Lead In The Human Body- Science Blog Post

Lead has been contaminating the drinking water in Flint, Michigan, USA for at least 2 years now. This crisis has been declared a Federal Emergency. But what exactly does lead do to the body, and how do you know if you have lead poisoning?

It can come from many sources, including some house paints, soil, drinking water, inks, plasters, batteries, all parts of the environment, etc. The two main ways that lead gets into your body is by inhalation and ingestion.

A lead overdose has been linked to anemia, kidney/immune system damage, and learning disabilities. How much damage the lead does to your body depends on the amount of lead our bodies have been exposed to. After all, lead is one of the four most damaging metals to the human body.

Symptoms In Adults:

• headaches
• joint pain
• fatigue
• muscle ache
• nervousness
• poor appetite
• irritability
• impotency
• sleeplessness
• decreased fertility
• constipation
• miscarriage

Symptoms In Children:

• irritability
• apathy
• loss of appetite
• abdominal pain
• clumsiness
• behavior problems
• learning disability
• constipation

Severe Symptoms:

• loss of balance
• stupor
• seizures
• coma
• blue tint to gums and skin under fingernails

You can keep your house lead-free by doing many things. Assessing water damage, maintaining all painted surfaces, washing your hands, and getting your home tested are a few ways to do so.

But what if you do get lead poisoning? Fortunately, it is treatable. Go to a doctor or physician IMMEDIATELY and track down /fix the source.  

To Learn More, Visit:

https://www.des.umd.edu/os/rest/lead.html

http://www.epa.gov/lead/learn-about-lead#lower

http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/elements/pb.htm

http://www.healthline.com/health/lead-poisoning#Treatment6  

Diabetes Misconceptions- Science Blog Post

Everyone has a connection with someone bearing this decease. In fact, approximately 370 million people are affected worldwide.  But what exactly is Diabetes? There are millions of misconceptions, so hopefully you'll come away with this and have a whole other view.

Type One Diabetes:

This is also cause juvenile diabetes, because it is often diagnosed during childhood. Only 5% of people with diabetes have Type One Diabetes. When you have this, an organ in your body called the pancreas does not produce enough insulin. The body breaks down glucose (sugar) and starches to produce energy for your body. Insulin is a hormone which gets glucose from the bloodstream and into the body's cells.  To ensure that you receive enough insulin, you must inject yourself with it when you eat carbohydrates. It is not the person's fault if they get Type One Diabetes; We do not know the cause of this decease.  Type One Diabetes is a lifelong decease, but fortunately can be managed.

Type Two Diabetes:
This is the most common type of diabetes. It is caused when your blood glucose raises to a level that is higher than normal, also know as hyperglycemia. Your body forms insulin resistance.  In other words, isn't able to keep up with producing enough insulin.  To solve this, you must inject yourself with insulin.  This form of Diabetes is caused by an unhealthy lifestyle.  If you change your lifestyle to a healthy one, you can cure yourself of this decease.

Gestational Diabetes:
This type happens when the woman is pregnant, normally around the 24th week.  But it's important for your doctor to monitor the woman's blood glucose so that she and her baby will both be healthy.  When diagnosed with this, it does not mean you had it before or will continue to have it.  Gestational Diabetes is temporary.


For more information, visit the American Diabetes Association's website at http://www.diabetes.org/

     
   

    

What Shapes My Brain? -Science Blog Post

Nina Kraus of Northwest University performed experiments to measure how the brain processes sound and how it affects us in our daily lives.  The results are fairly surprising.

The researchers played music or speeches into volunteer's ears.  While the sound was playing, they monitored the electricity the brain created. The volunteers ranged from ages birth to 90 years.

It was concluded that several factors impact the brain.  The music we listen to, the languages we speak (especially if you are multilingual), aging, language disorders, and hearing loss. Also, people who actively listen to music were found to hear better than those who don’t.  

Outside of the lab, studies have also been conducted in schools, community centers, and clinics.  

Other findings include:

• Kraus lab discovers biological approach to measure an individual's sound processing with unprecedented precision.

• The way a pre-literate child processes the ingredients of sound -- pitch, timing and timbre -- can predict future reading ability.

• Sound processing disadvantages can be partially offset by making music as well as speaking another language.

• Engagement matters. The brains of children who were more actively involved in Kraus lab studies saw more robust changes.

• Sound processing in the brain can be a neurological marker for issues such as autism, dyslexia and learning delays.

All in all, many fascinating conclusions have been reached by Kraus and her colleagues.  My favorite one is: How the brain processes the sounds it hears is a great measure of how healthy your brain really is.   

For more information, go to http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151214185800.htm

 

I Stand For What I Stand On: Join The Fight To Save Planet Earth

Explain To

Explain to future generations

That it was once good for the economy

When they cannot farm the land

There is no clean air to breathe

And there is no clean water to drink.

Explain to them

You knew one day Earth would be beyond fixable

Yet you never even bothered to lend a helping hand

What monsters will they make of us?

Knowing so much, but caring so little.

Explain to the suffering, the dying, the ill

The cure that once existed

That could cure them once and for all

Was eliminated by deforestation

And would never have a chance to help a single soul.

Explain to the animals

Why you kill for their homes

And what they did to deserve to be so hated

Why they die for fashion, or to become a decoration.

Explain to the world

When nothing is left

Corpses in the ground and smog up above

You knew this would happen

Yet you never even bothered to lend a helping hand.

Since humans started walking the Earth, we have been polluting.  Killing animals for decorations and fashion and using up resources faster than they can be produced.  We say technology is advancing, but as long as the air, food, and water is dirty, the Ozone Hole expands, and living beings die at the mercy of others, technology isn't advancing for the better.  Greed controls us.  We are brainwashed into believing the world is a safe, healthy place.  War breaks out.  Entire species of plants and animals are wiped out.  The rain forest is in danger.  I wrote this poem to explain how we destroy our environment. Consequences can be prevented, though.  Solar electricity can become the new gasoline.  Recycling can occur more.  We, as the human race, can open our eyes and together make a change.  Turning off lights is small.  Recycling is small.  Not taking the car to every place you go is small.  Sometimes small is what makes the biggest impact. Please join the fight to save our planet Earth.

   

27 Random Trivia You Never Thought You'd Know!

Hello! I have always loved trivia.  Jeopardy, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader, etc. have always been some of my favorite shows.  Taking a break from science, here are some fun things I bet you never thought you'd know! Feel free to comment more trivia!   

1. The line between the two numbers of a fraction has a name--- the vinculum.

2. To get a rough estimate of the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, count the number of cricket chirps you hear for 15 seconds, then add 37 to that number.

3. 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 configurations can be made out of a 3x3 Rubik’s Cube.

4. The longest word typed using only the left hand is ‘stewardesses’.

5. If you throw an object, it will travel further if you throw it to the west than if you throw it to the east.  This is because of Earth’s rotation.

6. Mosquitoes are attracted to blue twice as much as they are attracted to any other color.

7. Wrigley’s Gum was the first item to have a bar code.

8. To eat a piece of celery, it takes more calories to eat it than are actually in the celery itself.

9. Humans only used about 10% of their brain.

10. 7 times is the average number of times the average major league baseball is pitched.

11. The first novel written on a typewriter was Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

12. The GNP of Texas - if it were a country - would be the fifth largest GNP of any country in the world.

13. The average American eats 18 acres of pizza per day.

14. In the English language, the shortest complex sentence is ‘I am’.

15. Almonds are a member of the peach family.

16. To produce enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee, you would have to yell for about 8 years, 7 months, and 6 days.

17. The lifespan of a dragonfly is 24 hours.

18. The only state that can be typed on one row of a keyboard is Alaska.

19. Dr. Seuss was challenged by editor Bennett Cerf to write a book with no more than 50 words in it, resulting in Green Eggs And Ham.

20. The only bank in the world that allows ATM users to perform transactions in Latin is in Vatican City.

21. Approximately one out of every 4 lobsters are born with a genetic disorder that will eventually turn the lobster a blue color.

22. The Baby Ruth candy bar was named after the daughter of President Grover Cleveland. Her name was Ruth Cleveland, and she was the first baby girl born in the White House.

23. The most widely spoken native language in the world is Mandarin Chinese.

24. Starbucks was named after the first mate in Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

25. M&M stands for the lasts names of Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, the inventors of M&M.

26. One-Fifth of the world’s oxygen comes from the Amazon Rainforest.

27. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter of the English alphabet in it.

Zipf's Law

Zipf’s Law, proposed by an American Linguist named George Kingsley Zipf, deals with probability.  It states the the frequency of an event (f) is inversely proportional to its rank (r).

Originally, it was proposed for the frequency of words used in the English language.  A word’s approximate usage is determined by the formula: f(r)≅0.1/r

The most common word (Rank 1) in the English language is “the”, which, in a typical text, occurs about one-tenth of the time.  The second most common English word (Rank 2) is “of”, which occurs approximately one-twentieth of the time, and so on and so forth.

To look at it another way, focus only on the rank: 1/rank means that world occurs 1/rank of the time.  The word “the” occurs 1/r times, the word “of” occurs half that amount (Because 1/rank for the second word is equivalent to ½).  The third word occurs one -third as often as the second word (1/rank equals ⅓).  And the forth word occurs ¼  as often.  Unfortunately, beyond the ranking of 1,000 the law becomes untrue.  

This same principle can be applied to other things.  Though the results are not exactly correct, it comes up with a decent estimate.  For example, the largest city in a country is about twice the size of the second largest.  The second largest city is about three times the size of the third largest, and so on.  The basic principle can be useful in schemes like urban planning.

For more information, visit: http://www.britannica.com/topic/Zipfs-law

                                         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law

Fracking And Why It Needs To Stop NOW!!!! -Science Blog Post

What Is It:

Hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, is a process used to recover natural gas and oil from shale rock.  

To do this, a hole is drilled into the Earth.  Then, a high-pressure water mixture is put into the rock, releasing the gas inside it.  To get the gas to go flow into the well, the rock is then injected with chemicals, water, and sand.  

The well is drilled into the ground horizontally so the gas will float upwards.  This process was named “fracking” because the name refers to how rocks are fractured apart by high pressure.

Why Is It Controversial:

With fracking comes great environmental concerns.  Immense amounts of water have been transported to fracking sites, damaging the environment. Also, many fear that chemicals used in this process will eventually contaminate groundwater near the sites. “The industry suggests pollution incidents are the results of bad practices, rather than the inherent risky technique.”  But there is always room for error.  If the risks of fracking could potentially contaminate acres and acres of land from one “bad practice”, why do it?  

In addition to these, an increased amount of earthquakes in areas with fracking is linked to fracking in those areas.  The graph below shows the how many earthquakes, how strong they were, and when they hit in Barnett Shale.  Under that is a mini interview telling the normal amount of earthquakes in Oklahoma that are at or above 3 magnitude before fracking and how many are at or above 3 magnitude now.

Many other worries include that fracking wastes energy and eliminates renewable resources.  

Conclusion:

Fracking destabilizes the earth, causing increases in earthquakes everywhere it happens.  So why do we continue to do it?

For more information, visit: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-14432401