Tag: science

Can a Single Sand Grain Power a Car for 10 km?

By Anupum Pant

I literally binge on YouTube, especially on science videos. Since I’ve been doing it for a long time, I follow a huge number of channels and among them, are some channels that need a special mention. For that, my plan for today was to create a list of five to ten spectacular YouTube science channels that are not popularly known. But while carrying out the research to collect data for this little list, I happened to stumble upon something which needs a post dedicated to it. So, I thought of delaying my original plan of collating a list of those lesser known science channels.

Background

To tell you about the thing I discovered, you need to know this first:

MinutePhysics: You know MinutePhysics right? I mean, who doesn’t know them. If you think you’ve never come across a video of their’s, try going to their channel. There is a high chance you’ll recognize their signature style of simplifying science – through animated videos. With more than 2 Million fans on YouTube, they have a huge following and almost every video of their’s goes viral, to some extent. It was started by Henry Reich and I’m guessing there is definitely a team behind the channel – If some one from MinutePhysics is reading this, like the one I did with Jaan Altosaar from UsefulScience.org, I’d love to do a short chat with you, if you have the time.

MinuteEarth: Now, the same people who created MinutePhysics also upload similar styled videos explaining the planet earth at MinuteEarth. You should check that out too. But that is not all I’m talking today…

MinuteLabs

I’m not sure how I landed on the Youtube page of MinuteLabs.io, but the instant I spotted the dot io in the end, I knew there was more to this channel than just two videos. I watched one of those videos – video (embedded below)

I could instantly connect to what Jasper was doing in the video. I often have such questions and I make these queries on Google all the time. But I had never endeavored to do what he (maybe with his team) did on his website.  And that brought me to MinuteLabs.io‘s Mass-energy scale.

Mass-Energy scale

When you land on the Mass-Energy scale page of MinuteLabs, you’ll find a vertically massive scale, listing out a couple of things on the right and left side. So, this is a scale which is based on the popular equation E=MC2 .

It lists out a number of everyday (plus other) objects and the energy associated with them on the left side. On the right side of this scale are the masses of some other objects. This is how it works…

minutelabs mass energy scale

For example, if you take the mass of a sand-grain and multiply it with the constant C2, you’ll end up with some amount of energy (E) that is *theoretically* stored in its mass. To get an idea about how much this energy is, they have collected that huge list of energies associated with everyday objects on the left scale.

After referring to the scale, you’ll find that the amount of energy that is theoretically stored in the mass of a sand grain is almost equal to the energy that is needed to move a family car by 10 km. Even though you don’t really have an access to all that energy, Isn’t that huge, for a “very fine sand grain”! Check out the scale to see how huge things can get…

What I appreciate about it

Firstly, I appreciate the amount of effort it would have taken to collect that sort of data. I know that because I’ve tried doing something similar once. Trust me, It is a pain!

Secondly, I appreciate the fact (and again the effort) that their media is made using the latest web technologies. This makes their media so accessible to people.  Today, all you need for learning science, is an internet connection and a nice browser, like Chrome or Safari.

Besides this particular media (Mass-Energy scale) they have created, there are a couple of others that have already been up and running since the start of this year. I’m sure, like me, you’ll have a couple of hours of fun, learning and playing around with them. Cheers to simplified science and MinuteLabs for doing this project.

A Request

If you liked the post, I ask you for just two things – subscribe from the right side bar and like my Facebook page for updates like these. That’ll be a big help!

Build an Autonomous Toothbrush Robot in Minutes

By Anupum Pant

Background

If you are looking for a cool little science project, I think your search should end right here because today I’m sharing with you an awesome way to transform your toothbrush into an autonomous toothbrush robot. This one is just autonomous enough to move around on its own, hit obstacles, turn around and continue. But remember, since it is a fun project that can be completed within minutes (in under $5), you can’t expect a lot out of this basic bot.

Also, I did not invent this thing. I happened to stumble upon a video by Evil Mad Scientist on YouTube that taught me the basic idea of how this thing works. So, cheers to him. However, since my supplies were constrained, I felt a need to find some alternative methods to construct a similar bot. I’ve shared the original video and my own alternatives (in text) under it… You can skip reading the next two sub-headings and watch the video below them.

Here is what you’ll need:

  • A toothbrush (preferably, one with angled bristles)
  • A cellphone vibrator motor
  • Some double side tape
  • and a Button cell

Here is what you do:

Firstly, do not worry if you don’t have the exact materials mentioned above, I’ve suggested some alternative ideas after the video.

Stick on motorCute but unstable

  1. Grab the toothbrush and carefully cut off the handle, we’ll just need the head. Now, this part can be the most difficult because the plastic at the neck can be pretty tough sometimes. If you are not confident, take help from an elder.
  2. Use the double side tape to stick the motor on top of the head in a way that the rotating shaft of the motor doesn’t touch the bush.
  3. Connect the button cell to the terminals of the motor. If the whole bot starts vibrating with the motor, It’s done. Place it on the floor and watch moving…

[Video]

Alternatives

  • Suppose you don’t have a brush with angled bristles. You can just take any other toothbrush and keep it under your mattress for a day to get pressed. The straight bristles turn into angled bristles. I had to do this, so I know.
  • Now, if you don’t have a cellphone vibrator motor, you can use one of these common motors too. All you’ll have to do is stick a piece of clay or tape on the shaft to make a counter weight so the motor vibrates when it rotates. You don’t want it rotating smoothly here.
  • To make the bot turn away better from obstacles, I stuck 3 toothpicks on top of the brush in a way that one of them was sticking out in the front and the other two were pointing out from the sides to form wing like structures.

It hardly takes any effort to try it out and then you’ll have your own bot moving around on the floor of your house. It feels great to watch it move like that! If you can, try making a huge variant. Use a bigger brush, pencil batteries and a bigger motor.

[See this for more details]

The Science of Blogging Better – for Newbie Bloggers

By Anupum Pant

The following is not a cheat sheet to double visitors, conversions or rank better on search engines. Like AweSci’s tagline says, this article is meant for “being a better person through Science”.

Even though I’m doing good with Google search results, I’m not much of an SEO enthusiast. I blog because I love to do it. I don’t like to craft posts to trap clicks from a search engines. I write about things that really interest me, and not necessarily about the things that are most searched.

However, I don’t mind making a few logical alterations to my style, that would NOT change the kind of articles I really want to write, and at the same time would add better value to people reading it. My aim would be to write for that person, who would search for something on Google, would end up here, and thank me for giving him/her the answers he/she was searching for. That would make me a better person.

The science of it

Blogging gurus will tell you to “produce quality content”. To break down the meaning of “quality content” in a detailed way is impossible in a single article. However, here are some of the most important things that will turn your content into “quality content”. The two major studies I discuss here are no less than full-blown psychological studies (is the reason I put it in the Psychology section) – They don’t mention the hard science separately, but they essentially deal with the psychology of your readers.

While going through a blogging guru’s blog yesterday, I noted the following interesting things that can clearly help you newbie bloggers stand out and create real value on the internet. And I think it is worth knowing. For millions of people out there looking to start a blog, or the ones have just started blogging, a careful initial look at “Blogging” with the magnifying glass of science would definitely make them better people on the internet. That, I think, should be anyone’s aim with a blog. So, here is the basic science of blogging better – Continue reading The Science of Blogging Better – for Newbie Bloggers

Harmless Flour is an Incredibly Explosive Substance

By Anupum Pant

Background

The next time you are biting off from a bread, pizza, pancake or a doughnut, you should probably take a minute and pay a silent acknowledgement to the people who work in flour mills to bring flour to your homes. Yes, because flour, the seemingly harmless cooking ingredient can be an incredibly dangerous substance – It explodes.

Wait a minute. It isn’t a minor explosion I’m talking about. I’m talking about really big explosions. Read on to know more.

Burning Flour

Flour is almost completely starch (or carbohydrate). Since Carbohydrate is nothing but a large molecule which is essentially a couple of sugar molecules linked to each other, it burns like sugar. And everybody who has tried burning marshmallows on a candle knows how easily sugar catches fire. Agreed, carbohydrate isn’t as sweet, but it is just like its cousin sugar when it comes to flammability.

So, that is how flour can catch fire. But what is it that makes it bring down full-sized buildings?

Flour in air

Flour in your kitchen’s flour container can be a very boring thing. The fun starts when the tiny flour particles are suspended in air.

Flour particles suspended in air, or for that matter, almost anything suspended in air that can catch fire, is a dangerous thing. For example, look at one of the most hazardous situation you can have in a coal mine – There is coal dust around and accidentally there is a small sparkle around it. The whole place explodes like a bomb. This has resulted in some of the worst ever mining accidents in the history.

Such explosions happen because anything that is in powdered form and is suspended in air, has a far more surface area exposed to oxygen per unit weight, than normal lumps of the same substance. This is true for industrial stuff like powdered coal, sawdust, and magnesium. Besides that, mundane substances can explode too – like  grain, flour, sugar, powdered milk and pollen.

All it takes to cause a disaster is a suspended combustible powder and a little electric arc formed from electrostatic discharge, friction or even hot surfaces – A little spark is enough.

Such settings are common in flour mills, where there is flour floating around literally everywhere. This is what caused a giant explosion in a flour mill in Minnesota on May 2nd, 1878, killing 18 workers. But that was more than 100 years ago. Kitchens are relatively safe because you don’t have enough flour in the air to catch fire and produce great volumes of air that are enough to cause an explosion.

This happens even today. From the year 1994 to the year 2003 there have been 115 such reported explosions in food processing industries in the US.

[Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3]

Experiment

The following is a simple experiment you can do at home (obviously with adult supervision) to understand the explosive nature of a harmless cooking ingredient. [Video]

What you need: Safety glasses, Tin can (with lid), Candle, Matches, a long Straw and fine white flour

  • Take a tin can, one with a relatively tighter lid. Make a hole at the lowest point in the side wall (just enough to fit in a straw).
  • Open it up and put in a handful of flour inside it. Now is the time to put on your safety glasses.
  • Now, burn a candle and carefully place it inside the can.
  • Close the lid, insert the straw into the hole. Now blow at the base of the can, in a way that flour stirs up inside without extinguishing the candle.
  • Watch the lid pop up 10 feet into the air.

Daft Punk – Contact – The Radio Broadcast Mystery

By Anupum Pant

Background

Since the day Daft Punk’s album RAM (Random Access Memories) came out last year, I’ve been listening to it at least one time every day. I don’t have a time-table sort of thing that makes me listen to it. But, since the tracks are played on shuffle, nearly all of the tracks from RAM are played at least once by my Media Player.

Every one of those tracks is wonderful. The best part, I think is their retro-styled fluid basslines (that phrase is what comes to my mind). We hardly come across such basslines in Dance music these days. But I’m not a music critique and let me stop messing around with random words to describe its bassline. I’m here to talk particularly about a track from that album that is about space – Track 13 Contact. I’m here to talk science.

The Track

The song starts with a broadcast. Pretty soon, with the eerie bassline (again) playing in the background, you are convinced that the radio broadcast is related to space – the broadcast sounds as if taken from a real archived tape. The combined effect of both the broadcast and the music playing creates a very mysterious setting. This is what the person talks in the track –

Hey Bob I’m looking at what Jack was talking about and it’s definitely not a particle that’s nearby. It is a bright object and it’s obviously rotating because it’s flashing, it’s way out in the distance, certainly rotating in a very rhythmic fashion because the flashes come around almost on time. As we look back at the earth it’s up at about 11 o’clock, about maybe ten or twelve diame…Earth diameters. I don’t know whether that does you any good, but there’s something out there.

The guy talking in it describes a “bright flashing object” which he sees in space and ends with a sentence that makes Goosebumps appear on your skin. A heavier bassline ensues. And the following thoughts start rushing into your mind.

Was that an alien ship the man saw in space? Is this some sort of a classified broadcast that got leaked and Daft Punk found it? With all sorts of government and UFO stories floating out there, it seems pretty plausible.

That is what I thought. So I decided to find out.

What is it really?

The astronaut that speaks in the broadcast is the commander of Apollo 17, Gene Cernan.  Disappointingly, it is not an alien ship being described here. Moreover, it isn’t even a leaked tape or something like that. NASA gave this recording to Daft Punk for using it in a track.

The object Gene Cernan describes on the radio was a discarded upper stage of the Saturn V rocket. As a rocket lifts up, discarded parts are normal things. This one, as things in space would, was spinning rhythmically and was reflecting sunlight at regular intervals. That explains, “Because the flashes come around almost on time”.

Yes, that’s all. Indeed, the track makes it sound very interesting. Probably that ability, to make seemingly mundane things sound appealing, is what makes Daft Punk so popular.

[Source]

I see people coming here, reading and leaving. If there is someone reading this, I’d want to hear from you something (see below). Please, give me a comment below. If you’d like to be anonymous, be that. But just one comment. Yes, it matters a lot to me. Answer this:

What kind of other articles would you like to read on AweSci? 
How would it be, if I also started sharing with you, the things I learned from a particular book? 

Dolphin Encounter – Touching and Mindblowing at the Same Time

By Anupum Pant

Like crows and humans, dolphins have an impressive brain-to-body ratio. Based on an assumption, intelligence of a creature is in proportion to the size of its brain, scientific research suggests that dolphins are the most smartest creatures on the earth, after human beings. H2G2 suggests the same!

  • Besides that, there are a couple of other evidences that say dolphins are incredibly intelligent creatures. For instance, the part of a brain where all the emotional and higher thinking takes place, is considerably larger among dolphins – in MRI scans. Also, dolphins show several human-like skills –
  • They can identify themselves in a mirror-reflection, displaying highly developed, abstract thinking and self-awareness – Like Elephants and Great apes. Although self-awareness is a highly debated topic, dolphins are definitely better than so many other animals out there.
  • To some extent, dolphins can understand numbers.
  • They are often found to be engaged in complex play – Like, they can make and play with water bubble rings (Video – It is mesmerizing to watch them play with the rings) They are also seen riding the waves. Just like humans surf on the waves.

  • It isn’t just that. Dolphins also live in social groups and have different names (Distinct whistles) they use to call out each other.

[More of Dolphin-intelligence feats here]

But, why am I talking Dolphins today?

Well, they are of course extremely interesting creatures. But there was a video I stumbled upon on the front page of Reddit today, which really touched me. Moreover, it made me appreciate the creature’s intelligence. This is what happens in the video:

A diver, Jack is seen swimming around with a couple of Manta rays in the Garden Eel cove, Hawaii. Out of some where, a Bottlenose Dolphin appears. It appears to be in trouble and then the diver notices a fishing line entangled on one of its fins. He signals the dolphin to come closer. It comes, and most amazingly it stays nearby and cooperates with the diver to let him cut the hook and the fishing line.

Dolphin comes near a human, turns upside down, as if saying “Hey human, I have a problem. Can you help?”

Just two things. Kudos to the human for helping it out. The problem is solved.  And cheers to the dolphin which leaves us mindblown, wondering about how intelligent animals can be! At times, even smarter than some people I’ve met. 

Michio Kaku’s High-School Science Fair Project was Astounding

By Anupum Pant

michiokakuDr. Michio Kaku without a doubt is one of the finest Physicist of the present times. Besides that he is also a very popular person. If you watch TV, you must have definitely seen this man some where. He has made several appearances on TV channels like  BBC, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Science Channel. Also, he has written books and hosts a radio show.
He has made science popular. But if you live in a cave, this person in the picture is the man I’m talking about.

What made him the man he is today, was his great love for science since childhood. By the time he was in high-school, he had started doing incredible things. His high-school science fair project story, pretty much sums up the remarkable things he had started doing back then.

The science fair project

During his high school, when he was working on anti-matter photography, he had an idea to create his own anti-matter beam. He then went to his mom and asked her this:

Mom, can I have permission to build a 2.3 million volt atom smasher betatronic accelerator in my garage?

The shocked and proud mom obviously agreed to the proposal. This is what he had to procure to convert his idea into a reality:

  • 400 pounds of transformer steel
  • 22 miles! of copper wire

With the help of his parents, he wound the 22 mile long copper wire around a football field that was able to generate a magnetic field 20,000 times greater than the Earth’s magnetic field. It could produce collisions powerful enough to create antimatter. After a few troubles with the power, there, he had his own  2.3 eV atom smasher (cyclic particle accelerator).

This was an atom smasher built in his backyard garage – a mini version of the $ 10 Billion Large Hadron Collider.

Changed his life

This science fair put him in the right track. A nuclear scientist, Edward Teller, noticed it in the National Science Fair and spread the word to the scientific community. And soon, he got a full ride to the Harvard University.

via FromQuarkstoQuasars

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Consuming Fat Can Have Exceptional Health Benefits – Whale Fat

By Anupum Pant

Blubber Crash-course

Blubber is thick layer of fat that is present under the skin of many sea dwelling animals which helps them withstand the cold sea temperatures. It is found in animals like dolphins, whales, seals etc. Since fur fails to insulate once the animal is inside water, blubber is what helps them stay warm in there. Depending on the size of the animal, the thickness of this fat layer can vary from 2 to 12 inches. Look at a minute-long Sick Science experiment (Video) that demonstrates this particular function of a layer of fat (shortening in this case).

The other important use of blubber for these animals is that it can act as a buffer stock of energy. During the times when sea animals aren’t able to find food, they burn up the fat for energy. It helps them last for a long time without food. Also, blubber helps them float better in water.

Eskimos eat this

Inuit, a group of people living in parts of Arctic, Canada, Greenland and USA, commonly known as Eskimos, love to include blubber in their food because it is a great source of  omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D. They consume raw, dried and boiled blubber with meat regularly, either with soya sauce or sea oil.

The positive health benefits of blubber, as Wikipedia puts it, can be observed in Greenland, where people consume it regularly. As a result, they are less likely to die due to Heart diseases. It says, not a single person died in that region in the 1970s due to cardiovascular diseases. Someone needs to study the same for the present decade.

It cites the following a source that no longer exists. However, another source clarifies it (source):

In the 1970s there was not a single death due to cardiovascular disease in the hunting district of Uummannaq with about 3,000 inhabitants. The average 70-year-old Inuit with a traditional diet of whale and seal has arteries as elastic as those of a 20-year-old Danish resident.

That is a pretty incredible health benefit, given hardening of arteries due to build-up of fat has become such big killer in developed countries.

Is Blubber really that good today?

Today, whales and other sea animals that are a primary source of blubber for Eskimos, come across huge amounts of toxic chemicals in the sea – mostly through food. They consume these industrial wastes, and with time carcinogens build up in their bodies. These carcinogens ultimately enter the traditional food items of Eskimos through blubber.

So, heart disease might not be a widespread phenomena in Greenland, but in a few years, cancer could be. But, that is just the poor human logical brain talking.

According to current studies, blubber based diet has is indeed been credited to the Inuit health and longevity.

Also read –

  1. Sharks Are Not So Bad After All
  2. Ambergris – Whale Vomit Can Make You Rich

Wasp Uses Venom to Turn Cockroaches into Zombies

By Anupum Pant

Background

The Emerald Cockroach Wasp A.K.A Jewel wasp – a metallic blue/green colored, 2 cm long wasp – is something that will blow your mind by the way it reproduces. More specifically, the Emerald Cockroach Wasp uses venom to hack into cockroach brains, turns them into zombies and lays eggs inside them. With time, this live yet immobile cockroach body is hollowed out by the larvae of the wasp and the young ones come out eventually.

How does it reproduce? (details)

At a time when the female Emerald Cockroach Wasp is ready to lay eggs, it competes with the other females to find a host to lay their eggs. When a wasp finds a good host – only this one kind of cockroach – the weird reproductive activity begins.

  1. The wasp attacks the cockroach and injects the first dose of venom into its central nervous system that is aimed at making the front legs of the cockroach paralyzed. Killing the cockroach with its venom is simple for the wasp, but keeping it alive is what matters here. So, the right amount of venom at the perfect place is injected.
  2. Now, when the cockroach can’t move its front legs, the wasp attacks again at a perfectly still moment to inject the second dose of venom. It carefully sticks the stingers into the brain of the victim in a way that the perfect amount of venom reaches the exact place in the brain of the cockroach which controls escape reflex. In short, it performs a micro neurosurgery and turns the cockroach into a zombie – Now it gets completely under control.
  3. Next, the wasp chews off half the antennae from the cockroach’s head and drinks its blood to gain energy.
  4. Then it grabs the cockroach by its antennae and hauls it into a burrow, lays the eggs on the abdomen of the cockroach, goes out and obstructs the entryway of the burrow using small pebbles to ensure that the host doesn’t escape. The calm zombie-cockroach is left in there to take care of the larvae for several days.
  5. The larvae hatches, drills a hole into the body of the cockroach, eats it from the inside, hollows is and comes out after a few weeks as a grown up wasp. The cockroach is dead.

Did you know? There is funny sticker selling on the internet – Jewel wasp vs. Zombie cockroach sticker. (Just FYI. I have no affiliation with it)

[Video]

Einstein Couldn’t Figure How the Drinking Bird Worked

By Anupum Pant

Background

DrinkingBirdThe Drinking Bird is a toy which almost every one of us has heard of. If you haven’t, may be this picture of it rings a bell. Otherwise, it is a funny looking bird-head made of felt, mounted atop a glass or plastic straw, with a little bulb at its lowest point. The whole contraption is suspended at two points, which allows it to swing smoothly like a pendulum – drinking water at regular intervals, from a glass, for ever.

The amusing thing about this little toy is that, once it starts, it keeps swinging and “drinking” for ever. Upon giving it a cursory look, it seems to be a perfect perpetual machine – a contraption that can run indefinitely without an external source of energy. In reality, it isn’t a perpetual motion machine. There is a complex physical and chemical activity going on inside the toy, which keeps the simple heat engine running forever without a battery – Something so complex to deduct, that even one of the greatest Physicist ever, Albert Einstein himself couldn’t figure out the correct mechanism that keeps it running.

Don’t worry, it isn’t as difficult to understand the mechanism.

How does it work?

Assuming you have properly understood the parts of the toy, you will notice that the little bulb at the bottom of it has a colored liquid in it. This colored liquid is a chemical called Methylene chloride – A chemical that dissolves caffeine and can be used to decaffeinate coffee, teas and colas. The special property of this chemical which makes the toy work is its extremely low boiling point. It has a high vapor pressure at room temperature.

At room temperature the vapor pressure in the tube and head is high. The fluid remains in the bulb and the bird is upright due to the weight of the fluid.

The first thing you do is, you make its head dip in water. That way, the head made of felt absorbs water. The water cools due to evaporation (like our sweat cools our body), drops the temperature of the head and the bird comes up.

While swinging in the upright position, as the head cools further, the vapor pressure at the head decreases, while the pressure at the bulb becomes relatively higher. This causes the chemical to rise up the tube and it changes the center of gravity (CG). Due to the change in CG the bird tips its head back into the water.

Absorbs water and the process starts once again. It keeps on going till the bird can no longer reach the low water level. You, then have to fill up the reservoir.

Source of energy?

There is a lot going on in the toy so it isn’t really easy to point a single source of energy. However, it is pretty clear that the bird isn’t a perpetual motion machine. Anyway, watch the insightful video now. The simple toy is indeed a beautiful thing to marvel about. [Video]

The Domino Effect Physics Can be Pretty Incredible

By Anupum Pant

falling dominoesDomino effect is a fairly well-known mechanical effect in which a single falling domino (A tile of the tile-based game called Dominoes) causes a chain reaction. The resulting chain reaction depends on the size of arrangement – number of arranged dominoes.

Usually  hundred to hundred thousand equal sized dominoes are carefully arranged to form a sequence. Then, the first domino is flicked to start a huge chain reaction. There have been several world records with kinds of falling-domino-patterns based on this effect. But there is one thing about the domino effect that isn’t popularly known.

The 2X rule

When these falling domino records are made, they are usually done with equal sized dominoes. Suppose, continuously increasing sized dominoes are used in sequence, the size of falling dominoes can go really huge, pretty fast.

The limit: When the size of second domino is from 1.5 to 2 times the size ( says a physics study) of the first domino, it can fall with ease. But that is the limit. If the second domino is any larger than 2 times the size of the previous domino, it won’t fall down – stopping the chain reaction in between. So, 1.5 times the size of the previous domino is a pretty safe increment to use, if you really want your chain reaction to complete.

So, Morris in the video below, uses the first domino which is 5mm high and 1mm thick (I’m wondering how he manages to balance it on the 1mm side). The domino placed next to it is, 1.5 times thicker, longer and wider. So, if it is made of the same material, the second one would weigh more than 3.3 times the weight of the first one. Now do the math.

He uses 13 dominoes with increasing sizes. The last one is about a meter tall and weighs about 50 kg. Remember, the first one probably weighed no more than a few grams.

He flicks the 5 mm domino and within a second or two, due to the chain reaction, the largest one that weighs 50 kg, falls down with a huge bang. Had he used a few more dominoes and would have made the count to 29, the last one would have been as tall as the Empire State building. Imagine a domino of that size falling with such a measly initial energy expended to make the 5 mm sized domino fall.

The amplification of energy is about 2 Billion times! Thanks to the stored Gravitational energy.

Physics is marvelous. Isn’t it? [Video]

Bee Gees – Stayin Alive – Saving Lives Since 1977

By Anupum Pant

Not all of us are taught CPR at schools, but there is a simple way you can ensure that you do it right. The BeeGees disco hit track Stayin Alive which almost none of us has been able to un-hear for the last 30 years, has actually helped people to stay alive.

Why?
According to a research study at University of Illinois, British Heart foundation and American Heart Association, 100 – 110 is the optimum number of compression required to jump start a heart in the case of a cardiac arrest. Since the track contains about 103 to 104 beats per minute throughout, it is an “utterly perfect track” for performing or training to perform a CPR. In fact, thousands of medical students all over the world have been trained to perform CPR using the same track.

Procedure: In case a person around you collapses suddenly due to a cardiac arrest, the first thing you must do, is call the emergency services. Next, start pushing hard on the chest of the collapsed person using locked fingers (with knuckles up) to the beat of Bee Gees Stayin Alive.

[British Video 1] [American Video 2]

In addition to Stayin Alive, even if their names don’t sound like they’d save lives, other popular songs with a similar beat rate are –

  • AC/DC – Highway to Hell
  • Queen – Another One Bites the Dust
  • Madonna – La Isla Bonita
  • Lily Allen – LDN
  • Abba – Dancing Queen

Definitely a good thing to remember.

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Lucky Worms Survived The Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster

By Anupum Pant

February 1, 2003 was a sad day for science. Space shuttle Columbia, during re-entry, due to a broken piece of insulation, got completely disintegrated. With the shuttle, died all the 7 astronauts who were aboard. [Remembering Columbia]

Scientists had lost hope on all of the 80 experiments that were on board. Only several days later while sifting through the wreckage they found something interesting – at least not all was lost. A live group of lucky worms (roundworms) was successfully salvaged from the wreckage. Yes, odd, but true.

Why were there worms in the shuttle?

The space shuttle Columbia was a research flight and contained 80 experiments on board. The group of live worms, sealed in a metal container which was ensconced in a safe locker, was a part of one of those 80 experiments.

Although the particular gene experiment that had to be conducted with fresh-worms-from-space was lost because they had entered Earth several days back, the worms still proved useful for other science experiments.

From these worms scientists learned a great deal about what micro-gravity could do to animals – Like weakening of muscles and manifestation of diabetic symptoms. When in space, these are the similar things that happen to humans as well.

How did they not get killed?

Firstly, they were in a strong metal container that was nicely protected by a second layer – a reinforced locker meant to really protect things.

Since the shuttle was coming in at a speed more than 2 times the speed of sound, the locker must have hit the ground pretty hard, right? No, till the time it reached the surface, the drag slowed it down. So, the worms basically experienced just a harder-than-normal landing.

What are they doing now?

Well, as round worms don’t really live longer than 2 years usually, they must have died long back. But their descendants have been stored safely in a genetic center – lucky worms indeed. Some of these descendants were lucky enough to be sent to space during 2011 in the shuttle Endeavour.

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The Blue Blood of a Horseshoe crab is Precious

By Anupum Pant

Not-so-good Bunnies

Several years back large colonies of cute little rabbits were being maintained by pharmaceutical companies. These rabbits were used to find contamination in solutions that would be used to treat human beings. If the rabbits fell sick due to fever after being injected, the solutions were labeled as contaminated and were not injected into humans. If the rabbit had no fever after 2 days, the solution was deemed clean and could be used on humans.

However, pharma companies hated this process – not because they felt bad about harming cute bunnies, but the process was expensive and took about 2 days to give results.

A new discovery

A few years later, a scientist named Fred Bang was studying the circulatory system of a horseshoe crab – half a billion year old specie. He accidentally discovered some amazing properties of the horseshoe crab’s blood when one of his crabs died because its whole blood turned into a semi-solid mass.

He found that when the crab’s blue colored blood came in contact with a certain kind of bacteria, it got clotted into a semi-solid mass and completely trapped the bacteria.

And ultimately with the help of a scientist, Jack Levin, he developed a  process that could be used to detect bacteria contaminated solutions (contaminated with endotoxin). This process proved to be a boon to us humans.

The replaced test

Today the old bunny test has been completely replaced. Pharmaceutical companies love the new test because it takes about just 45 minutes to complete and costs much lesser.

Every year thousands of live Horseshoe crabs are made to bleed blue to take advantage of their blood’s unique properties. About 30% of these crabs die. The miracle blue liquid can detect contamination in solutions that are extremely tiny (even if the contamination is as tiny as some parts-per-trillion). 

The several liters blood extracted from these live crabs is used to save human lives by protecting them from contaminated solutions.

Every single person who has ever had an injection, has been protected because the blood of a horseshoe crab ensured that you got clean injections. Had there been no horseshoe crabs, we’d have been killing bunnies. Salute to the crab.

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A Chat With Jaan Altosaar From Useful Science

By Anupum Pant

Today is a special day on Awesci because I’m publishing the first ever interview that has been done especially for the website – A talk with one of the creators of Useful Science, Jaan Altosaar. I hope I keep bringing more of these interesting talks in the future.

Useful Science – Background

Useful Science is a super-hit science website run by a team of grad students from some of the world’s top universities like MIT, McGill, UCSB, Oxford, and Johns Hopkins. The website does exactly what its name says – Publishes practically useful science research summaries (every of them is cited) that can be understood by anyone in 5 seconds or less – a marvelous concept, I must say.

Make sure you finish reading our talk because in the end Jaan shares a great piece of information, without which and article on AweSci wouldn’t be labeled as complete.

A: When did you start Useful Science? Could you share with us what goes behind the scenes at Useful Science?

J: We launched on January 15th, 2014. We use Trello to coordinate our team and review process, and many of us use RSS feed readers to stay on top of the latest research (e.g. we subscribe to research journals, EurekAlerts, and blog feeds). The backend (designed and run by Cameron Spencer at lab43.com) is built on Drupal. We use Google Analytics for tracking stats, Hootsuite for managing our social media profiles, and Mailchimp for our email list (subscribe here!).

A: How did all of you guys meet?

J: Most of us are connected through McGill (our alma mater) and more specifically, we lived together in Douglas Hall in first year! I reached out to the rest of the contributors after meeting them at graduate school open houses.

A: Where else on the web do the team members write?

J: A few of us have personal websites; they’re listed on Useful Science’s about page.

A: What advice will you give to the thousands of Indians who apply to graduate school every year?

J: I found the process time-consuming but worth it, and tried to organize my thoughts into a resource in the form of a blog post (focused on graduate school).

A: Why did you feel the need to start Useful Science?

J: We felt there was a gap in science communication. The question was: what would a website look like if every sentence on it was cited?

A: Judging from your backgrounds, you people just love science too much and do it for the joy of it, but do you ever wish to make money out of useful science?

 J: We’d wish to make only enough to make the website sustainable. We are non-profit and any funds we receive through donations go directly to upkeep of the website (e.g. server costs and new features).

A: What revenue sources do you have in mind?

J: We’re hoping to integrate with Shirts.io so that anyone can order any of the one sentence summaries on a t-shirt.

A: I’ve read about you on Lifehacker, where else on the web, have you been featured?

J: We’ve been lucky to have been featured in BoingBoing, the McGill Science Undergraduate Research Journal’s blog, BetaKit, McGill’s Office for Science and Society blog, ITworld, the McGill Reporter, and Computerworld.

A: Before you go, could you share with us an interesting piece of science trivia for the day from any of your favorite areas?

J: One of my favorite areas of research focuses on the importance of mindset. Specifically, believing that intelligence is malleable and not fixed (i.e. it can be improved with practice) has been shown to improve grades. It’s great motivation for overcoming failure and pursuing deliberate practice.

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