkh-SEsgAubDFpsPY3EeSR59qZmLrE_-oYnhQzs82tbG6u-TgkMV2jAH5b1qU0P7X-MMUFScZNiX9c7lt58_L_77kyP20FwxF-nHyVJzg-igFmRKjZbmD7VmvvfN1j8CFNys/s1600/ferac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZQetfFpxkh-SEsgAubDFpsPY3EeSR59qZmLrE_-oYnhQzs82tbG6u-TgkMV2jAH5b1qU0P7X-MMUFScZNiX9c7lt58_L_77kyP20FwxF-nHyVJzg-igFmRKjZbmD7VmvvfN1j8CFNys/s320/ferac.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The thing that is remarkable about this microbe is that it seems rather fragile. By that I mean, it doesn’t have a cell wall to protect it from the damaging effects of acid. It thrives in acid, it even makes more acid for itself to hang out in, but in all other repsects it's a rather delicate microbe. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You know where Ferroplasma Acidarmanus would love to live? Jupiter’s moon Europa where there is lots of sulfuric acid frozen on the surface. I’m sure I will nerd out on Europa soon. It’s one of my favorite things to learn about.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Or what about Venus where it rains sulfuric acid? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5E_MUAAyc">Check it!</a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, perhaps you are seeing a pattern? Extremophiles could be the most likely organisms to exist on other planets. I mean, if they can thrive in these kinds of hostile and “unearthly” habitats, why couldn’t they exist in more volatile places in the solar system? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Tardigrades could certainly live on Mars, at least for a little while. Maybe they already do…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are lots more extremophiles I could talk about! I didn't even delve into all the ones that live around thermal vents on the ocean floor. Maybe next time! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-68742266280897125842010-09-19T22:36:00.000-07:002010-09-21T21:55:11.499-07:00Transparent Aluminum<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Remember in Star Trek IV when Scotty gives that dude the recipe for transparent aluminum? Well, I just found out that clear aluminum exists. Life modeling art, perhaps? I wonder sometimes… <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I think that Star Trek and other sci fi classics have been giving nerds with know-how ideas for new technology for years. The flip phone for example...tell me that wasn't inspired by Kirk's communicator. Sliding doors, like the kind they have in the grocery store: Star Trek all the way. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, clear aluminum! How cool. Imagine what a strong window you can make, with really thin panes! Or if you could see your canned food from the outside, what would that be like? No more shaking it and making a guess when the label has been peeled off. Clear aluminum would certainly make dumpster diving easier. And clear aluminum foil?? HOW COOL. Just sayin. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So now I'm about to nerd out on transparent aluminum. I have to start with why things are transparent in the first place. </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Ok, let's start with glass. Why is glass see through? It's no news that glass is made from sand, which is a silicate. They melt it down and the individual molecules start moving in random directions because that's what happens when you heat stuff. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The special thing about most solids is that they have a crystalline structure, meaning all the constituents, be they atoms or molecules, form a 3D repeating pattern. Think about a cube that you made out of sticks and balls of clay or something. The balls of clay are the corners. You can poke more sticks into the clay and keep this pattern going. Picture it: every ball of clay has six sticks coming out of it, two going to the balls of clay on top and bottom of it, two going to either side of it, and two going to the balls of clay in front and behind it. It’s like a bunch of cubes stacked on each other. There's a good model for the crystal structure of certain solids. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The crystal doesn't have to look like a bunch of cubes, but it can. The kind of pattern a crystal makes depends on the solid you are talking about. Copper, for example has a face centered cubic structure, which means all the copper atoms hang out with each other in a pattern that looks like a die where all the sides are fives. Diamonds make tetrahedrons!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Quick aside: Don’t get confused when I say crystals. I’m not talking about the sparkly things you hang on your rear view mirror. I’m talking about the repeating pattern that the atoms that in a solid make. Yes, some crystal structures can have a resulting macroscopic solid the looks crystalline. For example, jewels and gem stones with repeating patterns of sharp edges, facets, and glittering faces. Most crystalline solids, however, form a jumbled array of microcrystals called grains. The microcrystals are so tiny that the crystalline nature of the solid is not visible to the human eye, but it’s very apparent as a dominant feature of the solid's structure when magnified some 2500 times.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, glass is what’s called an amorphous solid. This means that it doesn’t have a crystalline structure. It’s a little more like a liquid because after the sand gets melted down and the molecules start moving around chaotically, glass makers then cool the molten glass rapidly before the molecules have time to organize themselves into a crystal pattern. The particles freeze in a random pattern. The way that the molecules bond with each other is all disorganized and crazy; it's no longer a stack of microscopic cubes.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Basically, as long as something is heated up really hot and then cooled rapidly before the molecules have time to arrange themselves in a crystal pattern, it’s an amorphous solid. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Other amorphous solids include wax, rubber, certain kinds of clear candy, and plastics. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">OK, So what makes it see-through? This is actually a two parter. Part one: Now that the crystals aren't neatly stacked, there are gaps and holes. It’s the difference between stacking your legos neatly in the box and just throwing them all in there. One of those ways is going to take up more room because there are spaces in between the blocks. Light can get through these gaps. That is, of course, if the light is of the right wavelength to fit through the hole. In the case of glass, visible light has a wavelength that seems to be comparable to many of the holes. That’s partially why the visible light can get through, or be transmitted. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">One way of filtering certain types of light is by slowing down the cooling rate and allowing the glass to form crystal patterns. This can block out Ultra Violet light, for example. People that make sun glasses have this down. I’m pretty sure this is not why transparent aluminum is see-through, though. At least it's not the only reason. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So of course, there is more to being transparent than being an amorphous solid. Diamonds, for example, are transparent but they quite famously form crystal structures. One might argue that they are the ultimate crystal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The transparent properties of a material are all about the band gap. This is where shit gets crazy...</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">We all learned about electrons living in their own shells, or orbitals, around the nucleus of an atom in high school, right? The distance an electron is away from the center of an atom (this is called it’s orbital radii) is determined by it’s energy. These orbitals are quantized energy states.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">What does that mean?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The popular analogy here is to think of it like stair steps but I’m gonna make up my own. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">We are used to this continuous way of life where I can stand on this side of the room, or that side of the room, or anywhere in between this side and that side of the room. But that doesn’t work in an electron's world. They follow different rules than us. You can either be on this side of the room or that side and there is NO in between. So an electron’s energy is quantized, it comes in packets where you get it all at once or it gets taken away all at once.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This is exactly what is happening when electrons hop up to higher or lower energy states. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">How? </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">With photons! Photons are the particle that is associated with light. They are massless bundles of pure energy. If an electron absorbs a photon it gets all of it’s energy and if it ejects a photon it loses energy equal to the energy of the ejected photon. This will put it in a different orbital.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The energy of a photon depends on the wavelength of the light that it comes from. The bigger the wavelength, the smaller the energy.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway…back to the band gap. Basically, it’s a difference between the energy levels of two groups of electrons. The two groups are called the conduction band and the valence band. A solid is a good conductor (meaning electrons have an easy time moving inside of it) IF AND ONLY IF the band gap is small. The valence electrons have every opportunity to hop up to a higher energy level…the next one up is so close, after all. That means the electrons are very likely to absorb an incoming photon and hop up into the conduction band. Once an electron is in the conduction band it’s free to cruise around and make TVs work and stuff. Current is the working name for electrons moving over the face of a solid, btw.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">SO, the band gap is pretty small in things that are good conductors. Metals tend to be good conductors. Hm, metals also happen to be the opposite of transparent. They are reflective. Shiny. Including aluminum, it’s a great conductor with a very small band gap.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">WHY SHINY: As I mentioned, all the photons that hit the metal get absorbed by the electrons because they have a really easy time jumping over the small band gap into the next energy level. Since light is an electromagnetic wave, the electric field of the light induces a current in the metal which ejects the incoming photons back out immediately and the surface appears reflective if the metal is smooth. If it’s not smooth the metal will have a dark appearance because all the incoming photons are getting absorbed instead of reflected or transmitted. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">How cool is that? I love thinking about how the appearance of everything we can see is just the result of photons interacting with electrons and crystal structures of solids. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Ok, so that’s why things are shiny but why are they transparent?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">If the band gap is large (as it is in insulators, the opposite of conductors) the electrons can’t absorb any photons because they don’t have the option of jumping to a higher energy state. That means the photons go right through the crystal structure of the solid with out being absorbed by electrons along the way. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The size of the band gap determines what kind of light will be transmitted and what will be reflected; Because remember, the band gap is an energy difference...energy of light is determined by it's wavelength...wavelength determines the type of light we are talking about. What kind of light will this object transmit and what will it reflect? Red? Blue? Infrared? X-rays? Depends on your band gap! </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Maybe this is a stretch, but it just occurred to me: the atmosphere is made of stuff that is transparent to visible light but opaque to infrared light. That's the whole reason the green house effect exists. So, the molecules in the atmosphere must have a band gap with a smaller energy than visible light but the same size as infrared light. Or maybe you can't think of it like that because the atmosphere is a gas and not a solid. Who knows? Not me! </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">That was a lot of stuff. Good review session for me, for reals. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Ok, so how did they make aluminum, which should be shiny, as it is a metal and good conductor, the opposite of shiny? Also, does that mean that it no longer has conductive properties? This is what I needed to find out. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So, according to phys.org they used an extremely high powered and teeny tiny focused x-ray laser. (aside: you know laser is an acronym, right? Love it.) When I say teeny tiny I mean a twentieth of the diameter of a human hair. They managed to use this laser to kick out a core electron. That means, they removed an electron that is not a valence electron. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So, it was somewhere deep inside the electron cloud and not an electron that usually gets messed with in regular chemical reactions. They were able to do this without disturbing the crystal structure of the aluminum.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">How did that make it see-through? I can only assume that by removing a core electron the rest of the electrons switched around and ended up in an arrangement that gave it a much bigger band gap. Not sure. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I seem to have reached an impasse so I emailed my physics prof. Maybe she can explain it to me!</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">That's enough nerding out for now. See you next time!</span></span></span></div></span></span>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3107275021785974086.post-49039657903546299262010-09-18T21:35:00.000-07:002010-09-18T21:54:05.738-07:00My intentions...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">So now I'm a blogger! </span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">Here's Why:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">I really love research projects. They are my favorite. I love learning about certain things or NERDING OUT, so to speak, so I thought I would create a space for myself to do that and share my brand new knowledge with a greater community. Maybe people will even read this and tell me all kinds of cool stuff I don't know about yet! </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">Here we go!</span></span></div><div><br />
</div>Nerd Out!http://www.blogger.com/profile/10689934547748442467noreply@blogger.com0