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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Do African-Americans differ from black Africans?

« on: 27/07/2011 00:56:24 »

A science story I heard recently described a genetic "redistribution" map made of African-Americans (a term I happen to HATE especially when it's applied to people who are not American, like Naomi Campbell or Noel Clarke) that mapped out how genetic changes are made during sexual reproduction. The story mentioned that there were differences in this map from a map made of Europeans.

Considering that almost all African-Americans have quite a lot of European ancestry it got me to wondering what differences there are between African-Americans (and Europeans of largely African ancestry) and black Africans.

The blackest person I ever knew was the mother of some childhood friends who had grown up in Uganda. Her husband was American (and white) but she was as black as coal, and quite beautiful (her daughters were jaw droppers and about the color of coffee with 2 creams). It was odd for me as a kid. She didn't speak like a normal black person, rather she spoke with a very proper English accent.

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Physiology & Medicine / Can a person contract cancer by eating it?

« on: 30/05/2011 06:08:44 »

I'm not talking about deliberately eating a cancer tumor, but if a person eats meat that happens to contain a carcinoma can that cancer be transferred to the person?

I know that sometimes a tumor can shed cells that can spread the cancer to other parts of the body, but can this happen from an animal to a person (I'm assuming that the person is not a cannibal) from say a cow or pig, or even a bird?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What is spinning in a spinning black hole?

« on: 30/05/2011 05:39:35 »

Very often on NS they've talked about spinning black holes. A black hole is not an object in the way a planet or star is, rather it's a region of space so highly curved that it is curved back on itself, so what, exactly, is spinning?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How heavy was the Heavy bombardment era?

« on: 20/04/2011 00:30:39 »

the late heavy bombardment era is referred to as the last growth spurt of the Earth, when asteroids rained down on Earth fairly often. TV shows typically depict this time as objects striking every few seconds, but this is surly an exaggeration, much like 18th and 19th Century paintings of battles showing quite a lot happening all at once.

If I were to visit Earth during this time how often could I expect to see an impact, every fey days, years or would it be more like every few thousand years or millions of years?

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Radio Show & Podcast Feedback / Water baloons and fire?

« on: 13/04/2011 09:09:16 »

Loved the kitchen science this week! The question was asked "Can this be done with other things?" Well as a welder I can tell you it's done all the time.

There is a welding job that might seem completely crazy to anyone not familiar with how this works. Oil refineries have a lot of pipes that transport highly flammable things under very high pressers. These pipes tend to wear from the inside out so you could have a pipe that looks fine but has become extremely thin. It can be very very expensive to take the pipe out of service to replace it so a temporary fix has been developed. You take a section of pipe that has an inside diameter equal to the outside diameter of the pipe to be treated. You cut the pipe in half then place the two halves over the old pipe and weld it up. But here's the thing. This treatment must be welded "to code" (very important rules that say how the pipe must be welded and inspected to insure it doesn't fail) as if it were a new pipe. The seam of the new pipe (the two halves) must be welded to the old pipe, which may already be very thin.

If the product in the pipe is stationary this would be a problem. As you heat the metal it gets weaker (like in the Twin Towers) which would cause a failure (almost always fatal to the welder, and IF survived he or she will wish they hadn't). But if the product is flowing then that product will carry away excess heat so the pipe will not fail.

I have won camping bets by saying I could boil water in a paper cup in the camp fire. You take a paper cup and carefully place it DIRECTLY into the flames. The paper in the cup will burn to the water level, then the cup will very slowly burn down as the water boils away. This will NOT work with a polystyrene cup as the polystyrene insulates very well. Also once the water is boiling do not attempt to remove the cup. It will be filled to the very top with boiling water. If your fire burns long enough the water will boil away and burn the cup. If you extinguish the fire before the water is gone just knock the cup over.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How do they measure very low levels of things?

« on: 13/04/2011 08:52:05 »

A few weeks ago the TV news reported that Radiation from Japan had been detected here in Portland, Oregon. Large grains of salt being considered, they showed a graphic which showed the levels detected compared to levels of concern. I don't remember the units used but the level of concern was 25 and the level detected was .0000008 which is very far below even the natural background.

My question here is how do you measure something that is so far below the background. I haven't done the math but it's got to about like trying to hear a whisper (30 dB) next to an F-16 in full afterburner (well over 160-180 dB loud enough to cause instant hearing loss anyway).

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Marine Science / Can antibiotics affect sharks?

« on: 05/04/2011 08:43:49 »

I just started listening to Naked Oceans and in the very first podcast I found a story that bothers me quite a lot.

The story involved microbes discovered in sharks that are very resistant to antibiotics. The assumption was that this is a result of the human use of antibiotics, but I find it very hard to imagine how sharks from all over the planet could be coming into contact with human made antibiotics in concentrations high enough to effect their internal microbes. Isn't it much more likely (and interesting if) this is natural? Perhaps something in the shark's immune system is responsible. After all look what sharks do for a living. They attack and eat other fish or animals who usually have no wish to be eaten. They fight back and chances are they do some damage to the shark.

Not once was the possibility of a natural antibiotic property of these fascinating fish mentioned (I happen to love sharks). To be honest I'm getting a little sick of the homo-centric attitude of many of the sciences programs available. They'd have you believe that every single problem on Earth is caused by humans. It's not science, it's anti-science. It's a return to pre-Copernican thinking.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / What species of caterpillar?

« on: 30/03/2011 01:23:27 »

Can anyone please tell me what species of caterpillar this is? It's sky blue with black and white chevrons. It's large about as long as my finger. My friend thinks it's a Goliath caterpillar but I'm not sure. The picture of the Goliath was green, where this guy is blue. Please don't guess.

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New Theories / Does the future already exist?

« on: 17/03/2011 11:02:19 »

The book I'm reading right now has made the claim that the future already exists. The idea is that all of space-time (past, present and future) exists as a lump. The example given was a loaf of bread. Each location and each event are points within the loaf of bread. The events that happen at the same time according to two different observers depends on how they are moving relative to one another. This was given as an explanation of Relativity. So if one observer is moving near the speed of light he or she will say that two events happened quite a long time apart when two stationary observers will say they happened at the same time. This would mean that someone is seeing what another would call the future.

This bothered me because it seemed to suggest that the future is already set in stone precluding free will. The future is just as unchangeable as the past. No matter how hard I try I'll never prevent the launch of Challenger on 28 January 1986.

There is another theory I've never been comfortable with that my idea settles. The theory states that anytime something happens that has a chance of turning out in more than one way a new universe is created where all of the possibilities happen. I've never liked the idea of new universes popping into being every time someone decided between wearing the blue or the green shirt today.

But what if space-time was like a maze. One which you can not see what's ahead and you can only go one way. Reaching a dead end in the maze means your own end. When you decide to turn left or right in a maze you are not creating more maze, it's already there but you will never see that part of the maze you didn't take.

So in November 2012 I'll be faced with an intersection of maze where I can vote for Obama or whoever the Republican is. Down one corridor is a reality where Obama wins a second term and the other where the Republican wins. Both corridors exist but we'll only see the results of one.

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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Why aren't tsunamis even?

« on: 12/03/2011 01:32:41 »

While watching coverage of the tsunami that hit the Oregon coast this morning they showed a graphic the showed the (I assume) predicted energy of the tsunami over the entire Pacific. The graph showed the greatest energy at and around Japan, of course, but there were fingers of grater energy extending across the ocean. I know the topography of the seabed has something to do with this, along with the shape of the coast, I'm wondering why this pattern happens, almost like rivers. Do the ocean currents have anything to do with it?

In a related subject, watching the coverage on TV I saw several people walking around the beach. Fortunately the tsunami was small here. There was a death in Crescent City, which is in Northern California, but until the wave arrives we don't really know how big it will be. Even a 2 or 3 foot tsunami is big enough to knock you down and drag you out to sea. Despite this, people were still out there. Why are some people so STUPID!!?

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General Science / Didn't it all come from space?

« on: 10/03/2011 06:23:49 »

In this week's NS they had a news item stating findings that show evidence that the building blocks of life came from space. Considering what we know of planet formation, didn't every single atom on the Earth come from space?

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / What sort of meat is it?

« on: 01/03/2011 04:58:05 »

There is a lot of talk here in the States about a lawsuit claiming that a fast food chain isn't really serving beef. It seems to me that it should be fairly strait forward, just run a DNA test to see if it's really cow meat. Or will any DNA be destroyed by the cooking. Could a sample of the meat be tested before cooking? I know there are ways to test cooked meat. Many years ago a cannibal was caught. He had cooked meat in his freezer and the courts were not only able to prove it was human, but also WHO it had been.

Personally I think it's some kind of hydro-carbon...maybe even plastic.

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General Science / Is a book who's pages are in order at a low entropy?

« on: 26/02/2011 00:05:31 »

Entropy is the number of ways you can arrange the parts in a system. The book I'm reading (Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. He stated that the book War and Peace with the pages in the correct order is in a state of low entropy while if the pages are scrambled it's high entropy. I think this is wrong because no mater what order you randomly place the pages in the chances of THAT order are the same whether it's 1, 2, 3, 4... or 3, 1, 4, 2... or whatever.

We're biased when it comes to letters or numbers because they have a "correct" and "incorrect" order. But both letters and numbers are really just arbitrary. To a person unfamiliar with Latin letters or Arabic numbers the way they are arranged can be completely arbitrary.

I'd argue that a book with say 900 pages has the same entropy no matter what way the pages are arranged as long as they are stacked neatly like you find in most books (I really hate the "rough cut" style of pages in some book) but I could be wrong. Brian Greene has a PhD and I'm just a dumb welder...

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General Science / Should policy makers be required to take science classes?

« on: 25/02/2011 22:38:42 »

I was just listening to a Science podcast and the person being interviewed wanted to encourage people who are trained in science to run for Congressional office. This seems a bit unrealistic to me. People who want to study science in school typically want to work in some kind of scientific field, not run for office, so any scientist who gets elected will be one or two at most in his or her house (whether Senate, Congress, Commons or Lords).

 Perhaps a better idea would be to require anyone interested in running for public office (in which they will be responsible for shaping their national or state policy) to take (and pass) a college level introductory science class. The class should teach critical thinking, basic scientific principles, and perhaps a bit of history.

 And perhaps teach them to better grasp really big numbers, like 14 trillion. (it takes more than 400 thousands years for 14 trillion seconds to elapse)

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Radio Show & Podcast Feedback / "Blue" eyes are uncolored?

« on: 18/02/2011 15:16:59 »

I dated an albino woman a few years ago. She had white skin and hair (including her pubic hair) and deep blue (rather than pink) eyes. Albinos can have blue eyes as blue is the non-pigmented color of some eyes. And no she did not use contacts.

Even Africans can have blue eyes but it's very rare. Also Asians can have blue eyes.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How does time dilation work?

« on: 15/02/2011 23:15:31 »

My friend and I decide to test relativity with fast movement. We decided to use a space ship (well not really) that can go from 0 to .90 C in 1 tenth of a second (Ferrari called looking at using this for their cars). She set off at exactly 2two o'clock and would call out the time every hour. At three o'clock she'll be .9 light hours away so when should get her three o'clock report? At 3:56, or will it be much later?

I realized I made a mistake. I meant that I'd hear my friend reporting "3:00" .9 hours late (as she'd be .9 light hours away) or four minutes to 4:00.

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Physiology & Medicine / How are very short half-life medical radio isotopes produced and stored?

« on: 13/02/2011 09:08:02 »

I was just hearing about a problem they are having with medical radio isotopes. The problem isn't related to my question but they were talking with a scientist or doctor who wrote the paper. He stated that one of the most useful isotopes used in medicine is Technetium-99 (I think). He stated that it has a half-life of just 6 hours. This means that the stuff would need to be produced at the hospital just before it was needed. Storing something with a half-life that short even over night would seem impractical. Every 6th hour half the stuff would be gone! Am I missing something about how half-life works in radioactive stuff.

Here's what I think I know. You have one kilo of some radioactive something. In one "half-life" half of the radioactive atoms would have gone through decay to become something else (Uranium into lead say)...

With a 6 hour half life (something I'd like if the doctor wants to put it inside me) how could it possible be stored without it all decaying onto something else?

I said "Technetium-99 (I think)" because I might have looked up the wrong stuff. What the scientist was talking about is used in 60% of medical scans and has a half-life of 6 hours and produces gama-rays. According to Wikipedia Technetium-99 has a half life of 211000 years and produces beta-rays but NOT Gama-rays. If I'm wrong here please correct me. I hope I've given enough info about what I'm talking about so someone can identify it if I'm wrong.

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General Science / Over how many generations can DNA prove a relation?

« on: 11/02/2011 03:31:55 »

According to the genealogy done by my father I'm a decedent of Charlemagne. Consider that it's been more than 1100 years between Charlemagne's death and my birth (about 58 generations) could DNA prove that I am in fact Charlemagne's grandson?

The claim that I'm Charlemagne's decedent is based on legal records. Of the 50 some women who stand between my Grandmother and Charlemagne what are the chances that one or more of them were less than honest about who the father of their child was?

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Radio Show & Podcast Feedback / Missed something important

« on: 09/02/2011 04:50:32 »

In the QOTW about e-cards vs real cards, they missed part of the proses. The energy in making the card was considered but it assumed the paper was already prepossessed. You need to consider the energy required to cut down the tree, prepare the tree for transport (cutting it up) transport the tree to the paper mill and then turn the tree into paper.

Also the scientist stated that some energy would be recovered by recycling. Sorry to say that's wrong. While recycling the card to make more paper will require less energy than making virgin paper it will still COST energy, so no recovery.

The amount of energy used to send a snail-mail letter compared to an e-mail is HUGE when you consider the entire line from a tree in the woods to your mailbox. Not only that but how do you need to consider the carbon the tree would have absorbed had it not been cut down.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How can I know a particle's velocity without knowing it's position?

« on: 24/01/2011 10:44:54 »

According to Quantum Physics I can't know a particle's position AND it's velocity at the same time. The more accurately I measure one the less accurately I'll know the other.

However velocity is a function of distance over time. If I want to know how fast something is moving I measure it's position once, then later I measure it's position again then divide the difference by the amount of time elapsed between measurements and I get it's speed. So if I can't know WHERE a particle is without destroying the data of it's speed how can I measure it's speed at all?