A Ghost Heart

By Anupum Pant

Before I begin, I’m happy to announce that Awesci’s feed has been featured on a smartphone app, Dabblr. I covered it a couple of days back in the interviews section. If you missed it, you might want to know what Dabblr can do and why you should use it, especially if you are a student. 

At any given time, thousands of people are there on the heart transplant waiting list. Some of these people are eventually able to find a donor, while others aren’t able to. Hundreds of people who fail to find a donor, die every year. It’s a grim state, but little can be done to change it. Texas Heart Institute (THI) had a solution for this problem – use a Pig’s heart.

(There have been cases where people have survived for some time on artificial hearts too. It’s incredible how these things work.)

A pig’s heart is a lot like our own, in shape, size and function. Of course it can’t be just taken away from a pig and installed in a human. Or people from ancient times would have done it. The researchers from THI proposed this – make a ghost heart out of it first.

For making a “ghost heart”  – a kind of a structural scaffolding – they used a simple soap solution. Once they washed the pig heart in it and may be after some other processing, they had a pure protein scaffolding, stripped off of all living cells (decellularized), which could be customized and could be used to grow a custom heart for a specific human being – by using the patient’s bone-marrow stem cells. That way the new body where it would get installed won’t reject it.

In the near future, there’s a chance we could have humans with the hearts of pigs!

Ambergris – Whale Vomit Can Make You Rich

By Anupum Pant

It is yellow/gray, smells really bad and can make you rich [image]. Ambergris, or commonly known as whale vomit is a waxy, hard, flammable substance that sells for several thousand dollars a pound. Although it is known as whale vomit, it is usually excreted (not vomited) by the sperm whale. It is formed by the lumping of Bilary Secretions in a whale. They can’t be digested and are often excreted by whales. These lumps can float for years and might get washed to the beach or are found in whale abdomen.

A fresh lump would be black and slowly a lighter colored coating forms on it with age. Generally, lighter colored pieces have a sweeter smell because they have cured in the ocean for a longer time.

What makes it so costly?

Firstly, it is rare to find a lump of Ambergris. Secondly, as this substance ages, it leaves the stink and starts emitting a sweet, musky odor. Not all people like this smell. Other than its unique scent, the perfumes made of this substance last much longer than other scents that tend to evaporate. Both these reasons make it a substance in high demand.

Although the scent can be mimicked by using chemicals, there is nothing like using the real substance. Thus, whale vomit will always carry a premium price.

This year, Ken Wilman, while walking his dog on the beach, spotted a 6 lb lump of whale vomit that turned out to be worth £100,000.
Note to self: So, the next time you are going out for a walk on the beach, take your dog with you. And go on walks more often.

[read more]

Building A Solar Death Ray At Home

By Anupum Pant

Sun’s Energy

Sun is an huge fusion reactor. Every second it produces enough energy that could power the US for 9 million years. But from the perspective of people living on earth, most of it radiates into the space and gets ‘wasted’. Still by using even the part of energy that is received by us, a solar death ray that melts steel can be built.

Earth is only a fraction of the size of sun. In comparison, sun is so mind-boggling-ly big that I bet you can’t manually scroll this page from Sun, all the way to earth (and this is a heavily scaled down version of our Solar System). In short, earth is so small that it receives a microscopic fraction of the energy radiated out by the sun.

Technically: The total flux received by earth is about 343 Watt per meter squared. On the way to earth’s surface, 30% of this gets scattered by the atmosphere and 19% of it is absorbed by the clouds. So, out of 343, only 51 percent reaches the surface. Which is calculated to be about 175 Watt per meter squared. Which is a very small part of the energy that sun gives out. [Source]

And yet, sunlight received by earth has by far has the highest theoretical potential of the earth’s renewable energy sources.

Harnessing this energy

For humans, it is possible to directly harness this energy broadly in two ways – heat or electricity (photoelectric effect). We are interested in only the heat part here. To demonstrate the kind of heat that can be generated by focusing 2 meter square worth of this energy to a single point, watch how this equipment can melt steel in seconds (The melting point of steel is around 1500 degree centigrade).

Making at home

Building something similar at home is fairly easy as far as the concept is concerned. But the process can be very tedious. I found three interesting ways in which this can be done at home.

1. Using a satellite dish: A satellite dish is parabolic and is designed to focus signal to a single point. Instead of signal, you could use it to focus light (sun rays). To use an old dish for making a solar death ray, all you’ll have to do is stick 5,800 tiny pieces of mirrors on its surface, like Eric Jacqmain did. – [Source]

2. Use a projection TV: A projection TV has a huge Fresnel lens in front of it. It is kind of a convex lens that is flat. If you can find an old projection TV, you could use the screen to make a solar death ray like Grant Thompson did.

3. Using water: Another creative way could be to use water. By combining the power of gravity and stretching plastic, you could turn clear water into a parabolic lens like this [Video]. Although I don’t think something like this could be efficient enough to melt steel. It could still be used as an outdoor machine to cook breakfast.

EDIT: Why isn’t there a comments section?

First I forgot to add this and remembered only when a reader pointed it out. I promised in my yesterday’s post, that i’d tell you the reason behind a missing comments section on this blog. Here it goes…

I use a theme built by Leo Babauta (see FAQ) and am a fan of his teachings. It [the theme] has an inbuilt comment section but Leo doesn’t use comments on his blog. For me to not use it too, there are 3 reasons:

  1. I’m a fan of Leo Babauta and try to emulate his ways in my life. (not perfectly)
  2. I want to create a pure reading experience for the reader (now ads, which hinder the pure reading experience, are for experiment only). People who really like to interact usually mail me. And it is a much more enriching experience.
  3. Unlike every other blogger, comments have a great effect on me. This in turn affects my ability to write. For instance, comments which appreciate, seem flattering to me. As a result, I become complacent. If they are critical, I get concerned about my writing abilities. There are hardly any neutral comments. I’d like to focus my energy on writing than arguing on the internet.

I do have plans to include it in the future. It is just that I’m not sure when I’ll do it. Probably when I change my theme, I’ll do that.

Miniature Sealed Self-Sustaining Ecosystem

By Anupum Pant
  1. 53 years ago, David Latimer (80) from Surrey planted an indoor Spiderwort in a huge glass globular bottle. He has watered it just once, in the year 1972. Since then, this self-sustaining ecosystem, has been sealed away from the outside world for around 40 years. In spite of being sealed away like that, the plant has grown very well in its own miniature ecosystem [Picture]. The only regular external energy it has received has been in the form of light. [more about this self-sustaining ecosystem and how it works]
  2. The EcoSphere or the Original EcoSphere takes it to the next level by introducing a shrimp in a similar setting. Like David Latimer’s bottle, this is also a self-sustaining ecosystem consisting of algae, bacteria and shrimp. The company that sells these things says that the shrimps would last for just around 10 years. Although, they also claim of 25-year-old spheres with living shrimps.
    10 years is little as compared to the ecosystem discussed in the first point. But we are talking about a pet living in a completely sealed space for 10 years, without demanding food, change of water or an appointment with the vet. For these little creatures it is probably a safe haven away from the dirty oil slicked oceans and predators; or probably just a prison.

These little biospheres are a far simpler and smaller versions of our big worlds. We are like the shrimp and the trees, our algae. This diagram explains in a simple way, how these artificial, extremely simplified versions of Earth work – [Diagram]

The shrimp and algae biospheres were discovered by two scientists, the late Dr. Joe Hanson and the late Dr. Clair Folsome. Later, NASA became interested in these systems. There got interested because:

  1. This tiny model of the Earth could add information to NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth program for studying Earth’s biosphere.
  2. It could help NASA’s research on human life support systems directed toward the construction of space stations for exploring our solar system.

Make it for yourself: Make magazine published a detailed DIY guide on how to create these living biospheres at home. [Link]
Carl Sagan’s Review of these biospheres: The World Arrived in The Mail.

Random Foliage Fact:

The world’s smallest park is located in the median strip of SW Naito Parkway, approaching esplanade along the Willamette River near SW Taylor Street in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Mill Ends Park, a 2 ft is a circular park, has held a place in the Guinness book of Records since 1971. It isn’t a park you can send your children to. – [Wikipedia]

Hot Ice

By Anupum Pant

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For years we’ve been subconsciously conditioned to think of something cool when the word ‘ice’ is heard. But, does ice always has to be cool? How much more interesting, than water-ice, can ice be?

What is it?

The name: Hot ice isn’t solidified water, it isn’t anything even close to water. Neither is hot ice, hot. It is just a common name for Sodium Acetate Trihydrate. At room temperature, this substance looks like ice crystals and if heated, it starts turning into a transparent liquid. Since, the ice like crystals are formed at a relatively hotter temperature than water-ice, it is called hot ice.

Everything freezes. While metals ‘freeze’ at extremely high temperatures and carbon dioxide freezes at extremely low temperature, Sodium acetate freezes at 54 degrees centigrade. But, that is hardly anything interesting about it. There is more.

Touch water and turn it to ice

Think about water: Cooling water, beyond its freezing point without it getting solidified, can be done and it is called ‘super-cooling‘. This can be done by not letting water (distilled water) find any ‘nucleation points’ or simply by using an extremely clean tray to freeze it. Now, water remains in a liquid state despite being cooled under 0 degree centigrade. At such a state, if water is disturbed, say using your finger, a chain reaction starts and the water freezes almost instantly. But, doing it is tough.

Making hot ice at home – The same thing that happens with super-cooled water, can happen with sodium acetate. Touch the liquid sodium acetate and it magically turns to ice, it is indeed a fascinating process to watch (watch in the video below). And can be done fairly easily. Moreover, you are not at a danger of getting poisoned in any way. This is the reason it is used to make hot ice. It can be made at home using vinegar, baking soda and a steel vessel.