My Science School

Oral care experts under the ocean

'Cleaner' fish are much in demand among bigger fish. The cleaner fish are allowed to enter in through the mouth and eat up bacteria and other parasites, thus getting a meal and giving their clients a healthier mouth. However, the fish are known to engage in wrongful actions sometimes they eat mucus or scales, causing a jolt of pain to the client. The client, in return, chases the cleaner fish fiercely, giving the message! Apart from the fact that cleaner fish are too small to make a meal out of, the bigger fish face difficulty finding one. So, usually once trust has been established, the two are inseparable.

A relationship that's spot on!

Tarantulas are scary as it is - the Colombian Lesserblack Tarantula is huge, formidable and capable of eating small creatures! Yet, these mighty tarantulas spare spotted frogs. Maybe they don't taste good, but there's another reason for this special act of kindness. As mighty as they are, these tarantulas still need to protect their eggs from ants. And it turns out that spotted frogs are pretty nifty when it comes to eating up these ants, so living together offers great perks for both.

An assistant for pistol shrimp

The pistol shrimp has one mean weapon that makes other creatures jealous - rapid snapping claws! The shrimp snap their claws so rapidly that a jet of water shoots out in that direction. Despite having this weapon, nature has been cruel enough to give the shrimp lousy eyesight. That's where the goby comes into the picture. Like a guide dog leading its blind owner, the goby lets the shrimp's antennae hang onto its tail fins while it leads the way. In return, the goby gets free accommodation in the shrimp's tunnel, so all's well.

All for a sweet tooth

Meat ants have a mean reputation they're known to be violent towards other meat ants from a different territory as well as other species. Kicking, biting and spraying foul chemicals are some of their classic defence mechanisms. Yet, like everyone else, they have their weakness - a sweet tooth. What do they do to satisfy their need for sugar? They warmly welcome certain caterpillar species to their abode for the sake of the sugary fluid that the meat ants adore. In return, they even carry the caterpillars to places where plants grow so that they can feed. Talk about royal treatment!

Polar bears and arctic foxes

In the snow-filled Arctic world, finding friends and food isn't easy. So when Arctic foxes willingly join polar bears to hunt for prey, the bears don't really complain. As far as they know, the foxes don't cause any major inconvenience and the bears let them eat the scraps. The foxes are glad to get what would normally be difficult to, if they hunted by themselves.

Let's fish together

Last but not the least, dolphins work alongside fishermen! Believe it or not, without any kind of training, dolphins round up fish and alert fishermen when to throw their nets. What do they get in return? Fish that escape the net swim right into their mouths! How much better can it get? Turns out that dolphins interested in helping humans. hang out together in groups.

Picture Credit : Google 

Snapi helps users take perfectly centred selfies without the embarrassment of a selfie stick. With a simple gesture, Snapi users can capture photos without ever touching their phones. Simply open the application on your device and raise an open palm in front of the camera.

Close your palm into a fist and open it again to start the timer and capture the photo. You can set how many seconds will pass between your gesture and the actual capture. With a range of up to 13 feet, users can even capture wide-range or group shots with ease.

You can also configure how many seconds will pass between your gesture and the actual capture, so no need to trip all over yourself just to be in position. It also has autofocus based on your smartphone’s face recognition (if it has one). You get sound feedback as well to help you focus, do the countdown and finally capture your photo. All the pictures will be then stored on your smartphone’s native photo gallery. Free on the Google Play store.

Credit : Android Community

Picture Credit : Google 

Bird Climb is a colourful, addictive tap-controlled game that challenges you to help an animated bird fly as high as possible without crashing into all manner of obstacles scattered along the wall. Tap to fly your bird to the top and avoid the obstacles on the walls.

The faster you tap, the quicker the bird flies. Collect precious gems on your way to unlock fantastic new characters. You can also invite and play with all your friends in online Multiplayer mode.

Game play has two modes of operation. You have the single player game where you try to best your score and a multiplayer game where you can challenge friends or a randomly selected opponent to a game. You can play the multi-player games as a guest or login using your Facebook credentials.

Regardless of your gaming choice, the mechanics of game play are the same with the key difference being the multi-player mode will have your opponent's bird flying up the screen as well. Your bird begins the game pacing at the bottom of the screen and you will need to tap the screen to begin the harrowing journey up the display.

Credit : Windows Central 

Picture Credit : Google 

Whether you're in an inconvenient place or simply need to focus on something else first, in the new Inbox by Gmail you can snooze away emails and reminders to a better time or place without worrying you're going to forget.

The Clock icon next to each email lets you put off the email to a set time. Tell Inbox that you don't want to act on that email till later today, tomorrow, next week or the hilarious someday! You can even set up custom times for morning, afternoon, and evening snooze. You can even "geo-snooze" a message to remind you when you're at a place, rather than a prescribed time.

Select your email on the Gmail mobile app and then tap the three horizontal dots in the top right-hand corner. This brings up a menu where you can select Snooze. Then choose the date you would like the email to return. The email will now shoot off to the Snoozed folder, where you can find it if you need it sooner.

Credit : Android Authority 

Picture Credit : Google 

 

NailO functions a lot like a laptop's trackpad or mouse, working as an additional input method for the gadgets in your life. It involves multilayered miniaturized hardware that wirelessly transmits data via Bluetooth to a mobile device or PC. That means you're walking around with capacitive sensors, a battery and three separate chips - a microcontroller, a Bluetooth radio chip and a capacitive-sensing chip - packed onto your fingernail. But the setup can be topped with nail art to make it less odd-looking.

The NailO prototype recognizes five gestures: swiping left, right, up and down and single press. The technology could let users control wireless devices when their hands are full. It could also augment other interfaces, e.g., allowing someone texting on a cellphone to toggle between symbol sets without interrupting typing. It could also enable subtle communication, such as sending a quick text while attending a meeting.

In the first prototype, the location of the user's fingertip on the pad was detected by capacitive sensors made from copper electrodes printed onto a flexible polymer sheet. Now, off-the-shelf electrode sheets designed for regular track pads are being used. The MIT team is also looking into a smaller half-millimeter-thick battery, along with a single chip that serves as a microcontroller, Bluetooth radio, and capacitive sensor chip.

Along with its use in hands-full activities like cooking or doing repairs, other envisioned applications include the ability to access functions while texting on a smartphone, or subtly sending simple text messages in settings where bringing out one's phone would be inappropriate.

Credit : New Atlas 

Picture Credit : Google

Praying mantis and 3D technology

Guess what's common between praying mantises and us? It so happens that they are the only insects to be able to see the world in 3D like us. Naturally a team of scientists wanted to know how they'd react to 3D movies wearing 3D glasses. They glued tiny 3D glasses to their eyes with the help of bee's wax and showed them the movie Avatar... just kidding! These mantises were made to watch spinning circles on a screen to see how they reacted. Most surprisingly, the mantises tried to leap and tear it to pieces. It's thought that understanding this will help in designing better stereoscopic robots.

The great flea jumping contest

In what must have been a really fun study, scientists compared how high cat fleas and dog fleas jumped from the base of a cylindrical tube. It so happens that dog fleas can jump higher than cat fleas based on a detailed analysis of their performances. Maybe this might be useful when you're having a dilemma between buying a dog or a cat – if your pet gets fleas, what are the chances of it jumping on you? You can now safely and accurately decide!

Woodpeckers don't get headaches!

Now this is pure genius - how many of you have wondered why woodpeckers never develop headaches despite boring tough wood with their beaks? They say that the impact force is at least 1000 times greater than gravity. Apparently it is because the brain has a smoother surface for higher impact and is more tightly packed in the skull. Add to it the fact that there is very little side to-side movement, and woodpeckers are never going to get a migraine ever. Who knows - one day we might be able to pack our brains better and then we can say goodbye to headaches, too!

Nail biting and whispers in the night

A researcher from Virginia conducted an interesting experiment to see if a brilliant brainwave could help cure nail biting. A group of boys with the bad habit were made to sleep in a cabin with a speaker playing recorded messages again and again. The messages were something like this: 'My nails taste terribly bitter. When the speakers broke down, the steadfast scientist went and himself began to repeat these words through the night. The scientist reported that 40 per cent of the participants had managed to break the habit!

Rats aren't as smart as you think

Barcelona University researchers have found out something stunning. They say that rats have their limitations apparently they cannot distinguish between people who speak Japanese backwards and those who speak Dutch backwards. It's not clear how this is going to impact us, but it's bound to be important in some way.

Dragonflies with backpacks

We've never clearly understood how a cricket player connects his bat with a ball in seconds or how a dog manages to catch a flying Frisbee. Since dragonflies have fewer neurons than us, scientists decided to monitor their brain while they catch flies. For this, backpacks consisting of a lightweight computer chip and antenna were fixed on their backs and these dragonflies were let into a room packed full of thousands of fruitflies. While the dragonflies enjoyed snacking, the scientists analyzed the data transmitted from their neurons. All this has been done in the hope of understanding instantaneous reactions better. At any rate, the dragonflies had a good time.

Picture Credit : Google

Chlorine is denoted by Cl and its atomic number is 17. Sodium chloride or salt is a very common compound of chlorine, which has been in use since ancient times. Evidence suggests that rock salt has been used as early as 3000 BC. In 900 AD, a Persian alchemist named Rhazes prepared hydrochloric acid, another compound of chlorine. In 1200 AD, a mixture of hydrochloric acid and nitric acid was used to dissolve gold. This process released chlorine gas, but it was not known at that time.

The first person to isolate chlorine gas was Carl Wilhelm Scheele, a Swedish chemist in the year 1774. As a result, he is credited for discovering chlorine. But he did not know that it was an element. It was only in 1810 that Sir Humphry Davy realized that Scheele had actually discovered a new element. Scheele, on the other hand, had studied its properties and discovered that it could kill insects, had a green yellow colour and that it bleaches litmus paper. Chlorine has many practical purposes in our life. It is used to purify water, to prepare disinfectants, in bleaches and in mustard gas. It is also used to manufacture many products directly or indirectly. For example, it is used in paper production industry, in making dyes, antiseptics, insecticides, paints, petroleum products, plastics, medicines, textiles, solvents and even some food items. It kills bacteria and microbes in the drinking water supplies. Chlorine is also used to bleach wood pulp for paper-making and to remove ink from recycled paper.

Picture Credit : Google

The element with the atomic number 34 is selenium. It was discovered by Jons Jacob Berzelius, a Swedish chemist, in 1817. He discovered selenium while analyzing an impurity in sulphuric acid that was produced at a factory in Sweden. Berzelius thought that this impurity was tellurium at first, but he then realized that it was an unknown element. And because of its similarity to tellurium, he named it selenium after the word Selene - a word in Greek that means ‘moon goddess’.

Selenium began to be used on commercial levels by the mid-1870s when it was developed by Werner Siemens. A selenium cell was used in the photo-phone developed by Alexander Graham Bell in 1879.

This metal is also nutritionally essential for humans. We need selenium for healthy joints, hearts, and eyes. It is critical in DNA synthesis, in the activities of the immune system, and the reproductive system. Selenium also helps fight cancer, among other diseases. The human body cannot synthesize this element, and therefore, we have to provide it from outside sources. However, a little selenium is all that is needed for healthy functioning and too much selenium can be toxic.

Selenium exists in several allotropic forms, of which only three are generally recognized. Amorphous selenium is either red, in powder form, or black, in vitreous or glassy form. Crystalline hexagonal selenium is the most stable form of this metal. It resembles sulphur in its appearance.

Picture Credit : Google

The existence of germanium was also predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869 when he developed the periodic table of elements. The atomic number of the element is 32.

In 1885, Clemens Winkler, a German chemist, discovered an element that was referred to as “eka-silicon” in an ore known as argyrodite. This ore contained silver, sulphur, iron oxide, and zinc along with about 7 per cent of this unknown metal.

The word “germanium” is derived from the Latin name for Germany, which is the home country of Winkler, who discovered it.

It was first used commercially during World War II in high-resolution radar receivers. The first germanium transistor was invented after this application. Though there are claims that germanium supplements have health benefits, research has not yet found evidence for those claims.

On the other hand, using germanium supplements or medications might lead to side effects such as kidney damage, anaemia, muscle weakness, lack of body coordination, and increased liver enzymes.

Picture Credit : Google

It was Dmitri Mendeleev who first predicted the presence of gallium even before its discovery. Mendeleev named this hypothetical element as eka-aluminium because he had calculated that the element would sit below aluminium in the periodic table.

Gallium’s atomic number is 31. French chemist Paul E. Lecoq de Boisbaudran was the person who discovered it through a spectroscope in 1875 in Paris. De Boisbaudran had extracted gallium from a zincblende ore from the Pyrenees. Initially, he had obtained only 0.65 grams from 430 kilograms of ore. But later, he isolated gallium by the electrolysis of gallium hydroxide in potassium hydroxide solution.

Gallium exists as a soft, silvery metal. It is primarily used in electronic circuits, semiconductors, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Gallium is also used in high-temperature thermometers, barometers, pharmaceuticals and nuclear medicine tests. This metal is used in electronics in the form of gallium arsenide (GaAs). In fact, nearly 95 per cent of the gallium produced is used to make GaAs, which is a compound used in microwave, semiconductors, and blue and violet LEDs. Gallium is also used in the pharmaceutical industry, particularly radiopharmaceuticals. The radio-active isotope Ga-67 is an isotope of Gallium, which is used as a nuclear medicine test to check for inflammation, or cancer in the body.

Picture Credit : Google

Indians were the first to develop the technology to smelt Zinc in the 12th century. Zinc got its name from the German word ‘zinke’ which means pointed. The term might be related to the sharp, pointed crystals that are formed from smelting zinc.

In 1746, German chemist Andreas Marggraf figured out a way to isolate zinc by heating carbon and calamine (which makes calamine lotion). He reported his finding in great detail, which earned him the credit for discovering zinc. But much before his report, several other European researchers had already discovered zinc. William Champion, an English metallurgist, even had the patent for the process long before.

Zinc is a white powder that is used in everything from sunscreens to solar cells and nuclear reactors. It helps prevent corrosion in many items. Zinc is also an important element in health. It is essential to keep the body’s enzymes functioning well. The deficiency of zinc can slow growth and affect the immune system. Sometimes zinc deficiency can cause abnormalities in smell and taste as the metal is critical to these functions.

Zinc has the atomic number of 30.

Picture Credit : Google

Nickel, atomic number 28, was not discovered as an element until the 1750s although it has been in use since ancient times. In Saxony of Germany, the miners reported the presence of a dark red ore with a green coating, which caused irritation to them. They believed that this was an ore of copper, but they could not extract any copper from it. They thought that it was the work of some goblins which was preventing them from extracting copper. As a result, they named it ‘kupfernickel’, which is translated as ‘goblin’s copper’.

Between the years 1751 and 1754, Axel Cronstedt, a Swedish chemist conducted many experiments to find out the true nature of kupfernickel. He found out that this new compound did not yield the results a copper compound would yield and that it resulted in a hard white metal upon being heated with charcoal. This made Cronstedt conclude that he had found a new element. As a result, he named the new element nickel based on kupfernickel from which he isolated it.

Picture Credit : Google

In ancient China, cobalt salts were used to decorate pottery with brilliant blue designs. Cobalt was discovered as an element in the 1730s. It was isolated by George Brandt, a Swedish chemist in 1735 for the first time.

The atomic number of cobalt is 27. In its pure form, cobalt is silvery-blue and brittle. Its properties are similar to iron and nickel. It can be made magnetic like iron. Because of this property, some high-powered magnets are made from alloys of cobalt and aluminium or nickel. Its man-made radioactive isotope, Cobalt-60, is used in cancer treatments.

Cobalt is also used in alloys to build parts of aircraft engines and in manufacturing alloys with corrosion/wear-resistant properties. It is widely used in making batteries and in electroplating. Cobalt is also an essential element for many living creatures. It is a component of vitamin B12.

In August 2014, a team of astrophysicists reported the presence of cobalt-56 in the supernova SN2014J which is an exploding star 11 million light-years from Earth!

Picture Credit : Google

Chromium has the atomic number 24. It was discovered by a French chemist named Nicolas Louis Vauquelin in Paris in 1780. Vauquelin discovered the element in a mineral sample of ‘Siberian red lead’, which is now called crocoite (lead chromate). He prepared a solution of chromic acid with lead carbonate and potassium salt by boiling the crushed crocoite with potassium carbonate. He further investigated this yellow solution and confirmed that he had found a new metal. In 1781, Vauquelin had succeeded in isolating the metal. He was also successful in identifying small amounts of chromium in ruby and emerald stones.

Chromium has a silvery, shiny appearance, and it is used to coat cars, stoves and other appliances to protect them from corrosion. It has a high melting point and a stable structure, which makes it very useful in the textile and refractory industries. Chromium gets its name from the Greek word chroma, which means ‘colour’. This element when combined with other elements in nature, produces very vibrant colours, which are used as dyes.

In terms of abundance in the Earth’s crust, chromium is twenty-first in order. Chromium is mostly found in chromite ores. This ore is the primary source of chromium and is often used to make bricks because of its high melting point, moderate thermal expansion and stable crystal structure.

Chromium is very detrimental to health. Consuming high levels of chromium through polluted drinking water or inhaling the fumes of heated chromium leads to ulcers, cancer and other health problems.

Picture Credit : Google

One of the most important uses of manganese is in the manufacture of glass. This was mentioned in the first century AD by Pliny the Elder, a Roman author, who described how a black powder (which is manganese dioxide) was used to manufacture colourless glass. The existence of manganese as a separate element was first recognised in 1740 when Johann Heinrich Pott, a German chemist, stated that pyrolusite (manganese dioxide) contained a new earth metal. Until this discovery, pyrolusite was believed to be a compound of iron. To prove his point, Pott prepared potassium manganate by fusing caustic potash (potassium hydroxide) with pyrolusite in air.

Ignatius Gottfried Kaim, an Austrian chemist, was the first to isolate manganese in 1770. But his sample was not pure, and several attempts at isolating the pure metal failed. Later, Johan Gottlieb Gahn, a Swedish chemist, almost produced pure manganese in 1774 when he produced a white, hard, brittle metal. But Gahn’s manganese was also impure.

The physical properties of manganese include being very hard and brittle. Manganese is one of the most common elements found in the Earth’s crust. One can find it across the planet’s surface. It is also vital to human and animal life as it supports various metabolic functions.

Alloys of manganese are used in steel production and glass-making.

Picture Credit : Google