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To President Trump: An Explanation of Climate Change

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Image result for envelope with us flag stamp

This week in class, we pulled together what we've been learning all quarter -- bringing together temperature, density, air force, and weather to talk about climate change. Learning about climate change, naturally, made us want to do something about it. An important way we can make change is by letting our voice be heard by our representatives and leaders, so we wrote letters to the current president of the United States, the anti-climate change Donald Trump. Below is the letter I wrote:

President Trump,

You've already received a number of letters regarding your attitude towards climate change, I'm sure, and will receive many more. You stubbornly claim that the entire concept is a hoax, despite the fact that 97% of climate scientists agree that it exists; you just signed an executive order relaxing EPA restrictions, you've threatened to withdraw from the 2016 Paris Agreement -- anyone with a pencil, a brain, and some hope for our political system should demand that you at least attempt to see sense.

My letter, then will be one among many. You probably won't read it. If I'm lucky, I might get the attention of one of your secretaries. Nonetheless, I find it my duty, as one of the citizens of a country you have somehow been elected to lead, to teach you what I've been learning in my 8th grade science class, and demand that you take immediate action against human-caused climate change. Below, I explain why this would be in both your best interest, in language that you understand.

Trump, we have a problem. A tremendous problem. You like money, right? Good hard cash? Yeah, you do. Everyone knows it. And you, a billionaire, depend on the economy. Well let me tell you something. You know crops? People work to grow them, they sell them, people eat them, then corporations and billionaires make money? That's the agriculture industry. And then there's all the other places people work, like factories. You make money off of that too. Now, what if all those crops die? What if it gets too hot for people to work? All of a sudden, failed agriculture industry, factory slowdowns. Also, all the property you have in Florida, California. Sea level rises, there it goes. That's climate change. That's global warming. And it's a tremendous problem. Everyone's saying so.

And now, leaving behind the 4th grade vocabulary and selfish mindset you utilize so often, let me tell you why climate change matters to me. In Minnesota, we've been experiencing climate change firsthand, with the annual average temperature steadily increasing as well as extreme heat waves. This affects me and people in my community directly.

Just this winter, we've had a ridiculous amount of 60 °F days. This may not seem so bad, but if the rate of increase continues as it is, these warm winters will become uncomfortably hot, then uninhabitably so. And even this irregularity is having an effect on my community -- with the absence of the regular low temperatures that are the norm in Minnesota winters, people are often overdressed in unseasonably warm weather one day, then underdressed in more normal conditions the next. This is a long term trend -- 7/10 of the hottest recorded years have been within the past 15, and the state is warming at a rate of 0.5 °F per decade.

And not only is the annual average increasing, but so are the number of intense heat waves. Last summer, we had a heat wave bad enough that pools and libraries extended their hours so that people in the community whose homes don't have adequate air conditioning could be safe in weather hot enough to cause health problems, some of which, like strokes, can be fatal. If global warming is not checked, by the end of this century, extremely high temperatures that currently occur once every 20 years could occur as often as every two to four years, something which could have drastic consequences for the people in my state.

Oh, but silly me. I’ve been talking about the effects of climate change, but I forgot that denial is linked with ignorance, and that you probably don’t know what climate change is in the first place. Allow me to explain.

Let’s imagine a planet. We’ll call it Trumpland, so it captures your attention for more than thirty seconds. Trumpland is a spherical planet (Earth is too, in case you didn't know) snugly settled inside a mitten. This mitten is Trumpland’s atmosphere, and it keeps Trumpland warm because it’s partly made up of heat-trapping gases, which reflect some of the planet’s heat back towards it.

However, the humans living on Trumpland have been making some bad decisions. They burn fossil fuels for their energy, which releases carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas, into Trumpland’s mitten. The humans can’t be bothered to find other sources of energy, so the heat-trapping gases in the mitten build up.

Because more heat-trapping gases mean more heat reflected towards Trumpland and the humans keep releasing more and more carbon dioxide, their planet begins to heat up. Some of the smarter humans realize what is happening and try to stop it, but the rest remain ignorant, going so far as to elect a leader who pretends the effect is fake. Because of this, no measures are taken to prevent this climate change, and all the humans die when Trumpland becomes too hot and is ravaged by heat waves, storms, floods, droughts, and famine. The end.

And that, Trump, is what could happen here. ‘But wait-!’ you and your fellow climate change skeptics say. ‘The warming you’re talking about is really just caused by natural fluctuations in the Earth’s climate!” However, a number of credible scientific studies show that this is impossible. One of these, a 2013 Nature Geoscience study, proves that solar activity could not have contributed to more than 10% of the observed global warming over the 20th century. So no, it’s not “natural fluctuations.”

Of course, fluctuations are not the only way climate change skeptics explain away the increasingly dramatic signs of climate change making themselves evident. And, for each of their arguments, there are a far greater number of acclaimed scientists finding evidence that says the opposite. But consider this -- what if the skeptics ‘win’ and nothing is done, but climate change is real? Everything that happened to the fictional Trumpland and more would happen to Earth. What we now view as extreme weather events and natural disaster could become the norm, all because we did not address climate change when we should have. And if the skeptics are right? The only consequence would be the expense of implementing programs and energy sources far more sustainable and efficient than what we have now. The difference is pretty huge.

Even you must bring yourself to care about the fate of the entire planet. You have achieved a position you do not deserve and have already begun to abuse, but now that you have the power to do good, you must put aside the greed that seems to be your only motivation and act on an executive level to halt climate change.

You must acknowledge that climate change exists. You must uphold the 2016 Paris Agreement. You must reduce America’s carbon footprint and help America rely more on clean energy. You must act. And if you do so, you will not be the only one. Change is a collective mindset, and if everyone does their part in combating climate change, it will be overcome.

Sincerely,

Gitanjali Matthes

Cloud In A Bottle

This week, we read an article called "Cloud in a Bottle: High and Low Air Pressure." In class, we've been learning about air pressure and how it affects the weather. This article reinforced my learning by talking about how air pressure specifically plays a part in the formation of clouds, a connection I hadn't previously noticed. This made me want to learn more about clouds -- I'd like to spend time outside cloud-watching and identifying the different types.

Be The Molecule

Gas pressure is caused by the collisions of molecules or atoms with the walls of the container they are in. Pressure changes when either the volume of the container changes or the molecules' temperature changes. In the first case, the same amount of molecules are suddenly confined in a small space, so they collide with each other and the walls more often, creating more pressure. In the second case, the increased temperature makes the individual molecules move faster, so once again they collide with the walls more often and create more pressure.

When you fly in an airplane, you can feel the change of pressure in your ears when you ascend to higher altitudes. This is because the higher you are, the lower the air pressure, and the air trapped in your inner eardrum is suddenly high pressure in comparison. Because of this, it exerts pressure on your ear, causing the painful feeling that tells you you're high in the air.

In class this week we conducted an online pHet simulation, exploring the effects of heat, volume of container, and quantity on molecules. In the simulation, there was box with a lid, into which we could pump molecules. This box was re-sizable and could be heated or cooled. With these tools, my lab partner and I explored how many different ways we could blow the lid of the container -- increase the pressure in the box enough for that to occur.

We discovered three ways of doing this, two of which support my earlier statement that pressure increases when volume decreases or temperature increases. First, we pumped a single molecule into the box, then heated it up until it hit the lid so frequently that it was blown off. This shows that enough heat, on its own, can cause drastic changes in pressure. Second, we pumped in ten molecules, then made the box as small as possible. This made the molecules collide with the walls far more frequently, and showed that decreased volume can also cause major changes in pressure, Finally, we just pumped in huge amounts of molecules, which quickly caused the lid to be blown off. This last method didn't really support a separate way pressure increases, because it really just showed a larger scale version of decreased volume causing an increase in pressure,

Pressure Systems

Areas of high and low pressure are directly related to fronts. Fronts are where warm and cool air masses meet - when they meet, the warm air rises, leaving an area of low pressure below. These areas of low pressure are associated with clouds, precipitation, and storms, because the reduced weight of air above creates better conditions for these weather events to form.

Image result for us jet stream air pressure

Then, because high and low pressure areas are relative, not determined by number ranges, the areas without fronts are high pressure. In these high pressure areas, denser air is sinking, which mostly keeps clouds and precipitation from forming.

Areas of high and low pressure are also related to the jet stream. The jet stream separates areas of high and low pressure -- weaving around, it ducks south areas of low pressure and north of areas of high pressure. As well, the curve of the jet stream nearly matches the curves of isobars, which are lines that mark areas with the same air pressure.

This week, we discussed why, even though heat rises, the atmosphere is cold -- a statement which at first seems counter-intuitive. This is because, as heated molecules gain altitude they lose kinetic energy and cool down. This is also seen in the convection process -- molecules are heated from below and rise then eventually lose kinetic energy, and sink.

Cloud 101

Clouds form through a complicated process. First, there is water, perhaps a lake. Then, when the air is dry and warm, some water evaporates, or becomes vapor. If this vapor is warm enough, it rises, because it's less dense. Eventually, the vapor gets high enough and cools down, condensing and becoming the mass of water droplets we see as clouds in the sky.

Three things are necessary for this process -- low temperature, low pressure, and moisture in the air. Low temperature allows for the condensation process in the air. Low pressure allows for the initial rising of the water vapor, because when denser air is sinking, in high pressure areas, it makes it much harder for this to happen. Moisture, or water vapor in the air is obviously necessary, because without it there is nothing to undergo the process.

You cannot drown in a cloud. It's like fog -- the condensed water vapor isn't enough to suffocate you, and it's intermingled with air. If the water droplets were dense enough to drown you, they would be precipitation. So, don't worry if you're skydiving -- you won't drown on the way down.

Air Pressure

This week I read an article about air pressure and air force. In class, we’ve been exploring the same subjects through a series of experiments, so this article provided answers for many of the questions that came up during my exploration of the different ways air pressure works. Of course, the article also brought up even more questions — in particular, I was curious about the relationship between air pressure and the weight of air.

Air Pressure Demo

Two of the labs exploring air pressure were performed as a demonstration in front of the class. In the first demonstration, we placed a peeled, hard-boiled egg on the opening of a bottle in which there was a lit scrap of paper. I hypothesized that the egg would be sucked into the bottle, because the flame would consume the air inside the bottle. We observed the flame inside the bottle flicker and go out, and the egg squeeze through the neck of the bottle before falling with a pop and breaking on impact. My hypothesis was mostly correct, but incomplete — while I’d guessed what would happen, my ‘why’ wasn’t quite right. The egg wasn’t being sucked into the bottle, exactly, rather it was being pushed in by the higher air pressure outside the bottle. The reason that that higher air pressure existed because the flame had consumed the oxygen in the bottle, lowering the air pressure inside.

Image result for egg and bottle experiment

The second experiment was the same, only varying in that this time, the bottle was upside-down. I hypothesized that the same thing would happen as with the previous experiment, but that it would be slower this time because now air pressure would be fighting against gravity. This did end up happening — after a much longer period of time, the egg was pushed into the bottle with a slurp, because the flame inside had created an area of low air pressure.

These demonstrations served as proof for a number of properties of gases. First, we know that gases take up space, because before the flame consumed oxygen and the air pressure dropped, air was creating an equalized area of air pressure in the bottle, and was taking up space in a way that created the amusing reaction when absent. Secondly, we know that gases are compressible, because the compression is usually necessary to create the force exerted by the high pressure air on the egg in the two egg and bottle cases. Thirdly, we know that gases exert pressure, because it was air, a mix of gases, causing the pressure that pushed the egg into the bottle in both demonstrations.

I’ve been talking a lot about air pressure, but haven’t defined it — it’s the force exerted on a certain area by the mix of gases that make up air.

Air Pressure Labs

In class this week, we conducted a series of experiments exploring air pressure. Two experiments I found particularly interesting were “Ping Pong Funnel” and “Kissing Balloons.” Both of these were very simple, compared to the others, but still displayed the results of air pressure in an easily understandable manner.

Image result for ping pong funnel experiment

In “Ping Pong Funnel,” our task was simple — we were to place a ping pong ball in a funnel, then blow up the tube and try to push the ball into the air. I hypothesized that we would be able to blow the ball into the air, because we would create an area of pressure on the ball and cause it to hover in the air. However, my hypothesis was incorrect. We found no matter how hard we blew or how we held the funnel, the ball remained at the bottom of funnel. In reality, blowing up the tube caused the air touching the bottom of the ball to move faster, creating an area of lower pressure. This meant that the air around all the other parts of the ball was now by comparison higher pressure, exerting downward force on the ball and keeping it in the funnel.

“Kissing Balloons” was also about the connection between the movement of air and air pressure. In this experiment, we had two balloons attached to strings taped to opposite ends of the table. We then held them six inches apart, and I blew between them. I had hypothesized that my breath would, in my words, “push” the air out from between the balloons and they would come together to fill the space. As with my hypothesis regarding the first demonstration, I was right in my prediction but less so in my reasoning. The two balloons, after we blew hard between them, did sort of drift closer together, touch, then drift away. However, I once again thought more about the low pressure area “pulling” rather than the high pressure area “pushing.” Actually, since blowing between the two balloons caused an area of low pressure, the relatively high pressure around them pushed them together to create the “kissing” of the balloons.

I know air pressure exists because, even if it's unseen, it exerts force on many things around us. In both of the above experiments, I saw how areas of lower air pressure make us realize the impact of the higher, normal air pressure that is all around of us.

Air Pressure Reading

In the article we read this week, yet more evidence was presented that proves that gases exert pressure. First, there was the example of the tires that hold up our cars. As the article stated, “the pressure exerted by the air inside the tires is enough to hold up a car weighing 2000 pounds.” It’s not the rubber of the tires holding up those 2000 pounds - if that was the case, the tires would collapse and the car would be stuck a few inches off the ground. Rather it is the constant pushing of the air inside the tire outwards that provides the force necessary to hold the car. The second piece of evidence is the fact that you can’t blow up a balloon inside a bottle. If gasses couldn’t exert pressure, you would be able to blow it up, because the air trapped inside would offer no resistance. However, you can’t blow it up, so the air must exert pressure. Finally, when you place a crumpled piece of paper in a plastic cup and turn it upside down, submerging it in the water, the paper stays dry. This is because the air trapped inside the cup exerts pressure on the water, keeping it from touching the paper.

These examples - air pushing the walls of a tire, a paper cup, and bottle - all additionally show that gas molecules exert pressure on the walls of whatever container they are in. As well, in this week’s article, the author wrote that “gases exert pressure on every surface they come in contact with.” This is especially true when gases are trapped in containers, like tires, cups, or bottles.

Air pressure is caused by the weight of the air around us. While individual air molecules are very light, the collective mass of all the air molecules in our atmosphere pressing down becomes a force to be reckoned with. It doesn’t always feel like pressure to us, because we’re used to constantly feeling its weight, but it does exist, and as we saw with our experiments, can definitely affect our everyday life.

The Polar Vortex

This week I read an article about the polar vortex. In class, we’ve been conducting a number of labs concerning snow, rain, and the temperature, pressure, and density of air and water. The article relates to what we’re learning because the polar vortex is made possible by these factors, and to fully understand the vortex, you should understand the factors that allow for its existence as well. This article made me think about how the weather is in many ways just different reactions caused by interactions between a number of ‘building blocks’ that always stay the same, or maybe ingredients that can be mixed together in different ways to create different weather events.

Having A Meltdown

Snow and rain are both water, but are the same and different in many more ways than that. This week in class we conducted a lab called “Having A Meltdown,” in which we took the mass of 10, 15, and 20ml of water and snow and divided that by the volume to get the densities. I hypothesized that the water and snow would have the same volume, because there would be 200mL of each, but that the mass of each would be different - that the mass of the water would be greater, because it would be denser. After we calculated and averaged our findings, we concluded that the average density of water was 0.906 and the average density of snow was 0.733. Later, we learned that our results were off by a small margin, due to human error during the experiment. Using the correct values, we created a graph to represent that densities of snow, water, and ice -- around 0.5 for snow (because of the different types of snow, densities vary), 1.0 for water, and 0.92 for ice. You can then use the equation m = DV, a proportionality constant of the equation D = m/v, to use the density of different materials to calculate their mass or volume. For instance, if you wanted to calculate the mass of 200mLs of water vs. ice, you could create the equations m = 1(200) for water and m = 0.92(200) to compare the two. To contrast -- both snow and water are made up of H₂O, and are the same substance (water) undergoing phase changes. Their differences include their density, which affects the mass to volume ratio of each.

The Polar Vortex

An air mass is a body of air characterized by its uniform temperature, humidity, and pressure. The temperature just has to be uniform within the mass, not with the surrounding air, so you can have warm air masses and cold air masses. Warm air is less dense than cold air because, when warm, the air molecules spread farther apart, spreading the mass out and creating more volume. This means that warm air will rise above the denser cold air. In the article we read, it said that “The polar vortex is created because cold air takes up less space than warm air. Cold air above the arctic sinks, and new air rushes in to take its place.”’ In other words, when warm and cold air masses meet, the dance of rising and falling that occur can create a polar vortex. The article also explains that, odd though it may sound, the best polar vortex is a “strong and healthy” polar vortex. This is because a polar vortex is far less likely to ‘break apart’ and cause polar vortex events if it has a healthy flow, staying in line instead of sending random pieces of cold air down the jet stream.

Front and Center

Image result for hot and cold water density lab

Another experiment we performed in class was called Front and Center. In this experiment, we poured two 200mL cylinders of water into a divided container. One of the 200mLs was cold tap water and the other was hot enough that we could burn ourselves on the glass. In each cylinder, we added a drop of food coloring -- blue for the cold water, green for the warm -- to differentiate them. Once we had poured the two cylinders in their compartment, we removed the divider, causing an interesting and beautiful reaction. Before we performed the experiment, I had hypothesized that because the two temperatures would create two different densities, the water would separate, the cold water at the bottom and hot water on top. This hypothesis was correct - when the two masses of water touched, they mixed slightly at the edges, then do-si-doed, with the hot green water rising to the top and the blue water sinking to the bottom. Where they touched they transferred heat, creating a turquoise zone as well. This reaction occurred for the same reason I hypothesized it would -- when the water is warmer, the molecules push farther apart, making it less dense and therefore likely to rise above the denser cold water. Despite my hypothesis’ accuracy, performing and seeing the result of the experiment for myself was a fascinating experience, because the reaction was so distinct. In conclusion, when mixed, denser fluids will sink and less dense fluids will rise.

In conclusion, I learned a lot this week about density and phase changes, as well as about the polar vortex, thanks to the article we read. It will be very interesting to see how it all connects as part of the cosmic sandbox that creates weather.

Transfer Of Heat Podcast

This week, instead of writing a normal blog post, my classmate Sosina and I wrote and recorded a podcast about the transfer of heat, the difference between heat and temperature, and an experiment we conducted in class. Listen for more information and quite a few bad puns!

Everyday Heat Transfer

In class, we've been learning about heat, how it transfers, and the part it plays in our environment and our everyday lives. This week we read an article about the three different ways heat transfers. This article relates to what we learned in class because the article, by explaining convection, provided the missing piece in the metaphorical puzzle of what we'd been learning, adding that last link between different methods of transfer and the flow of heat in our atmosphere. It was interesting to learn about how knowledge of convection is used in simple ways, like the positioning of vents in the north versus the south.

The Transfer Of Heat

Heat, put simply, is the movement of molecules, or kinetic energy. Heat transfers in three different ways.

First, heat transfers through conduction. This is transfer through direct contact, like when you touch a cookie sheet right out of the oven and burn yourself. The heat transferred directly from the hot metal of the cookie sheet into your hand, so it transferred through conduction.

Image result for radiation heat transfer

Second, heat transfers through radiation. This is transfer through the air, like when you hold your hand close to a candle and feel the heat coming - radiating - off of it. The heat transferred through the air, from an area of higher kinetic energy to an area of lower kinetic energy, so it transferred through radiation.

Third, heat transfers through convection. This is heat transfer through fluids and the circular movement that results when said fluids are heated from below. Fluids, in this case, refers to both air and water, based on how they move. In convection, the molecules performs a sort of dance, heating up when they are close to the heat source at the bottom and expanding, moving upwards, replacing the colder molecules above, which then fall back down where they are heated and become the warmer molecules, which again move upwards and replace the now cold molecules, continuing the dance.

The Heating Of Our Atmosphere

You see heat transfer in small, everyday things, like cookie sheets and candles, but it also plays a big part in maintaining the comfortable environment we live in. One important way is in the heating of our atmosphere. The atmosphere is heated in two main ways.

First, it is heated by infrared radiation, which radiates directly from the sun and is responsible for about 1% of our heat. This is because very few molecules in the air can actually absorb heat - only water and carbon dioxide can.

Second, it is heated indirectly by visible light, which is absorbed by the Earth's surface and conducted back into the atmosphere. This accounts for much more of the heat in our atmosphere, and this process, reradiation, is why our atmosphere is heated mostly from below.

In addition to these, convection also plays an important part in heating the atmosphere, because once air is heated by the Earth's surface, it begins the convection process.

The Heating Of Our Earth

In class this week, we explored how the sun heats different earth materials in our "Heating The Earth" lab. In this lab, we set up an experiment where we heated containers of sand, water, and air under a sun lamp for ten minutes then turned the lamp off and monitored the samples for an additional ten minutes. We took the temperature of each material every two minutes throughout the entire twenty minutes.

Our results were as follows. The air heated and cooled at a consistent rate, increasing about 1 degree per minute and then cooling at the same rate. The water also heated fairly consistently, if a little bit slower, and then retained its heat longer, only dropping by one degree during the last two minutes. The sand heated slowest of all, increasing only two degrees in ten minutes, but then retained that heat for the entire ten minutes the lamp was off.

Since the materials were exposed to the exact same amount of sunlight - we measured to make sure each one was the exact same distance and same angle away from the lamp - the difference wasn't in the amount of sunlight received, but in the amount of sun absorbed (the specific heat capacity) of each material.

This connects to what we learned in class about the heating of the earth and atmosphere, because the fact that air doesn't conduct heat well also explains why it doesn't it retain it. The results from our sand sample also show why the earth is so much better at absorbing heat from the sun.

The Transfer Of Heat - Example

A specific example of all three types of heat transfer is the process of making tea. First, you heat the water over a flame on the stove, heating the metal kettle by radiation. The water then heats by convection, warming up at the bottom of the pot then rising and replacing the falling cold water above it. Once the water is heated, you pour it in a mug, and let the teabag steep. However, maybe you're excited and drink it too early, burning your tongue as heat from the water conducts directly onto your tongue. To review - heat from the stove flame radiates to the kettle, the water is heated by convection, and the water conducts heat to your tongue when you drink your tea. All while you enjoy the temperature of your house, kept comfortable by the everyday transfer of heat.

Chemoluminescence

In class I've been studying different chemical reactions through a number of different labs. This week we read an article about chemoluminescence, especially in glow sticks. This article relates to my learning because chemoluminescence is a particularly useful and efficient tool in everything ranging from emergency workers to crime scene investigators to medical researchers. It is important to learn about Chemoluminescence because of both the efficient and helpful uses for it that we've already found, as well as the possibly life-saving prospects of what it could be used for in the future.

Because of how important Chemoluminescence is, it's also to understand the words used to describe it. To fully understand the topic, you need to know the terms defined below:

Chemoluminescence: Light emitted by the decaying of an unstable product of a chemical reaction.

Product: A substance formed by a chemical reaction.

Stable: When a system is in it's lowest energy state and isn't going to decay.

Unstable: Liable to decay and to deteriorate.

Emitted: Exuded or produced.

Next, I will discuss the following topics: early uses of chemoluminescence, glow sticks, chemoluminescence in forensics and efficiency, and how chemoluminescence is being used to help diabetics.

All Chemoluminescence reactions create an unstable product that decays, producing light. For example, when the element phosphorus is exposed to damp air, an atom of phosphorus is released and absorbed into the air. This causes the molecules to return to a more stable state, emitting a greenish light while it does so. The light is formed by the atoms being released.

Glow sticks, also known as light sticks, are used by a number of different people, such as emergency workers, military personnel, rave dancers, and Halloween trick-or-treaters. They are generally used when it would be impractical or unsafe to use electricity to generate light. There are two chemicals in glow sticks — usually hydrogen peroxide and cyalume — separated by a glass separator. To 'activate' the glow stick, you 'snap' the separator, allying the two chemicals to mix, causing a chemical reaction. This excites the dye inside the stick, which then causes the stick to glow the color of the dye in the stick.

Chemoluminescence can also be used for forensics by crime scene investigators. One chemical, luminal, is used to detect blood at crime scenes. This is because it reacts on contact with hemogoblin (red blood cells), glowing a greenish-blue color. This means that the investigators can simply sweep the area with luminal, and if it glows greenish-blue anywhere, they've detected blood. Chemoluminescence is also surprisingly efficient compared to our electric lights. For example, a light bulb has 10% efficiency in transferring energy to light, while a firefly has 88% efficiency.

Chemoluminescence can even be used in medical science. Researchers have been recently experimenting with alternatives to what is currently the only way to diabetics' health - constant finger pricks to test glucose levels and inject insulin. What they've come up with utilizes Chemoluminescence, and looks like it may be a much less irritating and safer alternative. Tiny implants can be injected into the skin without surgery, where they monitor glucose levels by immediately reacting and glowing if blood pressure increases. They're estimated to last about 140 days, because that's how long they've lasted in mice before requiring replacement. The implants can be replaced as easily as they're implemented, with no surgery - quickly and fairly painlessly removed with tweezers. It looks like they'll be a safe alternative for humans, as long as they use well-sealed, with safe chemicals in the implants.

Overall, Chemoluminescence is an important and useful concept to understand, with a variety of current and possibly uses, all of which are interesting to learn and write about.

Pancakes

In class, I've been learning about chemical formulas and how to determine them, as well as continuing to cover types of bonds. This week we read an article about pancakes and the chemical reactions that make them what they are. It relates to my learning because it gives me a deeper understanding of various aspects of chemical reactions.

The article we read this week talked about a number of compounds with several different chemical bonds. I have chosen two compounds, sugar and salt, to go into more detail about. Salt is an ionic bond, because chlorine steals sodium's valence electron to form the bond. Sugar forms a covalent bond because oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen share their valence electrons equally between them.

Pancakes rise, like my other baked goods, because carbon dioxide gets trapped in the batter when you mix it, helping fluff the pancakes out. In pancakes, most of the protein comes from eggs and the gluten in flour. The chewable texture is formed by the carbon dioxide bubbles trapped in the batter by mixing, and the tenderness formed by the sugar and butter. It is mainly the fluids in the batter tat allow all the chemical reactions to occur.

Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) is made up of both ionic and covalent bonds, which occurs when positively charged sodium bonds with the negatively charged oxygen and carbon. When you mix acid with a carbonate (such as baking soda with vinegar) you get lots of fizzing as the two react. It is important to remember when adding buttermilk to pancakes that since buttermilk is slightly acidic, it will react with the carbonates. Because of this, if you leave buttermilk pancake batter out for a while, the batter will go flat, like soda when it's left out.

The Maillard reaction is caused by a chemical reaction bet

ween hot sugar and amino acids. During the reaction, small molecules are let out, creating the delicious smells that reach our noses. Two examples of the Maillard reaction or furanones and thiophenes. Furanones create a sweet, caramelly burnt smell while thiophenes generate more of a meaty, burnt smell. An example of something that undergoes the Maillard reaction is onions when they are caramelized - they exude furanones.

All in all, pancakes have a lot of chemical reactions to thank - the ingredients in the batter, the properties of sodium bicarbonate, and the browning process caused by the Maillard reaction. Together, they make pancakes look, smell, and taste good.

Why Do We Care About Chemicals?

Image credit: www.saltopiasalts.com

In STEM we've been continuing to learn about subatomic particles and how they help atoms form ionic and covalent bonds. This week we read an article about salt: its chemical makeup, positive and negative effects on health, and how much of it the average human needs to stay healthy. This topic is important because it is important to understand the structure and effects of something we eat every day.

Image credit: www.health.com

Besides making food taste salty, salt also enhances sweetness and rounds out the flavor in other foods. However, even though it makes food taste better, it can have negative effects on your health. In the article, it says that "taking to much salt has been associated with high blood pressure, which can damage the heart and blood vessels and increase the risk of a heart attack and stroke." These are all detrimental effects salt can have on your health. People aren't usually very effective at reducing the sodium in their diets because they are still exposed to the same amounts of salt in processed and restaurant foods, which is where 77% of the average person's salt comes from, according to the article.

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A salt molecule is made out of two elements, sodium and chloride. Sodium is a very reactive element because it has only one valence electron, which it readily loses to form an ionic bond with another element, such as chloride. Chloride has 7 electrons and six additional protons, so it readily accepts sodium's single valence electron to bring the amount of electrons in it's outer shell to the optimal eight. This makes sodium and chloride very compatible and able to form a very strong ionic bond.

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While it's fairly commonly known that too much salt is bad for you, low-sodium diets can actually be just as harmful. In the article, it states that "Salt, especially the sodium ions (Na+) present in it's NaCl structure, is essential to the functioning of every cell in our bodies." The article then goes on to explain this by describing electrolytes.Electrolytes are solutions that conduct electric currents, the same electric currents that help your brain communicate with the rest of your body. As well, the amount of sodium in your body determines the osmolarity of your bodily fluids. Osmolarity means "the concentration of a solution expressed as the total number of solute particles per liter." If your sodium is low, the osmolarity if your blood could become imbalanced, and the total volume of liquid per cell would decrease, This could cause dehydration, low blood pressure, and even death. Because sodium/salt is also lost when we excrete it through urine and sweat, we need to continually replenish it by consuming salt.

It is important to balance the amount of salt in your diet. When adding salt to your food, it is important to remember that there's often already food added, especially if the food is processed or made in a restaurant. While having too much salt is definitely bad for your, causing things like high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes, low sodium levels can also have negative effects such as dehydration, low-blood pressure, or even death. The key to salt consumption is balance. It shouldn't even be too hard. According to the article, "people may somehow regulate the amount of salt they eat." This means that as long as you let your body tell you when it needs salt and when it doesn't, you should be fine.

Subatomic Particles

     In class we've been learning about the subatomic particles that make up atoms: protons, neutrons, and electrons. This week we read a a series of comics about subatomic particles and their positive, negative, or neutral charges. It is important to learn about subatomic particles because they make up atoms and atoms make up everything in the world around us.

   In the first comic I read, the two characters, Bill and Tim discussed what an atom and its components are. Bill defines an atom as "the smallest component of an element." The comic describes an isotope as the same element with different mass. An example of an isotope is a carbon atom with an atomic number of 6 and a mass of 12 and a carbon atom with an atomic number of 6 and a mass of 10. The comic also stated that the subatomic particles that make up most of the mass of an atom are the protons and neutrons, and the subatomic particles that make up most of the volume are the electrons.

   The second comic discussed the components that make up the human body. The four main elements inside us are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen. There are also smaller amounts of calcium, phosphorous, and iron inside your body. If you removed all the empty space within all the atoms inside your body, what remained would be smaller than a grain of sand. All this shows that the human body is mostly empty space, water, and a few other different elements.

   The third article talked about how electrons cause static electricity by switching between two atoms. You can harness static electricity by rubbing atoms together, for example such as when your rub your feet against the rug. This makes you negatively charged, so when you next touch someone, they feel a tiny electric shock. This happened in the Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons stations lab we did in class - I negatively charged myself and a piece of plastic by rubbing the plastic against my hand.

The above comic shows the two atoms talking after an electron switches from one atom to another, negatively charging the latter. The atom that lost the electron says to another "I'm positive!" because it's no longer negatively charged.

New Elements Within The Periodic Table

In class we've been learning about different aspects of the Periodic Table of the Elements, such as how and why it's organized the way it is. This week we read an article talking about four new super-heavy elements that will be added to the Periodic Table, about how they are made and named. It is important to read articles like this so we can understand how any new elements can be discovered, named, and eventually added to the table.

In the article I read this week there were a number of new scientific terms mentioned in the text. Knowing the full definition of these terms is important to fully understanding my blog post, so they're defined below.

An element is something that cannot be broken down into a different substance.

Matter is something that takes up space.

An atom is the smallest possible unit of an element.

A nucleus is the positively charged center of an atom.

Protons are positively charged particles.

Neutrons are neutrally charged particles.

When something is unstable, it is unbalanced, or can lose mass quickly.

Decay means to fall apart.

The four elements, discovered in January 2016 by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and a Japanese team led by Kosuke Morita, the new elements were originally known as ununtrium (113), ununpentium (115), ununseptium (117), and ununoctium (118). Later, element 116 was renamed Livermorium, after the name of the lab where it was created. It can be hard for scientists to tell whether the elements they discover are truly new, because they only exist for less than a second. As well, it is not the element itself that the researchers study. In the article, it says that "Scientists never observe unstable elements directly. Rather, they know they briefly existed because they are able to measure their decay products." This means that scientists can only use the decay product of their element to determine whether their element is new, which is why it could be hard to interpret their results.

Two of the characteristics that make super-heavy elements such as 113, 115, 117, and 118 unique are their unstability, and how they are created in specialized laboratories. They are made by smashing two particles together, both of which are specially selected for their amount of protons and neutrons. The two particles rarely stick, so it can take 10 quintillion tries for the experiment to succeed.

Elements names are traditionally chosen by the scientist who discovers them, However, before they receive their names, their names are the Latin word equivalent of their number. In the article, it says that "...these elements have been known by their generic names... Their confirmation paves the way for them to get permanent names. Traditionally, this honor falls to the researchers who first found them." This means that the researchers have to wait until their element is confirmed before they can replace it's Latin name with one of their own choosing.

Overall, understanding how new elements are created and named is very important to fully understanding the different aspects of the Periodic Table. Learning about elements such as 113, 115, 117, and 118 is helpful for reaching this understanding.

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