The World Needs More Toilets!!!

Did you know; that almost 40% of the worlds population doesn't have access to a toilet? This makes up to be about 2.6 billion people without a toilet.  What doesn't help is that the wordls population is fast increasing! What funny is technology is appearing to be more important that sanitation. For example, in Tanzania 50% of the country has mobile phones but only 24% use a proper sanitation facility. Also seeing as these people dont have toilets to use they are urinating in public areas thus realeasing thousands of peces and urine in to rivers, lakes, lanfills, oceans, and causing health hazards. And we dont need this, already everyday around 4,000 children die from sanitation related illnesses.What doens't help reduction of these deseases is that only 15% of domestic waste in developing countries is given any type of treatment before being released into the environment. 
There may however be a solution to this problem, waterless composting toilets are an ultra green inexpensive way to provide toilets to developing countries, even placing/building one of these in an outhouse I'm sure would make a big difference. Where i used to live they had one of these (i had my own toilets at my house of course) but these were not uncommen in villages. I have used it and they are a great quite sanitary toilet room.
So i would completely agree with this, WE NEED MORE TOILETS in developing countries. 

Creating Light using the photons in a vacuum!

Scientists have recetly succeeded in creating lighty using a vacuum. during this experiment scientists mangaged to capture photons that dissapear and reappear in the vacuum! This theory was created almost 40 years ago and was finally managed today. 
before we continue with how they conducted the experiment I need to get a few facts strait. Most people describe a vacuum and nothingness on the inside. This is an incorrect statement, "A vacuum is full of various particles that are continuously fluctuating in and out of existence. They appear, exist for a brief moment and then disappear again. Since their existence is so fleeting, they are usually referred to as virtual particles." (quote taken from science news daily.)
During this vacuum experiment scientists succeeded in taking virtual photons and turning them into real photons. But was are photons? Photons are elementary particles that are part of the electromagnetic interaction, they are used as a unit of light as well as other forms of electromagnetic radiation. Photons can also be used as a carrier for the electromagnetic force.
 In order for the scienctists to conduct this experiment they needed to mirror the photons, there is however no mirrror that can move fast enough inorder to track the fast moving photons. "Since it's not possible to get a mirror to move fast enough, we've developed another method for achieving the same effect," explains Per Delsing, Professor of Experimental Physics at Chalmers. "Instead of varying the physical distance to a mirror, we've varied the electrical distance to an electrical short circuit that acts as a mirror for microwaves."
Once they have done that Scientists working on this worked on finding photons that appeared in pairs rather than singularly. 

Though the physics used in this experiment was way above me with a bit of research and definitions of certain words (like photons) i began t understand the article and found it very interesting how using a vacuum they succeeded in creating light! By conducting this experiment scientists have learn how to create light using a vacuum, learn more about vacuum fluctuations, as well as the way the disappearance of virtual particles work in a vacuum.

HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis awareness expands

HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis have always been a large impact on the lives of many in Dallas. But yesterday on November 19th and idea came up during the interenational conference on entertainment education. Awareness of the severity of these deseases has been needed to be raised for a while now. This is going to happen via video games. They are going to be atomactically put on things like phones. They will work as educational video games that increase awareness. 10 games have already been developed by Delhi-based gaming and e-learning company. The reason that mobile phones are going to be the main source of these games is because research shows phones have a massive reach in countries and the numbers for this increase everyday. Plus giving people information in a fun way will increase the likely hood of retaining the imformation. 

Chemical Reaction Videos

 

 In this video the bromine and alcohol begin to turn a reddish orange color  and starts spreading toxic fumes.

In this experiment the Lithem quickly catches fire and begins spinning around in the water. It amazing because water is meant to put fire out not cause it :) 

In this video it appears to have the same affect as the lithium and water, but rather than causing a spinning fire a quick burst of sparks looking like fire works goes off.

In this video the exact same thing happens as in the Lithium video. If it hadn't told me that it was different elements i would think it was the same reaction.

This video was pretty cool. I had no idea how potassium and sodium could react so violently when put together in water. I had no idea how many things reacted with water i found this to be one of the more interesting videos.

Wow! this is toilet cleaner i had no idea how toxic the toxins we are using really are! Well all i have to say is dont drop tin foil in the toilet right after its been cleaned :) .

 I don't think that his video was on your website but i saw it and i thought it was amazing so I;m going to share it! Im not quite sure how this reaction works but i can see the reaction, also with such a reaction going on was it safe for he person to jump into the swimming pool.

What do we put in gummy bears to make them react this way!!!!!????? Wow this is kind of scary.

This video confused me becuase im not sure what would make water glow in such a alien way. How did this happen? It was beautiful and really amazing but confusing at the same time.

Chemical Reactions Lab

The guiding question:  What How do you know a chemical reaction has taken place? Where is the evidence?

Your hypothesis: I think that the physical properties will change. As well as the temperature and position f the object also burning. I think when the two elements “states” stops changing then I think that the reactions is over. Also I think that you can see the evidence if you look at the original state of each element and then how it looks at the end of the experiment you can tell it has changed.

List of the Materials used:

-          Spatula

-          Graduated cylinder

-          Stirrer

-          Candle/matches

-          Thermometer

-          Goggles

-          Beakers/baby food jars

-          Na2Co3 (Sodium Carbonate)

-          CaCl2 (Calcium Chloride)

-          HCl (Hydrochloric Acid)

-          CuSu4 (Copper Sulfate (acid)

-          Aluminum Foil

-          Zinc Pieces

-          Baking Soda

-          Vinegar (Ascetic Acid)

-          Magnesium Tablets

-          Iodine

-          Starch

Data Table with ALL observations:

Reaction	Observation before reaction	Prediction	Observation during reaction	Observation after reactions
Baking soda  and vinegar	Clear powder Clear strong liquid	Bubble up	Starts exploding bubbling up foaming	Begins to relax and powder starting to settle at bottom of the test tube.
Sugar and heat	Sugar tinfoil bowl candle lit	Form caramel	Starts caramelizing	Dried up caramel that burned when relight the candle
Copper sulfate and sodium carbonate solution	Na2Co3 clear liquid CaCl2 blue liquid	No idea	Starting to blur water drops like smoke or powder	Powdery smoke forms as sediments at top of substance
Zinc piece and HCl	Zinc look like bone liquid clear	No idea	Looks like dissolving zinc piece	No more zinc, well there was except it looked more like a burnt bone. (sunk to bottom.)
Calcium chloride and sodium carbonate	Both clear liquids	Bubble up	Becomes translucent Color	Stays same as during reaction
Copper Sulfate and aluminum foil piece	Ball of tin foil  and blue liquid	Nothing is going to happen	Color of tinfoil began to change to a burnt bronzy auburn color	Once Reaction is complete the color of the tinfoil stayed the same as the color it was turning during the experiment.
Starch and Iodine (I2)	White powder light brown liquid	Unsure maybe change color?	Turns into Dark purple blackish color	Stays as black liquid.

Analysis of your results.  How do the results of each reaction compare with your prediction?  How did you know when each reaction was over?  What was the evidence of a chemical reaction in all results?  Were there any endothermic or exothermic reactions?  Were the products always the same as what you started with?  How do you know?  My prediction was pretty much correct, now that I have done the experiment I could of course add to it. I could tell that the reaction was over because some they combined to make a mixture and then that mixture never changed and then with other like the tin foil and sugar I could see that it was over when the tin foil started burning and the sugar had turned completely in to caramel J .

 

This is Zinc Reacting with HCl 

Conclusion:  Restate the guiding question and answer it.  Was your hypothesis correct in the beginning? Explain whether it was or was not.  How do you know if new substances were formed in each reaction?  Did the reactions ever come to an end? If so, why do you suppose that happens?  As for my predictions in my data table sometimes yes they were correct and sometime I was way off. For some reactions I was amazing at the change in the compound element and in others it was as expected. Such as with the Zinc reaction I surprised at how powerful the acid was when the reaction finished it just looked like a piece of burnt charcoal. I knew that the reaction was over because you could tell that the chemical was starting to get exhausted as it began to slow down toward the end of the reaction. What to me seemed like what was happening was that the element had used up all of its “energy” so to speak.

Further Inquiry:  Think about this experiment and the data you collected. Would you make any changes to the method/procedure? Do you have any further questions?  I wouldn’t change the way that we conducted this experiment, I think all things went pretty smoothly however it was sometimes hard to see the reaction what with the flask stands sometimes being in the way, but other than that I liked how the experiment was conducted and I definitely understood more about how different chemicals react together. One of my further questions would be; how drastic would the changed be if we added larger amount of each element, would some not work as well? Or would some be more effective? As for not work as well I think this might happen with the lighter and sugar experiment.

Silly Putty Experiment

In class the other day we made silly putty out of Borax water, and glue. What we did is we took about 2 table spoons of glue and mixed it in a plastic cup with a little bit of water, then we added a couple drops of borax and mixed it until it began to stick together and become gooey.
No whats the Science behind this? What happens is when you mix the glue with borax and water it produces a material called polymer, which is a long chain of molecules. Lots of natural as well as synthetic polymers will react in the same way to things like this. I found a interesting way to describe polymers online and the site said that they are a bit like cooked spaghetti :) .
this is what it said "When a pile of freshly cooked spaghetti comes out of the hot water and into the bowl, the strands flow like a liquid from the pan to the bowl. This is because the spaghetti strands are slippery and slide over one another. "

Current Events: After Mass Extinction Reefs Recover Faster the Previously Predicted!

Metzoan reefs went extinct 252 million years ago and today we discovered that it took them 1.5 million years to recover, less time the earlier predicted by scientists. Harsh living conditions are what caused such fluctuations in the carbon content and sea levels as well as oxygen deficiency caused the largest mass extinction of all time towards the end of the Permian era. Whats so amazing about this is that scientists always had predicted that it would take Earth 5 million years to recover rather that in 1.5 million! The reason this happened is the conditions of the environment went back to normal the reefs began continue grow again. This happened because the Metazoan oranisms in the reefs played a secondarty role in the reefs up until that time. This is how Hugo Bucher describes it "This shows that, after the extinction of dominant reef creators, metazoan were able to form reef ecosystems much sooner than was previously thought."

Here are the fossils that Scientists found for the reefs.