science

A Visit from the Science Channel Lady!

Linda Vernon What the Scientiests are Thinking About , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Readers! Wonderful news!  The Science Channel Lady has been kind enough to drop by the blog today and answer some questions  for us!  We couldn’t be more delighted!

The Science Channel Lady

Here’s our first question for you Science Channel Lady:

Ha!  Now this is a question that keeps me up at night!   Thinking about books and pencils and other things too like oxygen and hydrogen and carbon dioxide and how I attended  junior high school with Carl Sagan!

Which reminds me . . . did I mention yet that plutonium is an element that is heavier than uranium? Because it is you know!  I don’t care who you are.  You could be the President of the United States or you could be Betsy Sue Parker who went out with Carl Sagan in junior high school for about three days!  Ha!

Obviously Carl didn’t have any idea that Betsy Sue Parker didn’t know plutonium was heavier than uranium like I did — or he would have never EVER asked her to the Valentine’s Day dance. He would have asked me. That’s who he would have asked.  He would have asked MEEEEEEEEE!

Okie Doke!  Let’s move onto the next question quickly.

Hmmm. . . well all I know is that when I went to junior high school with Carl Sagan, I remember that Carl went out with both of them at the same time for about two whole weeks!

And you know how they say two heads are better than one?  Well not in their case.  I know for a fact that neither one of them knew that Alcaligenes paradoxus was on the list of approved bacterium.  They thought it was on the list of bacterium waiting to be approved. Can you imagine?

I can’t think what Carl Sagan saw in those two air heads or why he let them take him to the Sadie Hawkins dance when he should have gone with me. MEEEEEE!

Okie Doke.  Fortunately we only have time for one more question Science Channel Lady.

Hmmm . . . that depends.  Let me use an example from when I attended junior high school with Carl Sagan.  You see, Carl liked a lot of girls who I would have to categorize as dogs– intellectually speaking, of course!  For instance, he once liked a girl who failed to start every sentence with “according to the laws of physics”  like I did! (What a woof!)

And frankly, just between you and me and the Unified Field Theory, Carl was a great big chicken.  Otherwise he would have had the courage to go out with me.  MEEEEEEEE!

Okay!  That’s all the question we have time for today Science Channel Lady.  Thank you for coming by.

Okay. But did I mention that Carl Sagan went to junior school with me.  MEEEE!

Yeah we got that.

Okay.

Until next time . . . I love you

The Story of You and Your Sediment

Linda Vernon My Brain, Peanuts, What the Scientiests are Thinking About , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As you may or may not remember (depending on the severity of your last concussion) earlier this week, my brain, Peanuts, wrote a well thought out and balanced essay weighing in on the pros and cons of death.  If you missed it,  Peanuts is happy to summarize it for you as follows:

The pros and cons of death are that death sucks and there aren’t any pros. 

So today, in keeping with our “death theme”, my brain, Peanuts would like to take a few minutes of your time (or a few hours depending on how fast you read since the concussion) to discuss how growing older changes the actual “sediment” in your aging body.

 Time out for Science

But first, let’s step back a little and explain what my brain, Peanuts, means by a “sediment” in scientific terms.  Wait a minute . . . what’s that Peanuts?  Oh, sorry, Dear Reader, Peanuts doesn’t want to do that.  Ok, fine.

The Unscientific Explanation of Sediment

When you are born, your body is like a pristine glass of water with nothing in it but a teeny-weeny bit of cute, adorable sediment.

A slightly dirty glass of water
“Congratulations! It’s a glass of water!”

Another name for sediment is star stuff  which is what we are all actually made of (as the Science Channel just loves to tell us).  And since the universe has to store all this star stuff somewhere, it stores it in our bodies as sediment.

So because we are made of star stuff, naturally our newborn vessels are going to have a little bit of sediment in them.  But just a scosche . . . I’m holding up my index finger and thumb right now for emphasis — and if you could just see how close together they were, you’d say “oh Pshaw! Who cares?”

Now Let’s Fast Forward to Age 60.

OK, by now the average body has collected so much sediment, that if you were to look closely at your eyes, you’d be able to detect a very faint line about half way up your eyeball that is your Sediment Indicator Light.

At 60, your  Sediment Indicator will read “full”.  This means you are now completely full of it, when it comes to sediment and/or star stuff.

“Yup, I’m full of it alright!”

 Which means that even if you were to miraculously get down to what you weighed in high school, none of your jeans would fit like they used to– which means you wouldn’t look your hip in those new jeans, you would simply look like a scrawny 60-year-old lady or man who robbed some jeans from their granddaughter’s or grandson’s closet.  And there is absolutely nothing either you or the Science Channel can do about it.

And that, Dear Reader, is the bitter pill that needs to be swallowed on a regular basis from here on out!
Until next time  . . . .I love you anyway

P.S.  If you have any problems with any of the above, please take it up with the Science Channel.

Science Shannigans

Linda Vernon What the Scientiests are Thinking About , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cartoon of Einstein calculating math

Hello Dear Readers! Today we are going to break  out our test tubes, put on our lab coats and push our glasses farther up on our noses to examine actual science stories from the around the web.

Of course, I have taken the liberty of paraphrasing and punching up things up a bit to make it, you know, more interesting.

After Checking All the Evidence, No Evidence Has Been Found

In an effort to reassure itself that there are no such things as mermaids, the US National Ocean Service has announced that no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.  They would have said that there are no such things as mermaids but they thought  “aquatic humanoids” sounded more like they are providing a worthwhile service to American Citizens for which they really do deserve a weekly paycheck.

It’s a rock . . .No it’s a boulder . . . .NO! IT’S A MOON

A team of astronomers who were taking turns looking into the Hubble Telescope found another big boulder about 15 miles across orbiting Pluto. The fifth one so far!!  In a scientific burst of creativity, they have decided to call it P5.

In an effort to figure out why anybody would care, the astronomers came up with the following:

“The new detection will help scientists navigate NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft through the Pluto system in 2015. . . “

Apparently the New Horizons spacecraft is hurtling through space at such a tremendous speed that something the size of a BB hitting it could destroy it.

Astronomers are secretly happy about this turn of events because now instead of just sitting around playing Twenty Quasars and waiting for New Horizons to get to Pluto; they also get to take turns looking through Hubble Telescope for objects orbiting Pluto the size of BB’s.

Don’t Get The Moon in Your Eyes

An international team of researchers who needed something to do while waiting for their uniforms to dry, decided to speculate how bad breathing in lunar dust would be.

After exhaustively utilizing their brains’ capacity to think while ingesting large quantities of beer and pizza, they decided  that “inhaling lunar dust by breathing it into your lungs could increase the risk of  cancer”  and “getting lunar dust into your eyes could cause eye irritation.”

The international team of researchers somehow managed to stumble back to the lab and type up two white papers entitled: The Health Hazards of Inhaling Lunar Dust While Gasping for Air” and “Scratching Ones Eyes Out While Gasping For Air With Lunar Dust on Ones Hands Can Lead to Eye Irritation” before passing out into  a big heap of international researchers on the lab floor.

And there you have it, Dear Readers!  I  hope that this summary of the latest Science Shenanigans has helped us to better understand ourselves and the world around us!

Until next time. . . I love you

Salad Dressing Scientists Explain How to Make Salad Dressing The Scientific Way!

Linda Vernon Edible Tales, What the Scientiests are Thinking About , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today Dear Readers, I have a special treat in store for you!

I managed to track down a group of elusive scientists and talk them into showing us how to make oil and vinegar salad dressing the scientific way:

First, let’s meet The Scientists:

“Hi! My name’s Joe.”

“Hi!  My name’s Joe too.”

“Hi!  My name’s Joe but people call me Joe!”

“Hi I’m Joe and I’m about as Joe as it gets.”

Let’s take a minute to give our Salad Dressing Scientists a round of applause!

And now . . .how to prepare Oil and Vinegar Salad Dressing the Scientific Way!

Step One:  Reconfigure your kitchen refrigerator so that the reciprocating compressors are working to maximum capacity.

Uh oh!  Watch your step there Joe!

Oh sure it sounds like a lot of work, but really all you have to do is climb up in your kitchen attic (every kitchen has one) and disassemble the compressor.  Vacuum the dehydration system and viola!  Accessible Hermetic Compressors!  Who knew it would be so simple!

Step Two: Stick an olive on the end of a lead pipe.

That’s right!  Just like that!

This will give “slow” Joe (the Joe that’s always getting in everybody’s way) something to do while the other Joe’s continue to prepare the scientific salad dressing.   (Slow Joe LOVES eating olives off lead pipes.)

Step Three:  Adjust the Atmospheric Pressure Valves according to the atmospheric Pressure, PSIA.

OK, this is kind of a pain, but really it’s simply a matter of finding your kitchen’s cellar (every kitchen has one) and going down there and adjusting the knobs until the calibration level is 11.336.847.11111.0000.1.2.2.f.3.4.

If Joe can do it so can you!  Oh and don’t forget to wear rubber gloves!

Step Four:  Take one large Baskin Robbins container, eat all the ice cream out of it, then fill with oil and pour onto the  Refrigeration Compressor

Do it this way like Joe is only don’t get it all over the place like Joe always does.  Joe’s whole house smells like an oily rag!

Step Five:  Stick another olive on a lead pipe and hand it to “slow” Joe as by now he has probably figured out how to put the last one into his mouth.

Poor guy is addicted to these things!

Step Six:  Go to Costco and buy two restaurant sized jars of pickles, eat all the pickles out of each and pour oil in one and vinegar in the other.  (Be sure to remove the finely divided carbon so as not to restrict oil flow, but that goes without saying, of course!)

Make sure the liquid in both containers is Even Steven.

Step Seven:  Pour a little out of both jars onto some lettuce making sure to strain out soluble or entrained metal salts and oxides.

This is a critical step in which everything could go horribly wrong due to low-side pressure in the evaporator — but as long as there is no drop in pressure in the suction line everything should taste pretty darned delicious!

Step Eight:  Have Head Honcho Joe give it a taste test!

Uh oh!  Head Honcho Joe isn’t pleased with the consistency and, unfortunately,  it’s far too late to do anything about that!

Step Nine:  Draw Head Honcho Joe a scientific diagram of just exactly what went wrong with the scientific salad dressing, scientifically.

This will explain everything.

Step Ten:  Offer Head Honcho Joe an olive on a lead pipe and keep feeding them to him until he ingests so much lead he can’t tell a Critical Property of Refrigerant from a Pressure-Temperature Refrigerant! HA!

Mmmmmm . . . .me really starting to likee these things says Head Honcho Joe!

Until next time . . . I love you