Why I Don't Blog about Science (as much)

As you may have noticed, I just don't blog about science that much anymore.  (Admittedly, I don't blog much anymore, but when I do, I prefer to talk about school).  And so, to record my reasoning for when I'm older and looking back on this blog, I'm going to spit out my reasoning for not blogging about science: I just don't really know enough to come up with a good opinion on anything.  As a high school freshman, I'm not exactly the brightest of the bright- but not that green either, which is how I came to the conclusion that there is a LOT to learn out there.  How could I be able to talk about, say, a new atom smasher if I'm not even sure of what it's used for?  I might know that say, it's used to achieve high energies to find really, really, really, really, really, really (you get the idea), really, small particles.  But I barely know the difference between a lepton and a meson or gluon or photon or any of that.  And until I do know, until I can form a good, educated opinion using a good, solid background in science, I'm going to hold off on my scientific blogging.  Just for a while.

Happy Chinese New Year!

The year of the Rabbit is here, folks! And with it, the Chinese start to spring (although, the snow's piled so high spring will have to be redefined for this year).  Chinese New Year is a fantastic time- food, money, and lots 'o love is all around!!  Here's some factoids about Chinese New Year that I know off the top of my head:

• Red is a lucky color.  Luck is good!
• You're supposed to clean out the house before the New Year- but....
• Kids get money in red envelopes.  That's good too!
• Oranges represent something along the lines of wealth or something good like that...
• Fish should be eaten, because the word for fish in Chinese sounds like another word that means something good....
• You should have plenty of leftovers to represent a prosperous year.
• If you're from northern China (and excuse me if I get this all wrong), dumplings are eaten as well
• Offering sticky, sweet candies to the Kitchen God ensures that he'll only say nice things about your family.  If you want the whole story (and it is kind of amusing), look it up on google!
• There's a type of cake called nian gao that's sort of sticky and sweet and really tasty and is also supposed to represent something good.  What, I don't know, but it sure does taste good!

So, in summary, this is about as far as my family celebrates Chinese New Year, save for offering candy to the Kitchen God, the dumplings, and the cleaning the house part.  And hanging decorations of various lucky and springy and wealthy words around the house.  But, we do get a lot of food!

Eccentric Teachers

I'm sure everyone has had at least one really weird teacher in their life.  In fact, if you ask me, all teachers are at least a little weird (how could they not be, after being cooped up with us kids for so long?).  But I wanted to record today for prosperity's sake- during my very serious chemistry midterm, I heard a really weird rubber-ish noise.  It's sort of the last thing you'd expect to hear while in a midterm.  So I looked  around and (without much looking, as it was bright orange) saw that my chemistry teacher was making a balloon animal.   Yes, he was not grading tests, or sleeping, or on his laptop, or doing normal teacher things, but was making some sort of four-legged creature and making a lot of noise while doing it.  Which thankfully waked me up sufficiently to finish the rest of my midterm (I was beginning to doze) but does raise some interesting questions: Where did the balloon come from?  Why did my chemistry teacher decide to make a balloon animal while we were taking the midterm?  And, Why don't other teachers make balloon animals during midterms?  It's admittedly pretty neat....

Got Science?

I read an intriguing post at the Freakonomics blog and I couldn't help but post it here, because it truly is thought provoking.  It is simple enough- all it really says is that a bunch of 8-10-year-olds in the UK have conducted their own research and published it, the topic being bees.  If elementary-schoolers can conduct research in the UK, why don't us US kids do so as well?  Why doesn't every kid in the US have the opportunity, at least, to contribute to the scientific community by conducting some research- it would be a wonderful experience and kids would learn a lot more than if they stayed crammed in their classrooms and snoozing in the back (or in my case, the front) of the room.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Looking for a way to use those Thanksgiving leftovers without actually eating them?  Smear them on yourself!  Apparently, there are scientific reasons why leftovers like pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes may be better on your body than in.  Here's a challenge: can you pick them all out?

http://improbable.com/2010/11/27/smear-thanksgiving-leftover-food-on-your-body/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ImprobableResearch+(Improbable+Research) Which leads to http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/pumpkin-pie-facial-use-thanksgiving-leftovers-for-skin-care/19729777

Science vs. Literature

Sometimes, the lines between science and literature get a little fuzzy.  How?  Check these out: Literature as a graph and one that cracks me up: Fictional Physicists (the titles were slightly paraphrased).  What do you think?  Has science become literature or has literature become scientific?

And So It Begins...

Hi!

Back to school again!  The thrill at being back, the anxiety of that first day, the confusion of hundreds of kids trying to figure out where to go and what to do.... it's almost overwhelming.  A little too close to overwhelming, in my case.  But anyhow, I welcome you all to the world of blogging!  As a heads up, I will be busy, so there won't be as many posts... however, I will be keeping check on comments, the question box blog, and so forth, so feel free to read through past posts, post questions about science and high school (I am taking chemistry and physics) and learn!

Happy back to school everyone!

Pippin

Got Science?

Did anyone really think I'd stop blogging?  Not that anyone checks, judging by the stats...

Anyway, I've been waiting for some good topics to blog about to come along, and I've got them now! This summer, we'll be exploring Engineering and Technology! Whoopee!

Okay, celebrations aside,  let's get to work.  First, we have to figure out an essential question: what is an engineer, exactly? There's the stereotype of a guy working being a desk on some computer program, or all those people in BP who are still trying to find a way to plug the oil leak.  But engineers aren't just plugging oil leaks and designing computer programs (which, technically speaking, is the job of a computer programmer, anyway).  Engineers are behind any and everything that you can think of: your TV, the chair you're possibly sitting on, the AC that's keeping you cool in this hot weather, your food.... you name it, and there's an engineer that's involved with it.  They apply their knowledge of science and math (math is the language of science, if you didn't know that already) in order to solve problems and make society a better place.  They have to be able to invent and innovate technology to fit our growing needs and solve our problems while working under time and financial restraints.  Engineers often works in teams to achieve their goal.   While they aren't strictly science, they apply their knowledge of science and math to create things that are useful to society.  (Yes, they are truly that amazing.) They pave the way to a technological future.

There are many types of engineers, and I'll list a few here (with a bit of info, of course).  I'll also list some sites at the end of this post for you to check out.  If you don't like them, then just try googling engineering for kids or something like that to find a site that's right for you.

Civil Engineering: They are one of the more well-known engineers.  Civil engineers deal with design, and they are the ones that build structures and make sure they're safe for people.  That road you drove on to get to McDonald's? There's been a engineer or two who's help to make sure it's sturdy.  They also design structures such as bridges, dams, airports, power plants, tunnels, etc.  Here's something for you to look up that might be interesting: mag-lev trains.  Civil engineers have a hand in all of these structures and more.

Electrical and Computer Engineering: They have to learn how electricity works and apply it to their work. Light bulbs, robots, cell phones, sensors, all of those need wiring and electricity work, and that's where a handy-dandy electrical engineer comes in.  Computer engineers deal with computers, of course: the hardware, software, and also other things such as medical imaging.

Chemical Engineering:  Here's a lesser known engineer.  Chemical engineers deal with... you guessed it, chemicals!  They try to make sure that chemicals are safe (remember, chemicals aren't all bad- H20 is completely harmless and very necessary: water!) in the lab and when they're manufactured as well (and at all other times as well...)  Things that would have been made by chemical engineers include common household items like... you probably didn't guess it, shampoo!  Along with shampoo, there's petrochemicals (derived from oil), pharmaceutical chemicals (medicine), and nanotechnology that you might find chemical engineers involved with.

Mechanical Engineering:  Mechanical engineering is probably one of the broadest and oldest branches of engineering.  All those images of gears and other machinery that comes to mind with the word engineer?  Yeah, that's mechanical engineering.  They don't only deal with gears, though.  They are behind things such as rockets, cars, roller coasters, water guns, and so much more, but I'll leave that for you to figure out.

Biomedical Engineering:  Yeah, I think that you could guess what biomedical engineers do.   They develop technology to help save lives.  Some subcategories include rehab engineering (to help out the body when it fails, such as making fake limbs or pacemakers), biomaterials (creating non-toxic materials that the body won't reject, such as a fake bone), and medical imaging (CAT scans, x-rays, etc.)

Environment Engineer:  These engineers are out to save the world! As you can guess, they try to fix the environment.  They would work with issues such as waste water management, air quality management, and land remediation.  Such engineers also need good writing skills and other qualities to get all those big companies to listen while they explain that they're ruining the environment and how to make it better.  Tough job, eh?

Materials Science and Engineering (MSE):  These engineers deal with materials.  They try to make materials that have specific qualities.  For instance, say a biomedical engineer asked a MSE person for a type of material that would be lightweight, strong, and won't be rejected by the human body to create a bone.  A team of MSE engineers would try to either identify a material that can be used, or modify a material so that it will fit the criteria.

Industrial and Systems Engineer:   These engineers are like managers.  They oversee the process of production, and make sure that systems are efficient and cost-effective.  They'll learn about many branches of engineering, and analyze machines, facilities, and other aspects of production lines to make sure things are running smoothly and make improvements.  They are also likely to become a manager because of the nature of their job.

Okay, that's enough for today.  Here are some links (actually, one that links to many other links):

http://www.discoverengineering.org/  Click around!  This site has many good links that I have yet to explore, and I hope you do too!

Oops! Forgot my credits:  Thanks to all of my counselors at camp for teaching us about engineering!  And of course, now that I'm at the whole thanks-giving thing, thanks to the most wonderful science teacher of all, SunnyD, without whom this wouldn't be here.  And thanks to the best lit teacher ever, kokopelli1015!

Got Science?

First things first: here's a shocking link that has to do with the oil spill.  Basically, it'll show you the size of the oil spill if it happened over your town.  Check it out:
http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/

So the school year has winded down.  Thus, the end of the Question Box on my blog for this year.  However, look out for the Question Box next year!!  Here are the final questions' answers:

Why can milk come out your nose?  Let me illustrate why with a diagram (from here)

©2009 Northeast Georgia Cancer Specialists/ASTRO

If you look at the diagram, you can see that your mouth (oral cavity) is connected to the same passageway as your nose.  Milk comes out your nose mistakenly because it happens to go past your mouth and through your nose instead, probably because something forced it up, like laughter.  Simple, isn't it?

Next question: If I had to choose a science career, what would I choose?  Not that I would, oh, say, go into the science field.  After all, that would be totally unexpected (Verbal irony. Please do not take seriously).  Jokes aside, I don't really know.  Green guy mentioned becoming a brain surgeon, njguy becoming a zoologist, and toadrockz a pathologist/science teacher.  Becoming a science teacher would be fun, although I might accidentally drive Sunnyd nuts with questions about how to be a good science teacher.  Or, on the thread of zoologist, marine biology is pretty interesting too.  I spent half the school year in second grade learning about the ocean (and we went really deep, too!  We had to do a research paper and projects and we wrote a poem and made a play and posters.... oh, all those good memories.  Back to the present!)  and it was  really interesting.  However, I'm actually kind of hanging in between engineering/physics and medical school, when it comes to science careers.  Physics/engineering is a big interest of mine, but the human body is too- and arguably, I've been fascinated in the human body for much longer than I've ever been interested in physics, even though I've never actually been as mesmerized with it as physics.  What do you think?  Would you want to become, say, a science teacher, or a zoologist, or some other type of scientist?  Comments are welcome, it's always nice to hear someone else!

Pippin's Question Box

If you had to pick a science career, what would you choose?