Science: El Niño

The El Niño weather disturbance happens about 30 times per century, taking place in the South Pacific. They affect weather around the globe. But to understand El Niño we must first know the normal weather patterns in the South Pacific.

• Normally, a low pressure system in the southwest Pacific draws air from a high pressure system the southeast Pacific creating southeast trade winds. These pressure systems are caused by warm air rising the west, moving east and descending over South America. The low pressure systems near Australia and Oceania create rainy conditions.

• The trade winds create the South Equatorial Current, which move warm surface water westward where it pools near Australia and Oceania.

• As the surface water is blown away from from South America cold nutrient rich water rises from the deep to take its place. This nutrient rich water supports a food chain and a local fishing economy.

But, during an El Niño year, for reasons still unknown, the cycle slows or even reverses. (See diagram above.)

El Niño causes floods, droughts and storms around the world.

Note: El Niño is a complex but interesting subject, I do recommend doing more research.

Sources:
Book: Ocean by The American Museum of Natural History.
Book: Oceans: A Visual Guide by Stephen Hutchinson and Lawrence E. Hawkins

Diagram: Mark Dowe's Journal

Science - Lava Flows

When magma from inside the Earth is expelled from volcanoes it's a liquid, so it flows quite a distance before it cools and hardens. There are three basic types of lava.

Pahoehoe lava (above) is hotter and more fluid than the other types of lava, Aʻā and Pillow Lava. Pahoehoe lava is is typically 1100 to 1200 °C. Pahoehoe lava flows are shinny and wrinkled.

Aʻā lava (below) is liquid lava surround by a layer of hard rock chunks called clinker. Aʻā lava is cooler at 1000 to 1100 °C, and moves slower than pahoehoe lava.


The lava flows shown are in Hawaii; The volcanoes in Hawaii are called shield volcanoes because the swirling lava resemble ancient battle shields.

Pillow lava is lava that emerges underwater or under glaciers. It is named after its pillow or bubble like form. Since water covers the majority of Earth's surface and most volcanoes are situated near or under bodies of water, pillow lava is very common.

Sources: National Geographic
Wikipedia

Science - Picture Blog; Desert Rose

A Desert Rose is a colloquial name given to a rosette rock formation made from minerals gypsum or barite. The rosette crystal habit tends to occur when the crystals form in arid sandy conditions, such as the evaporation of a shallow salt basin. Gypsum roses usually have better defined, sharper edges than barite roses.

Sources: Wikipedia

Science: Blue ice

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Blue ice covering Lake Fryxell, Antarctica.

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Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of a glacier that winds its way toward a body of water (river, lake, ocean, etc.). During its travels, air bubbles that are trapped in the ice are squeezed out, and the size of the ice crystals increases, making it clear.

Sources: Wikipedia

Science: Bell Rocket Belt.

In the early 1960s, Bell Aerosystems built a rocket pack which it called the "Bell Rocket Belt" or "man-rocket" for the US Army, using hydrogen peroxide as fuel. This concept was revived in the 1990s and today these packs can provide powerful, manageable thrust. This rocket belt's propulsion works with superheated water vapor.

The rocket could carry a man over 9-meter-high obstacles and reached a speed of 11 to 16 km/h. However, its flying time was limited to 20 seconds. A later advancement during the years 1995-2000 could not improve the flying time to any more than 30 seconds.

The pack's pilot wears shielding overalls made of thermal resistant material, since the exhaust jet and the engine's pipes are very hot. The crash helmet (which has inside it the signal buzzer) is put on. The rocket thrust-chamber's supersonic exhaust jet makes a deafeningly loud sound (by force to 130 decibels), more like a shrill screech than the roar of an aeroplane's jet engine.

As a rule, the jet exhaust is transparent and not visible in air. But in cold weather the water vapor, which is a large part of the steam-gas mixture, condenses soon after it leaves the nozzle, and then a cloud of water fog enwraps the pilot (for this reason, the very first tethered flights of the Bell Rocket Belt were carried out in a hangar).

Sources: Wikipedia

Science - Picture Blog; Cove

A cove is a circular or oval coastal inlet with a narrow entrance. Colloquially, the term can be used to describe a sheltered bay. Coves are the results of waves attacking the weakness of rocks, infiltrating them to result in inlets. These further erode to form a circular bay with a narrow entrance called a cove.

Science: How a Toilet works.

• Pushing on the handle pulls the chain, which releases the flush valve.
• About 2 gallons (7.6 L) of water rush from the tank into the bowl in about three seconds. The flush valve then reseats.
• This rush of water activates the siphon in the bowl. The siphon sucks everything in the bowl down the drain.
• Meanwhile, when the level of the water in the tank falls, so does the float. The falling float turns on the refill valve.
• Water flowing through the refill valve refills the tank as well as the bowl. As the tank refills, the float rises, and when it reaches a certain level the refill valve shuts off.
• Should something go wrong and cause the refill valve to keep running, the overflow tube prevents a flood.

Hear Is a simple animation that sums it up well.

Sources: How Stuff Works
Image: Wikipedia

Science: Oort cloud

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3d diagram

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The Oort cloud is a spherical cloud of comets which may lie nearly a light-year, from the Sun. This places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. Objects in the Oort cloud are largely composed of ices, such as water, ammonia, and methane.

The outer Oort cloud is only loosely bound to the Solar System, and thus is easily affected by the gravitational pull both of passing stars and of the Milky Way galaxy itself. These forces occasionally dislodge comets from their orbits within the cloud and send them towards the inner Solar System. No confirmed direct observations of the Oort cloud have been made, but it is believed to be the source of some comets.

Sources: Wikipedia

Science: Five Lake types

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Lac Pavin in France is a meromictic crater lake.

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1. Meromictic lake

A meromictic lake has layers of water that do not intermix. In normal lakes wind will make turbulence on the waters surface and cause the water near the surface and the water near the bottom to mix it may happen multiple times per year. But, wind is only effective at times of the year when the lake's deep waters are not much colder than its surface waters.

In meromictic lakes, the layers of the lake water remain unmixed for years, decades, or centuries. Among the consequences of this stable layering (or stratification) of lake waters is that the deeper layer (the "monimolimnion") receives little oxygen from the atmosphere. The layers of sediment at the bottom of a meromictic lake remain relatively undisturbed because there is very little physical mixing and few living organisms to stir them up, and very little oxygen or chemical decomposition. For this reason corings of the sediment at the bottom of meromictic lakes are important research tools in tracing climate history at the lake.

Sources: Wkipedia

How to protect yourself from the swine flu...or any flu

Fact 1.

The 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to as the Spanish flu) was caused by an unusually virulent and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1.

Fact 2.

The 2009 Swine Flu is also caused by the dangerous H1N1 virus...

Fact 3.

Most of its victims in both flu outbreaks were healthy young adults (ages 20-40), in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or otherwise weakened patients.

Why does the virus affect the young and healthy? Among the conclusions of this research is that the virus kills via a cytokine storm (overreaction of the body's immune system). The strong immune systems of young adults ravaged the body, whereas the weaker immune systems of children and middle-aged adults caused fewer deaths.

When the immune system is fighting pathogens, cytokines signal immune cells such as T-cells and macrophages to travel to the site of infection. In addition, cytokines activate those cells, stimulating them to produce more cytokines. Normally, this feedback loop is kept in check by the body. However, in some instances, the reaction becomes uncontrolled, and too many immune cells are activated in a single place.

If a cytokine storm occurs in the lungs, for example, fluids and immune cells such as macrophages may accumulate and eventually block off the airways, potentially resulting in death.

Cytokine storms can occur in a number of infectious and non-infectious diseases including graft versus host disease (GVHD), adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis, avian influenza, smallpox, and systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS).

What can stem the tide of the Cytokine Storm naturally?

Free Radical Scavengers (antioxidants)

In what foods can we find these antioxidents?

Researchers have discovered that certain antioxidants and a blend of antioxidants significantly reduces the duplication of both the H1N1 Swine Flu and the H5N1 Avian Bird Flu. Scientists infected mice with the H5N1 bird flu and then administered high doses of resveratrol to them all. They administered doses just as they were getting infected, 3 hours, 6 hours and 9 hours after. 90% of the mice that were administered resveratrol even 3 hours after getting infected suffered little to no sickness.

The key to remember here is that resveratrol is produced by plants to fight infection and disease. That's the whole purpose of it. Sure it's been getting a lot of media attention for its life-extending properties, but the truth is - it's an antibiotic.

Resveratrol is found naturally in red wine, red wine vinegar, grape juice, grapes (not raisins), peanuts, Japanese knotweed, and dark chocolate. Start stocking up on resveratrol this H1N1 Swine Flu Season. Drink grape juice for breakfast, add peanuts to your salad, drink some red wine before you go to bed. And don't forget to put a piece of dark chocolate on your wife's pillow.

Sources: 1)http://ezinearticles.com/?Is-There-an-H1N1-Swine-Flu-Cure?&id=2284200

2) Wikipedia

Light Pillars

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Victor, Idaho.

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Typically seen in polar regions, the vertical columns of light have been appearing along with frigid temperatures at lower latitudes.


The ice crystals act as mirrors reflecting the sun or other light source into our eyes, but the light source appears to be coming from the direction of the ice crystals so we see it there.

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Sunset. Lake Tahoe, California.

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Sigulda, Latvia.

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Sources: National Geographic

Science: Tidal Power

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The world's first commercial tidal stream generator — SeaGen — in Strangford Lough. The strong wake shows the power in the tidal current.

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Tidal power, sometimes called tidal energy, is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of tides into electricity or other useful forms of power.

Although not yet widely used, tidal power has potential for future electricity generation. Tides are more predictable than wind energy and solar power. Historically, tide mills have been used, both in Europe and on the Atlantic coast of the USA. The earliest occurrences date from the Middle Ages, or even from Roman times.

Tidal energy is generated by the relative motion of the Earth, Sun and the Moon, which interact via gravitational forces. Periodic changes of water levels, and associated tidal currents, are due to the gravitational attraction by the Sun and Moon. The magnitude of the tide at a location is the result of the changing positions of the Moon and Sun relative to the Earth, the effects of Earth rotation, and the local shape of the sea floor and coastlines.

A relatively new technology, tidal stream generators draw energy from currents in much the same way as wind turbines. The higher density of water, 832 times the density of air, means that a single generator can provide significant power at low tidal flow velocities (compared with wind speed). Given that power varies with the density of medium and the cube of velocity, it is simple to see that water speeds of nearly one-tenth of the speed of wind provide the same power for the same size of turbine system. However this limits the application in practice to places where the tide moves at speeds of at least 2 knots (1m/s. A Knot is 1.852 km/h) even close to neap tides.

Sources: Wikipedia