Drier than Dried Potato Chips.

Since our trip is coming a close shortly, I began to ponder about my ride on Delta Flight 241 from Rome to Atlanta.  I’m going to be stuck in an airplane cabin for eleven and a half hours.  You know, you begin to think about all the things you HATE about airplanes when faced with that number. Like how long the lines for the bathroom is. How you really wish you had gotten a window seat. How you wish the old guy next to you would respect personal space. Or how you wish you could have been seated next to someone more attractive that you wouldn’t mind striking up a conversation with. The list goes on, but there is one that you KNOW you are going to deal with. And that’s the dry, arresting air.

Remember there is NO SMOKING on this flight.

Before my flight to Rome, I was suffering from really bad allergies (as some of my friends have outlined in earlier blog posts… my allergies are BAD). The dry air in the plane cabin really assisted in the allergies. While I loved that the allergies were gone, now it felt like it was so dry that my nose was going to bleed.

So, I began to ponder, how do they get the air SO DRY. At first I thought that it could possibly be some sorcery or demon magic because we all know that the airline companies have sold their souls to the devil.

She's increasing baggage fees, RIGHT NOW.

Rather than some sort of Santeria, airlines simply use HEPA filters. While I cannot conclude myself that all planes are sorcery-free, I can tell you with 100% confidence the mechanism for air filtration.

Air filters on airlines are what they use in hospitals. The efficiency of cleaning all those particles is upwards of 99.99%. There are three mechanisms of filtration that occur.

The first is direct interception. This is the most suspected type of filtration.  It’s just like when you are done cooking your wonderful pasta that you’ve imported from Italy, and you are filtering it through your colander.

It's so GOOD.

The second type is a bit more complicated. It involves inertia. Essentially, particles that are denser than air just stick to the solid parts of the filter.  It’s hard to keep objects denser than air in the air, so it makes sense. Every see a lead zeppelin? I don’t think so.   It would sink faster than a lead balloon from what I can gather. These denser-than-air particles would rather simply stay attached to air filter.

The third type is even more complicated. This is for very small particles are bombarded by very small molecules in the air. This causes the particle to have an unpredictable path.  Thus because its trajectory is determined by small molecules moving randomly in the air, the trajectory of the particle becomes more erratic. This is used for filtration because eventually, it will get pumped onto the pores in the air filter, and will adhere there.

It's like me on market day in Siena.

Here's a really informative video from Pall Corporation on how their air filters work.

I"m sure the music encourages the pores to filter better

With these three methods employed, it essentially creates a completely sterile air environment. Considering that planes air cycles through filtrations 20 times an hour while an office building’s air is cycled only 12 times an hour, airplanes have clean air. They are so clean that hospitals use the same types of filtration.


With all this filtration, it really takes out all the moisture in the air.  They also want that because moisture can lead to mold, bacterial growth and other pretty bad things when confined to a small space. So, you can reliably believe your airplane has clean air. Now if you sit next to a sick person, you might want to ask for that oxygen mask…


These wonderful sponsors gave me great information and images!

http://www.pall.com/main/Aerospace-Defense-Marine/Microbial-Removal-Cabin-Air-Filters.page#bacteria
http://strongholdsmashers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/magic.jpg
http://www.visualphotos.com/photo/2x1905129/cooked_pasta_being_taken_out_of_colander_902289.jpg
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es060424e
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion

Money Matters

            In the Palazzo Ducale in Venice last weekend, Meredith and I saw an exhibit entitled Il Vero e il Falso (Real and Fake) about counterfeit banknotes and coins throughout the centuries in Italy. It was remarkable how similar some of the fake money was to the real thing – I definitely would not be able to spot counterfeit bills from real ones. While the older counterfeits were noticeably different with crooked printings, slightly different colors and less detail, the 21^st century fakes were nearly perfect matches to the real euro.

Real Currency

Fake Currency

            Counterfeiting began with the first productions of currency. Initially it consisted of mixing pure metals (gold and silver) with cheaper metals and of “clipping,” or shaving metal off the edges of coins to create counterfeits with. With the introduction of paper money, counterfeiting expanded and began to be included as acts of war with enemy nations printing counterfeits to cause inflation. To combat counterfeiting, stringent punishments existed, including the death penalty, in both the United States and England because the crime was seen as being a threat to national security.

            As counterfeiters have become more skilled at their trade, the need for more advanced detection and production techniques has risen. A recent study conducted in China found that the use of solvent-free gold nanoparticle assisted laser ionization imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) was a non/minimally destructive technique. It involves first spraying a layer of gold nanoparticles on currency or documents, which does not disrupt the spatial distribution of inks, dyes and markings on the paper. Then the gold is ionized by nitrogen laser irradiation and the ions are desorbed from the paper and detected conveying information about the molecular images on the note along with the order of inks present on the paper. This allows, for example, the detection of adulterated checks while preserving the original sample for further investigation.

Demonstration of the non/minimal destruction caused by gold nanoparticle assisted IMS

            But with only about 1 fake note out of every 10,000 banknotes in the United States, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the likelihood that we’ve used counterfeit money is slim. In addition, the average loss due to accepting counterfeit bills is 20 cents per person in the States. Check fraud accumulates more losses with an estimated cost of $1 billion in 2005 compared to the loss of $56.2 million caused by fake currency.

Sources:

http://www.veniceconnected.com/node/12223

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfeit_money#cite_note-7

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac1020485

http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/policy_discussion_papers/2010/PDP2010-2.pdf

The Cruel Reality of Veal

In the past month or so, I have become enamored with Italian cuisine. My meals are no longer dictated by white rice and bok choy (a form of Chinese cabbage), but are now dominated by bread, pasta, and olive oil. However, as a devoted meat lover, how could I survive without indulging in all the delicious dishes Italy has to offer? While Italians do not really consume poultry, they do eat a lot of pork as well as veal. Growing up in Texas, beef has always been an integral part of my diet. However, back in the states, I had never had the chance to eat veal. While I have had my fair share of steaks, veal has always remained a mystery to me. After consuming veal two or three times, I began to wonder to myself: Just how cruelly are veal calves treated?

            Veal is considered to be one of the cruelest foods in the world, along with shark fins and foie gras. Veal comes from the meat of young calves, usually male because of the lack of use for male cows in dairy farms. In the case of formula-fed veal, young calves are often raised in dark crates in order to limit their movement. Limiting their movement prevents the development of their muscles, which in turn, means that the meat is more tender. The crates fulfill this purpose by being extremely small, making the calves unable to even turn around. The calves are also fed synthetic milk consisting of Vitamin D, but lacking in iron.

             Vitamin D is naturally obtained from sunlight. Humans can obtain the amount of Vitamin D they need for the day just by being out and under the sun. Vitamin D obtained this way goes through two hydroxylation reactions and is converted into the active form known as Calcitriol. Calcitriol promotes the absorption of calcium and phosphorus as well as the reabsorption of calcium from the kidneys, making it crucial to the growth and development. Since veal calves are locked in crates of darkness, their diets contain supplements of Vitamin D.

            Iron is crucial to the production of red blood cells. A lack of iron results in a lack of production of red blood cells, resulting in a condition known as iron-deficient anemia. Veal calves are consistently fed synthetic milk that lack iron due to the desire to have their meat look white. The meat of the calves that are raised this way are known as formula-fed veal.

            Although I knew that the reality behind the production of veal was very cruel, I never knew the extent of the cruelty. However, other types of veal such as non-formula-fed veal and free raised veal are much more humane. For free raised veal, calves are raised naturally through a mother's milk and pasture grasses. This results in a lower fat content as well as a pinkish color in their meat. Thankfully, the veal I have had were all had pink colored meat so I know that the calves were not cruelly abused when they were still alive.

Works Consulted

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161618.php

http://animalrights.about.com/od/FactoryFarming/a/Whats-Wrong-With-Veal.htm

http://italianfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa030801.htm

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/348307

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veal 

http://www.talkoftomatoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/422212482_5e92f12730.jpg

http://www.occupyforanimals.org/uploads/7/7/3/5/7735203/1003719_orig.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Calcitriol.svg/220px-Calcitriol.svg.png

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs8hYtV5xL4LowwNFGb1S9ERHVGzUJBeFzCQbGveLVcrywRFDiiQxsxQFou_9lkhT8tvngPZYUA8iqYot-b4d4O8DzQo08oEeVViPWXkSxcn_YuQzMNI0FABaW3SrMrI2IRZ92Ka46YfA/s400/Anemia.jpg

Rotten Tomatoes

Supermarket tomatoes do not taste as good as they used to be. As I was browsing through the news on a Saturday morning, I came across an interesting article describing new research that had identified why tomatoes have lost their flavor over the past years. With this new knowledge, scientists may eventually be able to recreate the flavor that had once been present in the tomato population. The answer lies in the genes. 

About 70 years ago, tomato growers began mass producing the variety of tomatoes that we see today: uniformly colored, light green tomatoes that eventually ripen into uniformly colored red tomatoes. Since most of us are around 20 years old, it’s difficult to imagine how much better tomatoes used to taste because we’ve never had it. You can still get tomatoes of the “traditional” variety, but they come from small farms and are usually more expensive or rarer. Tomatoes used to have splotches of different shades of green and red. The advantages they saw in the new, uniform color mutation was that it made the tomato look more visually appealing and easier to identify as ripe during the harvesting season. However, an unintended consequence occurred. Tomatoes unexpectedly lost their flavor. 

Fruits and vegetables use photosynthesis to convert energy from the sun into sugars that the plant can use for food. Scientists focused on two genes in tomatoes that are responsible for this: GLK1 and GLK2. The two genes help signal the production of chloroplasts, or the plant structures that undergo photosynthesis. While GLK1 works exclusively in the leaves of the plant, GLK2 is active in both the leaves and the fruit of the tomato plant. Most of the sugar of the fruit, about 70-80%, comes from the leaves of the plant, but the rest of it is produced by the fruit itself – providing that the tomato has the GLK2 gene. 

As you might be able to guess, the tomato growers unintentionally bred out the GLK2 gene when they preferentially selected the tomatoes with uniformly light green skins. Modern tomatoes were missing this gene that helped the fruit produce more sugar. To try and see if they could reproduce tomatoes of the old, splotchy and darker-green variety, scientists genetically engineered modern tomatoes with the GLK2 gene. What they found were tomatoes that were not only 40% higher in sugar content, but also had 20% more carotenoids. Lycopene, which is the primary carotenoid found in tomatoes, has known health benefits in the form of anti-cancer, antioxidant properties. So in addition to being tastier, the genetically modified tomatoes are also healthier. Unfortunately, the researchers who conducted this study (Powell et al., 2012) were unable to actually taste test their creation due to regulations, so more (tasty) tests are needed to qualitatively confirm the success of their experiment! 

Lycopene structure

My hopes are high for the future, where we can enjoy the sweeter, more flavorful tomatoes of the past. 

Works Consulted:

·         http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6089/1711.full

·         http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-tomato-taste-20120630,0,4449608.story

·         http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/science/flavor-is-the-price-of-tomatoes-scarlet-hue-geneticists-say.html?_r=1&ref=geneticengineering

·         http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2166063/Genetic-breakthrough-spell-end-supermarket-tomatoes-taste-like-mush.html?ITO=1490

·          http://www.lycocard.com/index.php/lyco_pub/health/

"What Floor Ya Gettin Off At?"

Want to go to space to have a picnic in a space park? Well, that’s definitely a foreseeable possibility, in our lifetime.

You may be asking yourself, “Really Trevor, you think that I can just enjoy the luxuries of space in my lifetime?” I think it’ll be the future’s Disney World. The technology is essentially there for us to create the impossible; we just need to improve it.

We can create a lifting mechanism that will take you to space easy, but the hardest part is anchoring it to the ground.  Well, scientists believe that carbon nanotubes may be the answer.  These have already been applied in everyday items that involve carbon fiber, but only on a small scale.

These nanotubes have been created with a length to width ratio of 132,000,000:1.   For a nanotube that is 11ft wide could reach the moon.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2011/02/medium_space_elevatordiagram.jpg

They use a fullerene structure which was inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic designs in architecture.  For example, in a geodesic dome, the supports constantly experience compression and decompression which allows for the dome to stand on its own. There are limits, but they are so far beyond man’s needs that the domes are essentially limitless.

http://extremelongevity.net/wp-content/uploads/Fullerene-C60.png

Fullerene. It is the simplest and easiest geodesic dome in the world. Just 60 carbon atoms and boundless limits....?

However, carbon nanotubes may slowly be encountering these limits.  If we want to build a space elevator, these tubes will need to be improved.  We can make them in proper lengths, but they do not hold the tensile strength withstand the forces of being slung around the earth with weight on the end. These tubes already exhibit the greatest tensile strengths in the world, but they do not work well under compression because they will buckle. However, for my dream of the space elevator, it will always be under tension! So, the dream of the space elevator will take some innovation, but science is on its way.

And, these nanotubes are making their way into our lives.  They exhibit incredible thermal conductivity and are being deployed in the electrical circuits and wires now. They also absorb radar, so the military is looking to use it for stealth purposes.  Scientists have been make nanotube walls to destroy cancer.

 Nanotubes will change how the whole world works. This much we know.  I, however, would be happy with just a picnic in space.

Thanks to these sponsors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube#Structural

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

10 Hour Flight?!?!

                I just looked at my flight itinerary and it’s a 10 hour flight, but I thought it was 9 hours! Air Canada, you’ve managed to piss me off again. But in all seriousness, why is the flight back to the States longer? No, it’s not reverse culture shock and missing Italy (well possibly), nor is the plane mechanically slower. Believe it or not, it’s actually because of the Earth. More specifically, a natural phenomenon called the “jet stream” acts as a force that helps propel (or in some cases, slow down) aircraft at certain altitudes along a particular corridor in the Northern hemisphere.  While the jet stream is normally associated with its impact and purpose in the field of aviation, it also plays a significant role in meteorology, affecting weather patterns, and even has military usages, such as aiding fighter jets and driving unmanned weaponry.

                The jet stream seems to be a crucial aspect in our lives and has definitely served society a great deal of usages, but how does it work exactly, there must be some science and logic behind it. Simply put, the jet stream is basically a path of high-speed air current that circles the Earth. To be more accurate, it’s not a single jet stream, but in actuality, there are really multiple jet streams on Earth and they even exist in the atmosphere of other planets. In the Earth’s atmosphere, there are in total four major jet streams, two in each of the Northern and Southern hemispheres: Polar jets and Subtropical jets. Of the two, the Polar jets are stronger and located at lower altitudes than the somewhat weaker Subtropical jets (7-12 km and 10-16 km above sea level respectively). Regardless, jet streams can have speeds up to several hundred miles per hour; speeds over 247 mph have been recorded. These main jet streams are located in a layer of the atmosphere wedged right between the troposphere and the stratosphere called the tropopause. The jet stream is several thousand miles long and a few hundred miles wide, but the thickness is relatively miniscule, only a mere few miles. So in order to harness or avoid the jet stream, airplanes have a narrow window in terms of altitude to aim for, but also have a wide path that can be taken for an extensive period of time, assuming travel from West to East.

                So, what exactly causes this massively intense, high-speed force that can accelerate aircraft and why does it travel from West to East? These two factors of the jet stream are actually interrelated and are derived from a combination of two aspects of the Earth. The foundational bases of the jet stream are the Earth’s axial rotation and the temperature difference between two air masses. The requirement for air masses with a temperature difference basically dictates where the jet stream is located. In the case of the Northern hemisphere, the jet stream is primarily located between the latitudes of 30⁰N and 60⁰N because that is the area where the cold Arctic air mass meets the warm tropical air mass. The jet stream also shifts according to the season and the weather; generally speaking, there is a shift north in warm weather and south in cold weather. Also, the jet stream is stronger in the winter than in the summer due to the greater temperature difference between the air masses. The temperature difference between the air masses is not exactly the direct cause of the jet stream, but there is a clear, distinct connection. To begin, air masses of different temperatures have different densities, cold air being denser than warm air, providing an air pressure difference. At higher altitudes in the atmosphere, the air pressure simple continues to escalate and grow. The air pressure difference causes winds that desire to flow from the warmer air to the colder air, from high pressure to low pressure. If this logic works, then the winds should flow vertically from the warmer southern air mass to the colder northern air mass. However, this doesn’t hold true, the jet stream flows horizontally along the boundary of the air masses. This is where the spin of the Earth comes into play. The Earth’s axial spin causes a natural marvel called the Coriolis Effect, which basically deflects the winds to flow along the air masses. The Coriolis Effect causes the winds to turn right and flow from West to East, not into the opposing air mass. Overall, the jet stream is strong winds produced from temperature differences and the Coriolis Effect.

                Now that we understand why the plane ride back home will be longer, not cause of the airline, but instead we will be on the plane longer because of the jet stream from the Earth. Rather than being mad at the airline on the whole ride home, we should sit back, relax, and simply remember all the great times we’ve had in Italy over these past 6 weeks. (But I’ll still be pissed at Air Canada for my 8 hour layover…)

Resources:

http://geography.about.com/od/climate/a/jetstream.htm

http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/coriolis.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream

http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_causes_the_jet_stream.htm

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-jet-stream.htm

Girls and the armpits

Our trip in Italy has been characterized by gelato, creeper pictures, and the obsessive adoration of armpits.  Most people would be very confused and disgusted by the last item in that list, but not for the girls on this trip.  They’ve taken checking guys out to a whole new level, so much so that they’ve even come up with codenames to describe each guy they talk about.  The girls have a complex system of words, each one categorizing a guy into a group.  At first you would think it’s just a short game that would run its course and be done, but it’s continued.  Even near the end of the program, it has continued and the girls even gotten more descriptive.  If you just take a look at our Facebook group you'll find many excellent examples.  When some of the girls finish their work, all they want to do is find “armpits”, especially “sweaty ones” but not “deodorized or shaven”.

It is interesting to see this unfold because if a guy were to do this same game, he would probably be considered to be a “tool” or “douche”.  This comes down to the idea of a double standard.  Most of the time women believe they are on the wrong end of a double standard, while men seem to have it easy.   It’s interesting to try and find how this arose.  Is there actually a double standard in society or have women used their genetic differences to convince society that there is a one?  Even if there isn’t a double standard, have women just used their powers to implement one?  I mean it has gotten to the point where no matter what happens in a situation, most guys will still adhere to the time-withstanding saying that “The woman is always right.”  It’s intriguing to ponder where this saying came from. Did it stem from women always winning?

Let’s first take a step out and examine the situation as a whole.  Many women tend to believe or at least express that there are too many double standards present in society, most resulting with them on the losing side.  How many of these women can justify their claims?  That’s a completely different story.  Let’s just take a look at society real quick.  First, many women believe their bodies are objectified by men.  They believe this is a reason why women have to be more concerned with their body, placing some of the blame on the male gender.  Some extrapolate this to claim that this is why women are more self-conscious about their body.  Turns out, research shows that actually men are more concerned with their physical appearance than women and men would sacrifice more in their life for a perfect body (1).  Another example presents itself when women talk about how unfair it can be to be a woman, especially because they have to endure childbirth.  When a women is giving birth, she feels up to 57 del (which is a unit) pain, similar to fracturing 20 bones at once.  Compare this to when a man gets kicked in the nuts, he feels above 9000 del pain which is about the same as giving birth to 160 kids and breaking 3200 bones at once (2).  How in society have these examples been twisted?  Could it simply be due to women being dramatic?  Possibly, especially because girls are normally considered to be more cat-like and judgmental of each other, even though research shows men tend to leap towards judgment while women see more shades of grey (3).  Something in that situation has to make women’s judgments become more prevalent than men’s, even though in women’s natural thought process they jump to judgments less.  Women are also more likely to delete friends on social networking cites, a possible expression of their more-pronounced feelings (4).  There must be some factor must be present that pushes women’s feelings to a higher level.  This same factor might also explain why women tend to get their way more often.

We seem to be able to find a root of these factors in the genetic differences between men and women.  Male brains are naturally larger than female brains, so some might assume men to be smarter and get their way more often, but actually certain parts of the female brain work better (5).  The corpus callosum, which is nerve tissue that connects the right and left sides of the brain, is larger in females than in males (6).  When read a novel, males only seemed to listen from one hemisphere of their brain while females listened from both.  This activity across both hemispheres typically results in the stronger language skills demonstrated by females.  Women also have a larger ventral prefrontal cortex than men, around 10% larger in fact (5).  This area deals with social cognition and interpersonal judgment, which also contributes to how women are better at using social and speech skills than men.  Can the way women seem to get what they want a lot of the time and their dramatic ways stem from this literary difference?  It seems plausible, especially because both men and women are more effective at persuading someone if they use a feminine style (7).

Corpus Callosum

It already seems like women only need their naturally superior literary and convincing skills to get what they want and turn societal differences in their favor, but there’s even more support.  Even though men have a bigger brain and on average have a five-point higher IQ score, these benefits are no match when having a conversation/argument with a women (8).  New research shows that unlike women, when men talk to members of the opposite sex, they tend to automatically become cognitively impaired (9).  At this point it’s not even fair for a man!!!

In many arguments with a woman, it seems very hard to win.  Whether this is due to me having naturally lower listening and communication skills or because men seemingly become dumber when talking to a woman, it always seems so hard.  Even when the facts are present as listed above, women have somehow been able to twist these subject matters into their favor.  As much as I could try to reverse them, I as have many before me fall back to the same old saying: The woman is always right.

NOTICE:  This blog post may be over-exaggerated for entertainment purposes and does not accurately reflect all the views of Chris Weeden

References:

(1) http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/06/body-image-concerns-men-more-than-women

(2) http://mcrapu.com/woman-vs-man-in-pain/

(3) http://phys.org/news/2011-04-men-tend-judgement-women-grey.html

(4) http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/02/25/0111219/women-more-likely-to-unfriend-than-men

(5) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=girl-brain-boy-brain

(6) http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/how-male-female-brains-differ

(7) http://wip.ncbar.org/media/2754960/effectsOfGenderOnCommunication.pdf

(8) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1274952/Men-ARE-brainy-women-says-scientist-Professor-Richard-Lynn.html

(9) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-interacting-with-woman-leave-man-cognitively-impaired