Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

Jellyfish are some of the ocean’s most graceful swimmers. I personally think watching them swim is very soothing. All jellyfish are found in the phylum Cnidaria (meaning they are not fish at all and are actually closely related to coral), but come in lots of diverse species that can be found at every depth of every ocean on the planet. Some species even live in freshwater. They are relatively simple organisms with no specialized digestive, circulatory, nervous or respiratory systems. These fragile animals (they are 98% water) have a fun life cycle with two distinct stages...

… I’ll keep the background information to a minimum (look it up if you’re interested) and get to the more interesting part…

When you think of jellyfish, you are probably not thinking about their lifecycle. You are actually envisioning how scary it would be if you fell into the middle of a bloom of jellies (more than one jellyfish = a bloom) and got stung to death! Hopefully that will never happen to you, but if it did wouldn’t you want to know how they were stinging you?

Members of the phylum Cnidaria have specialized stinging structures called cnidae (the phylum is named after these structures). When you think of a jellyfish, chances are you are imagining a species with a specific type of cnidae called a nematocyst.

Warning: I am going to talk about 2 different things: nematocyst and nematocyte. I won’t bring up the nematoblast. Just try to keep them straight.

All along the tentacles of a jellyfish (and in some species, a few other places) are specialized cells called nematocytes. Inside these cells are the long, hollow, tubular nematocysts; all coiled up and covered in barbs. Now let’s say you are swimming and you happen to brush your leg up against a jellyfish. This is what happens…

First, by coming in contact with the tentacle, you touched a small hair-like structure (cilium) that acts as a trigger. Once triggered, the trapdoor to the nematocyte cell (operculum) will spring open and allow the nematocyst to fly out at you. Like a glove with a finger inside out, the nematocyst will pop out while twisting. This twisting motion, coupled with a forceful discharge and sharp barbs, will drill through your skin. Thousands of nematocysts can be fired into your skin within an instant of a second. Once in you, the barbs will keep the nematocysts embedded in your skin and also serve as the deposit sites of the jellyfish venom. Depending on the species, this venom may be an issue.


The toxins are not well studied and their effects range from bursting surrounding cells, to rupturing red blood cells, to shutting down the central nervous system. Stay away from the venom of a Sea Wasp or Portuguese Man-of-War.

The nematocyst remains in the victim, so jellyfish are constantly making new ones. It takes about 2 days.

It is unknown how jellyfish actually fire their nematocysts with such force. It only takes 2 milliseconds to fire these little spears with around 140 atmospheres of pressure.

Flippin' your fins you don't get too far, Legs are required for jumpin' dancin'...

For Valentine’s Day, I went with a friend to see Disney on Ice. It was magical. Obviously all of the princesses were there including Ariel (the little mermaid for you morons that don’t know who that is). In honor of Ariel, I am going to post about real mermaids today. OK, really they are just humans born with a birth defect that makes them look like mermaids.

Sirenomelia (mermaid syndrome) is a super rare (1 in 100,000 live births) congenital birth defect where the newborn’s legs are fused together, appearing to look like a mermaid’s tail. Sirenomelia is not a genetic disorder and occurs randomly. A mom can have tons of healthy children, then a child with this disorder and go on to have more normal babies. The exact cause is not certain, but there are two main theories.

The first is the theory of caudal regression syndrome. Under this explanation, sirenomelia is caused by the failure of the cells within the caudal mesodermal axis. This includes a failure of both axial and intermediate mesodermal cells… just kidding (that was a line from a paper I wrote in an embryology class about sirenomelia). Basically this theory just says there are problems with the developing baby’s cells and therefore the cells end up developing improperly.

A second possible cause of sirenomelia is the vascular steal theory. Babies born with sirenomelia are usually from pregnancies associated with the presence of only a single umbilical artery (there should be two). This one umbilical artery is believed to “steal” blood supply (and thus oxygen supply) away from the developing embryo, mainly the lower (caudal) portion. Not enough oxygen means poor development.

Those born with sirenomelia suffer from a lot of other complications besides just fused legs. Most are born with messed up bone structures (lubrosacral and pelvic bone abnormalities), kidney development failure (bilateral renal agenesis), a malformed rectum (anorectal atresia) and malformed or completely absent boy/girl parts (agenesis of the external genitalia). These are serious complications and often lead to death within 2 days of birth. Depending on the severity of the condition and availability of health care, surgery may be an option to survive sirenomelia. There are only four known cases of children with sirenomelia living into childhood.

Talk about a welcome to the world!

Giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) are some of my favorite animals and have been since I was little. There are a lot of fun facts about the worlds tallest land species, like how they only have 7 vertebrae - the same number as all other mammals (including humans). What I think is most amazing about this species is how they come into the world.

After a girl giraffe meets a boy giraffe and they fall in love and call the giraffe stork, the girl giraffe will spend around 15 months pregnant. Then one day, a baby giraffe will start popping out - literally, it just starts popping out of the mom. The mother will deliver her baby while standing to prevent squishing the baby. Just like all other mammals, the mom will push until gravity takes over and pulls the 1.8 meter tall (6 foot) baby out. The baby giraffe will enter the world in free fall.

The newborn will fall 1.5 meters (5 feet) to the ground - basically landing on its head. Then the embryonic sack will burst. At this point momma giraffe bends over and starts nudging at and licking her newborn to make sure it is alive. Mom will also start making the baby giraffe try to stand. The newborn will be able to stand and walk within the hour. In nature this helps protect the baby from getting attacked and eaten by predators.

Tell me that is not an intense way to enter the world!

Here is a great clip I found, but I will warn you, this is an actual giraffe birth. It is not that gross, but maybe not watch this while eating.

‘Cause I’d get a thousand hugs, from ten thousand lightning bugs…

I don’t know about you, but I’m over this winter. And now we have more snow coming to DC tonight – bleh! I am so ready to be sitting outside at Screen on the Green on a warm, humid night, with a lovely little picnic, some wine and my amazing friends! The next time you are doing something like that outside in the summer, point out the fireflies around you and then inform everyone with you how and why fireflies create their light…

Fireflies are actually nocturnal (roam the night) beetles (in the order Coleoptera) and are sometimes referred to as lightning bugs. There are approximately 2,000 species of fireflies around the world, but no matter where you find them, all of them create their light using a process called bioluminescence. In the abdomen of fireflies there are specialized light-emitting organs. Within these organs can be found an enzyme called luciferase. Luciferase mixes with another enzyme (luciferin) and if oxygen is also present, some basic (but too technical for this post) chemistry occurs and then, voila, the firefly has a butt that is glowing! Very simple mechanism: two enzymes and oxygen. Uric acid containing cells in the abdomen act like mirrors and help reflect the light out and away from the firefly’s body. Although scientists know how the light is made, it is still unclear how fireflies regulate the light.

Each species of firefly has a unique flashing pattern that they use to attract a mate. Depending on the species, the flashes can range from quick flashes to long light burst. Some species of tropical fireflies can even get together and synchronize their flashes. While still a baby (larval) firefly, the flash is a way to keep away predators.

To be completely fair, I have to say there are a few species of firefly that are diurnal (they roam about during the day and night) and most of them do not produce any light. Why would you if you lived during the day? The ones that do still produce light tend to stay in the shade of trees.

Totally unrelated, but still a fun fact: Female fireflies deposit their eggs underground. When the larval fireflies hatch they stay underground and eat worms and slugs by injecting them with a numbing solution. When they grow into adults they eat pollen and nectar and some stop eating altogether.

Back since the days of old Methuselah, Everyone loves the big bambooz-a-ler…

I’m not much of a plant person, but every so often I learn about a plant that definitely deserves snaps.

Methuselah is the oldest known living (non-clonal) organism in existence. It is 4,842 years old! It was germinated (popped out of its seed) in 2832 BC!

Helpful clarification: A non-clonal organism means that it was created sexually and not just the product of asexual reproduction where all offspring are genetically identical to the parent (i.e. bacteria).

Methuselah is a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) that is named after the biblical figure, Methuselah that was said to have lived for 969 years. For being so old, Methuselah is still happy as can be – growing and thriving and still producing seeds. If you want to see Methuselah – good luck! It is happily growing in the “Forest of the Ancients” in California’s White Mountains, but the exact location of the tree is being kept a well guarded secret to prevent stupid people from messing with it.

I don't care what people say, I still love the sport!

In honor of the Olympics I am going to talk about one of the major natural phenomena that almost all of the winter athletes have to take into account: friction.

Friction is a force resisting motion of solids, liquid layers and elements in contact. Basically, friction is the force opposite of motion. When you think of friction, you are probably thinking about kinetic friction. This is the friction created by two objects when moving relative to each other. A specific type of kinetic friction is fluid friction. This is when a solid object moves over/through a liquid of gas. Friction is created because of charge particles.

Flashback: Every object is comprised of little tiny itsy bitsy molecules that have charges.
Molecules have a nucleus with a positive charge (protons are positive and neutrons are charge neutral) and the nucleus is surrounded by negatively charged electrons. Most molecules end up have an overall net charge of zero, but charges can change.

When two objects move past one another, their charged particles are passing one another. You should know that two opposite charges do not like one another. When charged particles are forced past other charged particles, resistance (friction) and heat (thermal energy) is created. Need a visual? Rub your hands together. They don’t just slid past one another easily (friction) and they will start to warm up (thermal energy).

That was a nice little intro into friction, but trust me, after taking physics you will learn there is a LOT more to friction (actually, I feel like I say that in almost every post – I guess just know I am giving you very basic foundations of scientific knowledge in these posts). Now I want to apply it to one of my favorite winter sports: curling.

In curling, a person pushes their stone down the ice in hopes of knocking the opponents stones out of the way and landing closest to the center of the target - very simple concept, but lots of physics to think about.

After the stone is released, friction between the stone and the ice will cause the stone to gradually slow until it stops. To reduce this friction, the ice of curling matches is not smooth. It is sprayed with water to create a surface with lots of tiny ice bumps. This reduces the amount of ice surface area the curling stone will come in contact with and thereby reduces the amount of friction the stone will encounter. Sweeping the path in front of the stone creates friction and the thermal energy (heat) actually smoothes and softens the ice a little (about 1.5 degrees) to help guide the curling stone. Until very recently people thought the ice being swept in front of the stone actually melted – thermal imaging cameras destroyed that theory a few months ago. The sweeping actually only softens the ice.


Researchers were hired by the Canadian government to study the physics of curling (they released the data above) and I would love to tell you more of the results they found, but the Canadian government has them under confidentiality contracts until June 2010. Canada really wants gold this year!

Here is a link to a video with footage of the thermal imaging cameras: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/02/05/f-tech-physics-curling.html?ref=rss

Well maybe if Kathie Lee was selling it to me...

Are people really this stupid?

Last night while taking a break from the Olympics and watching Will and Grace, I saw two back-to-back commercials that really annoyed me…

The first was for Lysol’s new, *touch free* antibacterial soap dispenser. Apparently every kitchen needs one to prevent the spreading of germs. Ok, stop and think for a second – stopping the spread of germs on a bottle of soap. Besides the fact I cannot stand when people use the word germ (that will be another post), the biggest issue I had with this commercial is that you are about to wash your hands! Who cares if “germs” get on the soap pump – anyone that touches it is going to wash their hands anyways!


The second commercial was for antibacterial Windex. Who the hell needs their windows to be free of bacteria? Am I missing something? Do people lick their windows every so often? Not to mention, what bacteria (that will bother a human) can actually survive and grow on glass? It is not exactly an ideal place to live and find nutrients. I acknowledge that Windex is a multi-surface cleaner, but has anyone taken the time to read the fine print? It claims Windex kills 99.9% of common household germs, but then there is a “‡”. What this double dagger then goes on to tell us (if you go to the website) is that 99.9% means 7 bacterial species. And to kill 3 of those 7, including salmonella and E. coli, you need to spray it on the surface until wet, allow it to sit for 5 minutes and then wipe clean. Who does that? No one!

This is true for almost all of the products that claim they kill 99.9% of common household germs. They only kill a few types of bacteria and most of the time they don’t even do that because people do not use the product correctly. Oh yeah, and don’t forget that most diseases are actually viral and are therefore not even affected by antibacterial products.

UGH! Sorry, that was a little bit of a vent/rant, but this is just a topic that really bothers me. What should you take out of this (besides the obvious – don’t buy those two products)?

You don’t need to use antibacterial soap. Soap is a very simple molecule to understand. To save you boring chemistry, just know that when soap is in water is able to encapsulate dirt, oil and bacteria. It basically forms a little bubble around the particles. Once encapsulated, it can easily be rinsed off and down the drain. Regular old soap, by its very chemical nature, is antibacterial! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that antibacterial soaps are pointless and the best thing a person can do is wash with ordinary soap and warm water. But people are scared of bacteria so companies got smart and started marketing antibacterial soap.

To make something antibacterial manufacturers will add other chemicals, usually triclosan. Triclosan will kill bacteria, but only if left on the surface for around 2 minutes. Who takes that long to wash their hands? Some bacteria have also been reported to have become resistant to triclosan and antibacterial resistance is a HUGE issue. If you have soap that contains triclosan – throw it out! Soaps can also add alcohol or small amounts of phenol to kill bacteria, but these types of soaps really should be reserved for people in medical and bioresearch fields.

He got big ego, such a huge ego...

A dear friend of mine (who is also about to become a year older) found these pictures for me. I'm a visual kind of guy so obvi I love them!

The first couple images are straight forward...






Sirius (a fairly close star) is the brightest star in Earth’s night sky. Pollux is 34 light years away and is the brightest star in the Gemini constellation. Arcturus is the second brightest star visible from the northern hemisphere (3rd brightest overall) and is the brightest in the constilation Boötes.


Rigel is a blue supergiant that is the sixth brightest star in the sky. It is the brightest star in the constellation Orion. Aldebaran is an orange giant star that is the brightest star in the constellation Taurus. It is 65 light years away from us. Now for the big boys…

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant and is one of the biggest stars known to be in existence. It is 640 light years away and is the second brightest (second to Rigel) star in Orion. Based on lots of complex math, Betelgeuse has a diameter estimated to be around 1000 times that of our sun. Betelgeuse is expected to become a supernova (see my past post about stars) within the next 1000 years. When this happens it will be so bright that it when people look up at the night sky from earth, it will be brighter than the moon!

Antares is also a red supergiant that is 600 light years away. It is the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius. This star is HUGE with a diameter of around 1,600 times the size of our sun. If you replaced our sun with Antares, it would eat up the inner planets and have its outer border between Mars and Jupiter.


What’s crazy is that there are almost certainly even bigger stars that we have just never seen!
If that doesn’t make you feel small and humble to the universe, you have an ego problem!

And here is the website the pictures are from, if you're interested: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/9LspdV/www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

This one blows my mind!

This girl, who does not even have a vagina, performed oral sex, got stabbed in the stomach and then got pregnant because sperm got into her abdominal cavity while doctors were fixing her stomach. How crazy is this?!

I told you how hard it actually is to get pregnant (that’s a way back post) – This is just crazy!

Here is the link to the story at abc news:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/incredible-sperm-survived-oral-sex-knife-fight-impregnated/story?id=9732562&page=1

Charlie the Unicorn!

Sorry sorry sorry!! I know I said I was going to post yesterday, but then I got swamped at work and just didn’t have the time. But today is a fun post. It’s about unicorns!

Well, actually it’s about the unicorn whale, the Narwhal.

The Narwhal is a cute little whale (if 3,500 lbs is little) found in the Atlantic and Russian portions of the Arctic. The most conspicuous feature of these animals is their large tusks. Inuit legend claims that one day a woman was hunting whale. She tied the rope to her harpoon around her waist and after harpooning a large Narwhal, she was pulled into the freezing water. She was transformed into a Narwhal herself and her long twisted hair became the tusk. Cute idea. Besides the obvious issue with the story, tucks are also only found on male whales.

So a tusk, huh? Of course I am going to ask a scientist’s favorite question: why?

First, what is this tusk? It is actually a left-spiraled incisor tooth that projects from the left side of the upper jaw. They are usually between 2-3 meters long (7-10 ft) and weigh about 10kg (22 lbs).

The most obvious reason for the evolutionary purpose of these tusks is for sexual bravado. A bigger tusk makes you a better man because you can fight with it and it looks pretty. This would mean that the tusk is important in creating social hierarchy within the group and would determine social ranks. Usually when this is the case, an animal uses its “bravado tool” – it shows it off or fights with it. The Narwhal has never really been seen fighting with its tusk. It hasn’t even been seen using it as a tool to break ice.

Recent studies by a Harvard professor found that the tusk is covered by millions of highly sensitive neurons. These neurons act as the whale’s environment detector. They are able to detect changes in temperature, pressure, salinity and water particle concentration. These are all things that are very important to survival.

The science community is still not sold on the sensor theory as the sole reason for these tusks. I think it is a little of everything - classic, “my rod is bigger than yours and I can feel things with it.”

Sorry, I was a little MIA

Hi friends!

I have to apologize for not posting last week – I know, I suck. For a bunch of reasons, I just needed to take the week off and focus. But don’t fret, I am still going to post and keep this blog updated with lovely little science tidbits. I’ll have a post for you a little later today.