LaVa LaMpS!!!

What exactly is a lava lamp? Where did it really come from?? Well, in 1963, a man named Edward Craven-Walker invented the lava lamp. His company was named Crestworth and was based in the United Kingdom. He named the lava lamp 'Astro' and had different versions of it. He presented it at a trade show and an entrepreneur named Adolph Wertheimer bought the rights to manufacture it.

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The lava lamp is basically made up of a base, a lamp, and a top cap. The base holds a 40 watt light bulb inside a reflecting cone, and that cone rests on a second cone, which holds the light socket and electrical cord. The lamp consists of two fluids- water and a transparent opaque wax that is slightly more dense than the water at room temperature. Although, it is less dense under warmer conditions, causing the wax to float to the top when heated, causing the "lava" to flow through the lamp. When the wax floats to the top of the lamp it's temperature changes again causing it to sink back to the bottom, and the process keeps repeating.

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In my biology class, we decided to make our own lava lamps. Even though we didn't use a light bulb and wax, we were able to substitute them with oil and alkaseltzer tablets or salt. We used a regular water bottle filled 1/4 the way of with oil, and we filled the rest with water. Oil is hydrophobic and is more dense than water, which caused it to sink to the bottom of the bottle. We added food coloring as well, which allowed the whole process to be easier to see.

Food coloring is hydrophylic, or "water-loving" causing it to mix with the water. When you add alkaseltzer tablets to your mixture, they react and oxidize the water allowing the water mixed with food coloring to float causing it to bubble and look like a lava lamp!! I tried to use salt for mine instead of alkaseltzer tables, but that didn't seem to work as well, but it was still an awesome experiment!!

BACTERIA!!! Antiseptics vs. Disinfectants

In this lab we collected bacteria from different areas in the school including our hands, toilets, sinks, door handles, keyboards, and lockers. We used petri dishes and divided them into six parts. We used sterile cotton swabs to swipe all of our bacteria, and we dipped it into a different liquid for each area to see which worked the best. We used our hands to swap the skin bacteria. The first trial was dipped in distilled water, and the second was dipped in isopropyl alcohol. Rubbing alcohol is an antibacterial product called an antiseptic, because you can use it on surfaces of living things, such as our skin. We use disinfectants on non-living things. For the third trial on skin, we washed our hands but didn't dry them allowing the cotton swab to collect any bacteria left over on our fingers.

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After we swabbed each bacteria we then streaked our swab onto our petri dish in the appropriate section. After we used the skin bacteria, we proceeded onto surface bacteria. This is where the toilets, sinks, and door handles come in handy. My surface that I used for bacteria was the toilet in the high school girl's lockeroom.

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I used the same two liquids for each trial that I used for my skin, except I also used bleach for my third trial. After I allowed the bacteria to grow for 24 hours in the incubator, the bacteria from the toilet using the distilled water had grown the most. The alcohol and bleach evidently was able to kill some of the bacteria, but the water did not. Therefore, I believe the disinfectants worked better than the antiseptic.

NOVA Bacteria Talk

This article is all about the communciation between different kinds of bacteria and how they react with eachother. It explains how you can find bacteria anywhere and everywhere, but not all of them are bad. Bonnie Bassler did a lab with her students about how bacteria cells can communicate with eachother and organize themselves into groups and function with eachother. This process of how they communicate and function is called quorum sensing. The article explains how bacteria are all just one cell and have one piece of DNA inside of them, and they reproduce by pinching themselves in half and making an exact replica of themselves.

When bacteria grows, they release a small amount of chemicals. With more cells growing, there is more of this molecule. When the auto-inducer molecule is at significant concentration, they start grabbing on to this molecule. These molecules have receptors that allow other molecules to know that there are a lot of other cells in that same area. This allows all the cells to change their behavior and act the same. In their lab, they worked with a marine bacterium named Vibrio harveyi, after E. Newton Harvey. It is a bacterium from the ocean, and it makes bioluminescence. Bacteria is able to grow because they make enzymes that produce photons of beautiful blue light. You don't have to go very far down into the ocean before it turns pitch black, so it is very important for these bacteria to either make their own light or use someone elses'. Bonnie Bassler and this lab has allowed the world to see bacteria in a different way and realize that it communicates and functions in a certain way. Bassler explains that bacteria is now known to be multilingual and different species of bacteria have a different language to communicate with. She states that one species still can't understand the private languages of other species. But they can all understand the trade language. We now know that there is this tremendous move in the quorum-sensing field trying to develop a whole new kind of antibiotics which is based on anti-quorum sensing strategies. Bonnie says that her dream is to create an anti-quorum sensing drug in order to help people.

So what exactly is quorum sensing?

Quorum sensing is a brand new branch of microbiology that was discovered by Bonnie Bassler. It is just a fancy way of saying how bacteria communicates with eachother. They produce and release chemical signals that are called autoinducers. The job of these autoinducers is to find other bacteria in the same area from the same species. This process is called cell-to-cell communication, and this allows cells to work and function together. This discovery is incredibly important, because scientists will now be able to study it in detail and  work on new drugs that can fight away bacterial diseases.

Kwashiorkor...say whaaat???

Kwashiorkor is an acute form of childhood protein-energy malnutrition. Kwashiorkor occurs most commonly in areas of limited food supply,famine, and low levels of education, which can also lead to inadequate knowledge of proper diet. Some symptoms of this include fatigue, irritability, and lethargy. Another symptom is an unusually large belly. Increasing the calorie and protein intake will correct kwashiorkor, but that is only if treatment hasn't been started too late. Although, the full height and growth potential of the person will never be achieved in mainly just the children who have had this condition.

Most people think when they are overweight it would be smart to cut the carbohydrates from their diet. Wrong. Your body needs carbs, fats, and proteins in order to be healthy. Carbohydrates and their derivatives play major roles in the working process of the immune system, fertilization, pathogenesis, blood clotting, and development. Carbs are also the most common source of energy in living things.

Have you ever thought about the fact that too much protein can affect your body? The reason for this is because a diet in which protein makes up more than 30% of your calorie intake causes a buildup of toxic ketones. These diets can put your kidneys into overdrive in order to flush these ketones from your body. As your kidneys rid your body of these toxic ketones, you can lose a significant amount of water, which puts you at risk of dehydration. You will most likely dehydrate if you exercise heavily and are in this condition.

This article contains a lot of information and I have learned a lot while researching about kwashiorkor, and also different things that are unhealthy for you with certain diets. I hope you take my information into consideration and remember to check your diet before you start, because you never know when something can go wrong.

Hellooo Nylon!! Goodbye silk...

Wallace Carothers is known for contributing more to our basic knowledge of polymers more than anyone else. He began as a teacher, but preferred to do research instead, and in 1928, he accepted a position with DuPont in order to work on a research program. Wallace produced nylon in the year of 1935, but it wasn’t announced until the year 1938. The research team wanted to make a synthetic fiber that could replace silk, because the United States received their silk from Japan, and trade relations between the two countries were breaking apart. 

The invention of nylon was revolutionary, because nobody had ever thought that it could be done, and it was very convenient compared to silk, due to our relations with Japan being shaky. Also, it was a strong fiber that could stand up well to both heat and solvents. Synthetic materials have changed the products today, because there are so many different fabrics and materials that are being used, such as stretchy materials like elastics. If we didn’t have these materials, I think everything would be made from cotton and wool, because they are easier to reach and find.

The relationship between engineering and science in Carothers work is the fact that he had so much knowledge in his head about science and organic chemistry and he used that knowledge to engineer a new product. He started by studying the chemical structure of polymers and it led him to his great accomplishment of introducing nylon.  

To Clone or not to Clone..THAT is thee question.

       In the past, scientists have experimented with sheep to go through the cloning process to see if it would work. Over 270 attempts were needed in order to make a special sheep named Dolly, and it was born in Scotland in 1996. All of the other sheep were born with health problems, including malformed kidneys, and all but Dolly died prematurely. Knowing this, should humans really be cloned? When I think about this, I try to put myself in the person's shoes when they find out they have been cloned. Would you really want to know that you were made specifically from somebody else's genetic material? I wouldn't! It takes away your identity and people wouldn't be able to have their own personalities. According to theologian Nigel Cameron, "It would be perhaps the worst thing we have ever thought of in the maltreatment of our species". Cameron says," it would be a kind of new slave class... you would have human beings who were made by human beings for their purposes". Another factor that has to due with cloning is the cost. Cloning somebody is so overly expensive that not everyone would be able to do it. I was researching this topic and thought to ask my parents to see what their thoughts were on it and if they thought it was a good idea.

Mom-
"No, I think it is awful. God created everyone individually so why would you even want to think about that!" -Great answer mom!
Dad-
"I think its great. If you could create something good 3 or 4 times over again why wouldn't you? Heck! Id create 2 or 3 more Halle Barrys if i could! haha just kidding!" -Sure dad...suuure!

Sooo, in my opinion, cloning is not a good idea at all. Everyone is created individually and that is the way it should always be.

Video games can be bad for you?? REALLY??

   Summary

     Recent studies have shown that playing video games has increased aggression in the players and may last up to 24 hours after the game is finished. Playing these games causes the user to think about bad things in their head and it causes them to have that aggresion towards other people. These studies were tested by having college students play 6 different video games for 20 minutes each. Some of the games were intense, aggressive games, but others were not. One of the aggressive games was Mortal Kombat, and the non-aggressive game was Guitar Hero. The players were being tested, because half of them were told to think about their performance of the game for the next 24 hours and see if there was anything they could do to improve. This theory was used in order to see if their behavior changed at all. The studied showed that men who played the aggressive game and thought about it for the next 24 hours had an increased intensity level than those who did not. Also, this study showed that women who played the aggressive game did not have a change of behavior. This was the very first study ever to show how video games can increase aggression in people, and this intensity usually lasts for over a long period of time.

Response

Playing video games is not a huge hobby of mine, but my older brother, Tony, asks me to play with him sometimes, and I really don't mind it. The only bad thing is that I am not the best at playing these games, so that makes me want to play more so I can improve.  I have grown up with Tony and he is actually a very intense, aggressive person. Sometimes I feel that he does not know how strong he really is, and that he should probably take it down a notch when doing certain things. haha. I am anxious to see what he says about this article, because knowing him he won't think it is true. He usually plays a lot of football games, and those aren't so intense, but I can definately see where these studies are coming from. Sometimes my brother will play the hard core games and I can see a difference in his attitude, because he gets mad at himself and wants to hurt something. ahhh..!! Although, Tony is a very nice person and would never do something like that!