Recently I found the need to run an old computer PSU as a bench power supply, with no connection to a motherboard. Normally this is not possible, as there is protection within the PSU to ensure that it cannot fire up unless the motherboard connection is present. Luckily, this is very easy to bypass…

Simply connect the green wire to any black wire. You can use a paper clip, a piece of solder (as I did), or any other conducting wire. There ought to be one green, but multiple black wires. Just join green to any black, as her the image below.

Shorting a PSU to work without motherboard connection (green to black)

Then just get some insulating tape and tape up the paper clip, solder or whatever you used and power up the PSU! You should have a working bench power supply!

Of course, it this blows up and destroys your house and all of your possessions, or any such scenario ensures, I am not liable for any damages incurred. It shouldn’t though, don’t worry!

Bags in the trees

Plastic. It’s everywhere. Cheap to produce and lightweight to transport. It’s no wonder manufacturers have taken to it so well. It is, however, a horrible product, and one that will linger on our streets, trees, hedgerows and landfill sites for many years to come.

Waste

Every time I go to a shop I see people accepting plastic bags so that they can put their one or two items in them. Awful. We have two hands, utilise them! We shouldn’t be accepting bags to carry a few items a short distance, and if you do need one, take your own. There’s no need to get a new one every time. Many people have a stash of plastic bags in a cupboard at home, why add to this presumably bountiful collection of carry-aids? Reuse.

Sailing through plastic

Equally, staff shouldn’t be offering bags for customers with so few items. Yes, I know its partially a PR thing, shops want to appear helpful and kind so they dole them out regardless. That doesn’t make it acceptable though. In fact, a better company image may be cast if the company appears to give a shit about the environment in which they operate and don’t issue bags left, right and centre!

Plastic in the coral

I am simply trying to use my voice to urge anyone reading this to think twice before accepting bags when you are only purchasing or transporting a few items. And I repeat, if you do need a bag, why not take a plastic bag from home, or better still use a fabric or other strong bag that can be reused many times without any waste

No Plastic Bags

This blog has, up until now, primarily been driven towards areas of scientific and technological interest. This forced me into a corner in a way. When I write about science it needs to be accurate and descriptive, informative and interesting. This is something that I can find hard to achieve and it takes up a lot of time. As such, I lost interest in writing on this blog sometime last year.

From this point forward the posts to this site may become a fair bit shorter and snappier and I anticipate they will cover a wider range of topics. I also hope to post content more frequently. I don’t think any humans actually read this site anyway, so I guess I can do what the hell I like…no-one is going to notice!

Venus Fly Trap

We tend to think of plants getting their nutrients from the soil, using their roots to gather all of the necessary elements from the ground. Not all plants do this, though. Some eat flesh!

Carnivorous plants are plants that use nutrients derived from insects or animals in place of, or in addition to, typical soil-based nutrients. They are mostly found growing in areas where the soil nutrients are very low, and so nutrients must be taken from a source other than the soil.

Pitcher Plant

Carnivorous Plants include well known plants such as the Venus Fly Trap, Pitcher Plant and Butterwort. However, carnivorous plants are more abundant than was first thought, recent findings have discovered. Recent additions to the Carnivorous plant family include the tomato plant, potato plant, Petunias ands ornamental tobacco plants. There were also 322 other plants classifies as carnivorous by the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew.

They catch their prey in a variety of ways.

Five basic trapping mechanisms are found in carnivorous plants:

1. Pitfall traps (pitcher plants) trap prey in a rolled leaf that contains a pool of digestive enzymes or bacteria.
2. Flypaper traps use a sticky mucilage.
3. Snap traps utilize rapid leaf movements.
4. Bladder traps suck in prey with a bladder that generates an internal vacuum.
5. Lobster-pot traps force prey to move towards a digestive organ with inward-pointing hairs.

Tomato Plant Stem

The tomato plant uses tiny hairs on its stem to catch small insects. When they die, they fall to the ground and decompose in the soil. The nutrients from the insect are transferred into the soil, and can be extracted by the plant. This is how these plants are able to grow in areas where the level of soil nutrients is very low.

Kew’s head of genetics Dr Mike Fay said that the carnivorous ability of many species had gone unrecognised because they were missing many key characteristics associated with meat-eating plants.

“Widely recognised carnivorous plants number some 650 and we estimate that another 325 or so are probable additions – so an increase of about 50 per cent.” – Kew’s head of genetics, Dr Mike Fay

The power of sound

Sound is an amazing force, and one that is often overlooked in terms of its powerful influence and destructive potential. The lucky ones among us get to hear sound every day, and what a privilege it is. There are times, however, when hearing may be a detriment to us. This is increasingly becoming the case with the development and application of sonic weapons by various military forces. Sound as a weapon is not a particularly new idea, but for years there has been much secrecy and misinformation shrouding the subject.

“Possibly the first mention of sonic warfare is the now much-cited ‘Walls of Jericho’ scenario — a biblical story which no doubt many of us are familiar with. The walls came tumbling down after the synchronised blast of trumpets and voices rendered it unstable. However, it is only recently that sound has seriously been considered as a valid medium for destruction. Human beings respond to certain categories of sound in a number of complex ways involving auditory perception and psycho-physiological response mechanisms rendered through the brain. Certain species of sound above (ultrasound) or below (infra-sound) the levels of human auditory perception would theoretically prove most effective within the crucible of warfare.” – Spannered

What can sound do that is so damaging? Well, this is a broad question and is best answered by saying that it depends on the frequency, amplitude and medium of the sound wave. For instance, have you ever heard of the opera singer, Caruso, who could shatter a crystal glass with the power of their voice alone? It is entirely possible to shatter glass with sound. It is simply a case of hitting a note that resonates sympathetically with the glass.

Shattering glass

Along the same lines as the opera singer and the glass is another example of acoustic damage, a pretty extreme one actually. The human heart is, like everything, not indestructible. However, I bet you never thought you could stop a human heart with sound waves alone? Well, you can. Again, it wouldn’t be easy, but the science suggests it could be done. All that is required is a frequency that resonated with the heart significantly enough to actually stop it from beating. Imagine that…the potential to kill someone without touching them, poisoning them, shooting them or leaving a shred of evidence such as DNA on the crime scene. All that is essentially needed is a signal, an amp and a speaker, though this is a simplification!

“A variety of nonlethal acoustical weapons have been proposed and evaluated. Some of these are little more than fancy loud-speakers, while others involve more subtle or sophisticated processes and truely deserve the designation of acoustic weapon.” – Global Security

It is also possible to raze buildings with sound alone. Low frequency waves would be best ‘weapon of choice’ as they have a long wavelength and are able to vibrate a wall or structure quickly enough to cause degradation to the structural integrity of the building. The frequency of the tones would need to be very low, lower than can be heard by humans (below 20Hz). Sound below this threshold is known as infra-sound and it’s effects are felt but not heard. You would need a huge amount of amplification to achieve the destruction of a building in this way, but the fact that it is possible is amazing.

“Infra-sound would be a powerful ultra-low frequency (ULF) weapon that could be directional and tunable, penetrating buildings and vehicles. High Intensity infra-sound could induce disorientation and reduced sensory motor functions. At higher levels of intensity, experimental have shown that animals may cease breathing temporarily. But this has seemed to be not a very practical weapon, since large banks of speakers were required to provide directionality, and power demands were deemed excessive.” – Global Security

In other settings you may not wish to destroy a building, you may instead want to remove certain people from a building through relatively passive means, and sound can get the job done! An example of this was seen in 1990 when American forces attempted to drive Manual Norriega, military dictator of Panama from 1983-89, a from the Vatican Embassy in Panama in 1990 using sound. The US military played loud rock music such as Van Halen – Panama, and I fought the Law, by the Clash. Through continuous playback over many hours the US managed to psychologically wear-down the former dictator, resulting in his surrender. This method was preferable to brute force, as Norriega was holed up in the Vatican Embassy, and if US troops were to set foot in the Embassy they would anger many Catholics worldwide. In such a setting sound was the ideal solution to the problem at-hand.

Manuel Noriega

Another example of the destructive capability of sound is feedback. This is a closed system where sound grows exponentially with every cycle of its loop. A classic, if not tired, example of this is the rock gig scenario. We’ve all heard the shrill shriek of feedback once or twice at least, and it’s not pleasant.

How is it caused? It’s really very simple. Sound waves from a vocalist, for example, are picked up by a microphone, which is connected to an amplifier. Amplification of the signal occurs and the sound is output through a speaker. If conditions are correct (or incorrect from a sound engineers point-of-view), sound will travel from the speaker and back into the microphone, this is the beginning of another loop. If sound repeats this loop too many times then audible feedback will arise, growing into a deafening howl. Literally. While the effects of a single exposure to feedback are likely to be minor to insignificant, if the exposure is significant enough then damage to the ear system could occur. Indeed, if you have ever suffered from ringing ears after exposure to high amplitude sounds then the chances are that you have suffered permanent hearing damage.

A diagram illustrating a feedback loop

If going to a rock gig with the intention of listening to the band – not being deafened by them – can cause permanent hearing loss to the majority of the audience, then imagine how damaging sound can be to us when we try to make it damaging!

LRAD, the Long Range Acoustic Device, is a new technology used to control crowds, deter pirates or insurgents from cruise or cargo ships. It has, allegedly, only been used a couple of times in a real-life setting, so accurate information on its effect is sparse. According to the manufacturers specification:

“The equipment weighs 45 pounds (20 kg) and can emit sound in a 30° beam (only at high frequency, 2.5 kHz) from a device 83 centimetres (33 in) in diameter. At maximum level, it can emit a warning tone that is 146 dB SPL (1,000 W/m²) at 1 metre, a level that is capable of permanently damaging hearing, and higher than the normal human threshold of pain (120–140 dB). The maximum usable design range extends to 300 metres. At 300 metres, the warning tone (measured) is less than 90 dB. The warning tone is a high-pitched shrill tone similar to that of a smoke detector.” – LRAD Corporation

LRAD X1000

The LRAD was first used on US citizens at the G20 protests. As you can see from the video it certainly gets people moving when it is switched on. If you are going to watch this video, turn your volume down first – it is very loud!

“In the early 1970′s, acoustic engineer Vladimir Gavreau was experimenting with infra-sound weaponry. Now the stuff of infra-sound legend, Gavreau was responsible for the construction of a giant 6ft whistle, powered by compressed air, which reputedly scrambled the inner organs of it’s unfortunate operator (a phenomenon known as ‘cavitation’, where the internal physiology was fatally resonated). Distraught, Gavreau ceased his experiments, but left behind plans and models for highly sophisticated, directional sound cannons, which were apparently seized by the French authorities. In a recent conference with Dr Guy Peter Manners, Professor of Cymatics (a form of sonic therapy)….he informed me of experiments which he had first hand experience of in wartime Germany, where sonic weapons were being developed under a highly classified strategy initiated and financed by Hitler’s government. …A separate source reveals the fact that the Germans were pioneering a sound-based weapon known as the ‘Luftkanone’, developed at Talstation Lofer. This was a parabolic device which, although untested on humans, was apparently… ‘capable of killing a man with sound pressure in about 30-40 seconds. At greater ranges, although not lethal it would be able to disable a man for an appreciable length of time. Vision would be affected, and low-level exposure would cause point sources of light to appear as lines.’” – Spannered

Acoustic devices being used as weapons doesn’t sound all that strange, not when you consider that the US military is behind it. They have a high military spending budget and view themselves as being the police force of the world. To me, an interesting question was “do acoustic weapons appear anywhere in nature? If so, why what, and what are the effects?”

After doing a small amount of research I discovered the amazing Pistol Shrimp. This little creature is capable of disrupting submarine communications with the sound of it’s pincers alone. They make a loud ‘chattering’ noise as they close the pincers, which carries a long way in water due to the density of the molecules (the speed of sound in wate is close to 1,500 metres per second, but it is temperature dependant). The really amazing part of the story about Pistol Shrimps is their ability to stun other sea creatures by snapping their pincers together extremely quickly. This creates a blast of bubbles which momentarily heats up to approximately 6,000 degrees Celsius (the same temperature as the surface of our Sun). The attacked creature is immediately stunned and is paralyzed, leaving the shrimp to clear up without a fight! It is incredible. You can really see why they have been given there name when you watch them using this incredible ability of theirs. Here is a video I found of the Pistol Shrimp in all its glory.

So, we have now seen acoustic weapons as used by Humans, and animals alike. Is there an application of sound that combines both animals and Humans? Yes, there is.

Pine Beetle

In Canada and North America the Bark Beetles population was growing rapidly and they little critters were destroying up to 33 million acres of forest in British Columbia and millions more in the United States. Scientists discovered that if they recorded the ‘song’ of the Bark Beetles, modified them slightly and played back the recording to the beetles they got instant and unexpected results. Hofstetter, one for the scientists involved in the research, explains.

“We could use a particular aggression call that would make the beetles move away from the sound as if they were avoiding another beetle. Or we could make our beetle sounds louder and stronger than that of a male beetle calling to a female, which would make the female beetle reject the male and go toward our speaker. We found we could disrupt mating, tunneling, and reproduction. We could even make the beetles turn on each other, which normally they would not do.” – Hofstetter

Using this technique they scientists were able to drive the beetles away from the trees and thus saving them from destruction.

As you can see, sound is very powerful and has many applications beyond the obvious ones such as listening to music and communicating ideas etc. Hopefully there will be more sound posts to follow, for those who have been interested by this post.

Thomas Midgley Jr.

“Midgley’s name is inseparably associated with four outstanding advances. The first was the discovery of the chemical antiknock agents. Tetra-ethyl lead, the principal one of these, has added immensely to the performance and efficiency of gasoline engines both in the air and on the ground. The second advance, which was necessary to the practical success of the first, was the extraction of bromine from sea water. The third was the utilization of fluorine to produce an altogether new series of refrigerating compounds, the only such compounds known which are stable, non-flammable, and completely non-toxic, and which are therefore indispensable in air-conditioning.  The fourth advance was in the field of rubber, in which he extended the knowledge of the chemistry of vulcanization and of the fundamental composition of natural and synthetic rubbers.” – Biographical Memoir of Thomas Midgley Jr. 1889 – 1944 By Charles F. Kettering

He certainly sounds like quite the scientist, doesn’t he? No-one can deny that he was indeed gifted in the field of chemistry, despite the fact that he had never received and formal training as a scientist. His training was in Engineering, though after gaining an interest in the industrial applications of chemistry he ceased to continue his engineering work. Although his work was pioneering in some respects, it left a deadly trail behind him.

Tetra-ethyl Lead

In 1921, when working for General Motors, Midgley discovered that by adding lead to petrol he was able to prevent a problem known as ”knocking’. Knocking occurs when fuel burns too early in the internal combustion cycle and leads to noise and engine damage. The addition of lead, or ‘tetra-ethyl lead’ (also sometimes called ‘lead tetraethyl’, for some reason) to the petrol resulted in slightly slower rates of combustion, meaning that the knocking was prevented.

Car Engine

We can look back on this with the benefit of hindsight and think “Hey, lead is really dangerous, don’t add that”, but of course we have the benefit of knowledge. Surely they didn’t? Actually – surprisingly – the dangers of tetra-ethyl lead were well known at the time of discovery, yet this did not seem to sway the production of it.

In 1923, General Motors, Du Pont and Standard Oil of New Jersey formed a joint company titled the ‘Ethyl Gasoline Corporation’. They later adopted the shorter and less-toxic sounding name, ‘Ethyl’, no doubt a decision made by the PR department aimed to suppress public fear and increase company  profitability. The additive was made available for public consumption on the 1st February 1923.

What are the dangers of Lead, then?

“Lead is a Neurotoxin. get too much of it and you can irrepairable damage the brain and central nervous system. Among the many symptoms associated with over-exposure are blindness, insomnia, kidney failure, hearing loss, cancer, palsies and convulsions. In its most acute form it produces abrupt hallucinations, disturbing to victims and onlookers alike, which generally then give way to coma and death. You really don’t want to get too much lead in your system.” -Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

Yet despite these dangers, lead was being used in a vast array of products, ranging from the lining of toothpaste tubes and water tanks to being used as a solder in food tins. Lead was also used in paints. Lead arsenate was even sprayed onto fruit as a pesticide! These applications were bad, but the worst application of all came in the form of petrol.

Almost as soon as production had started at the Ethyl plant, workers began to show the first signs of lead poisoning. The Ethyl corporation began its long-lasting policy of unyielding denial that their product had any connection to the illnesses. “These men probably went insane because they worked too hard”, was the comment made by one Ethyl spokesman to an audience of reporters when the outbreak of poisonings occurred.

Ethyl

It is hard to give exact figures of those that died and were injured by over-exposure to lead, largely due to cover-ups by the industry. However, it is known that at least 15 people died in the early days of production, and countless others were made ill.

“At times, however, suppressing the news became impossible – most notably in 1924 when, in a matter of days, five production- workers died and thirty-five more were  transformed into permanent staggering wrecks at a single ill-vented facility.” – Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

Something had to be done, so Midgley took it upon himself to hold a demonstration where he illustrated just how harmless he believed lead to be. He did this by pouring tetra-ethyl lead over his hands and then holding a cup of it under his nose and inhaling it for sixty seconds. Whilst performing this deadly demonstration he was assuring reporters of how he could repeat this practice daily without harm. He did this whilst knowing full-well the dangers of lead poisoning due to having been over-exposed to the substance a few months previous to the demonstration.

Chlorofluorocarbons

After the ‘success’ of tetra-ethyl lead, Midgely moved onto his next deadly substance. Refrigerators used rather dangerous gasses that were deadly if they leaked. One devastating incident took place at a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio 1929 when a refrigerator killed more than one-hundred people. in 1930, Midgley was commissioned by General Motors to see if he could produce a better alternative to these deadly gasses. It needed to be stable, non-flammable, non-corrosive and safe to breathe. He devised a compound made from chlorine, fluorine and carbon – it was called Freon (also called dichlorodifluoromethane), a type of chlorofluorocarbon, or CFC.

Freon caught on quickly, and within a couple of years all refrigerators were using it. In addition to refrigerators it had found a use in many other applications too, such as car air-conditioners and deodorant sprays.

Midgley performed another of his ‘safety demonstrations’, this time showing just how unreactive Freon was. He inhaled a big lungful of the gas and then proceeded to blow it onto a candle, which was then extinguished.

CFCs may have seemed safe at the time, unlike tetra-ethyl lead, but it wasn’t until fifty years later that the real dangers of CFCs were discovered when we started looking at the ozone in the stratosphere.

Earth's Atmosphere

Ozone (O3), or Trioxygen, is a form of oxygen, only its molecule contains three atoms of oxygen, instead of the normal two. At ground level ozone is an air pollutant which can have damaging effects on the respiratory system of many animals and can burn plants, yet it is beneficial to us when it is up in the stratosphere as it prevents many of the suns damaging ultra-violet rays from entering Earth’s atmosphere.

“Beneficial ozone is not terrible abundant, however. If it were distributed evenly throughout the stratosphere, it would form a layer just 2 millimeters or so thick.

“Chlorofluorocarbons are also not very abundant – they constitute only about one part per billion of the atmosphere as a whole – but they are extravagantly destructive. A single kilogram of CFCs can capture and annihilate 70,000 kilograms of atmospheric ozone. CFCs also hang around for a long time – about a century on average – wreaking havoc all the while. And they are great heat sponges. A single CFC molecule is about ten thousand times more efficient at exacerbating greenhouse effects than a molecule of carbon dioxide – and carbon dioxide is of course no slouch itself as a greenhouse gas. In short, Chlorofluorocarbons may ultimately prove to be just about the worst invention of the twentieth century.” – Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

Ozone Molecule

You might think that Midgley would have discovered the effects of his inventions and felt incredible guilty, but he never lived to find out. He had invented a contraption which used motorised pulleys to automatically raise or turn him in his bed. He needed this as he had become crippled by polio. Ironically, in 1944 he became entangled in the cords of his contraption as it went into action and was strangled to death.

There will be a follow up to this article soon in which we will look further into the  effects of lead in the atmosphere.

Earth's Moon as seen from the North Pole

The Moon. What a wonderful thing it is. We, as humans, have developed somewhat of a bond to our Moon, and this is understandable. After all, it has a profound effect on life on Earth, most of this is positive, although there are suspicions that there are some effects of the Moon which have lead to less-than favourable outcomes, as we will explore.

Tides

The most commonly known effect of the Moon has to be Tidal Force. We are all aware that tides change twice a day, and that this is as a result of the Moon. More specifically, it is a result of both the Moon and the Sun, though the effect that the Sun has on our tides is dramatically less than that of the Moon, due to the Sun’s relative distance from Earth.

“In simple terms, since the Moon is 400 times closer to us than the Sun, and even though the Sun is more massive than the Moon and thus has more gravity, the much closer distance of the Moon makes its tidal forces on the Earth much larger than the Sun’s. The tidal effect of the Sun is just under one half the tidal effect of the Moon” – 365 Days of Astronomy

The gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon cause ‘tidal bulges’ to form in the oceans of the Earth which are closest to the Sun or Moon. This will naturally result in high sea levels in areas close to the bulges, and lower sea levels elsewhere. I don’t want to dwell on tides too much in this article,  so I will move on.

Lunacy

The word ‘Lunacy’ is derived from the Roman word ‘Luna’, meaning ‘Moon’. The Romans had Goddesses, Diana and Luna, who were Moon Goddesses.

Luna

“Luna: An ancient moon Goddess, the namesake for the Latin word luna meaning ‘moon’. Her name also forms the root of the English words ‘lunar’ and ‘lunatic’.

Diana: The Goddess of the hunt and wild animals. She later took over from Luna as the Roman Goddess of the moon, responsible for fertility and childbirth.“ – Goddess Guide

So we can see that the word ‘lunacy’ refers to madness as a result of the full Moon. There have been many reports published and many stories heard about the Moon being the cause for an increase in activity across a wide range of areas, such as:

• Murder rate
• Traffic accidents
• Crisis calls to police or fire stations
• Domestic violence
• Births of babies
• Suicide
• Kidnappings
• Violence in prisons
• Psychiatric admissions [one study found admissions were lowest during a full moon]
• Agitated behavior by nursing home residents
• Assaults
• Gunshot wounds
• Stabbings
• Emergency room admissions
• Behavioral outbursts of psychologically challenged rural adults
• Lycanthropy
• Vampirism
• Alcoholism
• Sleep walking
• Epilepsy

'Werewolf' boy

We are all familiar with at least a few of the points listed above. But why is that? Is could be because these things really occur, or perhaps because people often make out as though weird things occur when the Moon is fat . We are regularly exposed to references of the Moon’s influence on Humans in the media, though various depictions of lycanthropy and other such matters; through folklore, which often states that women are fertile according to the Moon; through misconceptions over the Moons effects on Earth’s t ides and its subsequent effect on Humans and through stories of the Moon, madness and suicide. Has this just affected our perceptions? What better to refer to than the thoughts of two great minds…

“Greek philosopher Aristotle and Roman historian Pliny the Elder suggested that the brain was the “moistest” organ in the body and thereby most susceptible to the pernicious influences of the moon, which triggers the tides.” – Scientific American

This may sound a little obscure, but the logic is there. We know that the Moon affects the tides on Earth, and as Humans we are made up of over 80% water, so is it that ludicrous to suggest that the Moon could also be affecting us? Well, as it turns out…yes.

“As the late astronomer George Abell of the University of California, Los Angeles, noted, a mosquito sitting on our arm exerts a more powerful gravitational pull on us than the moon does. Yet to the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports of a “mosquito lunacy effect.” Second, the moon’s gravitational force affects only open bodies of water, such as oceans and lakes, but not contained sources of water, such as the human brain. Third, the gravitational effect of the moon is just as potent during new moons—when the moon is invisible to us—as it is during full moons.” – National Geographic

Phases of the Moon

There have been many tests conducted to try and establish whether the Moon is responsible for the increase in odd activities we sometimes witness around the time of the full Moon. In a lot of the cases, the verdict was that there was a positive correlation between them. However, many of the studies that have been carried out have been picked apart by other scientists and it has been discovered that the suspected positive correlation between the moon and the oddities is actually non-existent. Some of the original studies were negligent to some key factors, while others seem to ignore the fact that other studies contradict the results.

“My own opinion is that the case for full moon effects has not been made. The studies are not consistent. For every positive study, there is a negative study” says Ivan Kelly, a psychologist at the University of Saskatchewan. Kelly has published 15 papers on the topic and reviewed more than 50 others, including one that covered some 200 studies. He concludes that there is not strong evidence of an effect.

“Two separate studies published in the December 23, 2000 issue of the British Medical Journal contradict each other on the question of whether animals bite people more during a full moon.

“Chanchall Bhattacharjee and colleagues at the Bradford Royal Infirmary in Bradford, England, reviewed 1,621 patients admitted to the infirmary’s emergency room between 1997 and 1999 for animal bites and found that the chances of being bitten were twice as high on or around full-moon days.

“But Simon Chapman at the University of Sydney in Australia compared dates of admission for dog bites to public hospitals in Australia with dates of the full moon over a 12-month period and found no positive relation between the full moon and dog bites.” - National Geographic

Dog-biting

That last quote would suggest that the link between a full Moon and Human behaviour is meaningless. So is that it? There are still plenty of contradicting arguments, but will we really get any closer to an answer when all of the evidence clashes? It seems unlikely. So, we can still be objective about this and ask that if the Moon does not affect Human behaviour, is it possible for the Moon to affect any other creature? There was a study conducted by the British Medical Journal in 2006 to determine whether or not the number of dog bites requiring hospital admissions rises at the time of a full Moon. Here is an abstract from their study.

“Objective: To assess whether dog bites requiring hospital admission occur more at the full moon.
Design: Review of dates of admission for dog bites to accident and emergency departments, June 1997 to June 1998, compared with dates of the full moon.
Setting: All public hospitals in Australia.
Main outcome measures: Admissions for dog bites.
Results: 12 peak clusters of admissions were unrelated to the time of the full moon.
Conclusion: Dog bites are no more frequent on full moons than at any other time of the month. Sceptics rejoice.” – British Medical Journal

So, there we have it. It seems that the dogs are no more affected by the full Moon than Humans. Personally, I find the idea of the Moon affecting us every month to be an interesting idea, one that I would like to believe. Yet it seems difficult to believe such a notion when there is only contradicting evidence out there, I’d need clear-cut evidence in supoport of the theory to satisfy my mind.

The Moon

“…spooky effects have been ascribed to the phases of the moon….But when the statistics are redone properly, the correlation with lunar phase always evaporates….Yet many sensible people—including police officers and emergency room staff—continue to believe otherwise.” – Steven Strogatz

At this stage it seems that such evidence is unlikely to arise anytime soon. So for now I shall remain skeptical that the Moon does indeed have a profound effect on us, but I shall also remain hopeful that it does, because for me, that would be a fantastic feat of physics!

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

It seems likely that the discussion will rage on for some time.Please post your own thoughts on the topic if you have any you’d like to share. I shall leave on a more musical note by including some appropriate lyrics by Pink Floyd. Brain Damage, from their fantastic album The Dark Side of the Moon.

“The lunatic is on the grass.
The lunatic is on the grass.
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs.
Got to keep the loonies on the path.

The lunatic is in the hall.
The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more.

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

The lunatic is in my head.
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me ’til I’m sane.
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.” – Roger Waters

Gas Mask

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (sometimes referred to as Environmental Illness) is a condition that affects many people but is still widely misunderstood. It generally refers to any ailment or illness which is the result of environmental factors, such as pollutants or toxins entering the body of the sufferer through a means such as inhalation or ingestion. Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) is on the increase, the result of us inhabiting a world full of toxins and poisons that are so commonplace that they are now even found in our cleaning and grooming products, amongst many others. People who suffer from MCS are prone to suffering various multiple symptoms upon the exposure to a number of chemicals.

Some chemicals that commonly spark negative reactions in MCS sufferers are (list from Web MD):

• Tobacco smoke
• Perfume
• Traffic exhaust or gasoline fumes
• Nail polish remover
• Newspaper ink
• Hair spray
• Paint or paint thinner
• Insecticides
• Artificial colors, sweeteners, and preservatives in food
• Adhesive tape
• New carpet
• Flame retardants on clothing and furniture (such as mattresses)
• Felt tip pens
• Chlorine in swimming pools

Toxins all around

Many of the chemicals that spark reactions in MCS sufferers are Petro-Chemicals. This means that they are derived from petroleum based products, most of which have never been tested on humans to see if there is any negative long term impact. As mentioned on Our Little Place, these chemicals have been used in products under the motto “safe until proven toxic”. What kind of a policy is that? You would be forgiven for thinking that that motto ought to be the other way around, and you’d be right…it should be.

One of the biggest offenders is perfume and other scented products. Did you know that many of the ingredients in your perfume are the exact same ingredients found in Gasoline?! I didn’t either! The scary thing is that the perfume industry is not regulated at all – they can put any number of chemicals in fragrance without revealing what those chemicals are – or how they affect humans. We humans are all participating in a giant “lab experiment” against our knowledge and against our will, and it’s making some of us very sick. – Our Little Place

Toxic World

I’m sure we have all, at least once, been in the position of having a headache with no apparent reason for it. Well, the chances are that there actually was a good reason for it, you just didn’t know what it was. There is a possibility that there was someone nearby who had recently sprayed an aerosol, perfume or pesticide near you. Your headache is merely your bodies way of telling you “there is something wrong with the air you are breathing!”

The thing with MCS is that it is all a bit of a gamble. Symptoms can arise as result of a major event, such as a large scale chemical spill, or from long-term contact with low-levels of chemicals, such as in an office or home with poor ventilation. We are never able to say at what point of exposure a person will exhibit symptoms of MCS. Most of us will carry on in our lives, using the same products we used to use and breathing the same quality of air that we are used to breathing feeling relatively safe that we are in no harm, but sadly this is not the truth.

We are in danger. Every exposure to a toxin potentially takes you closer to suffering from MCS. Although it has not been proven to work like this, there is currently no evidence to suggest such a claim is incorrect. So, what exactly are the symptoms of MCS?

The symptoms of MCS may include:

• Headache
• Fatigue
• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Irritability
• Confusion
• Difficulty concentrating
• Intolerance to heat or cold
• Earache
• Stuffy head or congestion
• Itching
• Sneezing
• Sore throat
• Memory problems
• Breathing problems
• Changes in heart rhythm
• Chest pain
• Muscle pain and/or stiffness
• Bloating or gas
• Diarrhea
• Skin rash or hives
• Mood changes

Not a very nice set of conditions, I’m sure you’ll agree. Now, suffering from those nasties is one thing, but imagine not knowing when they were going to come on. All it could take is one person to walk past you after just having applied a liberal dose of aftershave and that could be it, any of the symptoms could start to make themselves known, sometimes instantly.

MCS logo

To summersise I am going to again quote Our Little Place, as they have made this point very well:

The products we use on our skin are absorbed directly into the bloodstream (the reason why nitroglycerine, nicotine, and hormone patches work). The chemicals we breathe (such as perfumes, formaldehyde, pesticides, etc.) all go straight to our brains and can cause low-level to severe damage – similar to how someone can snort cocaine or glue to get a “high”. Start reading labels – check for petro-chemicals, formaldehyde, and fragrance, and avoid them as much as possible. A clue that an ingredient may be a petro-chemical is the “prop” prefix. A clue that an ingredient releases formaldehyde is “Quaternium”. Be careful about products labeled “fragrance free” or “unscented”. Don’t trust them! Read the label and be sure they don’t list “fragrance” or “masking fragrance”. Don’t put anything on your skin you’d be afraid to eat, because the end result is the same!

Here is the second installment of the Chaos Theory post. If you haven’t read the first part, may I recommend you read Chaos Theory – Part One. To the rest of you, thanks for waiting for the follow up!

In this post I am almost going to diverge from chaos to talk about self-organisation. They are different subjects, but they do have parallels. Self-organisation is the name given to a process of organisation that is carried out by a system without external influence.

Self organisation in Electryfire bacteria

“Self-organization is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source.” – Wikipedia

There are many examples of self-organisation, from the cells of a fetus perfectly arranging themselves in a very particular and complex structure to the flocking of birds and other animals. Self-organisation is everywhere, happening all the time, but mostly we don’t even realise it. Physics, chemistry, entropy, biology, cybernetics, mathematics, computer science and society are all areas of study which have been found to display signs of self-organisation.

Bacterial Self-Organisation

It was once widely thought that within the biological kingdom there were hierarchical leaders of packs, herds, flocks or other such group of animals. This is now being disputed by those who believe self-organisation is actually at work here, too.

“Each member is constantly aware of its external environment and the other members in its group and instantly synchronizes its behavior with them according to very simple rules.” – The Bumble Bee

It must be noted, however, that the term ‘self-organisation’ is one which cannot be thrown around.

“As the list grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine whether these phenomena are all fundamentally the same process, or the same label applied to several different processes. Self-organization, despite its intuitive simplicity as a concept, has proven notoriously difficult to define and pin down formally or mathematically, and it is entirely possible that any precise definition might not include all the phenomena to which the label has been applied.

It should also be noted that, the farther a phenomenon is removed from physics, the more controversial the idea of self-organization as understood by physicists becomes. Also, even when self-organization is clearly present, attempts at explaining it through physics or statistics are usually criticized as reductionistic.” – Wikipedia

So as you can see, it is a tough thing to truly define.

Self-Organisation

Incorporated into this post are images of bacterial growth in Petri dishes. As you can see, the results are beautiful. Many different bacterial growths with form into elaborate and complex formations such as these, and this only reinforces the truth that self-organisation is all around us. Time and time again these patterns will form if bacteria is introduced to a Petri dish. The outcomes will always look similar, meaning that there is some underlying rule at hand, but yet they still look different enough to prove that there is clearly deviation from this rule. This is a very chaotic system due to its dependence on initial conditions. It is also a great example of self-organisation. Every cell ‘knows’ exactly where to go in order to produce the outcome we see in the images. The process of a biological organism developing its shape and form is known as Morphogenesis. This subject incorporates things such as the formation of patterns on animals such as the Leopard or Zebra, as well as the form of the bacterial growth in the Petri dishes.

Cheetah markings

Another example of self-organisation in the biological world is that of species levels. Different species depend on eating other species in order to survive. There is a balance that is constantly shifting, but is normally being kept at a sustainable and manageable level.

“If a population outstrips its food source, many starve. As an example, this happens with lemmings and stoats — lemmings are the main or only food source for stoats in several northern areas. When the lemming population increases, so does the stoat population. However, stoats are also very prolific breeders, and it comes to a point (every four years, in fact) that over-predation strips down the lemming population — and a lot of stoats starve. Then, in the absence of stoat predation the lemming population begins to build up again and the cycle starts over.” – Answer Bag

Beautiful cell growth

Competition between species for food are one of many examples of self-organisation across multiple species, rather than within a species as we have seen so far. Others include disease and/or parasitism; dense, crowded populations tend to pass on infectious diseases and parasites a lot more easily than sparse, widely separated populations, for what ought to be obvious reasons. Stress can also be a factor that limits a species rate of breeding.

“In the 1950s, Edward T. Hall did a survey of animal literature, and ran a number of rat experiments of his own, and demonstrated that overcrowded animals tended to have more hostile and stressful interactions, and that the stress of the environment produced hyperactive adrenal glands — with a knock-on effect of atrophied gonads and lower fertility. Wolves and some other top social predators actually exploit this effect — only the top one or two pairs in a pack breed each year, because the stress of continuously getting picked on and knocked around keeps the sex hormones in lower-ranking animals suppressed, and they never become fertile.” – Answer Bag

These factors could be thought of as being entirely external from chaos and self organisation by some. On the other hand, perhaps they are the very essence of it. Everything is organising itself around us and we are merely participating witnesses.

I’d like to share with you my thoughts on day length and where it is headed. First, let’s just refer to Wikipedia’s definition of day length:

“Day length… refers to the time each day from the moment the upper limb of the sun’s disk appears above the horizon during sunrise to the moment when the upper limb disappears below the horizon during sunset. Due to the diffusion and refraction of sunlight by the atmosphere, there is actually daylight even when the sun is slightly below the horizon. The period when it is still somewhat light even though the sun is below the horizon is called twilight.” – Wikipedia

Antarctic sun rise

Since the recent earthquake in Chile, 2010, which scored a massive 8.8 on the Richter Scale, there have been reports coming out suggesting that the length of a day on Earth has shortened as a direct result of the earthquake. It was such a powerful force that NASA say the Earth was actually shifted on its axis.

“JPL research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth’s rotation should have changed as a result of the Feb. 27 quake. Using a complex model, he and fellow scientists came up with a preliminary calculation that the quake should have shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).

“Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth’s axis. Gross calculates the quake should have moved Earth’s figure axis (the axis about which Earth’s mass is balanced) by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters, or 3 inches). Earth’s figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters (about 33 feet).” – NASA

Now, before I go off on a tangent and talk about what I have been thinking about, I do want to acknowledge this earthquake as being a devastating disaster. I am not trying to make light of that through just referring to it with respect to our day length…I just don’t want to dwell on the disaster and would rather spend some time talking about some of the science involved. So, with that said, let’s move on!

So, this whole story about the length of days got me thinking. I have read in the past about our Moon and it’s influences upon us on Earth, something so interesting it deserves a post of its own (when I get around to it). But in particular I have been thinking about the effect the Moon has on our day length.

Tidal Bulge

The Moon causes a slowing of Earth’s rotation. This is due to the gravitational attraction between the Moon and the Earth, a force which is responsible for Earth’s tides. There is always a ‘tidal bulge’ in sea levels on the side of the Earth closest to the moon. As well as tides there is another outcome of this – drag. The gravitational pull between the Earth and the Moon is actually causing a slowing of the Earth’s rotation about its axis, therefore there is an increase in day length over all. Of course, this is a process that will take hundreds of years to have even a noticeable effect on the length of our days, but it is happening all the same.

“In 1897 George Darwin, son of Charles, suggested that tides are causing the Moon to spiral away from us. His hypothesis was confirmed in 1969 after the Apollo 12 astronauts placed corner reflectors (like the red and orange ones on a car) on the Moon. By firing lasers from Earth to the Moon, off the corner reflectors, and back again, astronomers measured the round-trip time and, hence, the distance to the Moon. Repeating the experiment over several years, they confirmed Darwin’s prediction. The Moon is receding at 2 inches per year.” – Astrosociety

The Moon is actually gradually moving away from us at a very slow rate, about 3.8 centimetres per year, and this means that the gravitational effect it has on us will gradually reduce as it moves farther away. Even so, the days on Earth are set to get longer and it is estimated that in approximately 100,000 years we will be experiencing days of 25 hours in length. Now…this is the bit that got me thinking!

With an increase in day length of one hour there will be some real differences between those of us who are alive now and those who will be alive in the future. One hour, on a one-day-basis, isn’t much of a change. However, there are 364 days in a year, meaning we will have 364 additional hours per year in approximately 100,000 years (one for every day of the year). This is a difference of 15 days! Ok, it’s not a huge amount, but on a larger scale the difference gets even greater. Take a lifetime of 75 years, for example. That’s 75 x 364 hours difference (we’ll ignore leap years for ease of calculation), which calculates as being 27,300 hours difference, with ammounts to 1,137.5 days, or 3.125 years! Now we can really start to see a difference, compared to the 24 hour day.

The Earth and Moon from space

A 75 year-old today would effectively be just over 3 years younger than someone of the same age in 100,000 years time. So in essence, life expectancy will go down. People will not live to the ripe old ages that they do today. This isn’t strictly correct though, infact it’s a hideously incorrect statement to make. It would actually be more accurate to say that they will live for the same amount of time, but we will be labeling that time differently. They would live for the same number of seconds or hours, because those units are unnafected by a change to day length. It is the terms ‘day’, ‘week’, ‘month’, ‘year’, and so on, that would refer to a different number of seconds or hours compared to todays labelings of the aforementioned terms.

So, let’s assume that in 1,000,000 years the day will be 34 hours long – following the assumption that every 100,000 years will add an extra hour to the day. This idea is technically flawed, though, because the rate of movement of the Moon from the Earth is unlikely to remain constant over such a large time frame, but it’s fun to think about. That would mean that we would have 3,640 more hours in a year. That equates to 151 days. That is a big difference, almost half a year by our standards. Using the 75 year-old as an example again, we will now find that he or she has lived for 273,000 hours more than a 75 year-old in today’s world of 24 hour-long days. 273,000 hours! That’s 11,375 days, or 31.25 years difference! So, in 1,000,000 years a ’75 year-old’ will actually be 106 by today’s standards.

Lets ignore future medical advances and their effect on human lifespan for now, as there are sure to be some but we don’t know what they will be and how they will affect lifespan. If we take a 75 year-old and add the ‘extra’ 31 years that would be added through having a 25 hour day, then we would have someone who who was really 106. Now, people don’t tend to live to 106, more like 75 or so. So, with a bit of calculation we can deduce that a person would die at roughly 44 (calculated by subtracting  in the future difference of 31 years from the age of death by our labelings of 75). Now, that doesn’t mean that they will be 44, they will just be called 44. They will still be the same age as a 75-year-old in a 24-hour-day world, but it will merely be a different unit of measurement that we apply to the labeling of their age.

I find this concept very interesting. The idea of elderly looking teenagers is a humorous concept, but one that – if human-kind survives long enough – could well be a reality in the far future!