2015 - Here we go!

Another year, another post.  This year's a little different than most with all of your applications to university due and you're wrapping up your 7/8 of your high school career.  Exams are coming up as well as a multitude of final assignments and projects.  You're probably experiencing stress as you have never felt before. I respond to you with this:

Colleges in the US and universities in Canada are turning to puppy therapy to help relax their students.  Puppies can be found in libraries and study halls throughout the university as a proven stress reliever. 

Here's an article on McGill University with their puppy room. 

Now that you're a little more relaxed, you're ready to catch up with the latest in science news! 

This professor can't get funding for his warp drive research because it's "too far out there".  It doesn't  stop David Pares though as he's willing to continue his research in his garage after a full day's work of teaching.  He's convinced of all that anecdotal evidence of veteran pilots who have traveled through serious electrical storms around the world and in the Bermuda triangle and find themselves 100 miles away from where they should be.  It's happened too often to far too many pilots in the past half decade that this man believes there's a correlation between high electrical activity and the ability to bend space.  Some physicists actually believe he's on to something.  Read more here.  

Some person wondered what would each of the planets look like if they were as close as the Moon.  Here's an animated GIF that I cannot corroborate on its authenticity but it's fun to look at nonetheless.

 A 5,500 year old fossil of an aboriginal woman found in Canada has its DNA analyzed.  It was found in BC's northern coast where many members of the indigenous First Nations currently live and apparently have lived for many years according to their history.  Their claim of living there has been verified by matching the DNA of that fossil with a living person who is now scientifically the 200x great-grandaughter.  That's a lot of generations.  Take a look! 

Remember those infographics and concept maps I assigned?  They're an increasingly important method of visually communicating information and its shown in WIRED's top 2014 science visualizations of the year.  Above what we see is a computer animation of a coronal mass ejection from the sun with the Earth in the background.  Make sure to look at the rest and make sure to read the captions. 

A mathematician has found a better way to get to Mars on less fuel.  Instead of aiming at the intended target and using extreme brakes (fuel) to arrive safely, the mathematician has shown a method of slowing down earlier at a proper speed enough to be gently pulled into orbit by the gravitational pull of the target.   It will be slower, but it's much cheaper. 

Again, I've shown versions of this before, but here's a video version that came out xmas eve with extreme font to annoyingly hammer it home that we live in a very, very, small portion of the universe.  Have fun in your last few days of holidays - I know I will, because I'm marking. 

 

Working towards the Xmas Deadline

I understand that many of you are working on some scholarships, other courses (yikes - multiple tests for all courses this week), and layer B; but I assure you, scientists, researchers, and rovers are all trying to hit deadlines and non-stop working.

A New Theory on the Origin of Life
We spent a few days dissecting the origin of life; how did Earth go from rocks, to life?

Jeremy England, an assistant professor at MIT, has a new theory published.  Here's an excerpt from Quanta Magazine:

"... indicates that when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy...you start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get plant..."

For further info, listen to one of his multiple talks or you can look at his published paper "Statistical Physics of Self Replication".


Rosetta Findings Add to Debate of How Water Arrived on Earth
The more comprehensive findings of the comet that Philae has landed on is yet to be released; it takes about a year for the best quality pieces to be observed, analyzed, tested and written about.  However, an interesting one has already come out and it's caused enough of a stir that it's been reported by the weathernetwork.com. One of the more popular hypothesis of the origin of our water is that it came from comets and asteroids - but this more scientific description from NASA has been written here and they've concluded that water from comets such as the one they're studying now couldn't have been the source of our water.  The water at this comet has 3 times the amount of deuterium than our Earth water.

The Importance of Writing in Science
As we are closing to the end of the course, Mr. McCumber and I will be asking for some of your feedback on the organization of the course.  I understand that it may have been writing heavy for some of you, but even post-secondary education is slowly putting some emphasis on the writing as can be seen in this article from the Atlantic.

"Scientists need to know how to write to get their work published and get grants—it's an important skill that people assume they already have [once they reach a certain level], so no one ever teaches them how to write well in these specific formats...research is king, and it's important," she said, but over the past decade universities have started to pay more attention to the "soft skills" that scientists also need."

The Difference between Skeptics and Deniers
It's important to respect everyone's opinion.  Everyone is entitled to an opinion and so here is a bit of mine:  while some of those pro creationist essays I read over the past week had well-formed arguments and fall into the 'skeptics' of Darwin's evolution, others' essays fall into the "denier" category as further defined by a blog post over at Quarks and Quasars.

"Skeptics want evidence; they seek it; they find it; then they accept it. Deniers do not want real evidence and they won’t accept any if it is brought before them.  A person who rejects an idea that is backed by scientific evidence is a denier, and they are anti-science."

Alright, so that wraps up this week's post.  Let me know what you guys think.  Let's finish the last week strong!

Related and Unrelated Stuff

ASAPscience is one of my favourite youtube channels.  It's quick and informative.    As a extension of Dr. Reid's lecture today - I give you ASAPscience's latest segment:  Can we actually live on Mars? 

I notice that some of you procrastinate regularly in class.  Some of you procrastinate with entertainment.  We are entertaining ourselves to death.  If you want to procrastinate, balance ourselves with consuming some self-improvement videos instead of mostly entertainment.  May I present to you:  LifeHack's "20 Most Inspiring TED Talks of All Time You Should Not Miss.  

...and I leave you with this animated .gif.  Start by following a leaf in the centre and see what it turns into.  It's foreshadowing for our next unit.