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March 29, 2024, 11:34:57 am

Author Topic: Share interesting science!!!  (Read 14953 times)  Share 

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blacksanta62

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #30 on: January 15, 2016, 10:10:36 pm »
+1
Argh, I wish. All the fields of chemistry I really love aren't even thought about for VCE... (possible insight as to why I hated 3/4 chem but love uni chem LOL)

I just picked that picture because I felt it simply showed what the structure of a coordination polymer might look like. Here's a whole page of some, though, so go nuts.

Also, if this is science that you find interesting, it's literally in the name of the topic. Defs not off at all. :P

Cool :) I'll get reading  :)
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keltingmeith

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #31 on: January 15, 2016, 10:14:16 pm »
+1
Cool :) I'll get reading  :)

>>Sends pictures
"Cool, I'll get reading"

... I mean, if you want, sure? :P

blacksanta62

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #32 on: January 15, 2016, 10:22:46 pm »
0
Yeah the link brought up google images but I went to wiki
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Floatzel98

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #33 on: January 15, 2016, 11:40:46 pm »
+1
Do many people here know about Folding@Home or BOINC projects? I stumbled upon them a couple of years ago. Tried to look into somehow getting my schools computers to use the software since they are almost always turned on. I just find it cool that you can contribute to science from home everyday, however small it may be.

Hopefully it is still on topic here. Seems appropriate.
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TheAspiringDoc

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #34 on: January 15, 2016, 11:58:11 pm »
+1
Horizontal gene transfer (the transfer of genes from one organism to another by a means other than reproduction) is pretty fascinating. Genes that cause antibiotic resistance can be horizontally transferred between bacteria. Such transfer is in this case facilitated by bacteriophages (viruses associated with bacteria)

Syndicate

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #35 on: January 16, 2016, 12:10:27 am »
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This thread is getting overrun by Biology facts O.o (not that I hate it :p) but Physics and Chem... Everyone forgot about Psych :p
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TheAspiringDoc

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #36 on: January 16, 2016, 12:19:00 am »
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This thread is getting overrun by Biology facts O.o (not that I hate it :p) but Physics and Chem... Everyone forgot about Psych :p
Underrun by the other sciences more like. You can never have too much bio.

Kalopsic

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #37 on: January 16, 2016, 12:20:48 am »
+2
Physics

sub::AstroPhysics?
The Great Filter

It is theorised that there is 'something' that prevents life from becoming so advanced that they are able to colonise other planets or even galaxies. Robin Hanson devised an incomplete or complete scale of the evolution of advanced lifeforms and stated that either somewhere along the scale hence our past or future, is the complication that causes life forms to die out. This may be the reason why we have yet to find other civilisations and why there is lack of evidence of life or past life.
It is really deep so have a read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

Similarly related is the Kardashev Scale:
The Kardashev scale measures the advancement of civilisations via their ability to harness the energy around them and categorises this into 3 types of civilsations. Type I is the ability to utilise the energy from the neighbouring star that reaches the planet, Type II is the ability to harness all the energy radiated from the star and Type III is the ability to travel the galaxy and harness the galaxy's energy. As a reference, we're only 0.724 on this scale.
More can be read from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

Also have a read about Dyson spheres as they are really interesting and not too long ago we had thought we found a Dyson sphere. Not sure if it was debunked or if it's an ongoing investigation

One such example I can think of at the moment is a bird called Kakapo, which I believe is not only flightless but actually exudes an odor that attracts predators to them - hence it is no surprise it is now an endangered species.

Could be a defense mechanism since it could attract multiple predators that end up attacking one another while it gets away.
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pi

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #38 on: January 16, 2016, 12:58:00 am »
+4
This thread is getting overrun by Biology facts O.o (not that I hate it :p) but Physics and Chem... Everyone forgot about Psych :p

I'm gonna assume you mean psychiatry (even though you don't mean it!) :P

Let's talk about electroconvulsive therapy or ECT (this is NOT medical advice to replace advice by a qualified doctor), because I think it's super interesting!

The history of ECT is interesting and worth appreciating, cross your legs and take a seat, pi is telling a story. Before, ELETCROconvulsive therapy, there were thoughts of convulsive therapy. Convulsions are basically seizures (a sudden surge of electrical activity in the brain), and among other methods, can be induced by means of drugs or electric current. A Hungarian psychiatrist named Dr Meduna was studying patients who had both schizophrenia (a psychotic disorder) and epilepsy (a condition characterised by recurrent seizures). He found that there seemed to be some "antagonism" between these two conditions in these patients, that is that these patients had improved psychotic symptoms after their epileptic seizures. He reasoned, with that being his basis, that if he could induce seizures, he could potentially cure the schizophrenia, amazing right?! He started experimenting and using various drugs to induce convulsions as a therapy option, however it was very dangerous and unreliable. This is where Dr Cerletti from Italy comes into the picture, he decided that those risks were not ideal and using his background knowledge in epilepsy, he decided to introduce electroshocks to induce convulsions. After experimenting first with animals and then patients, he found this form of therapy to be more reliable and less dangerous than the drugs. From there, ECT grew globally as a therapy for not only schizophrenia (for which it is reserved only for certain scenarios which are now fortunately rare), but also for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder (MDD, colloquially "depression") or mania (the other 'half' of bipolar disorder I), MDD with psychotic features, and other specific situations.

The mechanism of how ECT works isn't well understood. [jargon warning] It's been shown to increase the release of monoamine neurotransmitters (dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin) and enhance transmission by desensitising presynaptic adrenergic autoreceptors, although there are additionally thought to be effects on the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, frontal cortex, and many other parts of the brain. It's still an area being researched.

There are two main ways of delivering ECT (the patient is given anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant first!). The current can be delivered to both sides of the head or to just one side (the right side), with the doctors titrating the current upwards slowly until it is at therapeutic levels. The current delivery to both sides is the 'gold standard' and is said to be more effective, although it is said that there are less side-effects in the right-sided application (although this is controversial given higher doses of current are needed to induce the convulsion). Common side-effects people report include acute confusion (10-30mins after), anteretrograde amnesia (decreased ability to retain newly required information), retrograde amnesia (forgetting past memories), and headache and some muscle aches. Otherwise, it is generally considered to be safe (again, NOT medical advice!). Also worth noting that ECT is not something that is given once, it usually requires many sessions (10+) and some people need maintenance therapy afterwards as well.

This is a decent-ish video (not exactly how I've seen it done) of how the procedure itself works:

Hope you've all learnt something about 'psych'! ;)

TheAspiringDoc

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #39 on: January 16, 2016, 02:35:48 pm »
+1
Pi you legend  8)

Check out this awesome Biology video on epigenetics and x inactivation https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mHak9EZjySs
« Last Edit: January 16, 2016, 03:08:16 pm by TheAspiringDoc »

wyzard

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #40 on: January 16, 2016, 03:12:00 pm »
+3
Physics - Thermodynamics

Here's a really interesting and cool one from physics 8) Negative Absolute Temperature. Sixty Symbols made a really good video describing what is it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTeBUpR17Rw

For anyone's that is familiar with the Kevin scale will definitely know about the concept of absolute temperature where 0K, which is -273.16 degree Celsius, is the lowest temperature that can be achieved by matter, called absolute zero.

The reason 0K is the lowest temperature is because temperature is an indirect way to determine the thermal energy contained in an object, which is the kinetic energy of the constituent particles (the formula of the thermal energy contained in a substance is , in case you're wondering) The higher the temperature, the faster the particles are moving about, so they contain higher amounts of kinetic energy, hence higher thermal energy. So there must be a point where the particles have the lowest energy which corresponds to having absolute zero temperature.

However, there do exist certain systems where they have negative absolute temperature. How is that possible? It is like saying the particles have negative kinetic energy, which makes no physical sense.

As it turns out having negative absolute temperature require us to define temperature in an entirely different way using entropy, and 2nd law of Thermodynamics, which states that systems will spontaneously increase its total entropy. Entropy can be thought of as the degree of disorderliness.

Objects with higher temperature have the greater tendency to lose its energy, so if a graph of energy vs entropy is plotted, higher temperature means it has a much less steep gradient, as it is more willing to lose the energy it has to an object with more steep energy vs entropy graph for it to gain total entropy. In other words, temperature can be defined as the inverse of the gradient of the energy vs entropy graph given as:

The objects we are familiar with around us will have greater entropy when it has more energy. Think of the particles getting more disorderly as it has more energy, which is why it has its usual positive temperature.

As it turns out, there exist certain systems that get more orderly when it has more energy, resulting in a negative energy vs entropy graph, one famous example are para-magnetic molecules placed in the presence of external magnetic fields. Such systems have very interesting properties such as spontaneously losing its energy when placed in contact with any object of any temperature, hence having the property of being "hotter than infinity".
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sunshine98

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #41 on: January 16, 2016, 03:25:57 pm »
+1
Love this thread , thanks for starting it TheAspiringDoc  :)
Thought this video  was cool  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0yJwZGxvBA   It gets much more interesting towards the end tho.
It's mainly biology (and I think a bit of physics )

Syndicate

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #42 on: January 16, 2016, 03:26:25 pm »
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The higher the temperature, the faster the particles are moving about, so they contain higher amounts of kinetic energy, hence higher thermal energy. So there must be a point where the particles have the lowest energy which corresponds to having absolute zero temperature.

The atoms won't be moving at all, at an abosulte zero. When at abosolute zero, the atoms have no kinetic energy, thus no thermal energy. It is known that, it is currently not possible to acheive such a thing, and the lowest ever recorded temperature was 0.000 000 000 1 of a kelvin (such an achievement!).

But, you made some great points! It was quite interesting to know that, negative kelvin holds hot temeratures. There is a great amount of information loaded here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130104143516.htm
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vox nihili

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #43 on: January 16, 2016, 09:47:31 pm »
+4
Biology/Ethics

CRISPR-Cas9 (AKA CRISPR) is a pretty cool one but doesn't get nearly enough air time.

The short and sweet of it is that it's a highly accurate gene editing technology. Basically, it makes use of a bacterial enzyme to cut DNA. The enzyme (known as Cas9) is targeted to a particular sequence of DNA by a special guide RNA. It will on cut the sequence to which it is targeted. Modifications of the technology have allowed CRISPR to be used to insert new sequences of DNA or edit faulty sequences.



Unlike technologies before it, CRISPR is actually really reliable and it's thought that it may actually be able to be used therapeutically. It has been trialled, last year, on human embryos in China and scientists in the UK have applied to do the same. The trials didn't go so well, but all of the previous work seems to show that CRISPR should work if used correctly.

Of course, such a technology raises a lot of ethical questions. Whilst it hasn't got all that much coverage in Australia, the Guardian (a newspaper in the UK, with an Australian website too incidentally) has given it a lot of air time, even publishing an editorial encouraging scientists to be careful.

Definitely an interesting technology. Almost certainly a Nobel prize in this one too. Watch this space.

A couple of other links:

Good opinion piece with some nice info about how it works
Article about application by UK scientists to use it on embryos
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wyzard

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Re: Share interesting science!!!
« Reply #44 on: January 17, 2016, 12:49:13 am »
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The atoms won't be moving at all, at an abosulte zero. When at abosolute zero, the atoms have no kinetic energy, thus no thermal energy. It is known that, it is currently not possible to acheive such a thing, and the lowest ever recorded temperature was 0.000 000 000 1 of a kelvin (such an achievement!).

But, you made some great points! It was quite interesting to know that, negative kelvin holds hot temeratures. There is a great amount of information loaded here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130104143516.htm

Yeah you're right, there's no way we can ever achieve 0K according to the third law of thermodynamics in a finite number of operation ;D all the cryogenics stuff about cooling atoms to really cold temperature has really its own interesting features as well, such as reaching the state of Bose-Einstein Condensate 8)

Also to be more precise, at 0K atoms still be moving about slowly, they'll move with minimum energy called zero point energy, as quantum mechanics forbid atoms with zero kinetic energy due to the uncertainty principle, which is why I said point of lowest energy, not zero energy.
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