What Chemicals are in Your Medicine Cabinet?

By sarajean on 8/18/10 12:04am
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The main reason I stopped wearing makeup was that I was concerned about its safety, as well as its impact on the environment and animals. I used to have a blast dollying up my face with all the colors of the rainbow, some glitter, and even drawing on stuff like spider webs with eyeliner. (Scoff if you will; it’s a heckuva lot of fun.)

We don’t usually think of our makeup being harmful for us, of course. We’re bombarded with ads that tell us that this foundation makes us look youthful and healthy, and that mascara makes our lashes look longer—so it must be good for us! In truth, of course, there are many ingredients and cancer-causing chemicals in what we put on and into our bodies. Most of these aren’t regulated, either.

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Are Invisiblity Cloaks Even Possible?

By becksta on 8/1/10 5:42pm
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When browsing through the shelves of a delightful bookstore near my home, I saw a book that was devoted to the science of “Harry Potter”- I’ve seen books on the science of Star Trek, but never Harry Potter, so it was unusual for me to find Michio Kaku’s article,  "Small-Scale Invisibility Cloaks".


Harry Potter and his Invisibility CloakHarry Potter and his Invisibility CloakThe whole article sounds like crazy-talk, but is actually true. In 2006, some industrious scientists at Duke University created metamaterials, “which could render an object invisible by absorbing all the light that hits it, but only in two dimensions and only at microwave frequencies”.

Now, very small three-dimensional objects can appear to disappear when under an infrared light if they are placed under an invisibility carpet. According to Kaku, when you put the object underneath the carpet, the bump disappears. He believes that this technology can be applied to larger objects or people as well in the future, which is definitely starting to sound more than a little like Harry Potter. The main reason that the technology is able to work is that infra-red light works at a lower frequency than regular light and has a longer wavelength; when light hits the bump, it bounces off.

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Right-Brain or Left Brain?

By lisala on 6/30/10 9:59pm
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When you watch the dancer turn and spin, do you see her turning clockwise, or counter-clockwise? Most people see her turning counter-clockwise, which suggests that the left hemisphere of their brain is dominant; if you see her spin clockwise, that suggests that your right hemisphere is dominant.

In very broad terms (and I do mean very; there's enormous differences between individuals), the left hemisphere of the brain is used most often for logic, details, factual information, language and words, concepts of time in the sense of present and past, mathematics and science, patterns and order and the perception of patterns, reality emphasizing, knows the names of objects, strategic, and practical, and safe.

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Earthquakes Rumbling Hard Again

By dfunzy on 6/16/10 6:43am
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There are few things more unsettling for many folks than the news of an earthquake. Quakes seem to be popping up everywhere and occurring all the time at an unusual rate. Earthquakes occur over areas with geological faults. I make it a practice to stay out of those areas. Anyway, midday today, June 16, Wednesday, local time, the coast of Indonesia, near the northern coast of Papua, got struck by a series of powerful earthquakes. There have been reported deaths.The earthquakes caused a tsunami warning to be issued. The warning was shortly lifted. The United States Geological Survey  reported the first quake to have a magnitude 6.2, struck about 1:10pm local time on the small island of Biak.

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Not Yet The Big One

By dfunzy on 6/15/10 8:18am
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This weekend, I saw on the net, the prediction that some time in September California will get hit by a 9+ earthquake. A magnitude 9+ quake would be trouble. Anything over 6+ is a major quake. A 9+ may not move California to Atlantis, but folks caught in it could believe that the earth tried.

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Brits & Solar Storm Effects

By dfunzy on 6/15/10 7:56am
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For months now the world has been told to expect  bad space weather "that could generate unexpected currents in electricity distribution grids, that could lead to blackouts and damage to valuable infrastructure, with potentially high cost to the global economy."

Last week, the US media reported NASA's warning of a possible once in a generation space storm that could zonk out our electricity and electronics. This morning, I saw the British ITN news video, reporting the NASA warning, this warning said that "Britain could face widespread power blackouts after the earth is hit by a once in a generation space storm!"

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Those Bad Solar Storms

By dfunzy on 6/11/10 2:50pm
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Those bad old solar winds can blow out our electric lights! Oh, my!

CBS News reported today that solar storms may knock out our power grids, satellites, cell phone signals, and that we should take note and be prepared. NASA says the sun is going through a period of increased solar activity, creating intense sun storms, that could take down our technology. Take down? Put it out of commission. Scientists are working on a way to protect our electronic devices. See video.

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Face Off / Face On

By dfunzy on 4/23/10 5:45am
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face transplantsface transplantsWell, for burn patients, and for people born with facial deformities or develop them, or are injured, and  for people hiding out  -- Mafia folks, folks in witness protection, folks who just want to get away from their old lives, their spouses, their bill collectors --  and or people who want a new life, a movie star face -- and  for people who work in the spy business  -- yesterday's announcement that the first full face transplant has been carried out is probably big news.

A man injured in a shooting accident received the world's first full face transplant -- facial skin and muscles - including cheekbones, nose, lips and teeth -- of a donor.

"Face from a dead donor is removed:Veins, arteries, skin, muscles, and bones are taken The donor face and accompanying blood vessels are stitched to the patient using complex microvascular surgery " (BBC)


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Win an Invitation to Michio Kaku's "Physics of the Impossible"

By becksta on 4/14/10 12:00pm
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Michio KakuMichio KakuOf late, I’ve become interested in Physics, and have enjoyed Michio Kaku’s articles about what may or may not be possible in the future. Of course, that  doesn’t necessarily mean that I understand Physics entirely and I think I know why. I have yet to reach the high level of total geekiosity necessary to understand the workings of of Quantum Physics.

The Science Channel just announced a new series starring Michio Kaku entitled “Physics of the Impossible” and is having a contest to select individuals to win an invitation to take part in the filming. As a non-science person, I found the parameters of the contest more than a little entertaining.


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Large Hadron Collider Makes History

By dfunzy on 3/30/10 4:45pm
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Scientists of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said that on Tuesday, March 30, 2010,  their $10 billion research tool,  the Large Hadron Collider, (LHC),  a 17-mile tunnel on the border of Switzerland and France, near Geneva, Switzerland, crashed two proton beams into each other at high energy, at  three times more force than ever before. Why is this important?  Because scientists are telling us that this is a breakthrough, marking a "new territory" in physics, " and "experiments at the LHC may help answer fundamental questions such as why Albert Einstein's theory of relativity -- which describes the world on a large scale -- doesn't jibe with quantum mechanics, which deals with matter far too small to see.The collider may help scientists discover new properties of nature. The as-yet theoretical Higgs boson, also called "the God particle" .

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