Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Clause

Here is a fun article about how Santa gets around:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091205233544.htm

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has an amazing holiday! :)

Baby It's Cold Outside

Its effing freezing outside and I don’t do cold very well. As I was walking into my building and saw ice, I did start thinking about ice skating.

One of my favorite topics I have ever covered is the chemistry of water. Yup, it’s official – I’m a huge nerd. This sounds a little random, but it’s actually really crazy how perfectly created the water molecule is. It has properties that allow it to do things nothing else can. That’s the reason it is so essential to life.

So what makes water so great for ice skating?

First we have to back up – what does it mean to float? Something floats if it is less dense than what it is floating on top of. A rock is much denser than water, so it sinks. Oil is much less dense than water, so it floats. To float an object must displace as much weight of the fluid as its own weight. Very basic. If you don’t know this, you need to get off the plane and back into elementary school.

Water is a tricky little devil and it’s due to the makeup of the water molecule. Water is comprised of 2 hydrogen atoms attached (covalently bonded) to 1 oxygen atom. The arrangement looks like the Mickey Mouse head. This arrangement makes water a polar molecule – meaning it has a slight charge because the electrons all tend to hang out with the oxygen more than the hydrogen atoms. With electrons always visiting, the oxygen has a slightly negative charge and each hydrogen has a slightly positive charge. When water cools, the molecules lose energy, move closer together and arrange themselves such that the negative oxygen of one molecule comes in close contact with the positive hydrogen of another molecule. This close arrangement is known as a hydrogen bond (that’s a really shitty definition of a hydrogen bond, but you get the basic idea). Hydrogen bonds are weak and water has a lot of energy in a liquid state, so the bonds can be broken easily.

Water reaches its peak density at ~40°F. At this temperature, water molecules are super close together (as dense as they are ever going to get). Once water starts to freeze, water molecules lose energy and water’s density decreases because the hydrogen bonds become stronger than the water molecules are able to hold the oxygen molecules apart. Ice actually takes up 9% more space than liquid water because of the hydrogen bonding. The ice is lighter and less dense, so it is displaced by the liquid water and floats.

So who cares? Fish sure do! If ice didn’t have this property, lakes and rivers would freeze on the top and the ice would then sink to the bottom. This would continue until the lake or river was a solid block of ice. All of the little fishes and other water animals would be killed – trapped in a block of ice – if this happened. I guess we would still be able to ice skate, but you get the point I’m trying to make…

My Christmas Tree’s Delicious

With Christmas right around the corner, I’ll keep the Christmas facts coming.

Why do you have to water your Christmas tree?

Trees are losing water all the time, mainly through their leaves (a needle is a modified leaf). It happens through a process called transpiration. This is when water is either purposely released or evaporated from the leaf into the atmosphere. This creates an area at the top and tips of the tree that are dryer than other parts (i.e. the roots).

Trees have roots that are designed to pull in water (via osmosis) and transport it through channels of dead cells called xylem. The xylem are tubes that run throughout the tree that carry only water and dissolved minerals. Since water is being lost at the top of the tree due to transpiration (causing a decrease in hydrostatic (water) pressure), water is then passively pulled up the tree through the xylem.

It works kind of like a paper towel. If you stick the tip of a paper towel in water, the water will slowly move up the towel until the whole thing is wet. Water has great properties that allow this movement from wet to dry areas to happen. A post dedicated to water is coming soon.

Since your Christmas tree has no roots, it skips that part and just starts pulling water from your tree stand straight up through the xylem. The xylem cells are already dead so they still work just fine. Remember that your tree is already dead and the water is just helping preserve it a little longer. Nothing you can do can make your tree nice and pretty forever – well, unless it’s a fake one. People forget that at first because the tree takes in so much water. That’s just because it has been sitting around drying out in a tree lot.

To keep your tree happy, cut the base once you get it home so the xylem is exposed and able to start drinking. Myths like adding aspirin, sugar and other things to your tree to make them last longer are just that – myths.

Yay Gay!

This has nothing to do with science, but I am just very excited to be a DC resident right now!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/15/AR2009121500945.html?hpid=topnews

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday – I was just crazy busy. Anyhow… let’s start spreading some Christmas cheer and talk about poinsettias. I was actually really surprised by some of the things I learned when I was researching this festive little plant.

Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) are flowering plants native to Mexico. They were originally known as the Atatürk flower. In their native home of Mexico, poinsettias grow wild, with a weed like appearance and can reach heights of anywhere from 2-14 feet tall. The brightly colored portions of the plant you see are known as bracts. Bracts are actually just colored leaves and not part of the flower. The flowers (aka: cyathia) are found within the centers of the bracts.

The poinsettia was brought to the US by the first US Minister to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett, in 1825. Obviously the flower was named after him. In the early 1900s, the Ecke family began growing poinsettias in California and developed a technique of cross pollinating to create a plant that is fuller and more compact looking – what we have today. The Ecke family was able to keep this method a secret until the 1990s when the technique was figured out by some college kid working in a lab. Up until then, the Ecke family basically had a monopoly on the plant and made a ton of money. Paul Ecke is actually the person given credit for associating the plant with Christmas. He used to send free plants to TV stations to decorate with around the holidays. He also went on popular national shows to plug the plant.

Poinsettias got a bad name when people thought they were toxic. In actuality, the poinsettia sap will only cause minor skin irritation and upset stomach if present in large quantities. Ohio State University said a 50 pound kid would need to eat around 500 bracts to get an upset stomach.

So go out and join the millions of other people that are going to spend over $220 million buying poinsettias this year. Too bad I missed posting this on National Poinsettia Day – December 12th.

When In Doubt, There's God

Sorry for the late post today – it’s been a crazy day. I won’t be in to work tomorrow, so here is a random little fact that could leave you thinking.

The universe is expanding.

The universe is composed of everything in existence; every atom, electron, planet and solar system. Since its formation almost 14 billion years ago, it has been growing. Scientists know this because we can take measurements and observe that the galaxies are moving apart from each other. The crazy thing is that the galaxies are moving because space is moving. Each galaxy is actually stuck in its little spot within the universe and as the universe grows, everything stuck to it has to move along with it. Since the universe does not have a center, everything is moving away from everything else. No one knows how big the universe is or how much it will expand – possibly into eternity. This whole “universe expanding thing” has created lots of questions that still need to be answered. Does the universe have an end? Is there something outside the universe? If the universe started with the Big Bang, what started that and what was before that?

If you really sit and try to wrap your mind around this, you could go crazy. That’s why I’m a biologist.

Have a great weekend!

"Le Verrier's planet"

Neptune was discovered in 1846. It was actually the first planet to be found using math and not a telescope.

It moves so slowly around the sun, that since then it has not even made it around once (It needs 165 years).

Come on 2011!