Metalic Bonding

 The Metalic Bond of a metal is what accounts for the metals physical characteristics. These characteristics are strenght, maellibility, ductility, conduction of heat and electricity, and luster. Metallic Bonding is the electrostatic between delocalized electrons called conduction electrons, and the metallic ions within metals. Because it involves the sharing of free electrons among a lattice of positively-charged metal ions, metallic bonding may be compared to that within molten salts.

Metal Bonds are non polar. They are non polar because in alloys, there is little difference  in the electronegativity amony the atoms participation in bonding and the electrons involved in the interaction are delocalized through the structure of the metal.

Artic Waters Heat up with Ice Cap Missing

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Record-breaking amounts of ice-free water have deprived the Arctic of more of its natural “sunscreen” than ever in recent summers. The effect is so pronounced that sea surface temperatures rose to 5 C above average in one place this year, a high never before observed, says the oceanographer who has compiled the first-ever look at average sea surface temperatures for the region.

Such superwarming of surface waters can affect how thick ice grows back in the winter, as well as its ability to withstand melting the next summer, according to Michael Steele, an oceanographer with the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory. Indeed, since September, the end of summer in the Arctic, winter freeze-up in some areas is two months later than usual.

The extra ocean warming also might be contributing to some changes on land, such as previously unseen plant growth in the coastal Arctic tundra, if heat coming off the ocean during freeze-up is making its way over land, says Steele, who spoke December 12 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. He is lead author of “Arctic Ocean surface warming trends over the past 100 years,” accepted for publication in AGU’s Geophysical Research Letters. Co-authors are physicist Wendy Ermold and research scientist Jinlun Zhang, both of the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. “Warming is particularly pronounced since 1995, and especially since 2000,” the authors write. The spot where waters were 5 C above average was in the region just north of the Chakchi Sea. The historical average temperature there is -1 C — remember that the salt in ocean water keeps it liquid at temperatures that would cause fresh water to freeze. This year water in that area warmed to 4 C, for a 5-degree change from the average.That general area, the part of the ocean north of Alaska and Eastern Siberia that includes the Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea, experienced the greatest summer warming. Temperatures for that region were generally 3.5 C warmer than historical averages and 1.5 C warmer than the historical maximum. Such widespread warming in those areas and elsewhere in the Arctic is probably the result of having increasing amounts of open water in the summer that readily absorb the sun’s rays, Steele says. Hard, white ice, on the other hand, can work as a kind of sunscreen for the waters below, reflecting rather than absorbing sunlight. The warming also may be partly caused by increasing amounts of warmer water coming from the Pacific Ocean, something scientists have noted in recent years.

I have never really understood anything about the Artic Ice Caps until this article. It really opened my eyes to what is going on up there. I think it is a serious problem that needs to be fixed. 

Black Hole fired at neighboring Galaxy

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A jet from a black hole at the center of a galaxy strikes the edge of another galaxy. This is the first time such an interaction has been found. The jet impacts the companion galaxy at its edge and is then disrupted and deflected, much like how a stream of water from a hose will splay out after hitting a wall at an angle.Each wavelength shows a different aspect of this system, known as 3C321. The Chandra X-ray image provides evidence that each galaxy contains a rapidly growing supermassive black hole at its center. The glow from the stars in each galaxy can be detected from Hubble’s optical light images (not shown). A bright spot in the VLA and MERLIN radio image shows where the jet has struck the side of the galaxy – about 20,000 light years from the main galaxy – dissipating some of its energy. An even larger “hotspot” of radio emission detected by VLA reveals that the jet terminates much farther away from the galaxy, at a distance of about 850,000 light years away. Large quantities of warm and hot gas could be detected in the vicinity of the galaxies, indicating the supermassive black holes in both galaxies have had a violent past. Faint emission from Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer, not shown in this image, indicate that the galaxies are orbiting in a clockwise direction, implying that the companion galaxy is swinging into the path of the jet.

Some of the most amazing things happen in space and you never realize what they are. This article was very interesting. I hope to hear more from it.

Hidden Cosmic Giant: New Galaxy discovered

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Today, Astronomers have discovered a new cluster of Galaxies. This new discovered cosmic giant is as justs as big and bright as the first group but six times further away. The astronomers made the discoveries using a teloscope.Being fooled by a cosmic giant is no laughing matter for an astronomer. For years astronomers racked their brains over the relation between two in X-rays equally bright and large regions in the cluster of galaxies known as Abell 3128. ‘That is the charm of science’, says Norbert Werner, PhD student at SRON. ’You are always finding things that you did not expect.’ Clusters of galaxies are the largest structures in the universe. They consist of tens to hundreds of massive galaxies, of which each in turn consists of hundreds of billions of stars. Gravity is the binding factor. The hot gas of tens of millions degrees Celsius, present in the clusters, emits X-rays, which renders the cluster visible for space telescopes such as XMM-Newton. Detailed analyses of these X-rays tell astronomers more about the composition of the gas and accordingly, its origin.What was so intriguing about the two X-ray spots in cluster Abell 3128 was the fact that although they had the same size and brightness, the gas clouds seemed to have completely different compositions. Werner: ‘While one spot was clearly caused by a hot gas cloud rich in metals released by supernova explosions in the galaxies, the other spot seemed to contain a much lower amount of metals than any other cluster previously observed. What we observed completely contradicted the current theories about how large structures in the universe arise.’ Image of the area in visible light made by the 6.5 meter Magellan Telescope in Chile. Visible in the centre of this image is the light arc around the very massive galaxy in the centre of the newly found distant cluster. The light arc is caused by the gravity field of the galaxy that works as a lens magnifying an object that lies even much farther away, behind the cluster.

I love to hear when they find something new  and interesting in our solar system. I have always enjoed learning about the discoveries out there and this article talked about that. It informed u about interesting discoveries and I really enjoyed it.

Gene Implicated In Human Language Affects Song Learning In Songbirds

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Some scientist today wonder if humans carry a gene that gives oeioke the trait of language. Genetic aberrations of the human FoxP2 gene impair speech production and comprehension, yet the relative contributions of FoxP2 to brain development and function are unknown. Songbirds are a useful model to address this because, like human youngsters, they learn to vocalize by imitating the sounds of their elders. Previously, Dr. Constance Sharff and colleagues found that, when young zebra finches learn to sing or when adult canaries change their song seasonally, FoxP2 is up-regulated in Area X, a brain region important for song learning. Dr. Sebastian Haesler, Dr. Scharff, and colleagues experimentally reduce FoxP2 levels in Area X before zebra finches started to learn their song. They used a virus-mediated RNA interference for the first time in songbird brains. The birds, with lowered levels of FoxP2, imitated their tutor’s song imprecisely and sang more variably than controls.

Researchers keep coming up with so many more interesting things today that many people would have never thought of. This article is very interesting and it just amazes me how people have the brain capacity to come up with these ideas. 

Flip-flopping Gene Expression Can Be Advantageous

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     One gene for pea pod color generates green pods while a variant of that gene gives rise to the yellow-pod phenotype, a feature that helped Gregor Mendel, the 19th century Austrian priest and scientist, first describe genetic inheritance. However, many modern-day geneticists are focused on the strange ability of some genes to be expressed spontaneously in either of two possible ways. In order to better understand this phenomenon of epigenetic multistability, a major complication for Mendelian genetics, scientists at UC San Diego grew virtual bacterial cells in a computer experiment. They created a two-phenotype model system programmed to grow in ways that matched natural growth. In a deceptively simple experiment, they then recorded the degree to which the two phenotypes varied over time in individual cells, and then repeated the experiment over and over. They reported in the Nov. 19 online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  that variability due to epigenetic multistability is larger and persists much longer than they had expected. While the phenomenon is yet to be discovered in the human genome, the new results suggest that researchers studying bacteria should carefully design their experiments to measure variability due to epigenetic multistability. Even in human cells, multistability may play a role in genes can alternate between “on” and “off” settings.             

     Epigenetic multistability may be vital to cells that are outwardly different, but genetically identical. Only one of the two phenotypes might thrive in a given environmental condition; however, the less advantageous phenotype could come in handy if the environmental conditions unexpectedly changed. By having both phenotypes, the chances would be better that the best one will be present when needed. Researchers in many labs recently have demonstrated that gene expression can be surprisingly random.  The framework established in the UCSD study evaluates how such noisy gene expression affects the properties of developing cellular colonies, such as the progression of bacterial infections or the growth of a population of cancerous cells.

     I think it is amazing what we are starting to do with genetics. For scientist and Researchers to figure something like this out they must have really devoted their time and effort to this experiement. This article was very inciteful.

What makes sky’s color at sunrise and sunset?

Have you ever wondered what makes the sky that beautiful color at sunrise or sunset. Well in this sciences article you will find out what makes it.The colors of the sunset result from a phenomenon called scattering. Molecules and small particles in the atmosphere change the direction of light rays, causing them to scatter. Scattering affects the color of light coming from the sky, but the details are determined by the wavelength of the light and the size of the particle. The short-wavelength blue and violet are scattered by molecules in the air much more than other colors of the spectrum. This is why blue and violet light reaches our eyes from all directions on a clear day. But because we can’t see violet very well, the sky appears blue.  Because the sun is low on the horizon, sunlight passes through more air at sunset and sunrise than during the day, when the sun is higher in the sky. More atmosphere means more molecules to scatter the violet and blue light away from your eyes. If the path is long enough, all of the blue and violet light scatters out of your line of sight. The other colors continue on their way to your eyes. This is why sunsets are often yellow, orange, and red. And because red has the longest wavelength of any visible light, the sun is red when it’s on the horizon, where its extremely long path through the atmosphere blocks all other colors.  

We always comment on how pretty the sky is when the sunsets and rises but we never ask the question why? This article was very informative about that. It explains exactly why this is and lets us know the process of the colors changing.

The Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first nuclear weapon during World War II by the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.  The three primary research and production sites of the project were the plutonium-production facility at what is now the Hanford Site, the uranium-enrichment facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the weapons research and design laboratory, now known as Los Alamos National Labrotary.  The project originally was headquartered on the 18th floor of a building at 270 Broadway in Manhattan.  That is how it became known as the Manhattan Project.  Much of the early research was done at Columbia University at Pupin Hall and tons of the uranium was stored in  warehouses in Chelsea, Manhattan.

     The Project was under the control of the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, under the administration of General Leslie R. Groves.  The scientific research was directed  by American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.  Albert Einstein urged President Roosevelt to attempt at building the atomic bomb.  Scientists recruited to produce an atomic bomb included: Robert Oppenheimer (USA), David Bohm (USA), Leo Szilard (Hungary), Eugene Wigner(Hungary), Rudolf Peierles (Germany), Otto Frisch (Germany), Niels Bohr (Denmark), Felix Bloch (Switzerland), James Franck(Germany), James Chadwick (Britain), Emilio Segre (Italy), Enrico Fermie (Italy), Klaus Fuchs (Germany) and Edward Teller (Hungary).

     The Manhattan Project achieved its goal- to create the fiurst atomic bomb.  Through the combined efforts of many, a test bomb known as “Fat Boy” was finally created.  On July 16, 1945 in a desert in New Mexico the worlds first nuclear test, condenamed Trinity, was conducted and ushered in the Atomic Age.  The Trinity test success led to the creation of two more atomic bombs that would be used in WWII.  Also, an enriched uranium bomb code-named “Little Boy” on August 6 over Hiroshima. Japan and  a second plutonium bomb, code-named “Fat Man” on August 9 over Nagaski, Japan.

     As a result of the bomb over Japan , the city went up in flames caused by the immense power equal to about 20,000 tons of TNT.  The project was a success.  Some 70,000 people probably died as a result of initial blast, heat, and radiation effects.  This included about twenty American airmen being held as prisoners in the city. An estimated 40,000 people were killed outright by the bombing at Nagasaki, and about 25,000 were injured. Many thousands more would die later from related injuries, and radiation sickness from nuclear fallout.  The aerial bombing raid on Nagasaki had third highest fatality rate in World War II after the nuclear strike on Hiroshima.

Why Dinosaurs had “Fowl” Breath?

www.sciencedaily.com                                                                                            11/9/07

 The University of Manchester team has found that theropod dinosaurs, like the Velociraptor had similar respiratory systems to present-day diving birds, such as marine birds and wildfowl.The findings present for the first time an explanation of how these dinosaurs may have breathed. A number of studies have shown that dinosaurs were the direct ancestors of birds and have identified a suite of avian characteristics in theropods. These findings, support this view and show that the similarities also extend to breathing structures and that these dinosaurs possessed everything they needed to breathe using an avian-like air-sac respiratory system. Birds, and in particular diving birds, have one of the most efficient respiratory systems of all vertebrates which they need in order to supply their bodies with enough oxygen to sustain the high levels of energy required for flight. The dinosaurs we studied from the fossil record had long uncinate processes similar in structure to those of diving birds. This suggests both dinosaurs and diving birds need longer lever arms to help them breathe. Finding these structures in modern birds and their extinct dinosaur ancestors suggests that these running dinosaurs had an efficient respiratory system and supports the theory that they were highly active animals that could run relatively quickly when pursuing their prey.

Everyday we our learning more and more about our past. Even to this day we are still studying all the way back to the dinosaurs and the information is becoming more and more accurate. This is amazing and I can’t wait to see what we find out next.

Infections, Bacteria: Critical for Healthy Life

www.sciencedaily.com                                                                                             11/2/07

 Mothers around the world are armed with anti-bacterial gels, sprays and baby blankets, to protect their children from nasty forms of bacteria. Recently, research shows that society’s anti-bacterial and anti-infection crusade makes children and adults more likely to develop asthma and allergies – and perhaps even mental illnesses. Researcher at Colorado State University argues that all living things on earth must have infections to thrive and our challenge is to sort the good infections from the bad. Microorganisms shape the lives of all living things and infections steer the course of the world. Most people understand that infections are at the root of many terrible diseases like malaria and leprosy. But infection may also play a significant role in many chronic aliments, including some that may surprise you such as schizophrenia, ulcers and obsessive compulsive disorders. About 15 percent of all cancers could be prevented if infectious diseases that play a role in causing these cancers, which include stomach, cervical and liver cancers, could be controlled.

What people don’t realize is that most infections ensure our health instead of compromise it. Micocondria is a bacteria that take fats and sugars and make adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. Every action that distinguishes a living human being from a dead human being is dependent on ATP. This proves we need our bacteria.

 I have always heard this but never believed it was true. I guess this article proves to me that we do need some of our bacteria. We need to make this subject more known so people will realize this and not freak out about every bacteria.