We may finally have an explanation of this phenomenon, that you may have referred to as "brain freeze" which is a cold stimulus headache, officially know as sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia A team of researchers led by Havard Medical School asked 13 brave volunteers to sip ice water through a straw aimed at the roof of their mouth while an ultrasound captured the flow of blood to the brain. Their findings have shown that just before the headache hits blood rushes through the anterior cerebral artery in the brain (a front region of the brain). The evidence isn't conclusive but it's likely that the headache is in response to the extra pressure in that region of the brain, and this is our way of warming up the blood to keep our brain at the optimal temperature,
Monday 30 September 2013
Sunday 29 September 2013
Do carrots help you to see in the dark?
Yes and no. Carrots contain vitamin A or retinol which is needed for your body to make rhodopsin which is a pigment in your eyes which operates in low light conditions. If you had a vitamin A deficiency you would develop nytalopia or what we might call "night blindness". Eating carrots would correct this, but only to the point of an ordinary person's vision at night - it won't ever let you see in complete darkness.
This idea first came about because of the Air Ministry in WWII. To prevent the Germans finding out that Britain was using radar to intercept bombers on night raids. They issued press releases stating that the British pilots had been eating a lot of carrots to give them exceptional night vision which fooled the entire British public as well as the German High Command, there an old wive's tale was born!
This idea first came about because of the Air Ministry in WWII. To prevent the Germans finding out that Britain was using radar to intercept bombers on night raids. They issued press releases stating that the British pilots had been eating a lot of carrots to give them exceptional night vision which fooled the entire British public as well as the German High Command, there an old wive's tale was born!
Friday 27 September 2013
Britain: The Isle of Wonder
The British population makes up just one per cent of the
world’s population. Yet our small collection of rocks poking out of the
Northern Atlantic has thrown up beaters in virtually every field of human endeavour.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in Science and
Engineering. Edward Jenner came up with vaccines, Sir Charles Darwin came up
with the Origin of Species, Sir Isaac Newton pioneered the basic laws of
motion, Sir Tim Berners-Lee who pioneered the world-wide web, Michael Faraday
and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the list is gloriously long.
Why do so many great minds emerge and flourish from Britain?
This is an extremely important question to ask ourselves, not only our past,
but our future economy hangs on further technical advances being made and
developed. Our successes can be traced back almost 800 years ago when The
University of Oxford and Cambridge were founded.
In 1660 The ‘Royal Society’ was formed, backed by Sir
Christopher Wren who was a Professor of Astronomy and an architect at St Paul’s
Cathedral in London. The aim was to pursue a radical idea for the time, that the
workings of nature can be best understood by observations and experiment. So
any theory about the world should be tested and if it disagrees with the
observations, then it is wrong. Even today that is radical the theories of
powerful and important people could end up being undermined by science. So
central to science is this idea that it is enshrined in the Royal Society’s
motto: “Take nobody’s word for it”
Shortly after the Royal Society was formed, Sir Isaac Newton
developed this approach in his work of “The Principia” which contains of his
laws of gravity and the foundations of what we now call classical mechanics, the
tools you need to calculate things from the forces on bridges and buildings to the
paths of artillery shells, arguably the first modern work of physics.
Thursday 26 September 2013
Scientists grow a heart
Scientists at the University of Pìttsburgh, PA have managed to grow a functioning mouse heart from pluripotent stem cells. These are adult stem cells that act like embryonic stem cells. The team achieved this by stripping the mouse heart of its cells and replacing them with human cells. The heart then began to beat just as before. This could then lead to stem cells being used in the future for human organ transplants. Although there are a number of ethical issues surrounding the use of stem cells. This technological advance could be used to replace heart tissue damaged during a heart attack.
Sunday 22 September 2013
Albert Einstein
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| Albert Einstein pencil sketch that I have drawn |
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them"
~ Albert Einstein
The German born
physicist Albert Einstein was born on March 14th 1879 in Württemberg, six
weeks after his birth he moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling
at Luitpold Gymnasium. As a child he enjoyed classical music and even played
the violin.
One story that
Einstein enjoyed telling about his childhood was of a wonder that he saw when
he was about four or five years old: a magnetic compass. Okay this may not seem
much with today's technology but the compasses needle's northward swing, guided
by an invisible force fascinated Einstein, this wonder could even
have been what inspired him to bigger and better things in his adulthood.
In 1896 he entered
the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich where he trained as a teacher in
physics and maths. Later, in 1901 he gained a diploma which went on to earn him
a Swiss Citizenship. Unfortunately he was unable to
find a teaching post so he accepted a position as a technical assistant in the
Swiss Patent Office. This led him to work towards a doctor's degree in
1905.
During his time at
the Swiss Patent office, and his spare time he produced a lot of his remarkable
work including his famous equation. He also became 'Professor Extraordinary' at
Zurich. In 1911 he became 'Professor of Theoretical Physics' at Prague. When he
returned to Zurich he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical
Institute and a Professor at the University of Berlin.
When anyone
mentions Einstein, his famous equation - E= mc squared is probably one of the
first things to jump into your head, but what does it mean?
This famous
equation pops up everywhere, it even appears as the title of one of Mariah
Carey's 2008 albums. For starters the 'E' part of the equation stands for
energy and the "M" mass (which is a measurement of the quantity of
matter inside something). The C squared part of the equation stands for
the speed of light squared. The whole equation breaks down into this: Energy is
equal to matter multiplied by the speed of light squared.
The speed of light
is a colossal number, illustrating just how much energy there is in just a tiny
amount of water. One common example that physicists use is just 1 gram of water
(1 ml). If the entire mass of the water (1 gram) was converted into pure energy
using Einstein's equation, then the water could contain as much energy as
20,000 tons of TNT (which is an explosive) exploding. This is why such a small
amount of Uranium or Plutonium can create such disastrous effects, such as the
1986 Chernobyl disaster where one of four nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl
power station exploded.
Einstein's equation
does actually have relevance to twenty first century science. Einstein has
provided, via his equation, a huge advancement in various fields of science
including nuclear power. He has also allowed us to discover more about the
inner workings of the Sun. This equation has shown us the relationship between
Energy, matter and the speed of light like we have never before and this could
well help us research into other areas of science in the future.
Saturday 21 September 2013
The People Who Want to go to Mars (And Never Return)
It’s safe to say that the majority of scientists worldwide
believe that there is life way beyond Earth, but would you want to travel the
140 million miles to get to Mars and regularly endure the temperatures of -153oC
at the poles of Mars? Well, tens of thousands of people have applied and
prepared to leave their families, jobs and lives behind for a one-way trip to
Mars all to never return to Earth.
Home to the solar system’s biggest volcano, Olympus Mons, Mars
has around 687 earth days each year and
at night, the surface temperature of Mars in the summer can get as low as -53oC.
Rovers on Mars have even discovered Martian spherules which have been nicknamed
‘blueberries’ which may even unlock the key to the elements that Mars once had,
although scientists haven’t discovered these for certain yet although they do
know that these spherules are iron rich. This is also shown because of Mars’
classic red colour which shows an extremely high percentage of iron
This “Mars One” mission (launched back in May 2012) aims to
send humans on a one- way trip to the Red Planet. You might think that this
amazing opportunity is a science-fiction story and wouldn’t happen for a good
while yet but this programme aims to send a selected number of the public up to
Mars by 2023, fully equipped with the right training needed to survive on Mars.
Anyone worldwide over 18 was eligible to apply for the trip and 202,589
applications were received throughout the application process!
The selection process consists of three rounds including an
interview with the ‘Mars One’ committee members and a series of challenges to
prepare candidates for the potential mission that will be broadcast on TV and
online.
The brave volunteers will be sent in groups of four,
starting with two men and two women from four different continents. From 2023
when the first group is sent up, ‘Mars One’ (the company organising the trips) are
planning to send an extra four up every two years!
However the trip isn’t without its risks, radiation exposure
is particularly a concern as it can lead to an increased cancer risk, lower
immune system and possible infertility. This could mean that before the
applicants reach Mars, their health may be worse than when they took off from
Earth! Being on Mars they wouldn’t have access to doctors and hospitals so
would need to manage their own health using restricted medical supplies.
The Dutch group wants to launch a supply mission to land on
Mars as soon as October 2016, and then another mission that they have called a
‘settlement rover’ to land in 2018. By 2033 the colony could reach 20 settlers
on the Red Planet, although the mission could prove very costly! NASA spent
£1.8 billion on Mars’ Curiosity Rover which is the biggest most advanced Rover
to travel across Mars, but ‘Mars One’ has a budget of £4 billion for this
project but it could prove the most worthwhile and open up so many more opportunities
and avenues for exploration in science.
Tuesday 17 September 2013
Olympus Mons
At a height of 25 km Olympus Mons (on Mars) is the highest volcano in the solar system. It's nearly three times as tall as Mount Everest.
However on Olympus Mons, the height of this particular volcano is thought to have stopped growing because of the cooling of Mars' core.
It is thought that the volcanoes on Mars are a lot higher than on Earth because Mars doesn't have any tectonic plates unlike Earth. This means that magma rises in the same place each time. So, over time the volcano gets bigger and bigger due to the build up of magma. Therefore the height of the volcanoes on Mars are so much bigger than on Earth.
Tuesday 10 September 2013
Why is sugar so addictive?
We all know how tempting it can be to have that extra slice of cake, but what makes sugar so addictive? Well there are a number of reasons to explain this age old addiction to sugar.
Scientist believe that we are driven to sugar as it plays a vital role in our survival, along with salt, fat and sugar. This is because when we eat food the simple sugars are absorbed from the intestines into our bloodstream, so it can be distributed to all cells in the body. Glucose is also very important to the brain as it provides the only source of fuel to the one hundred billion nerve cells in your body.
These neurons (nerve cells) need a constant supply of fuel from the bloodstream as they can't store the glucose. Diabetics with low blood sugar can collapse into a coma.
Bizarrely scientists have even discovered that just the taste of sugar can give our brains our boost. They discovered that participants who swirled water sweetened by adding sugar perform better on mental tasks than those who don't!
Monday 2 September 2013
"Molecular Basis" for jet lag is finally explained
Scientists at Oxford University believe they have finally found out why it takes us so long to adapt when we travel to new time zones.
Researchers say they have found the "molecular brakes" that prevent light resetting the body clock when we fly - which is what causes jet lag.
Experiments that they have carried out which was reported in the journal Cell, showed that "uncoupling" these brakes in mice allowed them to rapidly adapt. Researchers are hoping that this discovery will help with the invention of new drugs to treat jet lag and mental health disorders.
Our Circadian Rhythm (body clock) helps us keep in tune with the pattern of day and night, this basically controls when we sleep and also what chemicals are produced at certain times.
Light acts as sort of a 'reset' button to keep the clock in time, but when we travel, particularly on long haul flights can result in fatigue which can last for days known as jet lag.
The team of researchers funded by the Wellcome Trust were attempting to figure out why people don't instantly adapt to the difference in time. The research looked into mice, this was because all mammals have the same core body clock as humans do. They focused on what is known as the "master clock" part of your brain which keeps the rest of the body in sync, to scientists this is known as the suprachiasmatic nuclei. During their research they were looking for parts of the DNA that had altered activity levels in response to the light.
Their experiments found that huge numbers of genes were activated but a protein named "SIK1" went round turning the genes off. This acted like a brake which limited the effect of light.
So reducing the function of this protein meant that the mice would be able to rapidly adjust their body clock, even when it was shifted six hours. This would be an equivalent flight from the UK to India.
Researchers reduced levels by 50-60%, which is big enough to get a very, very big effect. What we saw was the mice would actually advance their clock six hours within a day. The untreated mice would take six days to do this.
He said some mental health disorders including schizophrenia were linked to an out-of-tune body clock, so these findings may open up new areas for research and a lead into possible treatements for these mental health disorders.
"We have drugs which can make the clock shorter or longer, what we need is to shift it to a new time zone and that is what they have done
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