My Science School

Bubble wrap was originally designed to be used as wallpaper. In 1957, in New Jersey, engineer Al Fielding and inventor Marc Chavannes, sealed two shower curtains together so that air bubbles were captured, giving the wallpaper a textured appearance. But the product turned out to be unsuccessful. Three years later, Frederick W. Bowers, a marketer at Sealed Air which made the product, came up with the perfect use for it – packaging material. Their first client was IBM which used bubble wrap to protect the IBM 1401 computer during shipment.

The alternate use they came up with was to use it as greenhouse insulation.  While bubble wrap by itself does create somewhat of an insulating effect, this idea didn’t pan out popularly either.

It was three years after the initial creation of Bubble Wrap that Frederick W. Bowers, a marketer at Sealed Air, which makes Bubble Wrap, finally came up with the perfect use for their product.  On October the 5, 1959, IBM announced their new 1401 variable word length computer.  Bowers got the idea that Bubble Wrap could be used as a good packaging material to protect the computer while it was being shipped.  He then pitched the idea to IBM and demonstrated Bubble Wrap’s protective abilities.  His demonstration went over well and IBM began purchasing Bubble Wrap to protect their 1401 and other fragile product they sold and shipped.

 

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One of the few blue whale hearts ever preserved weighs 180 kilos and is 5’ x 4’ x 4’ in size. It’s the world’s biggest heart! The Royal Ontario Museum extracted the heart from a dead 76 foot blue whale that washed ashore in Newfoundland. Blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) are the largest animals in the world, growing to about 100 feet in length. Around 5000-10,000 of the notoriously shy blue whales live in the southern hemisphere and only 3000-4000 in the northern hemisphere.

Scientists were then able to salvage some of the whale's organs to conduct never-before-done research. 

The heart, which measures 5x4x4ft and pumps out 220 litres of blood per beat, was in such good condition that it was a perfect candidate for preservation using a technique called plastination.

During this process, researchers from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto pumped the heart with formaldehyde, stiffening the muscles as stopping decomposition. 

They then soaked the heart in acetone to remove all the water from the tissue, down to the cellular level.  

 

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Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals. The word nulla (Latin for “none”) was used by medieval computists in lieu of 0.

The Roman Numerals System is an old numeric system developed by the Romans and used by most Europeans from the 7th - the 6th century BC and almost until the late Middle Ages. There are seven symbols in this system: I, V, X, L, C, D, M (1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000).

Around the 12th century, Hindu-Arabic numerals (also known as Arabic numerals) were introduced to Europe and now it is the most common numeric system in the world today. However Roman numerals are still used especially in pharmacy, chemistry, photography, seismology, etc.

On the other hand, the Romans didn’t have a symbol for the number zero (0). Because Roman Numerals System was developed for mostly knowing the price of goods, and to trade. So, there was no need for a symbol to represent zero.

 

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 Synesthesia is a rare neurological condition in which stimulation of one sense (e.g., taste) produces experiences in a totally different sense (e.g., sight). The word ‘synesthesia’ comes from the Greek words syn (together) and aisthesis (perception). Therefore, synesthesia literally means “joined perception”. Synesthetes (people with synesthesia) see words, taste colours and shapes and feel flavours.

In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme-color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored. In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may appear as a three-dimensional map (clockwise or counterclockwise). Synesthetic associations can occur in any combination and any number of senses or cognitive pathways. Little is known about how synesthesia develops. It has been suggested that synesthesia develops during childhood when children are intensively engaged with abstract concepts for the first time. This hypothesis – referred to as semantic vacuum hypothesis – explains why the most common forms of synesthesia are grapheme-color, spatial sequence and number form. These are usually the first abstract concepts that educational systems require children to learn.

 

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 The Indian Army has set up the Jaisalmer War Museum to commemorate the bravery and sacrifice of soldiers, specifically during the 1965 Indo-Pak War and the 1971 Longewala battle. Apart from the evolution of the Indian Army, the museum showcases tales of bravery and sacrifice of heroes of the wars. War trophies and vintage equipment are on display along with tanks, guns and military vehicles. The IAF has donated a Hunter aircraft which was used during the Battle of Longewala. The museum has murals of soldiers who lost their lives in the war and weapons used at that time. An audio-visual theater screens a movie about the battle, including an interview with Major Kuldip Singh Chandpuri, Maha Vir Chakra, the hero of the Longewala battle, who describes the heroic deeds of the soldiers of the Indian armed forces.

 

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Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta. And it’s sometimes prefixed with ‘Sri’, making it longer by three letters. Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta or Venkata Narasimha Rajuvaripet or V N Rajuvaripeta (station code: VKZ) is a railway station in Andhra Pradesh on the border with Tamil Nadu, India. It is on the Renigunta-Arakkonam section of Southern Railway, with the distinction of having the second longest name among all stations on the Indian Railways, following the renaming of Chennai Central to Puratchi Thalaivar Dr. M.G.Ramachandran Central Railway Station in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. In railway parlance, it is a flag station. It is unsignalled and passenger trains halt here, but mail trains and express trains do not halt here.

 

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Ib railway station in Odisha has the distinction of having the shortest name of all stations on the Indian railway system. The station derives its name from the nearby Ib River. Ib railway station started with the opening of the Nagpur-Asansol main line of Bengal Nagpur Railway in 1891. It became a station on the Howrah-Nagpur-Mumbai line in 1900. In 1900, when Bengal Nagpur Railway was building a bridge across the Ib River, coal was accidentally discovered in what later became Ib Valley Coalfield.

 

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The word ‘clue’ derives from the Middle English word ‘clew’ meaning ‘a ball of thread or yarn’. It had come to mean ‘that which points the way’ because of the Greek myth in which Theseus made it back out of the deadly Minotaur’s (half-man, half-bull) labyrinth by unraveling a ball of yarn so he could retrace his steps. He used the “clew” as a guide (clue) to find a solution to his problem. This is why one is said to ‘unravel the clues’ of a mystery.

 

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A giraffe’s tongue is dark in colour to protect it from sunburn. The 20-inch long tongue can appear purple, bluish or almost black in colour. This is due to the density of dark ‘melanin’ colour pigments in it. The leading theory is that the melanin provides extra UV protection, preventing the tongue from getting sunburnt as the giraffe spends upto 12 hours a day feeding.

Giraffes spend a lot of time using their tongues to get food. They use their tongue to reach into tall trees and plants to gather what they need to eat. Just like humans, they are prone to sun damage and sun burns. The color of their tongues is an adaptation to their environment. Their tongues are out and exposed to the sun a large portion of the time. Since their tongues are approximately 18 to 21 inches in length, there is a lot of space to get a sun burn. The darker color is a result of the extra melanin that is present. It helps to prevent sun burns and can protect them. The end of their tongue tends to be black and may be more pink or purple near the top since that portion is not as exposed to the sun. The melanin act as a sort of natural sunscreen. Just like people with natural darker pigment, they are still able to be affected by the sun but they are less susceptible to sun burns. This is something that has naturally occurred over the course of time.

 

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Babies can’t taste salt until they’re about four months old. They can taste other flavours as well as adults can, especially sweet, bitter and sour flavours (which might explain all the “baby tastes lemon” videos on YouTube), and maybe even better as some studies indicate that babies actually have more taste buds than adults do.

When you start introducing solid foods, remember not to add salt to the foods you give to your baby, because their kidneys cannot cope with it. You should also avoid giving your baby ready-made foods that are not made specifically for babies, such as breakfast cereals, because they can also be high in salt.

Lots of foods produced for children can be quite high in salt, so it's important to check the nutritional information before you buy. The salt content is usually given as figures for sodium. As a rough guide, food containing more than 0.6g of sodium per 100g is considered to be high in salt. You can work out the amount of salt in foods by multiplying the amount of sodium by 2.5. For example, 1g of sodium per 100g is the same as 2.5g salt per 100g.

You can reduce the amount of salt your child has by avoiding salty snacks, such as crisps and biscuits, and swapping them for low-salt snacks instead. Try healthy options such as dried fruit, raw vegetable sticks and chopped fruit to keep things varied.

Making sure your child doesn't eat too much salt means you're also helping to ensure that they don't develop a taste for salty food.

 

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The world’s freshwater constitutes just 2.5 per cent of the total global water. But much of it is locked up as ice in glaciers, ice caps and permafrost. We get most of our water from rivers, which make up only 0.49 per cent of surface freshwater. What if we could pull water from the air, instead? Fontus is a water bottle that pulls moisture from the air, and in ideal conditions, generates half a litre of water in an hour.

Austrian industrial designer Kristof Retezar wanted to make a simple, portable tool to help people where drinkable water isn’t easy to get. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs reports that 1.2 billion people live in areas where water is physically scarce; another 1.6 live in countries where water infrastructure and storage is lacking.

The Fontus uses solar energy to power a small cooler or condenser. This condenser creates a temperature differential drawing heat from one side of the device to the other. This leaves two chambers: one cold and the other hot. Air flows into both these chambers separately, but when air passes over the hot side, the slight cooling of that chamber causes the cold chamber to chill even more. That means that the air passing through the cold chamber rapidly condenses like droplets on the outside of a cold glass.

It has a basic filter to keep out bugs and dirt, but works best in the pristine air of natural environments.

 

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Kavachi is one of the most active underwater volcanoes in the southwest Pacific Ocean. It’s surrounded by hot, acidic sweater that makes it too dangerous for human divers. But when a team of scientists recently sent down camera-equipped robots, they found a surprising amount of biodiversity, including silky sharks, hammerhead sharks and the rarely-seen Pacific sleeper shark.

The ‘sharkcano’, located south of Vangunu in the Solomon Islands, last experienced an eruption in 2014.

It’s unclear how the sharks deal with the extremes of this habitat, but given the growing threat of ocean acidification around the world, any animals that are adapted to conditions like these are worth a closer look.

“What sort of changes have they undergone? Are there only certain animals that can withstand it?” asks researcher Brennan Phillips. He is also curious what all these animals do when Kavachi erupts. “Do they get an early warning and escape the volcano before it gets explosive or do they get trapped and perish in steam and lava?” He hopes to deploy longer-term cameras and set up a seismic observatory to answer those questions.

 

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Speeding in Finland can cost you a fortune as the country bases speeding tickets on income. When a businessman was caught going 65 miles per hour in a 50 zone, police contacted a federal taxpayer database to determine his income, consulted their handbook, and determined that he was required to pay 54,000 (that’s Rs. 39,51,020)!

Finland’s system for calculating fines is relatively simple: It starts with an estimate of the amount of spending money a Finn has for one day, and then divides that by two—the resulting number is considered a reasonable amount of spending money to deprive the offender of. Then, based on the severity of the crime, the system has rules for how many days the offender must go without that money. Going about 15 mph over the speed limit gets you a multiplier of 12 days, and going 25 mph over carries a 22-day multiplier.

 

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This is the Eye of Sahara (Richat Structure) is northwest Africa, photographed from the International Space Station by astronaut Scott Kelly. The 48-km feature isn’t a meteorite impact. It’s a symmetrical uplift that’s been laid bare by erosion. This prominent circular feature in the Sahara desert of Mauritania has become a landmark for shuttle crews on space missions because it forms a conspicuous bull’s eye in the otherwise featureless expanse of the desert.

Western Sahara no longer has the temperate conditions that existed during the Eye's formation. However, it is possible to visit the dry, sandy desert that the Eye of the Sahara calls home—but it's not a luxurious trip. Travelers must first gain access to a Mauritanian visa and find a local sponsor.

Once admitted, tourists are advised to make local travel arrangements. Some entrepreneurs offer airplane rides or hot air balloon trips over the Eye, giving visitors a bird's-eye view. The Eye is located near the town of Oudane, which is a car ride away from the structure, and there is even a hotel inside the Eye.

 

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 Sea lions are the only non-human mammals that have the ability to keep a beat. Dancing is universal among humans, and was thought to be unique to humans as well. When some species of birds, like cockatoos, were found to have a similar capability for rhythmic movement, it was linked to their ability to mimic sound. But even mammals with limited vocal ability can move in time with a beat over a broad range of sounds and tempos. In an experiment, Ronan, a California sea lion, was found to bob her head in time to pop music!

The researchers also conducted a test to rule out the possibility Ronan was bobbing her head a split second after hearing the beat – rather than anticipating it and bobbing her head in time to the beat.

In this experiment, she bobbed her head in time to a metronome-like sound which was programmed to skip a beat. Ronan bobbed her head even even when the beat was missed.

Professor Adrian North, Head of the School of Psychology at Curtin University and a specialist in the psychology of music said the findings did not surprise him.

“There’s nothing inherently human about music. Across board, there is an awful lot of research showing that it’s not just humans that react to music in a general way,” he said.

 

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