Cold Fusion is Back

This week the American Chemical Society is holding its 237th National Meeting and one of the talks is, believe it or not, about the very controversial, previously debunked topic of cold fusion. Of course, we don't call it cold fusion anymore. It is now known as low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR). Scientists working with the US Navy claim they have proof that LENR devices do produce neutrons. Previous cold fusion studies were hard to replicate and traces of neutrons were never found. These must be present to show a nuclear reaction has/is occurring. The irony of all this cold fusion talk is that Salt Lake City (where the national meeting is being held) and the state of Utah has a long and sometimes dark history with cold fusion. E. Paul Palmer of BYU coined the term in the 80's. A professor named Stanley Pons at the University of Utah was one of the leaders of the push to fund cold fusion research. When their grant proposal was turned over for peer review it was Steven E. Jones, also from BYU, who reviewed. After research, publication, and later interviews, no one could replicate their findings and they slipped into obscurity. Now it has come full circle again and people are presenting data at the national meeting being held in Salt lake City. Funny how things work out.

You can find out more here.

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So Much Corn: Corn-Fed Animals Strike Again.

I know I have posted different articles about corn in the past, but corn seems to be in the news a bit lately. As a fresh piece of produce, no one is denying the nutrition I have mentioned earlier, however (love that word), that does not mean I want it snuck (sneaken/sneaked?) into my diet at every opportunity just so corn farmers can make more money and deplete soil and pollute with pesticides even further (somehow, I have the feeling this is going to have negative repercussions). I love corn. I love corn grown on small farmsteads fresh from the fields. I do not want a CORN BURGER when I crave grease, though. Is real beef too much to ask? Apparently it is.

A recent study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (PNAS) showed that the burgers we order at random fast food joints are mostly corn. I don't eat at these places often but about twice a year, I will admit, I do get a craving for all things artery clogging. The scientists discovered this by doing a chemical analysis in burgers, chicken, and french fries from certain fanchises. The sample size was quite large (more than 480). The study found that you could actually determine chemically how much corn was in the diet of the animals... and french fries. Of the meat tested, only 12 samples showed that the animal may have been fed less corn than other animals.

Strange how what we feed the animals comes back to haunt us, but there you have it. The beef tested actually contained more corn-like values than you would expect. People on the West Coast, rejoice, though, beef there was found to have less of a "C-value," C for carbon, not corn, than the beef served on the East Coast. Middle America was a toss up. What does this mean for Average Consumer Person? So far, nothing yet. There are still tests being done determining the affects of corn byproducts on the human body at John Hopkins. Until the the results are in though, buy grass-fed beef or bison and make your own.

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The Easiest Way to Burn Fat!

... is apparently to do nothing.

In a recent study, mice that were given high fat diets but kept pretty sedentary were less likely to become obese than their very active, also over fed counterparts. Here is a quote from Nerdy Science Blog explaining:

In order to maintain body temperature, warm-blooded animals, including humans, continuously burn fat. It is believed that by burning more fats, people are less likely to become obese. Leslie Kozak and colleagues at Pennington Biomedical Research Center challenged this prevailing thought showing that burning less fat actually reduces the risk of obesity.

There is a lot more to this, including certain genes involved, but this is the gist: if you stay cool (i.e. don't move around) your body works hard to keep it's temperature up, thus, burning more fat. Sounds easy to me... now whether this actually works... we'll see. You can find out more at The Journal for Biological Chemistry.


Photo is Public Domain and can be found here.

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Kent Couch, Lawn Chair Balloonist

This picture is from the Open Clip Art Library and was released into Public Domain

Yes, that is correct. You read it. Lawn chair balloonist. This man made his first accent into the skies via lawn chair in 2006. Then last year (July 2007), he made a 193 mile flight using a cluster of balloons. As if that wasn't enough, Couch wants to make the trip all the way into Idaho (he usually leaves from Oregon). Well... he did it. This weekend he "flew" 235 miles from Bend, OR and landed in a field in ID. He uses Cherry Kool-Aid as his "ballasts" and a BB gun for buoyancy- control. He has done numerous TV and radio appearances but does it for the fun of it.


So now we go on to the science.

Helium.
Most of the helium that exists on Earth is the result of Radio Active Decay (a topic that takes way to long to explain). It is the second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen. It is lighter than air (which is about 78% nitrogen) though heavier than hydrogen. Hydrogen burns easily, however, and helium does not, making it the best choice for balloons (score one for safety, Kent). Not only does it not burn, it it the least reactive of all the element on the chart. It is the least water soluble of all the gases and actually heats up when allowed to expand. Since there is little helium in the atmosphere, it would be very expensive to remove it from the air. Economically it is easier to remove helium from natural gas, which contains about 7% of this element. Because of it's low solubility, it is used in air mixtures for deep sea divers. Helium is also used as a tracer gas to find leaks in high-vacuum and high-pressure equipment... and apparently for making trips across state lines in lawn chairs.

Then what causes the squeaky voice from sucking on helium? Well, the speed of sound is also different in helium. It is actually three times faster than air.

Now that you know the basics of helium... does it make lawn-chair ballooning any less scary?

Not to me.

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The New Environmentally-Friendly (?!?!) Plastic

This photo is from the USDA and is therefore public domain.

There is a new plastic (well not that new) on the market and it's gaining popularity. This plastic is made from corn and touts its biodegradability. The material is polylactic acid and it has been known about for over a century. It is only now gaining popularity due to another wave (similar to the early 90's) of eco-consciousness.

While this new plastic does have a few things going for it (a renewable resource and, in principle, compostable) there are a few things a lot of people haven't really studied or answered.

The pros:

• Regular plastics use an average of 200,000 barrels of oil a day to produce our demand
• Corn is a renewable resource and the plants help offset the amount of carbon produced in the plastic's manufacture
• Plastics take up 25% of dumps by volume
  
• PLA (polylactic acid) is compostable within 3 months at a controlled composting facility
• It costs less than $1.00 to make a pound of PLA (see here)
• Generates less air pollution to make
  

The cons:

• PLA takes much longer to compost in a bin or even in a landfill
• There are only 113 controlled compost facilities nationwide... only a quarter of these facilities accept residential scraps
• PLA must be kept separate from other plastics to keep it from tainting their recycling process
• Estimates for this breaking down in landfills are anywhere between 100 and 1,000 years (see here)
• Cannot survive temperatures of 114 degrees Fahrenheit
  

Possible cons (of the controversial type)

• Made of highly genetically modified food
• Is using a food product to make non-food stuffs while people are going hungry
• Still supports single use and disposables still adding to landfills

So it seems that the pros and cons are evenly matched and there are some controversial issues that are brought up... but I guess at least it is a start in the right direction. At least there is a push for biodegradable containers.

The biggest manufacturer of PLA in North America is NatureWorks. Go check out the website and tell me what you think!

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an ouch and a sigh

So my friends are surely hurting after my lovely friend's 25th. Lucky for me, I was the designated driver as usual. What I was wondering was how alcohol actually affects your body... I mean what are the scientific explanations for these effects?

First off, there are lots of different alcohols so what's in booze? Well... it's ethanol. Plain old EtOH. The same stuff we preserve specimens in. It is considered a psycho-active drug and that is why so many countries have laws that aid in limiting consumption. Think legal drinking ages. Alcohol slows reaction time and reduces attention. Most children are already close to ADD, so even less attentiveness seems scary. Yay for drinking ages (it's 18 here).

Where does the alcohol come from?
Fermentation. Fermentation is a yeast metabolizing carbohydrates without oxygen.
From all these carbs, EtOH is formed. So beer really is bread in a can!

Okay, I know, this is fine and good, but how does it work?
Well, alcohol stimulates insulin production, which speeds up how fast we metabolize sugar, causing low blood sugar and irritability. Consistently triggering these functions can destroy your liver. Alcohol does not, however, kill brain cells. It's a little sneakier than that. Alcohol damages dendrites. These are little "antennae" that receive messages and transfer them into the nerve cell. The effects are usually temporary, but the physical damage is done. Your nerve-cell structure has changed.

I think that's about all I got. Have fun with that!

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