The Laziest Summer Ever

This summer, I have embarked upon what will forever be referred to in my memories as the laziest summer ever.  With absolutely nothing to do pending going to college, I have to admit, although such a long period of idleness will most likely never grace my schedule again, I would be quite glad for it.  For once, I am finally understanding the true meanings of "bored", "idle", and "lazy" means, and although it's quite satisfying to be lazy, it's also extremely aggravating.

So in the extreme nothingness of this summer, I've decided to apply for a blogger position at MIT.  And in doing so, I have to of course, submit samples of blogging. Which caused me to come back to this blog and look through some old posts and whatnot, back at the heyday of my blogging.  I've come to realize that there are several annoying blogging habits that make my writing difficult to read.

First of all: gigantic chunks of text. In this texting/email era, who wants to start reading a paragraph with seemingly no end? Even my patience has begun to run short with some of the long ramblings on this blog.

Second of all, I need pictures.  Admittedly, as a science blogger I was a bit concerned about copyrights, thus the extreme dearth of pictures of my blog, but I guess if I blog about say my own life, then I should include pictures.  A lot more of them.

Lastly, I need to stop sounding like I'm trying to pitch sales to people.  There are way too many !! marks, which is probably either a consequence of being young or a consequence of being excited about whatever I'm writing about.  Either way, although they're not bad reasons, I really don't need to sound like those people at the mall telling you to look at this product!! It's so amazing!!!

So in my future blogging habits, I will attempt to try to correct these poor habits, as well as find some interesting things to blog about.  On the note of blogs, here is my tumblr where I enjoy reblogging interesting science posts that come my way: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pippinpoppin. Check it out for cool happenings in the world of science (strongly resists urge for the exclamation point...)

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....

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

Pippin's Question Box

Why is it possible for milk to come out your nose? Best

Pippin's Question Box

Why can't we tickle ourselves? Best

 Thanks to Saffire_Goldstone

Pippin's Question Box

What makes soda fizz? Best

Got Science?

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while.  To follow up on my discussion of heat transfer, I'm going to discuss the question box from two weeks ago: Why is it more efficient to heat up your house with the fireplace rather than the oven?

Got Science?

What causes nausea? The answer: other stuff.

There are a lot of things that can cause nausea. Nausea itself, though, is not a disease. Let me repeat this: (in general), feeling as though you're going to hurl is not a disease. It's a symptom, an indicator of something wrong, a sign from your body, but it's not alone (in other words, it's a hint for your doctor to figure out what's wrong with you.) Of course, it's not necessarily something really wrong with you, it could just be motion-sickness, but your body doesn't decide to throw up for no reason.

That leads me to the real point of the question: what causes nausea that is associated with motion-sickness? In other words, what causes motion sickness? Motion sickness is caused when the various places that collect information about your movement, position, etc. conflict with each other- primarily being, in order, your inner ear, visual input, and nerves around your body and in your muscles. When all these places send signals to your brain, your brain makes sense of it all to create a general idea of your movement. For instance, right now my brain can make sense of the fact that I'm sitting still, but my fingers are moving to type up this post. Therefore, my brain isn't confused and I don't feel sick. However, if for some reason my house suddenly got up and started walking, my eyes don't see that I'm moving because all I see is my house (frame of reference, anyone?). My inner ear, on the other hand, can feel that I'm moving as the house is, er, walking. They conflict when they get to the brain, my brain is confused, and presto! Motion sickness on the menu! I don't really know what happens in between the brain getting confused and nausea, but I'd guess that the reason why our brain signals our stomach to reject its contents is that it's so busy trying to figure out whether or not it's moving that it neglected the stomach. Just a guess...

Here are my links:
http://www.medicinenet.com/motion_sickness/article.htm
http://www.medicinenet.com/nausea_and_vomiting/article.htm

Pippin's Question Box

What are some similarities and differences between shampoo, conditioner, and soap?
OR
What are some good ways to calm nerves- stage fright, before exams, etc.?

Note: This is the last everyday life themed question (until further notice...)

Got Science?

Hey! Pippin here, and there are some issues that I need to clear up before I start the answer to this week's question. First, how many of you readers want extra credit over goodie bags? According to the poll, nobody wants regular goodie bags, and yet nobody answers when only extra credit is offered. Does anyone what to clear that up for me?

Also, I want to comment on some of the answers- (get it? comment? answers? Never mind) Great answers from everyone! You're all explaining and everything. However, some mistakes to look out for:
For whatever reason, if you forget a link, please go back and post it so we can make sure that you did the research to find the answer
Also, I'm sure this is unintentional, but make sure you don't copy and paste stuff- I'll be on the lookout, and we don't tolerate plagiarizing on this blog.

Finally, some answers are pretty straightforward, while some, I have to point out, are really nice and fun to read. I'm looking for quality answers as well, and they're just more fun to read. Even adding a "Ever wonder what makes your Coke explode in your face?" makes the entire answer a lot more interesting. Check out njguy's and iluvmusic comment on the last soda question, those are great models of a fun answer.

Now, to this week's question: what makes soda fizz? Of course, I have a question: what exactly do I mean by fizz? Like, the bubbly feeling that you get in your mouth when you drink it, or that hiss and the bubbles that come when you first open it, or the big explosion you get when you shake up a bottle and open it in your friend's face? (Note: shaking a bottle of soda and opening it in anyone's face has an extremely high likelihood of making a mess and upsetting that person. I DO NOT advise you try it unless you have the permission of the person and the person who owns the area you are currently in.) However, the answer is the same for all of my question(s): carbon dioxide, or CO2. Basically, soda makers put in carbon dioxide into soda at a really high pressure to keep the carbon dioxide dissolved, sealing it tightly and quickly. When we open it, or shake it, or put ice cubes in it, the carbon dioxide is disturbed and forms bubbles and floats to the surface (if it has enough energy) once it's no longer under high pressure. All of the bubbles that float to the surface is fizz. Although it's starting to make me wonder: what would happen if we froze soda? Would we see the bubbles in the ice cube? Or what if we froze it all the way down to the freezing point of carbon dioxide? Would the carbon dioxide stay in the soda? And why do they use carbon dioxide to carbonate the water? Why not, say, oxygen? And what would happen if we used frozen CO2 to chill our soda? Would anything unusual happen? Well, I never thought so much about soda before today, but there you go! And now I have to work on my ISN before I get in big trouble. Hope you learned something today!

http://www.sciencetheatre.org/ask_st/033094.html
http://www.knowswhy.com/why-does-soda-fizz/
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae441.cfm

Pippin's Question Box

At the request of an avid question boxer-

Why do people look at the ceiling while they think? Best

Pippin's Question Box

New Theme: Everyday Life

Explain plumbing (i.e. how does the water get from the reservoir to our sink) Best