The Iron Giant is real...

            Photo from the Huffington Post

           Back to robotics! This time the story I am covering is less Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, and more the military suits in Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Believe it or not, a Japanese robotics company, Suidobashi Heavy Industry, has made a giant 13-foot robot that is for sale at $1.3 million. It took two years to create from idea to completed construction.

            The creator of the machine said that it is intended as more of an art piece than an actual fighting robot, but it has machine guns built into its hands and rocket launchers in its shoulders (they are not loaded with real weapons yet). The weapons can even be fired by a smile from the pilot - Ah, the irony. That sounds pretty fighting robot to me. The creator has also spoken out about how he has long wanted to bring the things from his favorite sci-fi movies to life.

            The robot has humanoid hands that can pick things up. It also has wheels that can carry the robot at around 6 miles and hour. The robot can be controlled by either a pilot within the robot or remotely with a smartphone. 

Sounds like the perfect Christmas present for that Sci-fi fan on your list. You know, if you have $1.3 million sitting around.

Full BBC article - here

Huffington Post article (great photo slideshow) - here  

Rubidium - Element of the Week from 11/23 -11/30

            

           Rubidium is an alkali metal, which is soft and silvery-white in appearance. It was discovered in 1861 by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff through flame spectroscopy (Bunsen burner anyone?) Due to the bright red spectral emission, its name comes from the Greek word "rubidius", which means dark or deepest red.

            While its identity was determined in the 1860s, prior to today's more "exact" methods and measurements, Bunsen and Kirchhoff were within 1 degree Celsius of today's accepted melting point value, and within 0.1 g/cm³ of today's accepted density value.

            When it comes to natural abundance, Rubidium ranks 23. It is found in several minerals all containing approximately 1% of rubidium. Its crustal abundance is 90 mg/kg. It is also found in seawater, though in much less concentration than potassium. Its oceanic abundance is 0.12 mg/L.

            It has one stable isotope Rb-85 and one slightly radioactive isotope Rb-87. Rb-87 has a half-life of around 49 billion years, which makes it a primordial nuclide or a naturally occurring state that has been around since before the creation of Earth.

            Some uses of Rubidium are in fireworks to give them a purple color, and many medical uses. One such medical usage is as a biomarker, since it can be taken up in place of potassium by the body, and occurs only in small amounts in biological creatures. It is also used in Biochemistry to induce cells to take up DNA. Some compounds of rubidium can be used for electrical means in thin film batteries, and also in some optical glasses.

Gobbling up natural resources and how we can help prevent it!

            

**This is not as scientific as some of my other posts, but I think that the findings are important and the environmental repercussions could be large. **

           

**Disclaimer - I DO NOT want to change your eating habits and/or seem preachy. **

            So, yes, I am a vegetarian and no, that does not mean that I want you to stop eating meat. But with Thanksgiving being yesterday and the new findings from the Natural Resources Defense Council coming out - I think that the effects of wastefulness should be addressed.

            According to these recently published results, Americans will throw away 35% of the turkey they buy (no actual results have come out yet). In many Asian and African countries, they waste about 13 pounds of food per person per year, and Americans waste about 253 pounds per year. 

            This is not just a financial burden, at around $282 million dollars going to waste (think of all of the possible Black Friday deals!), but it is also harmful to our environment. To raise (grow?) one pound of turkey takes 468 gallons of water and 12 pounds of CO₂ emissions. This is as harmful to the environment as driving your car 11 miles or taking over an hour and a half long shower. I don’t mean to sound preachy, but that's crazy.

            If Americans purchased 736 million pounds of turkey this year, and threw away 204 million pounds, that means one million tons of CO₂ and 95 billion gallons of water go to waste. That is enough water to supply New York for over 100 days.

            Now, groups aren't suggesting that you eat leftovers until you are sick (especially since it is recommended that they only be saved for a maximum three to four days), but they are suggesting that the American consumer become smarter when it comes to meat -particularly turkey - consumption.

            It is suggested that consumers simply buy a smaller turkey so less has to be produced, and that guests bring reusable containers so leftovers can be shared to decrease waste. The articles also tried to provide readers with additional recipes for inventive things to do with turkey leftovers.

            I hope you all ate turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, etc to your heart's content (I know I did), but next year think about how thankful we are to have the natural resources we do have and maybe work toward conserving them so we can remain thankful for years to come.

Watch President Obama pardon the White House turkey below!

Discovery News article - here

Los  Angeles times article - here

Fermium - Element of the Week from 11/16 -11/23

            Fermium is a synthetic, radioactive element with the atomic number of 100.  It gets is name from the Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi, who developed the first nuclear reactor. It has 19 isotopes, the most stable with a half-life of around 100 days and the least with a half-life of only microseconds.

            The discovery of fermium is an interesting story. It was originally discovered in the debris from the first hydrogen bomb (known as Ivy Mike) test in 1952. These records were classified until 1955 because of tensions with Russia, and the researchers who identified it at the University of California - Berkeley scrambled to discover it through more civilian means.

            They were able to accomplish this and published their findings in 1954, but another group had done the same. After the sealed records were declassified, the discovery went to the research group at Berkeley.

            There are no uses for Fermium outside of basic scientific research, and there are no known concentrations of it on Earth because any of it that naturally occurred has since decayed into other substances. 

The Grasshopper and the Noisy City

            

             The sound of grasshoppers chirping at night is a familiar sound for many people - especially those of us who grew up in smaller cities or live in the country. I know that I find the sound very comforting - Mother Nature's natural lullaby if you will. So I find myself shocked because one particular species of European grasshopper has evolved its mating call to overcome the din of modern city noise.

            Apparently, the frequency of much city noise - cars, construction, etc is on a similar level of the frequency of the bow-winged grasshopper's mating call. This noise may have been interfering with the females hearing the calls and the males hearing the females responses. This obviously has a detrimental effect on the grasshopper's population in the city, so they have changed their call enough to be differentiable from the other noise.

            You may be asking yourself - How do we know that it is an evolution and not just a modification? There have been other animals known to modify their mating calls to fit an environment by either changing their timing or their volume.

            To prove that this was in fact an evolutionary trait, researchers at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, collected specimens from a city environment and a rural one. They then put the specimens in an isolated environment with none of the city noises. When they put the males in the proximity of females, the city grasshoppers were found to have a mating call of a higher frequency!

            As a race, we have actually caused a threat to population that caused an evolutionary change. Pretty cool, huh? While it isn't good that we have interfered with their natural order that much - it is a fascinating look into the process of evolution. Perhaps from this we can gleam more understanding of the process of evolution and the factors that trigger it.

Full article (audio clip of chirp too) - here

Discover mag. blog - here

            

Iodine - Element of the Week from 11/9-11/16

            Iodine is element 53 and is a bluish-black solid. Its name is derived from the Greek word "iodes" which means violet. This name makes sense because iodine produces a foul-smelling purple smoke when dissolved in various solutions. It is only minimally soluble in water.

            Bernard Courtois, a French chemist, discovered it in 1811. After doing some initial research (and seeing the telltale purple vapor), Courtois believed that he had discovered a new element, but did not have the funding required to determine if he was right. It was in November of 1813 that fellow chemists, Nicolas Clement and Charles Bernard Desormes made his discovery public.

            Iodine is rare in space and on Earth. It exists in higher concentrations in seawater than in rocks. Iodine is esential for human life to exist, and is the second heaviest element to fit into this category - Tungsten being the heaviest. There is one stable isotope of the 37 known for iodine.

            There are many uses for Iodine. One of which is treating an area of skin before putting a needle in for giving blood (I experienced it yesterday!) The major application is as the co-catalyst for the production of acetic acid. It is also widely used as a disinfectant - as stated above. Iodine is also used as a radiocontrast agent in X-raying. 

To the moon and back - that was so 43 years ago

          Gru (from Despicable me) and I have something in common - we wanted to go the moon when we were little. Our goals did diverge after a few years though, as I decided to write about science and the moon and Gru decided to steal it. But I digress - this week's post is about the fact that NASA may be announcing new plans of manned missions to the moon and beyond!

            According to Space.com, NASA may be gearing up for an announcement of the US's new goal in space. Under President Kennedy it was get to the moon, and under President Obama apparently it will be to have an outpost by the moon, reach an asteroid, and travel to other deep space locations (such as Mars???). Now, this is not supposed to be accomplished in the next four years but rather in the next 15-20 years.

            First of all, to do any of this deep space exploration, the outpost by the moon would have to be built as a jumping off point. This outpost would need to be located in a lagrangian point - L₂ to be specific. A lagrangian point is one of the five areas in an orbital configuration where theoretically, due to the relative position of the sun and the Earth, a satellite could be held stable and in the same(ish) position to the Earth and sun. L₂ is just beyond the moon, on the far side from Earth, and would be the ideal spot for a moon outpost. L₂ is located about 38,000 miles from the moon.

 

            The next giant leap for mankind after the moon outpost would be landing on an asteroid that is relatively close to Earth (at least 5 million miles).  This asteroid mission and it's completion date - 2025 was presented to NASA in 2010 by President Obama. This would allow scientists to go into deep space and collect samples from extraterrestrial research, which could greatly improve our understanding of the universe.

            The last big step in these challenges would be landing humans on Mars. I think we all know how that turns out - Martian Chronicles anyone? This is the mission that is the least defined at the moment and, to me, it seems the most implausible.

            NASA has already been doing preparations and research toward deep space flight. They have developed a rocket called the Space Launch System and a crew capsule called Orion. It is projected that NASA could work toward these lofty goals with just their current proposed budget - $17.7 billion.

            Obviously, there is no way to know if NASA will in fact be announcing these new goals or if they even wish to move toward deep space flight - but I sure hope so. I have told you all before how much I adore space and I do think that there is a plethora of knowledge out there that we humans have barely scratched the surface of. I do hope that NASA makes an announcement soon and that these goals are included in that. I would love to see, and love for my future kids to see, what the human race can accomplish with time, money, and a whole lot of ingenuity.

Space.com article - here

Business Insider Science article - here

History of Manned Space Missions - here!!

Lithium - Element of the Week from 11/2-11/9

            

           Lithium is Atomic number 3, and is an alkali metal. It's name comes from the Greek word "lithos" meaning stone. It is the least dense of all metals (floats on oil and water - though it reacts with water) and is soft enough to be cut with a knife. It is not found naturally in nature makes up 0.0007% of the Earth's crust.

            Lithium was discovered in 1817 by Johan August Arfwedson, when he detected the presence of another element in the ore petalite. It was several more years before William Thomas Brande in 1921 was able to isolate Lithium. He did through electrolysis of a lithium oxide.

            There are many uses for Lithium. One of the most common is the use of lithium in batteries. Lithium batteries are the most common type of batteries because it produces the most voltage (typical cell = approximately 3 volts). The largest use of lithium is actually in the production of ceramics and glass. It is used because it reduces the melting point and viscosity of silica. Lithium oxides are also a component of some ovenware. Another common usage for lithium is in lubricating greases.

            Lithium-6 is a source material for tritium ­­– which is used in nuclear reactions. Lithium salts are also used in the treatment of bipolar disorder - and is the standard to test against when new medications are created.

            Lithium is corrosive and an irritant. Precautions such as gloves are recommended when handling lithium metal. Lithium also reacts with water, though not nearly as violently as other alkali metals.

Article on evolving uses of lithium - here.

Watch alkali metals react with water - here

A new discovery at the CERN collider - zombies!

            A group of Ph.D physics students has taken the CERN large Hadron collider where I honestly never thought I would see it - the setting for a zombie movie. Decay, as it is titled, is set entirely in the depths of the CERN collider and the premise is that when Higgs "radiation" came into contact with human flesh it created zombies. I don't know if the movie looks good, but I think I may end up watching it when it comes out anyways.

            This is not the real purpose of my post, but I wanted to use Decay as a fun introduction into (in my opinion) one of the most complex ideas of the science community -the Higgs boson.

            Before I can explain the Higgs boson to you, I have to give you a little background into the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The standard model is the current working model of particle physics and has been the work of many people. Essentially, it proposes that the universe is made up of twelve matter particles (leptons and quarks - which I won't be getting into) and four forces­ – ­gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak. This model has been very effective in explaining most of physics, except for a few concepts here and there. There is one problem though ­­– there is one piece missing in the model and that is the Higgs boson.

            At this point you may be asking yourself, "What the heck is a boson?" Well, let me try and explain. For forces to be able to act upon matter, there has to exist a carrier particle that allows the interaction. This carrier particle is called a boson. So, now that you know what a boson is, the next question is - "what in the world kind of force/thingy-ma-jig is a Higgs."

            The Higgs boson is tied to the idea of the Higgs field, which is all around us and everything at all times. As things (matter) pass through the Higgs field they obtain mass. By finding the Higgs boson, which is the carrier particle through which the Higgs field affects everything, scientists won't be able to make new discoveries per se, but it would be the validation of the way physics is understood!

            It is not for sure the particle discovered and announced by CERN on July 4, 2012 is the Higgs boson, but the particle behaves like the Higgs is projected to. More research is being done on the particle, and I for one, am excited to see how the additional research turns out - hopefully without any zombies along the way.

Learn more about the Higgs Boson below: 

Article about the movie - here

Technetium - Element of the Week from 10/26-11/2

            Technetium is element number 43 and is the lowest atomic number element that has no stable isotopes -all Technetium isotopes are radioactive. Its name comes from the Greek word technetos, which means artificial. This name is appropriate because Technetium was the first element to ever be produced artificially. It is a silvery-gray, crystalline transition metal.

            Technetium has a long and complicated history. Dmitri Mendeleev (the man who created the Periodic table) predicted most of the properties of Technetium years before it was actually discovered. Between 1860 and 1925, several groups proposed that they had discovered the missing element between Molybdenum (number 42) and Ruthenium (number 44). After further research, it was determined that none of the groups had found Element 43, but rather other elements.

            Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segre at the University of Palermo in Sicily officially discovered technetium in 1936. They did this through the study of radioactive molybdenum. In 1952, Paul W. Merrill, an astronomer, detected technetium spectral signals in light from S-type red giants. Since none of Technetium's isotopes last more than 4.2 billion years (the longest half-life belongs to Tc-98), this helps confirm the theory that stars can produce heavier elements.

            A few of the uses of Technetium are as a radioactive tracer, for the calibration of equipment, and for research purposes. 

Are beluga whales the next gorillas?

            Confused by the title? Well, you should be because it makes little sense - except for the fact that researchers are now wondering if beluga whales can be taught to communicate with humans the same way that some gorillas have been.

            The Raffi song "Baby Beluga" was one of my favorite songs when I was a little kid, and belugas have always been one of my favorite animals because they look so happy all of the time, and chirp - thus they are known as the "canaries of the sea." So, this week when I was perusing science articles I found one from the Telegraph in the United Kingdom that was about a beluga and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. 

            They were reporting about a male beluga, named NOC, who has actually passed away since the recordings were done (his attempts at communication were first discovered in 1984), but the research was just published in the October issue of the journal Current Biology. In the recording the whale appears to be saying "Get out of the Water" to human divers. 

             I don't think that the words are truly that decipherable, but it does sound vaguely human. The pitch that NOC was using was many octaves lower than the usual chirps, whistles or clicks of beluga whales, and the cadence he was using was more similar to that of a human. They believe he was able to vary the pressure in his naval cavity and stretch lip-like structures within his blowhole to make these noises.

            I find this fascinating! An aquatic animal trying to make contact with humans. I would like to see more research done in this field of study. To think perhaps we could find some way to modify our larynx to make noises similar to a beluga whale, as NOC was able to manipulate his nasal tract to imitate us.            

Telegraph article - here.

Scientific American article - here.  

Neodymium - Element of the Week from 10/19-10/26

Neodymium, element number 60, was discovered in 1885 by the Austrian chemist Carl F. Auer von Welsbach. He was able to separate Neodymium from and another element from a substance known as didymium. It is a metallic Lanthanoid,, and is a rare-earth element. The name Neodymium comes from the Greek words "neos didymos" meaning new twin.  It's melting point is 1024 C and the boiling point is 3074 C.

Neodymium is considered a rare earth element, but is still found in amounts of 4.15×10¹ milligrams per kilogram in the Earth's crust, which is the second highest among rare-earth elements. It is never found by itself, but rather in different ores. The main mining areas are China, the United States, Brazil, and several others.

It is most commonly added to glass and gives the glass a violet, red, gray color.  Is made to use some light bulbs. The other common use for Neodymium is in permanent magnets. Neodymium magnets are the strongest permanent magnets available on the market. These permanent magnets are used in things such as headphones, microphones, and in some computer parts. Neodymium doped glass is also used in some lasers.

Read more - here. 

Space...space... and more space

I admit it - I am somewhat space obsessed. I don't know if it began with watching Star Trek with my family when I was young, looking through the massive telescope at the Missouri University of Science & Technology, reading the article in National Geographic from 1969 after the initial moon landing, or just staring up at the sky - but it is just a fact of my life.

Obviously, I adore all science, but space has just always been something that fascinates me and, at the same time, leaves me dumbstruck. I wish I could understand the vast field of astronomy, astrophysics, astrobiology, astrochemistry, forensic astronomy, and the list goes on. I think one of the best things about space though, is the vivid and majestic images that we can see! Just try and imagine how overwhelmed Galileo and other early astronomers would be. This week I am going to share some images and videos from the past week.

This image was taken by the Hubble telescope [made by a man from Missouri!] on the 19th of October. It is of the spiral galaxy NGC 3344. NGC stands for the New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, which lists nebulas, galaxies, and clusters. This is a galaxy that is approximately 25 million light- years away, and is about half the size of the Milky Way.  The telescope was lucky enough to get a face on view. Read more about NGC 3344 - here.

This image is of NGC 2623, which is not one galaxy, but two spiral galaxies smashing together at astounding speeds. The pair is approximently 300 million light-years away from Earth. The tails extend 50,000 light-years from the center of the merging galaxy. Explore and create your own galaxy merger - here. Read more about NGC 2623- here.

I was having trouble decided between doing an update on the Space Rover or not, but then I found this article, and decided against it. There is going to be a meteor shower from the morning of October 20 to the end of the morning of the 21! The shower is of the Orionids, which are bits of rock and ice that remain from the Halley's comet (which passed Earth in 1986). These pieces hit Earth's atmosphere and burn up leaving bright tails! It is expected that 25 meteors will pass overhead every hour. If you can't find a way or a good place to watch the meteor shower, NASA is hosting a webcast of the event starting at 10 pm CT.  Read more - here.

If you still want an update on the Mars Rover - check here.

After all of these images and videos, I can't help but wonder how many more years it will be until Star Trek becomes a reality, and mankind can truly journey forth into - as Captain Kirk claimed - the final frontier. 

Nobelium - Element of the Week from 10/12-10/19

            In honor of the Nobel prizes being awarded this past week, I have decided to cover Nobelium. This element was named after Alfred Nobel, who is the creator of dynamite and is also the man who created/funded the prestigious Nobel prizes.

            Nobelium is a synthetic and radioactive metal, with the atomic number of 102. Its atomic weight is believed to be 259,its melting point is 827 degrees Celcius, and its boiling point is unknown.  

            Nobelium has been a finicky element to isolate. A group in Sweden in 1957 claimed to have discovered an element, which they named Nobelium. It is surprising that element 102 kept the same name because this research had been determined faulty. The credit for the actual discovery of element 102 was given to a research group at the University of Berkely , who researhced from 1958–1964, in 1966. This group decided to retain the name honoring Alfred Nobel.

            There are no truly stable isotopes of Nobelium. The most stable isotope of Nobelium, Nobelium-259, has a half-life of approximately 58 minutes. Only infinitesimal amounts of Nobelium have ever been produced, there are no uses of it outside of scientific research.