Physical Biology: March 2016

Monday, March 28, 2016

Why is the round-trip time of the flight different?

By Guangyao Q

First, the difference of the round-trip time of the flight does not under the influence of the Earth's revolution, which is one of the most common concerns.

The wind is a main influence of the flight time. For instance, the flight, which is from Beijing to London, is a good example because most of the flight is in the westerlies. People can see the truths, which was mentioned in the last sentence, from the two maps below.

Flight from Beijing to London

The map of global atmospheric circulation

Is wind so matter?

Yes, it is matter. Take the same example. The flight, which is from Beijing to London, has the direct distance 8163 kilometer. Check the wind speed of the westerlies. The wind speed is around 130 km/hr at the altitude of 10,000 meters.

From Beijing to London:
8163 ÷ (800+130) ≈ 8.8 hr

From London to Beijing
8163 ÷ (850-130) ≈ 11.3 hr

There is 2.5 hours difference for the round-trip. This is only a approximation, the real situation is more complex. It is not good enough to be see as an reference but is till good enough to show the strong influence of the wind.

Obviously, compare to wind, the speed of the cruising and the Earth's circulation influent the difference of the round-trip time of the flight so little, which can be ignored.

Thanks for reading.

References: AVIATION WEATHER CENTER. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2016, from https://www.aviationweather.gov/products/nws/winds/

Atmospheric circulation. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation

Distance from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK). (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2016, from http://www.airmilescalculator.com/distance/lhr-to-pek/

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Maggots Do What!?

By Cameron O.

Going back to the site that always intrigues me, ScienceDaily, I found a recent article that is amazing to me. Using the summary from the site; "In a proof-of-concept study, researchers show that genetically engineered green bottle fly larvae can produce and secrete a human growth factor -- a molecule that helps promote cell growth and wound healing." This was so random for me to hear that I did not know whether or not to believe it. I mean come on, something like a maggot, the smelly guys on dead people or inside of trash cans, those little guys (another breed of common maggots) are able to use their own bodies and energy to heal humans. It was crazy to think about.

Photo Credits

Here is a question for you, You got a decent size gash on your arm so you go to the hospital. Now, I know that the healing voodoo of these little guys would not be this impressive but let me just ask you anyway. If the doctor gave you a choice of putting your arm in a case of maggots (as seen above) for an hour of the wiggling around all slimy and gross, or stitches that lasted three weeks, which would you choose? I would take the maggot bath every time.

The article was just a reminder about perspective, these little guys that no one seems to like have a super power like Wolverine, the Hulk, or Deadpool to heal us faster.The world is full of suprises and incredible things, most of which may never even be discovered if we don't look in every possible area.

The article is important because it shows that with enough investigation, we may be able to find things that will change our lives and everyone from then on. We as scientists have to keep exploring.

Pain on the Brain

By Cameron O.

I read an article today on ScienceDaily that discusses the physical and empathetic pain and how it is thought to work. To quote ScienceDaily; "Imagine you're driving a nail into a wall with a hammer and accidentally bang your finger. You would probably injure finger tissue, feel physical distress, focus all your attention on your injured finger and take care not to repeat the misfortune. All this describes physical and psychological manifestations of "pain" -- specifically, so-called nociceptive pain experienced by your body, which is caused by the stimulation of pain receptors. Now imagine that you see a friend injure him or herself in the same way. You would again literally wince and feel pain, empathetic pain in this case. Although you yourself have not sustained any injury, to some extent you would experience the same symptoms: You would feel anxiety; you may recoil to put distance between yourself and the source of the pain; and you would store information about the context of the experience in order to avoid pain in the future." This was interesting to me because I have seen so many injuries growing up from people getting broken bones, serious cuts, and other hardcore injuries, but I myself have only broken fingers, toes, and an arm.

Photo Credits

The article shows a photo (also shown above) of someone cutting a fruit with the blade pressed firmly against their fingers as if they are about to cut themselves. This photo is meant to try and induce a type of empathetic pain. As I looked at the image I did not start to feel pain on my finger but I did react in one way that they mentioned. I tried to distance myself from the image mentally. I tried my best not to imagine how it would feel. Some people react the same way I act, and some act worse feeling the pain and imagining how it would look,

This article does not bear much importance or anything that is game changing in the biological fields, but it gave me a perspective and an insight as to how people may study this sort of topic. The article was something I could relate to which is why I wanted to talk about it.

Monday, March 21, 2016

How to understand Schordinger's cat?

By Guangyao Q

Schordinger's cat is a thought experiment, which was devised by Austrian physics, Erwin Schordinger in 1935. A cat imagined as being enclosed in a box with a radioactive source and a poison that will be released when the source unpredictably emits radiation, the cat being considered to be simultaneously both dead and alive until the box is opened and the cat observed.

Unpredictability

Why do people not throw a coin to control the experiment's random, which determine the release of the poison? When the coin is threw, there are many factor can influence the results. For instance, the angle of throwing, the hardness of throwing, resistance of air, the microstructure of the coin, etc. After the datas are collected and calculated, the result can be knew at the moment that the coin was threw. In other word, it is not unpredictable.

The core of the experiment is the machine, which controls the unpredictability. The principle is using the characteristic of radiation's half-life-period that is unmeasurable, and unpredictable. Before people open the box, they did not know whether cat was alive or dead.

Alive or dead

Schordinger's cat

Before people looked at the picture, they are white(alive) and black(dead). People only could look at one kind of color once. People knew white and black were there, but they did not know the exact places of white and black. This was similar to the statement of Schordinger's cat, which was alive or dead at the same moment.

When people observed the cat, there were two statements:
1. Only look at white(alive).
2. Only look at black(dead).

So, it means the cat was alive and dead before people observed the inside of the box. When people really wanted a result and observed the car, the cat could only have one statement, which is alive or dead.

It is also the basic idea of superposed statement for quantum theory, which is important.

Thanks for reading.

Reference:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger%27s_cat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger%27s_cat

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Every Major has its end.

By Dan O.

Every major has its ends. Virology will end when every disease and virus is understood and eradicated. Business will end during the end of capitalism. Engineering will end when all advances are able to be made. These ends are far, far into the future, but every major will sooner, or later, study and create everything that needs to be study. Even physics has its end, but as Chad Orzel writes, that end is not when most people imagine it to be.

Physics is usually described as the road up to the ultimate prize - the link between quantum physics and the standard model. An equation that links the 4 fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, strong force, weak force) would be hailed as the holy grail, and one that physicists have been trying to find for centuries. However, even if, and when, this equation is found, physics has a long way to go.

Orzel is great at explaining the physics and math behind many common objects, such as ponytails, and water.

So, for example, the session on Geometry and Mechanics of Folded Filaments, Writhing Ribbons and Braided Bundles opened with a talk by Robin Ball on the physics of ponytails. (A topic of some interest around my house, as our seven-year-old daughter has repeatedly said that she plans to grow her hair out until it reaches the ground…) Predicting the shape of something as commonplace as a bundle of hair turns out to be surprisingly complicated mathematically. Ball and his colleagues have had to do a bunch of heavy mathematical lifting to find a method that matches the shape of hair bundles used by Unilever's cosmetics researchers… Most of the time– there are still a few details they can’t quite match.

- Chad Orzel - "Physics will never be over"

While yes, if the supreme equation is found, many in physics will see it as the supreme end, however, there will always be more phenomena for current and future physicists to study.

Reference: Orzel, C. (2016, March 18). Physics Will Never Be Over. Retrieved March 20, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/2016/03/18/physics-will-never-be-over/#b388f9d17450

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Buster's Last Stand

By Dan O

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0AYTtDZcFU
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUNwha0UESU

It's a sad week for physics. After about 13 years of being on the air, MythBusters has finally ended. To honor the final episode, Wired decided to do a piece about the physics of Buster's last stand. In the video, buster is strapped to rocket powered device, with 10 seperate rockets, each creating 5,200 pounds of thrust. This compounded amount of thrust pushes the rocket at a speed past the speed of sound into a brick wall, completely disintegrating Buster.

Source: Wired - http://www.wired.com/2016/03/physics-busters-epic-end-mythbusters-finale/

An article at Wired decided to calculate the acceleration of Buster during the whole experiment, by finding the final velocity, initial velocity, time traveled, and distance traveled, assuming acceleration was constant. Using these calculations, the author was able to 466 m/s^2 for the acceleration.

Source: Wired.com

Afterwards, using this clip from the mythbusters episode, the author used a device called logger pro in order to find a better fit for the acceleration.

Using the calculated graph for the position vs. time, the author found the actual acceleartion by using the number for A in At^2 because if you take the derivative of the position equation twice, that gives acceleration. So the final result found for the acceleration was 389.2 m/s^2. Even though this is a different result than the one found, that can easily be explained by air resistance, resistance by the track, and a non-constant acceleration.

However, the point of this post is not to re-state the original findings of the author, but to show how, even the physics that you learn in your PHY 183 courses can still be used later in your life and for fun prospects, like the mythbusters do.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

What constitutes immortality?

By Dan O.

According to a new study done by Italian researchers, electrons are essentially immortal, being unable to decay. Of course, nothing is ever truly immortal, but electrons have a life of 6.6 Yottayears or 6.6 * 10^28 years. That's 66 with 27 zeros after it. These are the electrons that make up all material and matter within the universe, including ourselves.

Electrons never decay because of a fundamental rule in physics. If particles decay, they must decay from a heavier element, to a lighter element, with equal charges. Because the electron is the lightest particle with negative charge, it is unable to decay because the next lightest particle is called a neutrino with 0 charge. This law is the conservation of charge where both mass is conserved in the form of energy, and charge is conserved from one particle to another.

Reference: Carpineti, A. (2015, December 17). Electrons Are Practically Immortal. Retrieved March 6, 2016, from http://www.iflscience.com/physics/electrons-are-practically-immortal

Image: http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/066/072/iFF/atom-electrons.jpg?1400071477

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Why do human beings can detect the light, which is 49 billion light-year away in distance, even the universe is only 13 billion years old?

By Guangyao Q

Human beings can detect light, which is 49 billion-year away in distance, but universe is only 13 billion years old. How is it possible? Since light speed is the limitation of speed, where does the extra light-year or distance come from?

Comic microwave background radiation

The light we can see is the comic microwave background radiation, which was created about 13 billion years ago. It is the earliest light. In macro-scope world, light speed is the limitation, and anything can not be faster than light.

The light, which is 49 billion-year away in distance, does exist because of the metric expansion of universe. Universe expands constantly. The claim is needed to be made that the distance, which is discussing about, is between two subjects at the same moment. For instant, we detected the light, which is 49 billion-year away in distance. At the moment of the star emitted the light, the start could be just 10 billion-yar away in distance. The metric expansion of universe gave the light extra distance to travel. Now, the light we detect is actual the same light, which was emitted 13 billion years ago, but the distance between earth and the star is 49 billion-year away.

People always think about faster-than-light but often do not distinguish the difference between time and distance. It is a common mistake among society. Scientists have not discovered anything, which is faster that light, so far. For any macro-scope thing, it is impossible to travel faster-than-light because of the required infinity energy.

Thanks for reading.

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Size
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comoving_distance#Comoving_coordinates
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/Dltt_is_Dumb.html

Fast Forward Your Thoughts

By Cameron O.

I read through another article that I found on "ScienceDaily". This article was based on information that the University of Texas at Austin found something that may tell us how the brain can recall very specific things from our past, or even while planning for the future at speeds that are faster than they occur/occurred.

ImageCredits

"ScienceDaily" says; "In the brain, fast gamma rhythms encode memories about things that are happening right now; these waves come rapidly one after another as the brain processes high-resolution information in real time. The scientists learned that slow gamma rhythms -- used to retrieve memories of the past, as well as imagine and plan for the future -- store more information on their longer waves, contributing to the fast-forward effect as the mind processes many data points with each wave. Mental compression turns out to be similar to what happens in a computer when you compress a file. Just like digital compression, when you replay a mental memory or imagine an upcoming sequence of events, these thoughts will have less of the rich detail found in the source material. The finding has implications for medicine as well as for criminal justice and other areas where memory reliability can be at issue." These are important things that this information can be used to look at that I did not even think about. Also going further, imagine if this information was able to be put into medicine to help families that have things like Alzheimers.