Class trips

In the past week my class went on a trip to Corpus Christi, the trip was fun EXEPT for the fact that we had to sleep on the floor of an aquarium and in the Lexington. At night on the Lexington it is fun until you hav to skew and it becomes a nightmare if you have to get up at night. The whole ship is pitch black except for the emergency light that is red but other than that the Lexington is fun. Before the Lexington we visited an aquarium on the beach and it was fun but for me I wasn't a big fan of the crawling things like craps, sea urchins,etc. my favorite part was either the first bus ride from our starting location to Corpus Christi because we watched movies and made stops for snacks a lot or going on top of the flight deck of the Lexington because there were a lot of my favorite aircraft up there. When i was on top of the flight deck I saw how all the planes landed and took off on such a short takeoff zone and I found out that there was a wire that catches on to the landing gear in the plane and slows it down so it doesn't fall in the ocean. I got some crazy pictures while on the lex and if you ever have the chance to visit it then I suggest you go.

Solar cooker progress

For our solar cooker we have made some clear progress. We used to have an open box and the black jar inside but it did not carry enough heat. We thought of a plan to put a plastic bag around the jar to act as a mini greenhouse and it worked very well. The cooker got over 160 degrees in 2 hours and 200 degrees in 3 1/2 hours. Further updating will be tricky but we are thinking about putting clear plastic wrap over the top of the box for an extra affect and maybe adding a stand to the box. We have had a couple failures such as one of our group members getting moved to another class and our box having to be proped up on something because the wind blows it over. We aren't done yet but we are half way there.

Science and games

Today I am back once again relating something in a videogame to a scientific consept. So in the past few weeks the game "infamous: second sun" hit the shelves with a bang and me being a hardcore fan of this game I wanted to see if the type of genetic upgrade/mutation could be possible. Let me start out with the details of this game. The infamous series is a popular game created by Sony and in this game a certain gene has been discovered to once activated let the host control a certain type of matter and on from there. I did some research and found out that at the moment there is not a known gene to do anything like this. However, there is a possible upgrade to the human set of genes since it has happened in the past. In the past people have been upgraded naturally and on purpose for example, 200 years ago people were a lot shorter on average than they are today. People have been slowly upgraded over time so who would know if something like the gene in Infamous could be possible in the future. Bact to the game, this gene is not possessed by everyone and those who have it are very rare. The gene in infamous is either an active or recesive gene and those with the active gene develop their power naturally while others can get it from another person with the conduit gene is what it's called. Not relating to science but in this game there is a set of choices that you get to make affecting the storyline. You can choose to be good or evil and although evil gets some if the better powers there is a bad feeling you get when playing it and Sony makes the game in a way that you feel really bad when you become evil but you can't turn back because "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". I am a big fan for this game but if science ever made this possible it could be the worst thing to happen to humanity. But genetically and naturally it is most likely impossible but you never know.

Source: http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/ff_tool.htm

Screen shots from: http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrTcXxOSEVTIM0AsbqJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIzbnJwMHYwBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM1NDU0NjM1ZjI5N2UzMTQyNGM4NjU4MTlkZjlkOGMzMgRncG9zAzcxBGl0A2Jpbmc-?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dinfamous%253A%2Bsecond%2Bson%26vm%3Dr%26fr%3Dipad%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26spos%3D12%26nost%3D1%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D71&w=1280&h=661&imgurl=immagini.z-giochi.com%2F2013%2F11%2Finfamous-second-son.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.z-giochi.com%2Fnews%2Finfamous-second-son-data-di-uscita-e-un-nuovo-trailer-111365&size=163.9KB&name=%3Cb%3Einfamous+second+son+infamous+second+son+%3C%2Fb%3Eultime+news+del+gioco&p=infamous%3A+second+son&oid=5454635f297e31424c865819df9d8c32&fr2=piv-web&fr=ipad&tt=%3Cb%3Einfamous+second+son+infamous+second+son+%3C%2Fb%3Eultime+news+del+gioco&b=61&ni=144&no=71&ts=&vm=r&tab=organic&sigr=12pdj6k23&sigb=13viai24p&sigi=11ll6koc0&sigt=1245j43q0&sign=1245j43q0&.crumb=KGY9wSlzeMT&fr=ipad

Science and games

Today I am going to talk about something strange in science that relates to the gaming world. This thing I'm about to tell you is fictional and in a video game. So in the periodic table there is an element 115 which I believe is Ununpeniumt and this is radioactive and in the game "call of duty black ops" this element is used as the sort of main source for a zombie outbreak and I know this Is totally fictional and I just thought it was cool how they used an element and why they did it. The game is fun and it actually has a storyline and and while playing it, I just thought why would they use an element versus something like a disease. The story says that a version of this element became so powerful and radioactive it brought the dead back to life-ish. This isn't true but I realized that in one of the missions I entered a room and saw the element and a chart with the element and the negative sighn above it and I just thought I saw that in IPC. I can't remember what it looked like but it did remind me of one of my problems in IPC and it looked sort if like this: c-14 but with Ununpeniumt. Although it wasn't true, it got me going on how there is possible elements that we see everyday or are in front of us on the periodic table that have so much potential and we don't even know it. There are elements that we don't fully understand and those elements could be very beneficial to our society. For example, what if scientists transformed an element into a form of energy we could use for transportation. What if an element could counteract the rusting process and that would save money. In the game the element is radio active and I did a little research on how radioctivity affects the human body and what i found was cool. Radiation poisoning is very deadly, mainly for the fact that it has no cures as of yet. There is not any treatment to solve it and the survival rate depends on how much have they been exposed. Those who have been poisoned by a large dose of radiation will experience nausea, stomach sickness and a drop in blood pressure. The internal affects are worse, the brain is not very affected because the cells do not reproduce but the heart, and the thyroid related things are affected the most. The radiation will eliminate many small bloodstreams and cause seizures and sometimes instant death or shock. Some people manage to survive radiation poison and they are left in bad condition, the few that go back to work and those who don't have a MUCH higher risk for cancers of various types. The survival rate is about 50 percent though. Many elements in the periodic table are radioactive or have radioactive forms but a select few will actually harm you. But the elements that do require great care in dealing with them. 

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/radeffects.shtml

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-radiation-poisoning.htm

Photocredit: http://ri.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrTcYSuiBhTt5gAl5ijzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBtdXBkbHJyBHNlYwNmcC1hdHRyaWIEc2xrA3J1cmw-/RV=2/RE=1394145582/RO=11/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.agoracosmopolitan.com%2fnews%2fheadline_news%2f2013%2f04%2f28%2f5776.html/RK=0/RS=FoomXFfhqSFeoFHM2m7n2QXJmQw-

What is slipstreaming

Slipstreaming is a common used tool in many types of races. In the Olympics which are going on now, slipstreaming is a very common thing. In order to slipstream you must be directly behind something moving in front of you. In ice racing in the Olympics many skaters align themselves behind another racer in order to reduce the air restriction pushing against them. In car racing, slipstreaming is one of the most important tools because many of the cars are the same speed and shape which gives them all the same attributes. How could you pass someone if they are faster than you? Well the answer is to get behind them and reduce the air holding you back and make the person in front of you block it for you. Slipstreaming is kind of like a human shield without the death part. The shield is the car I front of you and the thing coming at you is air. Slipstreaming works better in racing than it does on foot or bike. When you slipstream the air hitting the car in front of you flows over it and then flows over you so the air doesn't hit you as hard and you become faster than the other car until you stop slipstreaming so you can pull in front of them. Slipstreaming is now a very common tool in today's video games also. For example, in the game "Grand Theft Auto Five" slipstreaming is the only way to pass people in many situations. If one player is racing with a Bugatti and another player is behind them because they started late, the only way to pass them is if you get behind them and slipstream them. To add fun to it when you get to their car you can spin them out :D. 

http://www.sportsdefinitions.com/stock-car-racing/Slipstreaming.html

This is a screenshot from Gta 5 and this cat is aligned behind the other car (which looks like he is spinning out but he isn't actually) in order to slipstreaming and because I play the game I know those two cars are the same speed and if the black car wanted to pass the silver car he would have to slipstream him and probably spin him out so he couldn't catch back up.

This screenshot is a Bugatti (to the left of the orange car) and the orange car is slower than the Bugatti so you can tell he slipstreamed him because there is no way that car would have been able to catch up to him (I forgot what the orange car was called)

Today i am going to talk about the wonders of boiling liquids. Boiling is used in many ways. Boiling is most commonly used in heating food like macaroni but there are many other uses. If someone is stranded in amn isolated location, they need to boil any water they find because the germs, parasites, slat, etc can make you sick and even kill you on occasion. Heat kills the germs and anything in the water or liquid. Drinking unsoiled water in the water is just as dangerous as eating raw meat which you need to cook. Boiling a substance does not always require great heat, some objects can boil at a much cooler temperature because the pressure is different around the substance. Boiling something will make it become a gas. Letting a substance evaporate takes a lot longer than boiling. Ocean water is not drinkable because of the parasites and salt but when you boil it, all the parasites.will die off that are in the water as well as the salt allowing you to drink. If one did not purify the water and they could get sick. Boiling your food is a very easy task but we don't notice how helpful and easy it is to use. Preparing food would be a lot harder if boiling did not happen within the household. Think about this, you could not eat macaroni and cheese if you couldn't boil. Boiling is a life saver in some situations or an easy cooking method but without it a lot of things would be harder.

http://www.chem.purdue.edu/gchelp/liquids/boil.html

Today I am going to be talking about ultrasound. Ultra sound is a sound wave imaging device. Ultrasound is far too high pitched for us to hear and it goes through the skin and bounces around to paint an image. Ultrasound is not always used for monitoring an unborn baby. Scientists did multiple tests on ultrasound and found that it improves brain senses and nerves. Doctors put an ultrasound next to a persons head to contact the brain and it decreased the waves and that did not surprise the doctors that the brain waves were weaker and shorter but what surprised them was crazy. They did multiple tests on a persons senses and made the tests harder and harder. Some of the tests included poking and touching and one was using multiple wind gusts and too see if they could count all of the wind blasts. The doctors found that those with the ultrasound affect did better on the test than the others. Ultrasound can also be used for viewing many injuries and medical problems. Some medical problems that require ultrasound are knee injuries and brain problems. The sound from the ultrasound  bounces within the skin off of every surface and paints an image on a screen. Doctors use this to diagnose many types of injuries, and monitor a baby. Ultrasound is how one can tell what the gender of the baby is and where it is positioned.

Picture: 

Web link: http://news.yahoo.com/ultrasound-may-boost-brain-performance-180226105.html