Science Museum of Virginia

QUESTION YOUR WORLD - COFFEE!!!!!

2012-01-26T12:22:00.004-05:00

Did you have any coffee today? A lot of people did. The United States moves about 400 million cups of coffee every day! Everything from intricate gourmet coffee to the basic cup of plain coffee. Even the basic cup of coffee is still very complex, holding over 1500 chemicals! The most familiar is caffeine, of course. It takes caffeine about 30 minutes to be fully absorbed by our body. Once in the bloodstream, it actually does enhance thought process and the body's capacity for physical activity.

Also, coffee contains antioxidants. Actually, Americans get more antioxidants from cofee than any other food or beverage!

Several studies have suggested that coffee may even reduce the risk of various diseases such as type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's!

For more coffee info check out this link: COFFEE also, check out some coffee-health-facts here, MORE COFEE!!!

Question Your World - How often does it thunder??

2012-01-19T17:06:00.002-05:00

Thunder!! by ScienceMuseumofVA

How often does thunder happen on Earth?

A LOT!! 2,000 times per minute!! Also impressive is the amount of lightning that strikes the Earth every minute. 6,000 lightning strikes per minute! These bright flashes and loud rumbles of thunder are scary to some, but rain fall is a vital part of what makes Earth such a wonderful place for us to live on.

Here's an idea. Instead of being startled by the next thunder rumble you hear, you can use it to do a mini weather forecast.
Once you see lightning, just count the amount of seconds before you hear thunder. Then divide that number by 5.

Example:
(seconds between the lightning flash and hearing thunder) 10/ 5 = 2
The storm is 2 miles away from you!
That's enough time to grab an umbrella!

Thunder is pretty impressive stuff.

Question Your World - Breathing

2012-01-03T15:23:00.003-05:00

Question Your World - Breathing by ScienceMuseumofVA

Our bodies are pretty amazing and complex! A lot of the involuntary actions that we do every single second keep us alive and healthy. Breathing, for example, is one of the most basic functions of the human body. So, how often does a person do this? Well, on average about 15 times a minute! This varies based on activity level, but on average we are clocking in at around 15 breaths per minute. Check it out, do an experiment, try to count how many times you inhale/exhale in a minute. Try it while laying down, sitting up, walking, maybe even running.

Question Your World - Megacities!! Happy New Year!!

2011-12-29T11:46:00.006-05:00

Question Your World - Megacities! by ScienceMuseumofVA

In 1950 there was only one city on the planet that held 10 million (plus) people. Now there are several more. As the population of our planet grows, as do the amount of megacities. Tokyo is high a top the list with almost 34 MILLION people!! Talk about a MEGA-city! These cities also happen to be some of the most watched places for New Years fun! So, this year when you're watching the ball drop, be sure to consider the amazing amount of people that are in New York, Paris, Tokyo, Delhi, and various other megacities all around the world! Happy New Year everyone!!

Question Your World - Stellar Headlines!

2011-12-22T16:50:00.007-05:00

A lot of space related news has happened in the last month. Here are some of the highlights of what's happening out there...way out there.

Huge news from NASA. The MSL (Mars Science Laboratory) launched in late November and is expected to arrive on the Martian surface in August of 2012. This one ton robot will rove the planet looking for soil samples that show if Mars was or was not ever capable of holding life. This will be a huge step forward in researching the types of conditions in the universe that could or could not hold life! For more info on the MSL please go to http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

In other news, the Voyager 1 satellite has left the solar system!!! That's right, this officially is the very first human made object to leave the solar system. This probe is about 10 BILLION miles away from Earth right now and is, amazingly, still communicating with us. Voyager 1 was launched in 1977...pretty far out!

Lastly, big big big news from 600 light years away. Kepler 22b has been confirmed as an "Earth-like" planet. This newly discovered planet is 600 light years away, about 2.5 times larger than Earth, and orbits a star very similar to our own sun. Scientists think that the average temprature on Kepler 22b is about 70 degrees, how lovely. More on this discovery can be found right here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-22b

Happy Holidays and we'll catch up with more Stellar Headlines next month!

Question Your World - Bad Predictions...about computers

2011-12-07T13:22:00.010-05:00

Question Your World - Bad Predictions by ScienceMuseumofVA

So, things have changed a lot since 1943. Back then the computer industry was tiny compared to the giant booming, seemingly endless industry that it is these days. Thomas Watson has been quoted (or misquoted depending on who you ask) about how the world market could hold maybe 5 computers. Five computers?? Really?? Well, currently there are nearly 1 billion personal computers on the planet right now! If these trends continue we should hit the 2 billion mark in the year 2015. Wow! Motherload of motherboards! Wait, it gets better. This calculation is only based on personal computers. Once you factor in the machines used by various companies (big and small) and the millions used by governments around the world, that number becomes significantly larger!

Regardless, that quote sure was a sign of the times. Those words could never be said today.
For more information on Thomas Watson check out his wiki page!

Question Your World - What's NASA ever done for me?

2011-11-27T05:44:00.002-05:00

20111130 NASAinventions by ScienceMuseumofVA

Other than blasting people into space and taking photos of far off distant worlds, NASA has contributed a lot to our day-to-day lives also. Check out this page for more info on what NASA's done to help you sleep, clean, and live a little easier. NASA Inventions!

Thank you NASA!

Question Your World: Thanksgiving Priceless Science

2011-11-23T04:39:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

One of the most common misconceptions about this tasty holiday is based around some simple chemistry. The amino acid in question is Tryptophan! The most popular source of this culinary chemical on your dinner table is turkey, however there is a little myth that we need to clear up. Though turkey does contain tryptophan, you should know that turkey is actually not the most tryptophan filled food. In fact its not even close. There are several other foods that contain way more of this chemical than your Thanksgiving centerpiece.

For example eggs, soybeans, pumpkin seeds, milk, and sesame seeds all have way more tryptophan than the turkey on your plate! If you want to see a chart of tryptophan break down, follow this handy dandy Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan

So, why do we get tired if its not this chemical agent? Well, the answer is actually the same as why you get tired after running a few miles, work. Your body is just working overtime to digest the vast amounts of food you are eating on Thanksgiving. So, this year when the post-dinner zzz’s find you, just know that your body is tired from digesting the mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls, green beans, pumpkin pie, and…oh yeah…the turkey.

Have a tryped out Thanksgiving everyone!

QUESTION YOUR WORLD: So, exactly, how big is a BILLION?

2011-10-20T12:45:00.008-04:00

Billion by ScienceMuseumofVA

How big is a billion?

Well, lets count:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, errr...999,999,998...999,999,999..1,000,000,000!! Whew!! Took a bit longer than we thought. A billion is a huge number!! If you were to count from one to a billion you would need nearly 96 years! Keep in mind this is straight counting, no food, bathroom breaks, tv shows, nothing! When news headlines reference billions of dollars or when you hear about the billions of stars in our galaxy, it can be hard to grasp the enormity of the data, so lets put some perspective on this giant number.
For instance:
A billion pennies is 10 million dollars.
A billion miles could get from Earth to well beyond Saturn
Or a billion miles is about 41,000 trips around the Earth.
And a billion seconds is 31 years, 8 months, and 12 days...That’s enough time for you to do about a billion things!

**side note**...check out this cool link on the time it would take to collect a billion dollars, http://www.classroomtools.com/billion.htm. Yikes!

QUESTION YOUR WORLD: What's auto racing ever done for my life?

2011-10-20T12:34:00.008-04:00

Racecar Inventions by ScienceMuseumofVA

In the early days of auto racing a second person was used as a spotter to look for other vehicles and check the gauges. All that changed when Ray Houron won the inaugural Indy 500 in great part to his stunning new invention, the rear view mirror. This eleminated the weight of the extra person and began a tradition that is still used to this day.

Also, in 1922 Barney Oldfield installed a major safety device in his car, the seat belt. About a quarter century later the factories in Detroit took notice and started to instal them their vehicles.

Fuel additives, tire technology, disc brakes? Yep, you guessed it! All invented to make race cars run smoother and safer. Thanks to these speed hungry technichians many of these inventions can be found in your driveway!!

Want more car facts? Look no more http://waw.wardsauto.com/ar/auto_rearview_mirror/!

Drive safely everyone!

QUESTION YOUR WORLD: How many people live on Earth?

2011-10-19T14:05:00.006-04:00

Population 7 Billion! - Question Your World by ScienceMuseumofVA

There's a pretty good chance that you've seen some other people today somewhere. Well, we are currently ushering in a new milestone for humanity, 7 billion people. That's right, the Earth is home to 7 billion of us. This is most impressive considering that it took us nearly 199,000 years to get from very few of us to 1 billion of us. 1804 marked the year when humanity reached the billions. The thought of 1 billion people in 1804 is pretty interesting, but pails in comparison to the exponential growth that our population saw soon after. Check out how we grew from 1 billion to 7 billion:
1804 - After nearly 200,000 years we reached 1 billion
1930 - 2 billion
1960 - 3 billion!
1974 - 4 Billion!!
1987 - 5 BILLION!!!
1999 - 6 BILLION!!!!!!
2011 - 7 BILLION!!!!!!!!!!

So nearly 199,000 years to get to 1 billion and only 207 years to get to 7 billion! That's some exceptional exponential growth!
http://www.worldof7billion.org - Follow the countdown and get more information on this growing population's impact on our world!

QUESTION YOUR WORLD: Happy Halloween - priceless science

2011-10-19T13:16:00.012-04:00

Hello boys and ghouls! Once again, the equinox has happened and daylight savings time has not ended yet, which means its time for Halloween!! Check out the video clip for some fun with Halloween numbers!

That's right $2 BILLION spent on candy each year for Halloween. What a sweet research project this was! For more information check out this link from the National Retail Federation, . They've studied up and surveyed a lot of information about what flies off the shelf around Halloween.

Also, all that candy means a lot of sugar in a lot of mouths! That's the tooth folks! Our teeth are pretty amazing actually. Check out some interesting facts on teeth for all of you that want to bite into this topic a bit more:

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/dentalhealth/Pages/Toothfacts.aspx

http://www.infobarrel.com/15_Facts_about_Teeth#axzz1bFadL861

http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112820/facts.html

Whoa! Sharks have about 40 sets of teeth in their lifetime? A Chinese dentist once built a tower out of 28,000 human teeth??
Chew on that for a while!

Lastly, be sure to spot an awesome science based costume this year!! They can be as simple as a scientist or as complex as an atom! .

Be safe and have fun out there! Happy Halloween from us here at the Science Museum of Virginia!

Neptune

2011-10-17T11:46:00.009-04:00

A lot has been discovered about Neptune since its initial sighting in 1846. The Voyager 2 spacecraft, on Aug 25, 1989, did a fly by of this blue celestial giant and sent back some photos and other data that has helped the science community understand more about the last planet on the block. Here are some interesting factoids about Neptune:
8th Planet from the sun
Gaseous Giant
13 Moons
Named after the Roman god of the oceans, Neptune
Has rings…just like all the other gaseous giants
2.68 BILLION miles from Earth at its closest point in orbit
60,190 Earth days (164.8 Earth years) for Neptune to orbit the sun once!!
Looks cool…because it is VERY cool…as in cold -330F (72 Kelvin)…(-201 C for the non-US friends of the Science Museum of Virginia)…brrr!
After 2006's demotion of Pluto, this blue gaseous giant became the last official planet in our solar system.

Their Final 4th of July...

2011-06-27T17:42:00.000-04:00

On July 4, 1826, our nation celebrated its 50th birthday. Two old patriots, former arch rivals and now close friends, began the day but did not finish it. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day in their own homes hundreds of miles apart on the 50th anniversary of their signing the Declaration of Independence. What could explain this strange occurrence?

1. Coincidence – well, it could be a coincidence, but what a significant one! They died on the same day, a momentous date and historic anniversary, especially for them. Both had lived much longer than the average male of the time (Adams was 90); Jefferson’s health had been failing for some time. It would be an incredible coincidence; the odds are mind-boggling.

2. Conspiracy – did someone else cause their deaths? In that time, it was unlikely due to communication problems over long distances, but it could have happened...

3. Divine intervention – well, that is possible…

4. Waiting for the day – do you suppose each of them wanted to see the nation turn 50 and willed themselves to live until that day? Perhaps…

The last words John Adams uttered were “Thomas Jefferson survives,” but Jefferson had passed away a few hours earlier.

What do you think?

WWII Morale Boosters

2011-06-15T15:37:00.007-04:00

From the collection of the Virginia Aviation Museum (a division of the Science Museum of Virginia) are two World War II era morale boosters for troops. These booklets provided entertainment for those serving overseas during the war. The “Army Song Book” was published in 1941 by the Library of Congress and contains well-known songs such as “America the Beautiful” and the “Star Spangled Banner”. It also includes the official song of the U.S. Army Air Corps. Here is an excerpt:

"Off we go into the wild blue yonder,

Climbing high into the sun;

Here they come zooming to meet our thunder,

At 'em boys, give 'er the gun!

Down we dive spouting our flame from under,

Off with one helluva roar!

We live in fame or down in flame;

Nothing'll stop the Army Air Corps!"

And for some much needed comic relief from the stresses of war, the booklet titled "The Scrapbook of Army-Navy Humor" provided just that. It was published in 1943 by Texcel Tellophane Tape and is a compiliation of funny stories, jokes and cartoons depicting life in the service. The caption of the cartoon at left reads: "Can't you hover somewhere else? It makes me nervous!"

Scheila Sports a Plume

2011-05-06T16:59:00.000-04:00

Meet Scheila and her friends:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/asteroid-collision.html

An asteroid named Scheila lives in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter with millions of other asteroids. Scheila is about 70 miles across and completes her orbit around the sun every five years. Late last year, astronomers noticed Scheila had gotten noticeably brighter and was adorned with plumes. After studying data from the Hubble Space Telescope and Swift satellite, they determined Scheila had collided with one of her fellow asteroids at 11,000 miles per hour (ouch!). The plumes made Scheila appear comet-like and were most likely small particles of dust from Scheila’s surface. In two months, the dust had dissipated and Scheila was back to normal. Thanks to Hubble and Swift, astronomers could study the collision before all evidence of it disappeared, allowing them a peek inside an asteroid. Now I wonder what Scheila thought of that…

Save $$$ at the Pump

2011-04-29T16:56:00.000-04:00

As gas approaches $4 per gallon, we are all looking for ways to save. Lots of advice is circulating around, but which tips will actually save fuel? Let’s separate fact from fiction:

Fact: Slow down.

Why? There’s this little problem of air and drag. As you zoom down the road at high speeds, your car pushes lots of air ahead of it and leaves a “hole” in the air behind it. The difference in air pressure creates suction that tries to pull your car backwards. At highway speeds, your car uses about 40% of its energy to push the air around, so try to leave your lead foot at home.

Fiction: Pump your gas in the morning.

Why not? The theory behind this myth: cooler temperatures make the fuel denser so you pump more gas molecules in every gallon. However, gas is stored in an underground tank whose temperature varies very little throughout the day, so the temperature of the air really has little effect on the temperature and density of the fuel.

Fact: Keep your tires inflated.

Why? Underinflated tires mean more tire surface on the road, thus more friction. Keeping your tires inflated will not make a huge difference in your fuel costs, but every little bit helps, right?

Fiction: Change your air filter.

Why not? You should replace your air filter regularly, but not because it will save money at the pump. The computer sensors in modern cars adjust the fuel-air mixture continually. A dirty air filter will not cause your car to burn more gas, but it will decrease your engine power. In other words, your car will be somewhat sluggish, sort of like you might feel on Monday morning.

Fact: Jack rabbit starts waste gas.

Why? Think about it; your car probably weighs about 2 tons. The amount of energy to accelerate 2 tons from a stop is considerable, so city traffic will cost you a lot of fuel. Take it easy on starts and stops; in other words, don’t drive like a maniac. Your savings could be as much as 30%!

Fiction: Use premium fuel.

Why not? Let’s say you recently bought the sports car you always wanted, and the owner’s manual says “premium fuel recommended.” Uh-oh, premium fuel is expensive! Will you get better gas mileage with premium? Will you harm your engine with regular? The answer is probably “no” to both. Your gas mileage probably will not be affected, and your engine sensors should detect the lower octane and adjust the timing. However, if your new car says “premium fuel required”, you had better fork over the extra for premium gas.

Fact/Fiction: Turn off your air conditioner.

OK, I am being wishy-washy. The answer here depends on your speed. In the city, running the A/C will cost you more, but on the highway, running the A/C will actually save fuel. There is no question that the A/C uses a lot of your engine’s power, so turning it off whenever you can is a good idea. However, open windows create drag which increases the faster you go. So opening the windows at highway speeds will create enough drag to cancel out the savings. Generally, at speeds over 45 mph, you can justify using the A/C. As you might imagine, windows closed with the A/C off is the best option, but that would be a mite unpleasant on a hot August afternoon.

Happy driving!

Celebrate Earth Day

2011-04-22T15:36:00.000-04:00

This Earth Day, I could pass along “green” tips on how to save energy and reduce your carbon footprint, but I will save that for another time. Instead, let me make a suggestion: go OUTSIDE this weekend! Take your dog for a walk, plant a vegetable garden, play outdoor games with your children, visit a local park, take a hike and look for wildlife, or just sit in the sun and appreciate its warmth (with appropriate sunscreen, of course).

If you are a bit more ambitious, visit an Earth Day Festival near you – the Richmond Earth Day Festival will be held Saturday, April 23 in the New Manchester District on the south end of the 14th Street Bridge. Streets will be blocked off and filled with artists, vendors, farmers and fun activities for all ages.

You could also visit the Science Museum of Virginia and explore the energy exhibits, such as New Energy Virginia, Watt Wall, Virginia Tech Solar House and others. When you are ready to get off your feet, enjoy a breathtaking film in the IMAX Dome. And don’t forget the popcorn!

Happy Earth Day, y’all!

The Aluminaut & a 1960s View of the Future

2011-04-18T13:42:00.005-04:00

In the collection of the Science Museum of Virginia is the world's first all aluminum submarine: the Aluminaut. The Aluminaut was built by Reynolds Metals Co. in 1964 and donated to the Science Museum of Virginia in 1995.

The above drawing is a futuristic view of the world as envisioned by Reynolds Metals Co. in the mid-1960s for what the future would hold for the Aluminaut (shown as the dark vessel at top left). Here are some projects it was believed the Aluminaut would initiate:

Producing electricity through subsurface dams set up over strong ocean currents

The ability to move large amounts of people safely underwater as opposed to dangerous travel above the surface during hostile weather or attacks

Vacationing in the ocean in underwater cities

Modifying the weather and stopping hurricanes by constructing underwater baffles to deflect cooler water upward

Constructing oil refineries where workers could live and work underwater (as depicted in the above drawing)

Come visit and see the submarine for yourself- the Aluminaut is currently on display at the Science Museum of Virginia.

What one degree will do...

2011-04-15T11:08:00.000-04:00

If you lowered the thermostat on your water heater by one degree this year, you could save enough energy to microwave 207 bags of popcorn or power a fish tank for 19 days.

If 1000 people joined you, we could power 10 homes for 30 days or power a hospital for 4 days.

More energy facts at the Energy Generator:
http://www.willyoujoinus.com/usingenergywisely/energygenerator/?gclid=CKOi6rTRjagCFcPd4AodWDCxDQ

What one light bulb can do...

2011-04-08T15:43:00.002-04:00

If you replaced one incandescent light bulb with a CFL, you would save enough energy to watch TV for 429 hours, watch 215 DVDs or play a video game for 201 hours.

If 1000 people joined you, you could power a roller coaster for 34 days, power a shopping mall for 31 days or power Alaska for 8 hours.

More energy facts at the Energy Generator: http://www.willyoujoinus.com/usingenergywisely/energygenerator/?gclid=CKOi6rTRjagCFcPd4AodWDCxDQ

Question of the Week

2011-03-29T17:00:00.000-04:00

Congratulations VCU!!! The VCU Rams are in the Final Four!!! Virginians are cheering for the "Cinderella" #11 seed Rams whom many said did not belong in the tournament.

Only two other teams with double-digit seeds have ever reached the Final Four. Who were they?

And don't miss March Ratness on Thursday, March 31 (11 am) at the Science Museum of Virginia!!! Four rats will play their own tournament - who do you think will win???

Question of the Week

2011-03-25T11:24:00.002-04:00

Gas prices are on the rise again... The world's supply of fossil fuel is limited and will eventually be exhausted. Production is becoming more difficult and more expensive. Many Americans are turning to renewable energy. What exactly is renewable energy? Can you name 5 renewable energy sources?

Answer: Renewable energy is energy that comes from resources that are naturally replenished. Sources of renewable energy are: sunlight, wind, geothermal, tides, biomass, and hydroelectricity.

Traveling by Air in the 1940s

2011-03-23T11:51:00.004-04:00

A recent acquisition into the collection of the Virginia Aviation Museum is this 1944 Eastern Airlines timetable which contains flight times and prices.

At the time of this publication, one way travel from Richmond cost at most $85.25 for a trip to Brownsville, Texas and the cheapest flight was $7.45 to get to Baltimore, Maryland.

Eastern Airlines began offering passenger flights out of Richmond beginning in 1932.

Understanding Japan’s Nuclear Crisis

2011-03-16T16:42:00.000-04:00

This image made available from Tokyo Electric Power Co.
via Kyodo News, shows the damaged No. 4 unit of the
Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex in Okumamachi,
northeastern Japan, on March 15, 2011.
White smoke billows from the No. 3 unit.
Credit: AP Photo/Tokyo Electric Power Co. via Kyodo News

By Harrison Mebane
Physics graduate student
University of Illinois

In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the world is watching an unfolding crisis in Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors. Below is an attempt to explain the science behind the crisis to the best of our knowledge. Not a nuclear expert myself, I asked my son, a Physics graduate student at the University of Illinois. Yesterday he attended a seminar on campus where professors explained what we currently know about the situation. Here’s his report.

In order to understand what's going on, you need a good image of what the reactor looks like. Here is a good picture: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YCQGP12Grn0/TXwmsKea0YI/AAAAAAAAAp8/Gc3-w9VHPcI/s1600/BoilingWaterReactorDesign_3.jpg.

This type of reactor is called a boiling water reactor. The reddish cylinder in the middle is the reactor core. Inside are fuel rods, which are zirconium clad tubes filled with uranium pellets. The fuel rods are surrounded with water being pumped in from outside. The water serves two purposes in this type of reactor: it is a coolant, and it slows down neutrons so that they are more easily absorbed by the uranium (it is called a moderator in this context). The problem at the Fukushima reactors occurred when power was lost. When power is lost, the reactor automatically shuts down (control rods are inserted, which stops the sustained reaction). Water has to be actively pumped into the reactor to cool it. Without power, the water circulation stops. The Fukushima reactors had multiple diesel generators on-hand, but the tsunami appears to have knocked all of them out. They had backup battery power, but it didn't last long. Once power was lost, the water in the reactor just sat there and began to boil off. The core remains hot long after the reaction has stopped because the fuel still contains a lot of radioactive material which will continue to decay. That is the main issue right now. If they could guarantee a constant safe water level in all of the reactor cores, the problem would be solved. They are currently pumping in seawater (which will ruin the reactors, but they aren't worried about that), but this is difficult because the core is under such high pressure. They need very strong pumps to get water in.

Now, the big news lately has been these explosions. To the best of anyone's knowledge, these were hydrogen explosions. It is not at all obvious where the hydrogen comes from, since it is not a decay product. It comes from the fact that steam can react with the fuel rods' zirconium cladding to create zirconium oxide (in effect, it rusts). Steam normally does not come in contact with the zirconium but it did in this case because the water level sank below the tops of the fuel rods (this is what the media means when they say the fuel rods were "exposed"). As oxygen is leached off of the steam molecules in the formation of zirconium oxide, hydrogen is produced. At some point, the pressure of the steam became dangerously high and had to be vented. It was vented out of the core and then out of the primary containment vessel (labeled in the diagram) into the secondary containment vessel. This is where the explosions occurred. Interestingly, the steel plates surrounding the secondary containment vessel are "meant" to be blown off in the case of an explosion. If they were on too tightly, an explosion might damage the primary containment vessel, and that would be bad. So that's exactly what happened in all of the explosions. You can see the steel skeleton in pictures of the exploded reactors.

Now, one major concern at this point is the spent fuel ponds. You can see one of these in the image; it is the pool of water just to the right of the core containing rectangular slabs. These slabs are spent fuel. The spent fuel is put in this pool to cool off after most of its uranium-235 has reacted. It stays hot for a long time, though, so it is kept in the pool until it is cool enough to move to a secure location. After the explosions, you can see that the spent fuel pond is exposed to the outside. That's fine as long as there is water in there to absorb/block radiation. The fear is that either a) the water will boil off, or b) the pools were damaged in the explosions (or the fire a couple days ago) and could be leaking. The more worrisome scenario is situation b. If the water level drops enough, the spent fuel will no longer be cooled effectively, and it may begin to melt. If it gets hot enough to ignite, the fire would send large amounts of radiation into the air. That is what happened at Chernobyl, though at Chernobyl the core itself caught fire, so it was much worse. It is unclear how secure the spent fuel ponds are at this point.

During the last two days there have been significant radiation spikes which have forced personnel to leave temporarily. During these spikes, the radiation was high enough to cause radiation poisoning in an hour or two. Nobody knows the source of the radiation. There has been some speculation that it was due to a leak in the suppression pool, which is the torus below the primary containment structure in the picture. This torus is full of water and is meant to relieve pressure in the primary containment vessel if it gets too high (maybe when they released pressure into the secondary containment structure, the suppression pool wasn't taking enough pressure away, or maybe they just wanted to vent off the hydrogen). At this point the suppression pool has been in contact with radioactive material, so a leak in it would result in possible leakage into the environment. Again, this is just speculation at this point, and it is unclear how much, if any, leakage has occurred.

Question of the Week

2011-03-15T14:39:00.003-04:00

In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Japan, tsunamis are on people's minds. How much do you know about them?

Take this brief tsunami quiz and find out:

1. Name 4 geologic events that might cause a tsunami.

2. Tsunamis are also called wave trains because they are a series of waves, not just one wave. How far apart in time can they be?

3. In deep ocean water, how fast can a tsunami travel?

4. Suppose you are in a boat in the middle of the ocean and a tsunami approaches. What would happen?

5. What happens when the tsunami approaches land?

6. Has Virginia ever experienced a devastating tsunami?

Answers:
1. Tsunamis may be caused by earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions or a meteor impact in the ocean.
2. Tsunami waves can be as far as one hour apart.
3. In deep ocean water, tsunamis can travel as fast as 500 miles per hour (800 kilometers per hour), as fast as a commercial jet.
4. Not much. In the open ocean, tsunamis are often less than a foot tall. You probably wouldn't notice its passage.
5. As a tsunami approaches land, the depth of the water decreases causing the bottom of the wave to slow while the top continues at the same speed. The sea then begins to rise, either as a giant wave or as a rapidly rising tide.
6. Yes, a meteor struck at the current mouth of the Chesapeake Bay about 35 million years ago, causing a huge tsunami which may have flowed over the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Question of the Week

2011-03-07T14:23:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the telephone from the US Patent Office. On March 10, three days after receiving the patent, he successfully transmitted the famous first words.

What famous sentence was transmitted?

Answer: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."

Now, you may ask, who was Mr. Watson? Thomas Watson was an experienced electrical designer and mechanic. While Bell had the "germ of a great invention," he realized he did not have the equipment nor the expertise to make a working model. A chance meeting at a machine shop changed all that. There he met Watson and hired him as his assistant. On that historic day, March 10, 1876, Mr. Watson heard the words loud and clear through the liquid transmitter now known as the telephone. Just think how far we have come since then...

Question of the Week

2011-03-02T10:33:00.001-05:00

The word "nerd" is a fairly recent addition to the English language and is now quite common in everyday speech.

When and where was the first recorded usage of the word?

(Hint: Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday...)

Answer: Dr. Seuss holds the honor of first printed usage of the word "nerd." It appeared in the book If I Ran the Zoo, written in 1950.

Question of the Week

2011-02-24T15:08:00.004-05:00

Space, the final frontier...

Today at 4:50 pm, space shuttle Discovery will blast off on its final mission into space. On board Discovery are six astronauts, the Permanent Multipurpose Module which will become sort of a storage closet for the space station, and Robonaut 2, the first dextrous humanoid robot to go into space. Robonaut 2 will test his ability to operate in zero gravity and will eventually become an astronaut's helper.

If astronauts received frequent flyer miles while in space, how many would they receive on a typical shuttle mission?

Answer: The typical shuttle mission orbits the Earth 250 times - about 6.6 million frequent flyer miles!

Great Backyard Bird Count

2011-02-18T17:15:00.001-05:00

Hazel Erikson, TN, GBBC 2010

What is it? The Great Backyard Bird Count engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds over a 4-day period. This annual bird population survey creates a real-time snapshot of bird populations throughout the US and Canada and helps researchers better understand birds and their behavior.

Who can do it? You can! Anyone may participate. You may count birds for as little as 15 minutes or for as long as you like each day of the event.

When is it? This weekend - Friday, February 18 through Monday, February 21.

Where do I count? Anywhere! Birds are all around us - your backyard, a park, a farm, or the city. You may go to a particular place to count or you may count wherever you happen to be.

How do I report my count? Go to the Great Backyard Bird Count website "How to Participate" page - all you need to know is there: http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/howto.html

Enjoy your weekend and happy counting!

Question of the Week

2011-02-14T11:42:00.003-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day! Sure, Valentine's Day is about love and your significant other, but Valentine's Day is also about chocolate. How much do you know about this delicious and tempting treat?

Which statement(s) below are true?
     a. Chocolate causes cavities.
     b. Chocolate causes acne.
     c. Chocolate raises cholesterol levels.
     d. Chocolate causes headaches.
     e. Chocolate is addictive.
     f. Chocolate lovers live longer.

Answer: f is the only totally true statement in the list.

(a) Chocolate does not cause cavities by itself but the added sugar might.
(b) Studies have shown that eating chocolate does not cause acne; in fact, doctors believe that acne may not be linked to diet at all.
(c) Chocolate does not raise LDL (bad cholesterol) because the stearic acid in chocolate is a neutral fat that does not raise cholesterol levels.
(d) A few studies show that migraine headaches may be triggered by chocolate, but there is little evidence that it causes other headaches (so if you answered d, you may count your answer correct).
(e) People claim to be addicted to chocolate, but there is no hard evidence that it is physically addicting.

(f) Eating chocolate may help you live longer. A Harvard University study found that men who ate chocolate lived one year longer than those who didn't. Scientists believe that chocolate contains chemicals that keep the blood vessels elastic, plus chocolate may increase beneficial antioxidants levels in the bloodstream. So enjoy a candy bar every now and then - without guilt.

Question of the Week

2011-02-07T10:53:00.001-05:00

Friday, February 11, is Thomas Edison's birthday. Probably the greatest inventor of modern time, Edison accumulated over 1000 patents, over twice that of other prolific inventors. His inventions include the light bulb, motion picture camera, phonograph, stock ticker, mechanical vote recorder, electric car battery, and electrical power. Edison's ingenuity has profoundly influenced people's everyday lives and serves as inspiration to aspiring engineers and inventors.

What was Thomas Edison's favorite invention?

Answer: Of all the wonderful things Thomas Edison invented, his favorite was the phonograph. Edison had profound hearing loss at an early age and was technically deaf by his teen years, so that makes the phonograph an interesting choice.

The SR-71: Designed with a Slide Ruler!

2011-02-04T11:32:00.004-05:00

So you've probably seen the big black plane outside of the Virginia Aviation Museum when you're on your way to the airport. But what exactly is it?

This plane is the SR-71 Blackbird and was manufactured by Lockheed under the direction of the CIA. After World War II, the United States wanted to maintain a close watch on Soviet missile and nuclear weapon production. To do this a plane was needed that could fly very high and very fast to both escape incoming missiles and to avoid detection by Soviet radar, all while taking photographs of what was going on below.

Flying at altitudes above 80,000 feet meant that the aircraft would be very hot but in very cold temperatures. Because of this virtually everything on the aircraft had to be specifically designed for the SR-71: even the washers! In addition, keep in mind that this is 1960s technology- the engineers of the SR-71 used a slide ruler to design this aircraft, there were no computers.
So what exactly can this plane do?

The SR-71:

Can fly at a top speed of Mach 3.3 or 2,200 miles in one hour
Can climb to an altitude of 85,000 feet where the curvature of the earth is visible
Is constructed of 93% titanium
Has a special coating of black paint that radiates heat away from the aircraft and into the cold high-altitude air
Reaches a temperature of 600 degrees Fahrenheit at cruising speeds with a max temperature of 1200 degrees Fahrenheit at the engine
Grows in length about three to four inches and widens one to two inches during flight as a result of the intense heat it generates
Carries 80,000 pounds of fuel
Can stay in flight for two and a half to four and a half hours with at least one in-flight refuel
Can fly from New York to London in 1 hour and 55 minutes
Can fly from Los Angeles to Washington, DC in 64 minutes

Only 32 of these aircraft were made and only 20 survive (though none were shot down by enemy fire- the SR-71 was able to 'outrun' any missile sent its way). VAM's SR-71 is on loan from the National Museum of the US Air Force. The SR-71 still holds the Air Speed Record by a manned airbreathing jet since 1976. This makes it the fastest known aircraft in existence- but makes me wonder just how fast the current classified US jets can go...

Question of the Week

2011-01-31T14:36:00.001-05:00

Groundhog Day

This Wednesday, cute and cuddly Punxsutawney Phil (officially known as "Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary") will emerge (well, actually, he will be pulled) from his burrow to predict how much longer winter will last. If he sees his shadow, we will have 6 more weeks of winter. If he does not see his shadow, spring is on the way.

Groundhog Day was first celebrated in Pennsylvania on February 2, 1886, making this the 125th anniversary.

Do you know why February 2 was selected as the official date?

Extra Credit: Do you think Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow this year?

Answer: February 2 is approximately the middle of winter or halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. The tradition was brought to Pennsylvania by German settlers and was originally called Candlemas Day.

In case you have not heard, Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow. Will we have an early spring this year? Only time will tell...

Wings of World War II

2011-01-28T10:36:00.024-05:00

Before the United States became involved in the Second World War, the US Army Air Corps published specifications of the various badges or “wings” for those serving in military aircraft. Each wing was to be no more than three inches from tip to tip and made of sterling silver (although many are simply silver plated and others were made of bronze and some in gold). Various manufacturers throughout the US made these wings by following the simple description of design issued for each by the War Department. Here are a few of the nearly 250 wings from the Virginia Aviation Museum collection.

Pilot Wings

Pilot wings were described by the War Department as “The shield of the United States of America without stars in the shield at the center of the wings”.

Senior Pilot Wings

The Senior Pilot wings look the same as the Pilot wings but with a star over the shield. These wings were given to pilots who had given five years of service and at least 1,500 hours in flight.

Women’s Air Service Pilot Wings

Also known as WASPs, the Women’s Air Service Pilot wings were issued to women who served as pilots in non-combat missions. Things wings have a small diamond shaped center and are considered to be highly rare.

Glider Pilot Wings

While being a pilot in WWII was a dangerous job, being a glider pilot was often considered even more so as the Glider Pilot flew unarmed aircraft of supplies and troops behind enemy lines. These wings are rare as there were only 6,000 glider pilots during the war and consist of “the letter G in clear relief against a horizontally lined background on the outline of the shield of the United States”.

Liaison Pilot WingsThe Liaison pilot acted as an observer and assisted in delivering medical aid, aircraft, and weaponry. This badge has an "L" in the center of the shield and the person who bore it often flew smaller aircraft such as Piper Cubs.

Air Crew Wings

This is a very common badge from the WWII era. It was issued after fifteen combat flight hours to those in a great variety of positions including aerial gunners, crew chiefs, radio operators and others who were a part of an aircraft’s flight crew. This badge consists of “the coat of arms of the United States in clear relief against horizontally lined back-ground on a disk with a raised rim”.

There are a great many more wings including Flight Surgeon wings, Aerial Gunner wings, and Air Transport Command wings, just to name a few. As a result of the many companies that manufactured wings during the war, there are slight variations in each: shield sizes will vary, as does the amount of detail on the feather of the wings.

Do you have any WWII era wings that need identifying? Post a comment below and I’ll do my best to determine what you have.

Question of the Week

2011-01-24T12:07:00.002-05:00

What do you think of cold weather? Polar bears love it! Their thick fur coat covers a layer of insulating fat, allowing them to be quite comfortable in the frigid Arctic.

Why do you think polar bears walk at such a leisurely pace?

a. they are watching for thin ice

b. they are afraid of slipping on the ice

c. they get overheated when they run

d. they are too heavy to move faster

Arctic Adventure, our new traveling exhibit, opens this Saturday, January 29.

Answer: c. they get overheated when they run.

Polar bears have more trouble with overheating than cold, especially when they run. They are not terribly worried about falling through thin ice; they are strong swimmers and can swim for several hours in icy water. Their feet are covered with small bumps called papillae to keep them from slipping on the ice. Even though polar bears are heavy (males weigh 500-1700 lbs. and females weigh 200-700 lbs), they can run as fast as a horse over short distances.

Get to Know Virginia Aviation History: The Roma Disaster

2011-01-21T11:20:00.005-05:00

Recently I discovered a scrapbook at the Virginia Aviation Museum. Glued inside a bound ledger of the “Southern Fire Insurance Company, Inc. of Lynchburg, VA”, were newspaper clippings spanning from the early 1920s to the late 1930s describing various advancements and events in the progress of aviation technology. Eighty-two of the pages are filled with descriptions of Amelia Earhart, the Zeppelin, and Byrd’s Antarctic Expedition (even with a photo of the Stars and Stripes!). In addition, a few pages were devoted completely to the Roma disaster that occurred over the Norfolk Army base in 1922.

The Roma was a dirigible, or a lighter-than-air airship, that was purchased by the US Army from the Italian government in 1921. The ship was taken apart and shipped to Langley Field, Virginia where its steel skeleton and fabric exterior reassembled. The airship was able to fly at 60 miles per hour and was the largest semi-rigid dirigible at that time at 410 feet long and 90 feet in diameter. An interior gas bag filled with hydrogen gas kept it in air. The Army made three successful test flights with the Roma before disaster stuck.

On February 21st, 1922, the crew made a fourth test flight and flew for forty-five minutes without incident. They flew from Langley Field to Hampton, to Newport News, and finally to Norfolk. It was above Norfolk that the rudder (a device that allows for control over the direction of the nose of the airplane) malfunctioned. The exact cause of the rudder’s failure was never determined other than that it, in most simple terms, structurally failed. This failure caused the nose to dip downward, causing the Roma to descend slowly. Because of this slow glide, there may not have been such a catastrophe had the ship not touched electrical wires. However, the contact with the electricity caused the hydrogen in the ship to explode as well as the gasoline tanks. Thirty-four of the forty-five man crew would perish in the accident over the Norfolk base.

This was the last dirigible used by the US Army, and the last time hydrogen was used in dirigibles. This scrapbook documents the worst and most deadly aircraft accident the US military had seen at that time and an important, but unfortunate moment in Virginia Aviation history.

[Top photo courtesy the National Museum of the US Air Force. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/]

Question of the Week

2011-01-19T08:12:00.001-05:00

Today is National Popcorn Day!

Do you know why popcorn pops?

Answer: Popcorn must have 2 important properties to pop:

The moisture in each kernel must be close to 13.5%.
The kernels must not be cracked or damaged in any way.

How does it work? When popcorn kernels are heated, the moisture inside turns to steam. The steam expands and breaks the outer hull, turning the kernel inside out with a popping noise. Voila! you have fluffy popcorn.

What can go wrong? If the kernels do not have enough moisture, the steam does not build up enough pressure to pop. If there is too much moisture, the kernels pop into dense spheres instead of fluffy popcorn. If the hulls are cracked or damaged, the steam will escape gradually... with maybe a hiss, but not a pop.

What about other grains? So why can't we pop wheat, rice or regular corn? Popcorn hulls are nonporous, allowing pressure to build up as the moisture is heated. Other grains have porous hulls which allows the steam to escape gradually. Pressure does not build up so no popping occurs.

The LeMay Bombing Leaflet

2011-01-12T11:08:00.004-05:00

On August 1, 1945, over one hundred US B-29 Superfortresses flew over Japan at around 20,000 feet. At this height they dropped 500-pound containers, each holding leaflets that warned the Japanese civilians of the necessity of surrender. At around 4,000 feet the containers opened and released millions of leaflets that fluttered down to the people below.

These leaflets were produced in Saipan, a US occupied island just north of Guam, by the US Office of War Information. Walter J. Cox, Jr. was stationed in Saipan and was able to acquire the above leaflets from a Red Cross worker who went “ashore” to Japan and brought them back. Cox in turn sent them to his wife back home.

These leaflets in the collection of the Virginia Aviation Museum were used as a propaganda tool in order to cause Japanese civilians to distrust their military leaders and to push for an end to the war. Of the five pamphlets that Cox was able to send home, the most significant is the leaflet at the bottom center in the above photograph. This was called the “LeMay bombing leaflet” after Major General Curtis E. LeMay who was the commander of the Pacific Theater of war during this time. It was he who requested that this particular leaflet be dropped over Japan. This leaflet was dropped over 35 cities, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The front of the leaflet depicts numerous American B-29s with hundreds of bombs descending and a list of potential targeted cities. The reverse reads in Japanese:

“Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend. In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America’s humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives. America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately”.

Other leaflets include (clockwise from top left) a depiction of the Japanese Army pulling a Japanese civilian and home over a cliff; a description of the treatment the Japanese would receive with photographs of smiling Americans on one side, and smiling Japanese civilians on the other; a Japanese newspaper printed by the United States; the LeMay leaflet; and a list of radio stations to listen to for warnings and news.

Question of the Week

2011-01-11T15:56:00.001-05:00

Today in Richmond, we are experiencing a messy and somewhat hazardous mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain.

Do you know what atmospheric conditions cause each kind of frozen precipitation?

Answer: Winter precipitation types generally depend on the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere.

Snow falls when the temperature of the entire depth of the atmosphere from the cloud to the ground is below freezing (32 F or 0 C).
Sleet falls when there is a fairly shallow layer of warmer air (above freezing) between the cloud and the ground but the temperature at the ground is below freezing. Snow falls from the cloud, then partially melts in the warmer layer and then refreezes in the colder layer near the surface, forming pellets of ice.
Freezing rain falls when there is a deep layer of warmer air (above freezing) but the temperature is below freezing at the ground. Snow falls from the cloud, melts completely in the warm layer and then refreezes either just before hitting the ground or on contact with the cold surface.

The Anti-G Suit

2011-01-06T08:28:00.004-05:00

During World War II, aviators were able to fly their aircraft higher and faster than ever before. But this was not without problems. There were accidents that could not be accounted for: pilots were not shot down, there were no malfunctions in the aircraft and yet they were crashing. What was happening was that when pilots were performing high-speed maneuvers such as pulling up hard out of a dive or making fast and tight turns to evade the enemy, they were creating strong centrifugal forces on the lower parts of their bodies.

So what does this mean? It means that as a result of G-forces (or gravitational force), blood pools in the lower part of the body, mainly the legs and abdomen. It’s kinda like when you eat a lot of food and feel sleepy after the meal: some of the blood from your head has gone to your stomach to help the digestion process. But in this case, so much blood has left the head that a pilot begins to feel some physical affects.

Let’s look at some stats. The force that is exerted by earth’s gravity on your body when you are on the ground (or your weight) is 1 G. If you were moving at 3 G’s you would weigh three times your normal weight and at 7 G’s your blood is as heavy as iron.

So without proper protection, the average person would “greyout” at 4 G’s, meaning that he or she would be unable to see color; “blackout” at 5 G’s and at 6 G’s the pilot would be unconscious.

The pilots of WWII that were crashing were experiencing G forces so great that they became unconscious and did not have control over their aircraft. This is called orthostatic intolerance.

To stop this from happening, in the 1940s Wilbur Franks of the University of Toronto was able to create a version of the G suit that you can see me wearing in the photo above.

So how does it work? There are bladders inside the suit at the legs and the abdomen. The tube on the suit receives air from the engine which had a valve that had a spring-mounted weight that would send air into the suit only if the G force was higher than 2 G’s. When the valve was engaged, air would go through the suit, inflate the bladders on the legs and abdomen which would push against the muscles of these body parts. The muscles would then squeeze the blood back up to the heart and up to the head, thus avoiding unconsciousness.

The suit I am wearing in the photograph is a modern issue Anti-G Suit like the ones that pilots in the US Air Force wear today. They wear it with a flight suit underneath, gloves, boots and of course, a helmet with oxygen mask.

Question of the Week

2011-01-04T15:06:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year to all the fabulous fans of the Science Museum of Virginia! Here's the first Question of the Week of 2011:

What do you think are the most popular New Year's resolutions?

(There are lots of opinions, but I am using an "official" source.)

Answer: According to http://www.usa.gov/, these New Year's resolutions are popular year after year:

Drink less alcohol
Get a better education
Get a better job
Get fit
Lose weight
Manage debt
Manage stress
Quit smoking now
Reduce, reuse, and recycle
Save money
Take a trip
Volunteer to help others

Did you make any of those resolutions? How are you doing so far?

Odd Science 2010

2010-12-30T17:50:00.001-05:00

Besides highly publicized science stories of 2010 (Gulf oil spill, Chilean miner rescue, bedbugs, etc.), there were some intriguing and somewhat odd science stories:

1. You think like a worm – The human brain’s center of deep thought is curiously similar to a clump of neurons inside the head of the lowly ragworm. So similar, in fact, that ragworms, which evolved 600 million years ago, probably share a common ancestor with us humans. Hmmm…

2. The shrinking moon – Lunar geologists have found cliff-like scarps on the moon that they believe formed as the moon lost heat and contracted. But don’t panic – the moon’s radius has only shrunk a few hundred feet in the last billion years. Considering its small size, though (its diameter is less than the distance from Washington, DC to San Francisco), let’s hope it doesn’t shrink too much more…

3. Dinosaurs in color – Sinosauropteryx, a chicken-size dinosaur, and was covered with spiny hair, ate meat and walked on its hind legs. Scientists examining the hair bristles under a powerful microscope discovered its tail contained melanosomes, color-bearing cell parts found in modern birds. And what color was it? Sinosauropteryx sported a chestnut and white striped tail! Cool!

4. Bowerbirds exaggerate – Male bowerbirds lure their mates with large collections of stones, shells, bones and other trinkets, even some man-made ones. Their display is usually arranged from largest to smallest, creating an optical illusion. As the female approaches, the display area appears smaller, making the male in the center appear bigger. Clever guy!

5. Rubik’s Cube decoded – Have you ever tried to solve a Rubik’s Cube? How many moves did it take you? Mathematicians have discovered that out of the 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible starting positions, you should never have to make more than 20 moves to solve the puzzle. Can you do it?

These 5 are just a taste; Discover magazine's current issue includes the 100 Top Stories of 2010.

http://discovermagazine.com/photos/100-top-science-stories-of-2010

Question of the Week

2010-12-27T14:03:00.001-05:00

Fruitcake facts:

The average fruitcake weighs 2 pounds.
Fruitcake has the same density as mahogany.
Fruitcake has been around since Roman times.
In the 18th century, fruitcake was outlawed in Europe.
Almost 3000 pounds of fruitcake were delivered to Iraq in 2006.

Can you answer this question:

What percent of people who received a fruitcake as a gift would throw it away? What percent would regift it?

Did you receive a fruitcake as a gift this holiday season? You can regift it to the Science Museum of Virginia! Join us for Fruitcake Science on Wednesday, December 29 and watch all the fun we have with fruitcake.

Answer: 47% of people who receive the gift of fruitcake would throw it away immediately. Another 11% would regift it. So more than half (58%) would not keep it or eat it. You have to wonder how many fruitcakes are continually regifted for years and years... maybe since Roman times???

Is It Winter Yet? Maybe, Maybe Not…

2010-12-14T09:06:00.003-05:00

Snow frozen onto a tree in Germany.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Tuesday, December 21, is the Winter Solstice and usually considered the first day of winter. However, meteorological winter is already here! So what’s the deal? Well, the definition of winter depends on whom you ask.

A meteorologist defines winter as the three coldest months of the year: December, January and February. An astronomer defines winter as the three months between the Winter Solstice (December 21 or 22) and the Spring or Vernal Equinox (March 20 or 21). What’s the difference?

The definition of meteorological winter is fairly straightforward. Climatologically-speaking, the three coldest months of the year are December, January and February in the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, meteorological winter begins on December 1 and ends on February 28 (or 29). In the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are reversed, meaning if you lived in Rio or Buenos Aires, summer would begin in December and winter would begin in June.

Astronomical winter begins on the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. The Earth has seasons and variable daylight hours because its axis is tilted 23.5° relative to its orbit around the sun. Winter in the Northern Hemisphere occurs when the northern half of the planet is tilted away from the sun. This tilt causes sun’s energy to be weaker on the Earth’s surface because:

The sun shines on the Earth’s surface at an oblique angle.
The sun’s energy is spread out over a larger area, diluting its strength.
The sun’s rays travel through more atmosphere before they reach the surface.
Days are shorter so there is less time for the sun to heat the surface.

Less energy from the sun on the Earth’s surface means colder temperatures in the atmosphere – so winter arrives. For more information, check out last year’s blog about the Winter Solstice: http://sciencemuseumofvirginia.blogspot.com/2009/12/winter-solstice.html

Here are some questions for you to ponder:

If the Earth’s axis had no tilt, would we have seasons?
If the tilt was at a greater angle, what would our seasons be like?
Do you think other planets in the solar system have seasons too?

How did Earth’s axis get tilted in the first place?

Question of the Week

2010-12-13T09:47:00.001-05:00

It's snowing! Snow showers are also predicted for Thursday and a winter storm might hit us this weekend. Remember last December?

Now for the Question of the Week:
What is the percent chance of a white Christmas in Richmond (in any given year)?

Answer: In Richmond, there is a less than 10% chance that measurable snow will fall on Christmas Day. There's about a 13% chance that at least a trace of snow will be on the ground and about a 7% chance that at least 1" will be on the ground.

Several inches of snow are predicted for today (Thursday, December 16), and a coastal storm this weekend has a 50-50 chance of bringing us more snow. Will we see snow on the ground for Christmas? We might...

The First Flight of 2nd Lt. Thomas Love Chrisman

2010-12-09T09:10:00.007-05:00

Do you remember the first time you were on an airplane? My first flight was when I was in 4th grade to visit relatives in Arizona. Many of us experienced our first flight on a commercial airliner, complete with cushioned seats, in flight movies, and a snack. But what do you think it would have felt like to have your first flight in the open air cockpit of a Curtiss Jenny during World War I? (My guess: loud, bumpy, and no snacks). Native Virginian Thomas Love Chrisman did just that when he left school at the University of Virginia to serve in World War I. Flight was still in its early stages during these days and Chrisman documented many of the accidents the cadets had during their training with photographs. Chrisman wrote on the back of this photograph at right that this was an “unusual entry into barracks”. Fortunately for Chrisman, his first flight was more successful.

Chrisman faithfully wrote home to his mother, Louisa B. Chrisman and described in great detail his experiences. She in turn gave the letters to the local Clarke County newspaper who published his accounts. Here is an except from his description of his first flight:

“While you were getting ready to take your trip Monday a.m. I was undergoing one of the greatest sensations of my life-e-g., my first flight…As strange as it may sound I found myself marching along wondering if my feelings weren’t similar to those of a prospective bridegroom on his wedding eve, in that I was entering into an existence which might prove wonderfully happy or fatal…

At last my turn came and I climbed into the “cock-pit” all dolled up in helmet and goggles…The lieutenant told me that my first trip would be a joy ride at 1000 feet and that I was to look around and enjoy the scenery… After turning the propeller over two or three times to prime the cylinders the mechanic said “contact” and after hearing the lieutenant repeat “contact” the mechanic gave the propeller one little yank and the old ninety-horse power Curtiss was off with a roar…we taxied (bumped along on two wheels and the tail skid) to the opposite end of the field…Having arrived there and turned into the wind, the lieutenant looked back (he’s in the front and the most dangerous cock-pit) and yelled (engine is running) “are you ready?” That “are you ready” made me feel funny…I managed to shake my head, however, (after making sure I was strapped in tight) and he “gave her the gun” (opened the throttle).

She started to roll along on the ground and I felt the body come up to a horizontal position as we gained speed rapidly. We were then riding along on two wheels and the sensation was just like one experiences in an automobile as it goes from low to high speed. Presently it seemed to ride exceptionally easy and but for the throb of the engine we were apparently floating. I peeped out and saw the ground was about ten feet below and falling lower all the time…I realized for the first time that my future existence depended upon the will of the lieutenant, and the strength of a few little cables that hold the wings of the plane.”

Once in the sky, Chrisman notes: “In general the earth seems to have a beautiful green carpet on it and is apparently very smooth. We have been climbing steadily and the altimeter now shows 1000 feet. Thus we ride around and enjoy the view when suddenly the roar stops and as the nose points down you hear the wind sing by the wires of the wings and you realize (after making sure your breakfast isn’t in your mouth) that the engine is cut off and you are gliding to earth at about 80 miles per hour. The average “landing” is rougher than the “take off” but not objectionable. He gets close to the ground and runs paralel [sic] to it until the wheels settle to earth due to loss of speed.”

Chrisman survived the war, returned to Virginia, married, and had two daughters. He would later serve again in World War II as part of the 8th Army Air Force stationed in England. His first experiences with flight are very different from ours today.

"Fruitcake" Question of the Week

2010-12-06T09:02:00.001-05:00

How long would you dare to age a fruitcake and still eat it, assuming it was made and stored properly?
          a.  1 year
          b.  5 years
          d. 10 years
          e. 25 years
          f. I wouldn't eat it, no matter how fresh it was...

Enjoy a special evening of "Fruitcake Science" on Wednesday, December 29 at the Science Museum of Virginia.

Answer: e - Yes, a fruitcake will keep 25 years if stored in an airtight container, provided it was prepared with the right preservatives. And what are the "right preservatives?" Send us your suggestions.

It's not a Parachute, it's an Improvised Shade Hat!

2010-12-02T15:48:00.005-05:00

In sixth grade my teacher gave us a scenario. We were stuck in the desert and could only have one item for rescue- what would we use? He gave us a list, from which I believe I picked a broken radio (I was optimistic-maybe I could fix it?). But the right answer was a mirror. A mirror could be used to signal your location when it reflected sunlight. That idea has always stuck with me and I always keep a mirror nearby in case….I’m ever stuck in the desert, or have something stuck in my teeth.

But what if you only had a parachute? While cataloging items in our collection I found this booklet printed by the US Army Air Forces in February of 1945. Titled “Emergency Uses of the Parachute” it details just that. Inside are some ingenious uses for something every aviator has, the parachute!

Here are some examples:

1. Trade some of your chute for food: Many people value the quality of the silk. But be thrifty, don’t give it all away for a small meal!
2. Use it as a signal: tie parts of the parachute over a stream to show your location if you are in an area with a lot of trees.
3. Make a slingshot: a portion of the harness of the chute is used as the sling which is tied to the elastic cord from the parachute pack, which is then tied to a single bent rod from the pack frame wire.
4. And my favorite, the Improvised Shade Hat: Using the metal frame and canvas from the cover of the pack make a brim, then make the crown of the hat with the cloth. And for extra comfort, “to promote coolness, stuff wadded grass or cloth in the crown”.

These are just a few of some of the clever ways that aviators were trained to survive should they find themselves in an emergency situation.

Question of the Week

2010-11-29T11:42:00.002-05:00

In the film, The Polar Express, what restored steam locomotive was used as the model for the film's locomotive? Where is it located?

See The Polar Express on the IMAX®DOME - the largest screen in Virginia . This holiday classic is now showing daily at the Science Museum of Virginia.

Answer: The locomotive in the movie is based on the Pere Marquette 1225, a restored steam locomotive, located in Owosso, MI. Note that the number "1225" also refers to Christmas Day (12/25). In addition, all the ticket numbers in the film contain the number "1225."

Check out more trivia from The Polar Express at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338348/trivia.

More “Turkey Day” Trivia: Thanksgiving dinner

2010-11-24T13:07:00.000-05:00

Turkey meat: white vs. dark - What causes the color difference between white and dark turkey meat? The type of muscle fiber determines the color of the meat. Dark turkey meat has slow contraction muscle fibers. Slow contraction muscle fibers, sometimes called slow twitch muscle fibers, are used for extended muscle contraction in endurance activities and are supplied with lots of blood vessels, mitochondria, and myoglobin pigments, which give the red color to the meat. White turkey meat, on the other hand, has fast twitch muscle fibers for short bursts of strength and speed. Fast twitch fibers have a poorer blood supply, and fewer mitochondria and myoglobin, and tire quickly.

Cranberries – Of all fresh fruits, cranberries contain the most phenols, a type of disease-fighting antioxidant. Phenols and polyphenols are strong antioxidants and many scientists believe antioxidants protect the heart.

Yams vs. sweet potatoes - A yam is not the same thing as a sweet potato. Although yams and sweet potatoes are both angiosperms (flowering plants), they are not related botanically. Yams, native to Africa and Asia, are a monocot (a plant having one embryonic seed leaf) and are related to lilies and grasses. Sweet Potatoes are a dicot (a plant having two embryonic seed leaves) and are in the morning glory family. Yams are starchier and dryer than sweet potatoes.

Pumpkin pie - Most pumpkin fillings are really custard-type fillings with eggs acting as "gelling agents". They're able to do this because proteins in the eggs unwind as they are beaten and hold the pumpkin and liquids in a gentle mesh. As it cooks, it coagulates or sets and forms a custard-like filling. If the filling is cooked too long, the protein network contracts and shrinks, causing the filling to crack across the top. To prevent the cracking, cook it a little less this year. Remove it from the oven while the center still jiggles slightly if you give it a gentle shake. It may look like it still needs a little more cooking, but remember because of latent heat, it will continue to cook after it is removed from the oven.

"Turkey Day" Trivia

2010-11-23T15:30:00.001-05:00

Want to wow your guests at the Thanksgiving dinner table with your incredible knowledge of turkey trivia? Check out these "Turkey Day" facts!

Most farm raised turkeys are White Hollands. They cannot fly.
An adult turkey has about 3500 feathers. Big Bird’s costume (from Sesame Street) was made from nearly 4000 white turkey feathers, dyed yellow.
Wild turkeys can glide almost a mile without flapping their wings. Over short distances, they can fly 55 mph and run 20 mph.
Acorns are the wild turkeys’ favorite food. Because they have a poor sense of taste and smell, they choose acorns by size and shape.
A turkey’s head will change colors when it’s excited.
Wild turkeys spend the night in trees.
A male turkey is called a tom, the female is called a hen and the babies, poults. Immature turkeys are called jake (male) and jenny (female).
How to tell toms from hens:

Toms are larger, have longer legs and bigger heads. Their wattle (growth under the chin) and snood (fleshy growth over the bill) are also longer.
Toms grow a beard – long black feathers on their chest. The beard grows about 4 inches per year and keeps growing throughout their lifetime. Eventually, it drags the ground.
Male turkeys gobble and females make a clucking sound.

During mating season, a male turkey gobbles loudly and struts around, puffing out his chest, fanning his large tail and dragging his wingtips on the ground.
As male turkeys get older, they fight a lot and may attack humans.
About 180,000 wild turkeys live in Virginia, most of them in the Tidewater, South Mountain and South Piedmont regions.

Turkey history -

Wild turkeys are native to the eastern US and northern Mexico. They have lived in North America for almost 10 million years.
Wild turkeys were domesticated in Mexico and introduced in Europe in the 16th century.
In the 1700s, turkeys were walked to market and wore booties to protect their feet.
Ben Franklin thought the wild turkey should be our national bird instead of the bald eagle.
Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin ate turkey for their first meal on the moon.
Wild turkeys almost became extinct in the early 1900s because of habitat destruction and overhunting.
The Turkey Trot was a ballroom dance popular in the early 1900s. The Turkey Trot 10K is a race run every Thanksgiving in Richmond.

Thanksgiving turkey facts –

Over 45 million turkeys are eaten every Thanksgiving.
The average American eats 17.5 pounds of turkey per year.
US turkey production has increased over 300% since 1970.
Turkey meat is low in fat and high in protein.
White meat has fewer calories than dark meat.

WWII Eye Candy

2010-11-23T12:34:00.013-05:00

Check out these cool & colorful World War II era postcards that are in the collection of the Virginia Aviation Museum. Postcards such as these were often sold at the various camps around the world to servicemen to send back to their loved one and friends.

Some cards (like the last postcard) were intended to make fun of life at camp. Other cards were used to champion the United States military might- on the reverse of one of the postcards reads: "The air armies of America are flying now in ever increasing swarms. Today the air is our first line of defense and [when] used in conjunction with sea and land forces is a proven, unbeatable combination".

Regardless, these are some beautiful examples of WWII airplane imagery.

Question of the Week

2010-11-22T15:06:00.001-05:00

Model railroading has been around for over 100 years. Can you answer these questions about model trains?

What is the difference between the scale and the gauge?

Which scales are the most popular?

See model trains in action this weekend, November 26-28, at the Model Railroad Show at the Science Museum of Virginia.

Answer: A model railroad's scale is the model's measurement as a proportion of the original. The gauge is the measurement between the rails of the track.

The most popular scales and their proportion are:

G - 1:24
O - 1:48
HO - 1:87 (most popular scale)
N - 1:160 (second most popular scale)
Z - 1:220

Stars and Stripes Forever

2010-11-17T08:54:00.003-05:00

Today artifacts from Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s ship, The City of New York, go on auction in Dallas, Texas. A native Virginian, Admiral Byrd used the ship in his expedition to the Antarctic in 1928. The purpose of this trip was to make the first flight across the South Pole, which he did, in a Ford tri-motor. He also brought along the Virginia Aviation Museum’s Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes (on loan from the National Air and Space Museum) airplane to document the expedition through aerial photography. The Stars and Stripes first flew in the Antarctic on January 15, 1929 and ten days later transmitted Morse Code while in flight over a record 10,000 miles back to New York City. When it was time to leave, the plane was stored in a snow hangar from January 1930 to December 1933.

As you can imagine, the Antarctic was very cold so Byrd and his crew had to wear fur coats and masks to keep warm. It was so cold that the men and their dogs had to live underground in the snow! The Virginia Aviation Museum has in its collection clothing from Capt. Charles L. Kessler, who was a part of this first expedition. Life in the South Pole meant wearing a sweater, mask, parka, fur coat with hood and, of course, gloves anytime one would go above ground.

Byrd and his crew returned again to the Antarctic in later expeditions, including one from 1939 to 1941. In the photo at right, a few members of his crew pose in Antarctic-approved clothing with their cameras in tow. Recently rediscovered at the Virginia Aviation Museum was a collection of personal photographs from this expedition of the crew- everything from taking care of puppies that were born on the trip, to photographing the Antarctic, to making pancakes in the crew’s kitchen were well documented by one of Byrd’s team.

Even though items from the expedition are being auctioned off today, you can still see many more artifacts, including the Stars & Stripes, right here at the Virginia Aviation Museum.

Watch the Sky Show: the Leonids

2010-11-16T13:03:00.000-05:00

Want to wish upon a falling star? This is the week - the Leonid Meteor Shower peaks tomorrow. Earth is currently passing through the “tail” of Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Often called a “dirty snowball,” a comet usually orbits the sun in an elliptical orbit. The comet’s nucleus, consisting mostly of ice and dust, heats as it approaches the sun. Particles begin to stream out behind it and form the comet’s “tail.” As Earth passes through this “tail” the particles collide with the atmosphere and we see a meteor shower.

Best viewing of the Leonids will be just before dawn on Wednesday, November 17 in the eastern sky (see above map). Scientists estimate this year’s show will produce 15 to 20 meteors per hour (a sighting about every 4 or 5 minutes). Meteor showers are notoriously difficult to predict - there may be many more or there may be less.

The waxing gibbous moon will set in Richmond about 4 hours before sunrise tomorrow, so the bright light of the moon will not inhibit viewing in the early morning hours. However, clouds and showers may accompany a cold frontal passage in the Richmond area early Wednesday morning. Let’s hope we get lucky and the skies clear before dawn. But there is another chance - the Leonids may be visible just before dawn on Thursday morning also.

A few tips for best viewing:

• Find an open area away from city lights with no tall buildings or trees in the eastern sky.
• Take some friends – it’s always more fun with someone along.
• Let your eyes relax and look all around - binoculars not required. Actually, your eyes will find the meteors better without binoculars because they have a broader range of vision.
• Take some equipment for maximum enjoyment:
        o Lawn chair – be comfortable; kick back and relax.
        o Blankets or sleeping bag – bundle up; it will be chilly (50’s).
        o Hot coffee or tea in a thermos.
• Binoculars might be useful for observing fireballs, unusually bright meteors that leave an incandescent streak lasting as long as a few minutes. Winds in the upper atmosphere will bend and distort the streak; binoculars will give you a close-up view.

Interesting fact (from http://www.space.com/ ): When a comet takes 33 years to go around the Sun, it goes way out there and tends to get lost. Comet Tempel-Tuttle gets lost a lot. It also gets found now and then. Tempel-Tuttle was "discovered" by William Tempel in late 1865 and independently by Horace Tuttle in early 1866. Nobody saw Tempel-Tuttle again for almost 100 years (1965). Then on March 4, 1997, armed with great orbital data, Karen Meech, Olivier Hainaut and James Bauer at the University of Hawaii "recovered" the comet yet again. Tempel-Tuttle will next return to the inner solar system in 2031.

For more information, go to http://www.space.com/. Star map credit: Stardate.

Question of the Week

2010-11-15T12:12:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1975, the last passenger train departed Richmond’s Broad Street Station, now home to the Science Museum of Virginia. On what date did the first passenger train depart?

Extra credit: How many passengers passed through the station on its busiest day? What was the date?

For more information on trains and the history of Broad Street Station, come to the 32nd annual Model Railroad Show Thanksgiving weekend, November 26-28, at the Science Museum of Virginia.

Answer: The first passenger train left Broad Street Station on January 6, 1919, the second anniversary of the station's groundbreaking.

Extra Credit: Broad Street Station's busiest day was April 22, 1943 when 33,324 passengers passed through the station. Many were servicemen heading to and from duty during World War II.

A Bag's Life

2010-11-15T11:05:00.000-05:00

Plastic shopping bags: do ya’ love ‘em or hate ‘em? They are a mixed bag in my book - I love the convenience but hate the trash they create.

Today is America Recycles Day. To commemorate the day, Virginia is launching the “A Bag’s Life” campaign at the State Capitol to encourage Virginians to reduce, recycle and reuse their plastic bags. The website http://www.abagslife.com/ includes a locator to find the plastic bag recycling drop-off point nearest you (nearly 800 in Virginia and growing) and tips on the 3 R’s:

• Reduce. BYOB (bring your own bags) to the store when you shop. Many stores now offer reusable bags for a minimum fee. And don’t forget to use them.

• Recycle. Use our locator to see where to recycle your bags – and give them a new life as splinter-resistant decking, crates and containers, or even new bags.

• Reuse. People reuse bags over and over again in a variety of ways – as trash can liners, lunch bags, to pick up poop and to store their stuff.

For tips on recycling and for more information, go to:

http://earth911.com/ and http://www.keepvirginiabeautiful.org/

Treasure Hunting at the Virginia Aviation Museum

2010-11-10T08:14:00.004-05:00

Often when I am going through the collection at the Virginia Aviation Museum I sometimes feel as though I’m on a treasure hunt. Just the other week I opened a box to find World War II memorabilia from one man who was stationed in New Guinea. The box was complete with a hunting knife with leather case that strapped to the leg, aviator sunglasses, old chocolate rations and even a black and white photograph of the young man’s girlfriend tucked into a leather-bound notebook. Moments like these are what makes a curator’s heart beat wildly!

It is often the stories behind the objects are what make them so interesting. In the collection of the Virginia Aviation Museum there are many leather bombardier jackets, some with squadron insignia, some with skull-shaped zipper pulls, some with pilot licenses tucked into a pocket, and so on. But two jackets in the collection caught my attention for the harrowing stories of the men who wore them and the fact that the jackets got to go along for the ride!

Check out the above jacket- F. Mark Johnson of Glen Allen, Virginia wore this while flying a P-51 Mustang with the 8th Air Force, 355th Fighter Group, 354th Fighter Squadron. During World War II he was stationed in Steeple Morden, England. Once, after a mission to bomb German V-2 rocket plants, his engine failed and he had to bail out over the North Sea. He was wearing this jacket when he made his leap into the cold waters. Fortunately, he survived the crash and was issued a replacement jacket, which now too is in the collection of the Virginia Aviation Museum.

Philip W. Root, Jr., a native Richmonder who began his pilot training in Savannah, Georgia, owned this second jacket. Once, while learning to fly a B-24 Liberator during training, him and his crew had to bail out over the rural fields of Georgia. The plane had a fuel leak fire that caused his Liberator to explode into pieces. Root jumped out of the plane- but quickly realized that his parachute would not release. He dropped for several thousand feet while struggling with the device until he opened it manually and safely landed. With the aircraft in pieces, he was shocked when a young girl came up to him after the crash, holding his perfectly intact jacket that he had last seen draped across the back of his seat. It had somehow flown clear of the explosion and landed nearby! Root and this jacket went on to fly 31 missions over Europe until the war’s end.

I’m always excited when I find an object in the collection that has a wonderful story attached. It is amazing to hold something that someone wore while they were high over the North Sea, or over the farms of Georgia, and know that they were lucky enough to bring this item back home with them.

What types of neat things have you found on your own treasure hunts?

Question of the Week

2010-11-08T08:47:00.001-05:00

The SunTrust Richmond Marathon is this Saturday, November 13, 2010. NBC12's Andrew Freiden has posted the following weather forecast for race day:

7 am - low to mid-40's, mostly sunny
Noon - near 60, partly sunny
3 pm - mid-60's, partly sunny

What is ideal race weather?

Answer: Ideal running weather -

Temperature - runners have different preferences but generally prefer low 40's to mid-50's. Intense muscle activity generates a lot of heat; cooler temperatures help prevent overheating.
Humidity - low to moderate. Lower humidities mean less water vapor and more oxygen with each breath. The runner's body does not have to work as hard to get enough oxygen to his/her muscles.
Wind - 5 mph. A slight breeze is better than no wind at all. The breeze helps keep the runner cool by evaporating sweat from the runner's skin. As for direction, a tail wind is always welcome.
Time of day - morning. Morning means less glare off cars and pavement and less wind, also less traffic.

Aviators, Blood Chits & Short Snorters, Oh My!

2010-11-02T14:06:00.012-04:00

If someone had asked me a year ago to describe a "blood chit" or a "short snorter bill", I'm pretty sure that I would have only been able to blink in response. But since I began my position as curator at the Virginia Aviation Museum (a division of the Science Museum of Virginia), I'm pleased to say that I now know that blood chits and short snorter bills were used by pilots during the Second World War and served two very different purposes: one acted at a lifesaving device, the other as a source of pride and revelry.

A blood chit is a piece of fabric that pilots sewed to their jackets. It was typically made of silk and consisted of a flag and a paragraph in a foreign language that asked for anyone who came upon the aviator to return him to safety. The origins of the term blood chit come from the slang for "note" or "written notice" which was "chit", while blood references the bearer's life.

The Virginia Aviation Museum has a variety of blood chits- some still sewn onto their original jackets. The blood chit above was sewn to the back of a jacket of an Air Transport Command pilot who flew over China during World War II. The blood chit identifies him as an American fighting for the Chinese. The now faint purple characters read: "This foreign person has come to China to help in the war effort. Soldiers and civilians, one and all, should rescue, protect, and provide him with medical care".

Other blood chits offered rewards to those who would help. This chit from 1951 states in a variety of languages that,

"I am an American. I do not speak your language. Misfortune forces me to seek your assistance in obtaining food, shelter and protection from the Communists. Please take me to someone who will provide for my safety and see that I am returned to my people. I will do my best to see that no harm comes to you. My government will reward you".

While the blood chit represented the last hope for safety, the short snorter bill had an altogether different purpose. A short snorter is a pilot who was known as being worldly, having flown back and forth from many countries and often across the equator. This term came into existence in the mid 1920s and continued into World War II. A short snorter bill is the paper currency that the pilot picked up during his travels, taped together, and had signed by various friends and (hopefully) famous people he met along the way. Sometimes men would compete with each other to see who had the most prestigious and lengthy short snorter bill. Whoever had the fewest signatures had to buy a round of strong drinks, or "snorts", for the entire group!

Currently on loan to the Virginia Aviation Museum is a short snorter bill from the Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society that measures approximately six feet long. This bill has currency from a variety of countries including France, Fiji, Trinidad, Japan and Portugal. It was signed by Marlene Dietrich, a famous movie actress of the day. Taped between these foreign currencies is a piece of aircraft fabric from a Japanese plane that was shot down over Midway Island. Not all short snorter bills had to be six feet long to be prestigious. In the collection of the Virginia Aviation Museum is a single short snorter bill from 1934 with just a handful of signatures. However, one signature in particular makes this a bill of note: that of Charles A. Lindbergh.

Whether using blood chits to save a life or short snorter bills to get a buddy with less signatures to buy a round of drinks, these were two items that were often carried by the aviators of World War II.

Question of the Week

2010-11-02T08:10:00.001-04:00

The 1903 Wright Flyer was the first successful manned, heaver-than-air, fully controllable, powered airplane. On Dec. 17, 1903, at Kill Devils Hills, N.C., one of them flew the famous first flight. Which brother flew first? How long was he in the air and how far did he fly?

The Wrights made three additional flights that day. Who flew the final flight? How long was he in the air and how far did he fly?

Come to the Science Museum of Virginia to see the Wright Flyer reproduction now on display, celebrating the opening of the film Legends of Flight in the IMAX®Dome on November 6, 2010.

Answer: Orville Wright made the first flight on December 17, 1903. He flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Also on that historic day, the Wright brothers made 3 additional flights. On the final flight, Wilbur flew 852 feet in 59 seconds.

They were ingenious but also very brave. How do you think they felt before they flew? How about after?

Meet the Tank: Sea Stars

2010-10-28T10:38:00.000-04:00

Science Museum of Virginia sea stars

By Meghan West

Gallery Educator

Science Museum of Virginia

In our “Beach Science: It’s a Shore Thing” exhibit we have a saltwater tank housing some sea creatures that can be found off the coast of Virginia. For those of you who have been to “Beach Science: It’s a Shore Thing” you may have already seen or even touched one of our sea stars. For those of you who have not, let me introduce you.

Sea stars, formally known as starfish, were renamed because they don’t look like a fish, don’t swim like a fish, and are not a fish. Because of this they dropped the name fish and added sea (same thing happened to sea jellies, formerly known as jellyfish). They are in the phylum echinodermata, which means spiny skin and anyone who has touched one or even handled a dead one can feel the bumpy, spiny skin. They are in the same phylum as sea urchins and sand dollars, even though they don’t look a lot alike.

Strange creatures are our sea stars; they have no blood, no brains, and if we chop them up, as long as there is a fifth left, they will grow everything back. As for the no brains thing, anyone who has seen “SpongeBob SquarePants” can attest that Patrick Star, SpongeBob’s best friend, is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Comedy is not the only reason Patrick is a little slow on the uptake. The creator of SpongeBob, Stephen Hillenburg, taught marine biology at Orange County Ocean Institute in California and puts weird facts like that into the story and characters. Sea stars actually have something going on upstairs, but it’s just a nerve ring instead of a brain.

Breathing is another thing that our dear sea stars don’t do like most of the creatures we come in contact with. They absorb sea water through a small dot normally located somewhere on the top facing side of the sea star; this is called a madreporite. The water they absorb is used in their circulatory system (yes, you read that right, sea water being used for blood). While they have the water they might as well make the most of it and absorb the oxygen out of it.

For vision the sea star uses a tiny dot on the end of each arm to see. If you find a sea star large enough you may notice the tiny dot (it looks like someone put the point of a highlighter on the very tip of the arm). Their vision is not like ours and is more like dark and light (sun’s out - sun’s not out).

To get around, the sea star uses its arms with hundreds of little, tiny tube feet on each arm. None of the arms are dominant. Our Forbes Sea Stars have 5 arms each and have been clocked at a whopping five inches a minute! That is a sea star run! Full speed, petal to the metal, run! (That’s .005 mph.) When you don’t have to run down your food and most things don’t want to eat you or will only take a bite that you will grow back, speed is not a major concern. Their favorite food is most bivalves (animals with 2 shells) like oysters, mussels, and clams. The creatures that they are most concerned about avoiding are crabs, bottom dwelling fish, sea gulls, sea urchins, lobsters and (be surprised) humans.

To eat, the sea star wraps its arms with tube feet around a bivalve. The bivalve slams shut; it doesn’t want to get eaten. After roughly 10 hours the amount of pressure the sea star exerts on the bivalve forces it open, just a little bit. Then the sea star takes its stomach out through its mouth and begins to eat the squishy inside of the bivalve. When the sea star finally removes itself from the bivalve all that is left is shell (licked clean!). Mussels are easily the favorite food of the sea stars in our tank. I am not sure if it’s because they are easier to open or if it’s the fact that they prefer the taste. Our sea stars go through about a pound of mussels in a week. With some of the larger clams in the tank, our sea stars appear to attack them in a group, which amazes me since they have no brain. So I wonder - can they organize? Is it instinct? Communication beyond our understanding? We may never know.

Mysteries of the ocean are being unfolded every day. Remember we know more about the planet Venus than we do about our own oceans. Till the next “Meet the Tank”, take care.

Question of the Week

2010-10-26T11:46:00.001-04:00

Fall foliage season is here! According to the Virginia Department of Forestry, the trees producing this beautiful display are:

Ash - yellow, maroon leaves
Beech - yellow to orange leaves
Dogwood - scarlet to purple leaves
Hickory - golden bronze leaves
Oak - red, brown or russet leaves
Poplar - golden yellow leaves
Red maple - brilliant scarlet leaves

Leaf color is nearing its peak this week in the higher elevations of southwest Virginia and along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Shenandoah Valley is at about 50% peak and the Piedmont is at about 25% peak. The Coastal Plain will peak around mid-November.

How do you think officials predict the dates of peak fall color?
     a. cool temperatures at night
     b. freezing temperatures at night
     c. shorter days, longer nights
     d. soil moisture
     e. leaf spotters

Answer: Believe it or not, fall foliage predictions are made by leaf spotters - park rangers, foresters, lodging and restaurant operators, chamber of commerce officials, etc. “If we’re driving somewhere, we’re looking,” says one official. Leaf spotters send fall foliage reports to the state tourism division or visitor's bureau who then post it on a website. Many states also have a hotline and will provide text alerts.

In Virginia, go to the Virginia Department of Forestry website for the latest report on Virginia's fall foliage. If you want to avoid the crowds on Skyline Drive, the website also includes fall foliage driving tours.

http://www.dof.virginia.gov/fall/index.htm

Question of the Week

2010-10-19T09:29:00.000-04:00

What are you afraid of? Snakes, spiders, heights, loud noises?

For me, I am ok with snakes and spiders, although I am not fond enough of either to have one as a pet.

One animal that really creeps me out, though - crickets. Perhaps I had one too many experiences with them as a child. Growing up in a rural area surrounded by farms was wonderful - until fall when the field crickets invaded. Generally, you can't see them but you can certainly hear them. They can sing their little hearts out, especially in the middle of the night. Sometimes it's so annoying that going after them is the only solution. However, you can follow that infernal noise only so far. They are incredibly adept at sensing when you are hot on the trail - instant silence. Finding a silent cricket in the dark is very, very tricky. But if you get lucky and manage to find the noisy critter, then... Have you ever tried to kill a cricket? They hop in 12 directions at once, and if you smush him - YUK! Cricket guts go everywhere!

So, no, I am not fond of crickets. You might say I have cricketaphobia. Now what are you afraid of?

Finally, the rains came

2010-10-12T15:43:00.001-04:00

Last week, the Richmond area received about five inches of rain, which helped to reduce the rainfall deficit in our area for the year. For the record, though, we’re still short by 4.9 inches of rainfall for the year.

During the weekend before remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole drenched the Richmond area, the county of Chesterfield had announced implementing mandatory water restrictions on September 28, 2010. For several weeks prior to the announcement of mandatory water restrictions, I witnessed homeowners with automatic sprinkling systems and golf courses in our area persistently irrigating their brown lawns as the water level in Lake Chesdin continually inched downwards to record low levels. Why do they do this?

To me, such behavior is not unlike that described in a 1968 journal article entitled “The Tragedy of the Commons” in the journal Science, December 13, 1968 by the late, renowned ecologist, Garrett Hardin. Using the concept of tragedy of the commons, we may view water as a common resource, which we pay very little for. Each of us wants to maximize the beauty of our lawns, our profits from golfers, etc. Each of us reasons that if I water a little extra to keep my lawn green, it won’t matter. We do this for our own self interest, without regard for the resource and end up doing harm to the common water supply and the rest of the water user groups as well. If all water users make this individual economic decision, then the water resource in common will be exhausted to the detriment to all.
So, in my infinite quest to do the ethically right thing and not harm others with my own actions, I used my truck to transport water in four 5-gallon plastic buckets from the James River to our home about two miles away to water our winter vegetable garden of Bloomsdale spinach, dwarf Siberian curly leaf kale, cilantro, and mustard greens. Fortunately for me, it started raining…I didn’t like adding additional CO2 into the atmosphere, and taking time away from family as I drove to and from the river.

As an aside, the availability of clean drinking water is at a crisis. About a year ago, the federal government predicted that within five years at least 36 states will experience water shortages as a result of climate change (rising temperatures and drought), population growth, urban sprawl and waste. Barry Nelson, senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), summed up the change in philosophy that is upon us: “The last century was the century of water engineering. This century is going to have to be the century of water efficiency.”

Question of the Week

2010-10-12T08:13:00.001-04:00

Suppose you are going on vacation and want to save on your heating bill. Which will save more - turning off your heat completely (assuming your pipes won't freeze) or just setting the thermostat to a lower temperature?

In other words, does it cost more to heat the house up from a very cold temperature than it would to keep it at a more moderate temperature while you are gone?

Answer: Turn off your heat! Based on years of research, the US Department of Energy concluded "the fuel required to reheat a building to a comfortable temperature is roughly equal to the fuel saved as the building drops to a lower temperature. You save fuel between the time that the temperature stabilizes at the lower level and the next time the heat is needed." In other words, during the period your house is at its coldest temperature, you are saving on your fuel bill. So if you aren't worried about your water pipes, pets or tender houseplants, turn off the heat while you are away. Not only will you save on your fuel bill, but you will also conserve valuable natural resources.

Scotch tape + 2 researchers = Nobel Prize

2010-10-08T16:54:00.000-04:00

So… here’s a good one - two guys used Scotch tape and won a Nobel Prize. Hmmm…

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their pioneering work with a revolutionary new material called graphene. Basically a one-atom-thick layer of carbon, graphene could change the world as we know it.

Graphene is a flat single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a tight honeycomb pattern. It is stronger than steel and conducts electricity better than any other material. According to researchers at Columbia University, “It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap.”

So where does the tape come in? Graphene comes from graphite, good old fashioned pencil lead. At one atom thick, it is the thinnest of all materials. After its discovery in 2004, scientists were having trouble extracting a one-atom-thick layer. According to Novoselov, “The way you clean graphite is just cover it with tape and pull the tape off, and then throw it away. So once, I just picked it up out of the trash and we analyzed it.”

In all fairness, the contribution that won them the Nobel Prize was not the tape but their way of spotting the single layer of graphene in thicker flakes of graphite. A layer one atom thick is essentially invisible even with the most powerful microscope. The two researchers discovered that putting the graphene on a silicon wafer changes the color of the wafer, like the colors oil makes on water.

And why is this material so revolutionary? Graphene could replace silicon semi-conductors with smaller and faster chips. Since graphene performs well at room temperature, it might solve heat issues, as well. According to Michio Kaku at bigthink.com, other applications might include embedding the material in plastics so they conduct electricity, replacing carbon fibers in materials to make planes and satellites lighter, increasing efficiency of batteries with graphene powder, plus stiffer-stronger-lighter plastics, better touchscreens, and better sports equipment.

Graphene appears to be a supermaterial. Geim “would compare this situation with the one 100 years ago when people discovered polymers. It took some time before polymers went into use in plastics and became so important in our lives.” Revolutionary, indeed!

Photo courtesy of University of Manchester

Question of the Week

2010-10-01T15:36:00.003-04:00

What are you afraid of? Ever wonder what makes us scream, shake, or shout when we get scared? Goose Bumps! The Science of Fear opens tomorrow at the Science Museum of Virginia!

So to celebrate, I will pose a question (or maybe 2):

What do women fear most?

What do men fear most?

Hint: The answer is a specific phobia, which is defined as an excessive fear of an object or situation.

Please post your guesses below in the Comment section. (Click on the blog title and then click "Post a Comment" or click on the word "comments" below).

(Answers will be posted next week.)

Answer: Results differ slightly, depending on whose research you read, but generally, women are afraid of certain animals, like snakes and spiders, and men are afraid of heights, illness and being buried alive. Interesting, huh? And what are you afraid of?

Good-bye, ospreys! See you next year...

2010-09-23T14:55:00.001-04:00

If you spend much time on the Virginia coast, the high-pitched call of the osprey is a familiar sound. In fact it’s so familiar that it’s often taken for granted …until it’s gone. I love fall with its cool sunny days and blue, blue skies, but I am always a little sad when the ospreys leave. Around mid- September, the ospreys who summer on the Chesapeake Bay disappear. Where do they go?

Dr. Richard O. Bierregaard, Jr. knows! He has been studying ospreys for over 40 years. In 2000, in collaboration with Dr. Mark Martell, he began installing GPS tracking devices on young ospreys to track their migration patterns, including several from the Chesapeake Bay region. Ospreys have been tracked to winter quarters in the Caribbean, Central and South America, as far south as Peru! His tagged birds have names and his website is updated regularly with their progress. By September 12, three birds, Penelope, Sr. Bones and Thatch (Thatch is from Delaware) had begun the long and perilous journey south. Gunny left on September 19 and arrived in Virginia Beach on Tuesday. Other tagged birds, including Neale, Sanford and North Fork Bob, should be leaving soon. To follow their progress, go to: http://www.bioweb.uncc.edu/bierregaard/migration10.htm. I have to admit that following these birds as they make their way south and, hopefully, back north again could become an addiction.

If they survive the journey and winter, they will return around mid-March to nest near the area where they were born. Ospreys begin mating at three years of age and will often mate for life. Nests consist of bulky piles of sticks on navigational markers, duck blinds, utility poles or high up in a pine tree, but always near the water. Females usually lay three eggs in mid-April to late May. By July, the fledglings fly from the nest and begin to practice their steep dives to catch fish.

Ospreys are sometimes confused with bald eagles. It’s certainly easy to do – ospreys look remarkably similar to both juvenile and adult bald eagles. Here’s a brief primer to tell them apart: ospreys are dark brown or black with white underparts, a broad black eye stripe and a black patch on the underside of the wings. Adult bald eagles have white heads and tails but dark underparts, while juvenile bald eagles are all brown or mottled brown and white all over. Ospreys are slightly smaller than bald eagles and fly with their wings "crooked" in an M shape, whereas bald eagles fly with their wings in a flat line.

We are fortunate here in the Chesapeake Bay region to have the largest nesting population of ospreys in the world, over 2000 pairs which accounts for 25% of the US population. While they are wintering in warmer climes, I hope to follow the travels of Penelope, Sr. Bones, Thatch and Gunny and will eagerly await their return in the spring!

A Webworm Horror Story

2010-09-14T15:26:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday I decided to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and eat my lunch outside. About halfway through my sandwich, I glanced up to see something fuzzy crawling down my bangs onto my nose – UGH! It was a fall webworm – you know, those nasty hairy caterpillars whose giant webs appear on tree branches every fall? There seems to be a bumper crop this year – caterpillars are crawling on everything: across yards, along sidewalks, up walls, on decks and porches… you get the picture. When I went outside to eat, I purposely positioned my chair away from the trees to avoid them (and to avoid the occasional falling walnut – ouch!). This fellow found me anyway and sort of put me off my lunch.

Description of Damage
In the grand scheme of things, fall webworms do not do a tremendous amount of permanent damage, although the webs are definitely unsightly. Caterpillars feed on leaves inside the webs, gradually enclosing more foliage as they grow. Heavy infestations may defoliate a tree but rarely kill it. Over 100 species of trees play host to these voracious pests, but here in central Virginia, they seem to prefer nut and fruit trees, such as walnut, pecan, cherry and crabapple.

Life cycle

The adult moth is snow white, often with dark spots, and somewhat hairy (not surprising, considering the caterpillar). They lay their eggs on the underside of leaves in May through July. The larvae hatch in about 2 weeks and immediately begin to spin webs and feed on leaves. Pupation occurs after 4 to 6 weeks of spinning and feeding and can usually be found in leaf litter or just below the surface of the soil. In the South, we are especially lucky - we get at least 2 generations per year!

Control
Control is not necessary; however, you may not be able to tolerate the unsightly mess. If you do decide to take action, mechanical control is best. When you can reach them, prune branches containing webs and destroy them. Chemical control must be done when webs and larvae are small, no later than July, but it is not necessary. If you are lucky, birds and other natural predators may come to your yard and do the job for you!

Just remember – do not eat lunch under the webworm tree…

For more information, go to http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/2808/2808-1013/2808-1013.html

Thoughts on Virginia’s Goodwill Moon Rock

2010-08-26T16:28:00.014-04:00

Thirty-eight years ago I stood with my younger brother on a shoreline near midnight looking eastward across 12 miles of quiet, dark water at the brilliant jewel on the far horizon. A million people lined the beaches as far as we could see. In the distance xenon arc lights crossed upon the largest craft ever to carry humans. The thunderstorm that had earlier sent tendrils of blue and orange lightning beyond the gantry had since moved far out to sea.

At the final countdown the night burst into a blaze of silent light and the sky glowed crimson to the far horizon behind us. A full minute would pass before the sound hit us, a deep shattering moan shaking our rib cages, the trees and cars. The last Apollo Saturn V rocket lifted with the inexorably slow climb of a freight elevator. Our 8mm film would show its three stages burning successively into orbit in the clear, beautiful night.

In that minute before the rocket's sound reached us, the collective expression of the human spirit, in all its aspirations, went up from the multitude on the beaches. The shouting, weeping, praying and cheering of a million voices blended into a roar that lifted with the three on their way to the moon.

Human space flight inspires in ways that more cost-effective robot probes do not. This experience fueled my drive to study physics.

These are my thoughts this summer as I had the challenge of gathering and arranging information and images about the Apollo missions to the moon. The result of this curatorial work would become part of the exciting, new installation and display of the museum’s Apollo 17 moon rock -- in a new setting that directs the visitor’s attention to one of the rarest objects on Earth.

As I worked in the Stardome room (at the north end of the Main Concourse) with the moon rock case nearby, I thought about the coincidence that I had witnessed the launch of that very mission in December of 1972.

From that mission Harrison Schmitt brought back 242 pounds of lunar material, including the Goodwill Rock that provided the plaque-mounted specimens given to every U.S. state and territory and every nation on earth in 1973.

Apollo science is still alive in some ways today. Three Apollo missions left retro-reflector arrays on the moon to bounce laser light back to Earth. These arrays allow scientists to measure daily the distance and the motion of the moon away from Earth, at about an inch and a half a year.

Another final milestone approaches. The last and final Space Shuttle flight (the 134th ) has been authorized for launch next summer. Next August the NASA will leave manned space flight to others, possibly for decades. The Space Shuttle is the most complex thing ever built, with 2 ½ million parts and 230 miles of wiring. These difficult economic times make it hard to justify the extravagance of human space exploration.

We have, however, a rich and long history of unmanned space probes. Our 1970s launches of Pioneer 10 and 11, and Voyager 1 and 2 yielded a treasure trove of dazzling images of the outer solar system and are now far beyond it. They carry gold plaques and phonograph records explaining the culture of the species from Earth that sent them.

And we continue to roll out ever more sophisticated unmanned spacecraft. A long range probe is on its way to Pluto. A replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope is under construction, with 15 times Hubble’s light gathering ability. Other orbiting telescopes are looking for extraterrestrial planets. Further unmanned probes are planned for Mars and the moon. Others may explore oceans of salt water beneath the ice on Europa and Enceladus, moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Oh, yes. We actually did go to the moon. Had we not gone, telescopes all over the Earth would not have recorded, as they did, the flights and the return journeys. Russia and the rest of the world would have called our bluff. Indeed, Russia cancelled its manned moon program largely because of the verified success of our Apollo program.

So, I return in my thoughts to the museum’s Apollo 17 moon rock, a small, three billion year-old memento of a trip made 38 years ago.

David Hagan
Museum Scientist
Science Museum of Virginia

Remember Hurricane Andrew?

2010-08-24T15:01:00.000-04:00

As Hurricane Danielle churns far out in the Atlantic, I am reminded of another hurricane that made landfall on this day…

On August 24, 1992, a small but extremely intense Hurricane Andrew slammed into South Florida. Andrew made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane, the 3rd most intense landfalling US hurricane and the 1st in total estimated US property damage at the time. (Katrina eclipsed it in both intensity and damage in 2005.) Andrew hit the highly populated Miami area after a 27-year lull in hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin. During the period between 1965 and 1992, only 2 hurricanes of any significance made landfall in Florida, both in the panhandle. At the same time, the coast around Miami had experienced unprecedented development, populated largely by residents from the Northeast who had no experience with Florida’s history of violent hurricanes. As a result, South Florida was devastated. Damage was extensive, estimated at about $30 billion. Fifteen people lost their lives directly due to the hurricane and another 25 by more indirect means.

Yes, hurricanes can be devastating and deadly; however, I have always been fascinated by them. (I confess - I am a weather nut.) Don’t get me wrong – I do not want them to come ashore and destroy homes and lives; however, watching them develop from a messy disorganized cluster of clouds into a perfect spiral inspires me to wonder at the beauty and power of nature. But I do prefer that all this beauty and power stay well off-shore…

The Age of Exploration and Discovery

2010-08-20T13:59:00.005-04:00

During lunchtime the other day, I stopped by our Bayscapes demonstration garden in front of the Museum, to weed the Black-Eyed Susans. Bayscapes features native plants of Virginia that residents can use in their home landscaping which also improve water quality in the James River and Chesapeake Bay. After removing a handful of weeds, I looked up for a moment at the hundreds of flowers moving back and forth to rhythm of the wind, and was immediately transported back in time.

“Put your crayons away, and place your drawings underneath your desks. Now line up. We’re going outside to take a walk.”

It wasn’t recess time, so why were we going outside for a walk, I thought? Behind the school, my classmates and I walked in single file (more or less) following Mrs. Folkes, our first grade teacher, past the swing sets, the seesaws, the monkey bars, and across the dusty, red clay baseball field, and finally down to the edge of an open meadow adjacent to the forest woods.

Stopping at some Black-Eyed Susans hosting a couple of honeybees, Mrs. Folkes said,
“Look. What do you see?”

Without hesitation, Susan said “Two honeybees on a flower.”

“Right” said Mrs. Folkes. “What kind of flowers?”

Billy, who lived on a farm, said “Those are Black-Eyed Susans.”

“Correct. Very good, Billy. Now who can tell me what the bees are doing?”

Even though I didn’t know that particular flower, I knew what honeybees were, and what they were doing on the flowers. My dad had answered the same question when I saw some honeybees on the flowers of bean and tomato plants in his garden just two months earlier. And so, I raised my hand and said “They’re pollinating the flowers so fruits will form.”

“Very good’ said Mrs. Folkes, who reiterated the relationship between bees and flowers to the rest of the class.

As we walked, she stopped every couple of steps or so, and said “this is Queen Anne’s lace, this is an oak tree… this, an elm… here’s a maple… this is moss… look at that six-lined skink… there’s a Monarch butterfly, a bumble bee, carpenter bee, garden spider, broomsedge, and the like. “These grasses were here when the Native Americans lived here. You know, you can still find their arrowheads in the earth.”

Not only did she help us to identify all of these animals and plants, but related one or another to others, and to the history of the area. This was the beginning of a journey of exploration and discovery. Mrs. Folkes was empowering us to see, observe behaviors of insects, and to enjoy the great outdoor classroom. I was seeing and discovering for the first time the great fabric of life. The takeaway message for me that day was that I was an explorer, and could identify new species of plants and animals, things I had never seen before or had not noticed in my previous five years of life. Maybe I had, but they didn’t register with me then. But now, they did (thank you Piaget). And I couldn’t get enough.

Being raised in a traditional Greek family where history and stories are conveyed through either Greek or English language, but often in sentences beginning with Greek or English and ending with the alternate language, small children learn the stories of the Greek gods and goddesses at an early age. And so, at six years old, not really knowing how to distinguish the real world from that of mythology, I thought my first grade teacher, Mrs. Folkes, was actually the Greek goddess, Gaia, who had transformed herself to reveal her divine being. It was magical.

My first grade teacher, goddess or not, did a wonderful thing that day. She made a lifelong impression on me. She showed me how to “see” the natural world, how it was interconnected, and also how to be part of it. And that’s been one of my lifelong endeavors…Helping people not to just look at the world, but to see it as it really is, not what we’ve been told to believe it is, or how we think it is.

And so, I ask you… what, how and where were the beginnings of your age of exploration and discovery?

Eugene G. Maurakis, Ph.D.
Director of Science and Museum Scientist
Science Museum of Virginia

Happy Birthday, Voyager 2!

2010-08-20T13:28:00.002-04:00

For an incredible 33 years, Voyager 2 has been our eyes of discovery in the outer solar system and beyond. This venerable spacecraft has been in continuous operation more than 12,000 days, sending us compelling photos and information about the gas giants of the solar system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Now headed into interstellar space beyond the solar system, the spacecraft is still transmitting invaluable data about the solar wind and deep space beyond the planets.

On August 20, 1977, Voyager 2 blasted off from Cape Canaveral, FL on a mission to the giant planets of the solar system. Its sister spacecraft, Voyager 1, was launched a few days later on September 5. Both original missions were intended to study just Jupiter and Saturn. However, both continued sending data beyond those planets, and thanks to these intrepid spacecraft, we have now had a close encounter with every planet in the solar system. (Pluto is now called a “plutoid” and is no longer considered a planet.)

(Just think, the computers on these spacecraft were made in the 1970’s and they are still working! Pretty remarkable, huh?)

Here are a few fast facts about the Voyager mission:

• Explored all giant planets of the outer solar system
• Explored their 48 moons and unique ring systems
• Closest approach to Jupiter - 1979
• Closest approach to Saturn - 1980 (Voyager 1); 1981 (Voyager 2)
• Closest approach to Uranus – 1986 (Voyager 2)
• Closest approach to Neptune – 1989 (Voyager 2)
• Carry a golden record with a greeting from Earth
• Now the most distant human-made object in space (Voyager 1)
• Distance from sun - 17 billion km (Voyager 1); 14 billion km (Voyager 2)
• Signal from Earth takes over 12 hours to reach spacecraft
• Crossed termination shock, where solar wind slows abruptly, in 2004 (Voyager 1); 2007 (Voyager 2)
• May have reached or will soon reach Heliopause or entry into interstellar space
• Currently, 5 teams investigating: Magnetic fields, Low energy charged particles, Cosmic rays, Plasma (Voyager 2), Plasma waves
• May continue to operate and send data until around 2020

Long-lived Voyager has been documented often in fiction and pop culture (remember “V’ger” in the Star Trek movie?). So Happy Birthday, Voyager! May you live long and prosper!

Uh-oh...

2010-08-13T13:01:00.003-04:00

It’s Friday the 13th! How’s your day going? Friggatriskaidekaphobia or fear of Friday the 13th is believed to be the most widespread phobia in the US. As many as 21 million Americans believe Friday the 13th brings bad luck. Some take it so seriously that they stay home from work, won’t drive or fly, and may not even get out of bed.

Friday the 13th always occurs in a month beginning on a Sunday; there’s at least one and no more than three every year. The longest possible period without one is 14 months. In 2010 there’s only one - August 13; May has the only one in 2011.

As you are probably aware, there is no scientific basis for this superstition. Several studies have compared the number of traffic accidents on Friday the 13th with accidents on other Fridays. The Dutch Center for Insurance Statistics found there were fewer accidents on that date, but a British study showed an increase in accidents when compared to another Friday. No consensus there…

As with most superstitions, the origin of this superstition is mostly guesswork. No written record of Friday the 13th being unlucky appears before the 19th century. However, most superstitions are based on oral rather than written traditions so it is probably much older. Many folklorists believe the superstition evolved from separate beliefs - that 13 is an unlucky number and Friday is an unlucky day. Several theories have been proposed:

• Ancient civilizations believed the number 13 to be lucky. But when Christianity replaced pagan beliefs, all things pagan were discredited, perhaps to the detriment of the number 13.

• In numerology, twelve is considered “complete” with 12 months in a year, 12 hours on the clock, 12 Zodiac signs, 12 Apostles, 12 gods of Olympus, and so forth, while 13 ruins the “completeness.”

• In Norse mythology, Friday is named for Frigga, goddess of love and fertility. When Norse tribes adopted Christianity, Frigga was labeled a witch and banished. According to the myth, each Friday she gathered 11 other witches plus the devil (for a total of 13) to plot mischief for the upcoming week.

• The Knights Templar were founded in the 12th century to protect Christians during the Crusades. When they eventually became very rich and powerful, the king felt threatened and ordered their mass arrest on Friday, October 13, 1307.

So what are you doing today? Is it just another day or are you laying low? If Friday the 13th gives you the “willies” just keep in mind - it’s only one day and better yet, the weekend is right around the corner.

Dive into Deep Sea

2010-08-10T12:25:00.001-04:00

By Ben Remo
Science Museum of Virginia intern

Deep under the surface of the world’s oceans is a whole other dimension of life that one has to see to believe. Humans have always been fascinated with the ocean and creatures of the seas. The new IMAX movie, Deep Sea delivers to that curiosity by giving audiences an up-close look at the most bizarre and intriguing sea creatures in existence.

You will be introduced to odd creatures like the mantis shrimp and the Humboldt squid. Usually when you see any ecosystem based documentary, you recognize some of the animals. However, in this film I rarely saw an animal that I recognized. The tiger shark was the only animal in Deep Sea that I could easily identify. Every other animal in the film was new to my eyes. I was fascinated throughout the movie because most of the material was new to me. Your eyes will be glued to the screen as you watch a sun starfish navigate the ocean floor trying to catch sea scallops and you will wonder how the star ever gets to enjoy a solid meal. This and other interesting sea creature stories make the educational film irresistible.

Most IMAX movies can take us to a different place or time. This IMAX movie takes the audience to a different environment all together. Narrated by well known actors Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, the film showcases beautiful views of the most unique fish in the sea. Depp and Winslet give a play by play on predator and prey relationships as well as how marine life helps one another survive. For example, sea turtles will swim for miles to get a “shell wash” from the reef fish. The fish swim with the turtle eating the algae off its enormous shell. The narrators excel working together to explain the unique relationships and rivalries of the sea.

While there are literally thousands of underwater documentaries out there, and believe me I feel like I have seen them all after my high school oceanography class, this is the most interesting underwater video I have ever seen. It introduces education to entertainment in a way I have never seen before. The clear video and interesting situations will reach out and grab anybody, child or adult, and make them pay attention throughout the 45 minute film.

The star powered narration certainly helps out but the sights are really what set this one apart from the rest. The colorful and at times intense scenes make it hard to pull your eyes away. Throughout the movie, we visit a fried egg jellyfish with a 30 foot tentacle span, an eel with a fishing pole type contraption on its forehead, millions of plankton, and a coral reef built around a sunken ship. This is not just another fish documentary; it takes the audience so much deeper, literally and figuratively.

Words do not do it justice; you really have to see some of these things to believe them.

Sirius and the Dog Days of Summer

2010-08-06T10:45:00.000-04:00

Historically the searing hot days of summer were believed to be an evil time “when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies.” (Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813)

The Dog Days, the hottest and most sultry days of summer, were named for Sirius, the Dog Star, which rises and sets with the sun during the hottest summer months. Because Sirius was so bright, ancient civilizations believed it added to the heat of the sun causing the more intense heat of July and August. Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, almost twice as bright as the second brightest star Canopus. Its brilliance is due to its close proximity to Earth and its intense luminosity (25 times brighter than the sun). Although to the naked eye it appears as one star, Sirius is actually a binary star system; Sirius A and the smaller Sirius B orbit around a common point, the star system’s center of mass. Sirius can be found in the constellation Canis Major (Great Dog) often called Orion’s dog.

Many cultures have attached significance to the rising of Sirius. The ancient Egyptians used the rising of Sirius as a “watchdog” to determine the timing of the Nile River’s annual flooding. The ancient Greeks thought Sirius caused dogs to behave abnormally; their increased panting due to the heat was thought to cause disease. The term “star struck” originated when the Greeks decided Sirius was a bad influence on human behavior. Several cultures, including the Romans, offered sacrifices to Sirius in hopes of a good harvest. On the island of Ceos in the Aegean Sea, inhabitants awaited its rising; if Sirius rose clear, it foretold good fortune, but if it was faint or hazy, pestilence was sure to follow.

We can hope Sirius rose clear this year and good fortune (along with cooler weather) is just down the road. The sun is lower in the sky this month than in July, so the sweltering Dog Days will be drawing to a close soon – that’s something, at least.

Beachcombing

2010-07-21T16:37:00.000-04:00

Ah, summer at the beach. What is your favorite beach activity? Swimming? Surfing? Volleyball? How about beachcombing? Do you like to collect seashells? Here is a brief guide to shells and other treasures you might discover on Virginia beaches. (To see the real thing, without a trip to the beach, visit the Science Museum’s exhibit, Beach Science: It’s a Shore Thing. The exhibit has labeled examples of most of these shells.)

Whelks are large sea snails; several species are native to Virginia. Knobbed Whelks and Channeled Whelks grow to 9 inches and, like most other whelks, have a right-side opening in their shell. Lightning whelks are similar but have a left-side opening and can grow to 12 inches. Whelks live in the sand in shallow water feeding on clams and other bivalves.

Atlantic Bay Scallop shells come in many colors, are ribbed and have “ears” near the hinge. This scallop lives in shallow waters along the southern Atlantic coast. Unlike other bivalves, scallops lie on the bottom rather than burrowing in the sand.

Angel Wings have a fragile white oblong shell and are found along the Atlantic coast south of Massachusetts. They burrow up to 2 feet in sand or mud and feed on algae through a siphon. Stout Razor Clams look similar but without ribs on the shell.

Arks are boxy bivalves with thick heavy shells that can tolerate rough surf. Several species live in the southern Chesapeake Bay, including the Ponderous Ark and Transverse Ark. Another species, the Blood Ark, is the only clam in the world with red blood.

Northern Quahogs or hard shell clams are usually gray, brown or white, can grow up to 4 inches and may live 30 years. Like Arks, most live in Virginia waters in the southern end of the bay. Native Americans used Quahog shells for wampum.

The Eastern Oyster has a rough gray or white shell and can grow to 4 inches. They attach to one another as they grow, forming dense reefs. Once so numerous that only the working classes would eat them, they are now greatly reduced in numbers.

This odd looking object is a Skate Egg Case. Skates, related to rays, are bottom-dwelling and lay their eggs in the sand. These egg cases, sometimes called “Mermaid’s Purses,” often wash up on Atlantic beaches.

Whelk egg capsules are attached together in a chain of 50-100. One end of the chain is then secured to the sea floor to prevent the eggs from washing ashore where they would dry out. The chain looks a bit like a lei and are sometimes called “Mermaid’s Necklaces.”

For more information, visit http://www.chesapeakebay.net/ and http://www.assateague.net/. Thanks to both websites for these photos.

East Coasters Roasted by Heat Wave

2010-07-15T10:49:00.000-04:00

By Ben Remo

Science Museum of Virginia intern

Residents of the east coast may have noticed an increase in heat lately. This increase has led to scorching temperatures of over 100 degrees. Most might be asking, how can this possibly happen? Why should we be subjected to such a hot summer? These dangerous, record breaking temperatures are caused by a heat wave currently hovering along the Atlantic coast. Last week, the northeast region experienced the worst heat wave in years.
At times temperatures have been above 100 degrees in some areas. New York City has opened over 100 cooling centers around the city providing relief from the heat for those who do not have access to air conditioning. Here in Central Virginia we have been subjected to temperatures around 100 degrees for days at a time.

How Heat Waves Work
Heat waves occur when temperatures are 10 degrees or above the normal averages in a region for a substantial period of time.
Ironically, heat waves do not mean that the earth is closer to the sun, a common misconception. According to National Geographic News, the week after 4th of July weekend, the earth was farther away from the sun than it will be at any other time this year. This is because the distance between us and the nearest star has little to do with the surface temperature here on earth.
The tilt of the earth on its axis has more to do with the occurrence of a heat wave. This is what makes for seasonal change. It is currently summer in the Northern Hemisphere because we are pointed towards the sun on the axis.
The formation of heat waves can be attributed to ridges of high pressure in the atmosphere that hang around the sky for some period of time. These ridges make the air hot and move clouds away, making the surface hotter. Clouds are a lot like oven mitts for the earth’s surface. The clouds act as a buffer between the surface and the sun just like oven mitts are a buffer between our hands and a hot object in the kitchen. When those “oven mitts” are not around, it makes for some hot days.

How to Stay Cool
OK. We know what causes heat waves; the next step is learning how to stay cool in the middle of one.
First, dress appropriately for the heat. With work that may be easier said than done. But on the weekends or after work, try to wear open toed shoes (no socks!) and loose, breathable clothes. When running the air conditioner, turn on all the fans in the house. It helps the cool air spread throughout the house. Next, go to the local pool or water park. While keeping you cool, a day at the pool is also good family fun. Drink cold water to stay hydrated. If you’re hydrated, you’re cool. Lastly, according to http://www.greenlivingonline.com/ ingredients in spicy foods actually cool you down after awhile. Add a marginal amount of peppers to any meal to cool you down on a hot day.

Global Warming?
Can a heat wave be attributed to global warming? That’s a sticky question. Global warming is climate; a heat wave is weather. The basic difference is time. Climate is long-term averages of weather, while weather is what’s outside right now. Some scientists believe global warming will change prevailing weather patterns to cause events such as heat waves, stronger hurricanes and even an extra snowy winter like the one just past. So the answer is maybe and maybe not. Scientists are studying both climate and weather trying to find answers. In the meantime, stay cool!

The Chesapeake Bay “Ouch” Forecast

2010-07-08T17:07:00.000-04:00

Have you met Chrysaora quinquecirrha? If you’ve spent time in the Chesapeake Bay in the summertime, you probably have. His more familiar name is sea nettle, and he is not one of the most pleasant fellows you will ever meet. The sea nettle is a large sea jelly, a semi-transparent bell-shaped invertebrate with long stinging tentacles. Chrysaora quinquecirrha lives along the Atlantic Coast south of Cape Cod. Like many of us, he loves the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries and can be seen in greater abundance here than anywhere else on the East Coast.
Getting tangled up with a sea nettle is not a fun experience. Those long tentacles contain thousands of microscopic nematocysts; upon contact the nematocysts fire a stinging filament into the victim. Sea nettle stings are not fatal but do cause a burning sensation and a painful rash. People often carry a bottle of meat tenderizer in their beach bags to counteract the sting, but plain vinegar works just as well. Vinegar prevents unfired nematocysts from firing thus preventing further discomfort.
Want to know how to avoid this unpleasant fellow? This summer NOAA is experimenting with sea nettle forecasting. Their website (http://chesapeakebay.noaa.gov/forecasting-sea-nettles) includes a map predicting the probability of encountering one, based primarily on water temperature and salinity. Sea nettles prefer water temperatures between 25° and 30°C (77° - 86°F) and salinity between 10 and 20 parts per thousand. Unfortunately for those of us who love it, the Chesapeake Bay is an ideal sea nettle habitat. So next time you head to the bay or the “Rivah” to swim or water ski, check out NOAA’s sea nettle prediction map. That way, you will know whether or not to pack the meat tenderizer.

Mastering the Science of Surfing

2010-07-02T15:35:00.000-04:00

By Ben Remo

Science Museum of Virginia Intern

One of the coolest sports during the hot months of summer may look like nothing more than a balancing act. However, there is a lot more to surfing than just staying up. To surf is to master the waves and motion of the water. Here, we explain the science behind one of the most popular summer sports.
The first thing any good surfer must know is how waves are formed. As wind gushes over the surface of the water, friction causes the water to ripple. How big the ripples become is dependent on the strength of the wind, the distance the wind blows (also known as the fetch), and the length or duration of the gust. Waves are broken up into many parts, necessary knowledge for any good surfer. The crest is the very top of the wave while the trough makes up the valley in between two waves or the lowest point. Wavelength is the distance between two waves and wave height is the distance between a wave’s crest and trough.
Not all waves are good for surfing. It takes a little bit of science to make regular waves into surfer friendly ones. Surfers need waves that have a swell, or a smooth peak. These swells drag against the ocean floor, creating friction. This friction causes a wave to get taller and eventually break when they get close enough to shore. The best surfing waves are caused by a sand bank or reef on the ocean floor and by wind that blows from the beach out to the water. Winds that blow from the water to the beach cause choppy waves, the worst kind of waves for surfers.
To catch a wave, the surfer must paddle to gain momentum, hopefully enough so that the wave accelerates him/her forward. Ideally, surfers should catch the waves just as they are breaking. At this point, the waves are at maximum velocity. To catch a wave, the surfer’s velocity and the wave’s velocity must be the same. When the board is being carried along by the wave, the surfer can stand up. Once the surfer has caught the wave, staying on the board becomes the problem.
Balance is the number one skill any good surfer can have. To stay up, one must find the center of gravity. On a surfboard, the center of gravity is usually towards the back. The surfer must straddle the center of gravity. It is important that the person’s weight be more towards the back or the front of the board will dip into the water and eventually flip. The surfer controls the motion and direction of the surfboard by shifting weight from one side to the other. The sport is both challenging and fun when done properly. We leave you with a couple of tips for safe surfing. First, never let the board get between you and an on coming wave. Always wear a leg rope connected to the board because a loose board is always dangerous. Wear something to protect your chest and stomach from board rashes. When you come up to the surface of the water, locate your board immediately. Always surf with a buddy or make sure somebody has your back. Lastly, have fun and be safe. Also, check out the film The Ultimate Wave Tahiti in the IMAX®Dome featuring professional surfer Kelly Slater.

THE LOTUS’ MAGIC

2010-06-14T08:54:00.000-04:00

By Fernando Luna Vera

Ph.D. Candidate, Chemistry Department, VCU

Science Museum of Virginia Volunteer

On August 16^th 2008 millions of people witnessed one of the greatest achievements in the history of the Olympics games, Michael Phelps winning his eighth gold medal in Beijing. Beyond the incontestable talent of Phelps, this amazing feat was in part possible by the technology he wore. The fabric utilized in his swimsuit emulates a shark’s skin, which minimizes the drag of one’s body in the water. Using this technology, Phelps was able to swim like a shark as if he were hunting his prey.

Bio-inspiration applied to technology development is called Biomimetics. This discipline has shown us that by learning and unraveling nature’s tricks human life can be transformed in many ways, one ruse at a time. One example is the phenomenon of high water repellency (super-hydrophobicity) born by some plant leaves and especially distinguishable in the species Nelumbo lutea better known as the “Lotus,” from where the effect takes its name: The Lotus effect.

When water does not stick to a surface, like on Lotus leaves, the droplets adopt a spherical shape, so it looks like a marble sitting on top of a table. In contrast, when on a surface that is water-friendly (hydrophilic), droplets can spread out and appear flat like a Frisbee. A collateral effect of this is that the sphere-like droplets can roll along the surface instead of slide down on it. This fact creates one of the most appealing features of the Lotus: it can self-clean its own leaves.

This effect is due to water’s high surface tension. Molecules on the droplet’s surface eagerly want to adhere to anything that deter them from being exposed to the water/air interface. Because the Lotus offers a waxy, hydrophobic substrate, the water does not spread out on the leaf. Water has to adopt the shape that allows the smallest air-exposed area: a sphere. Now, since the surface molecules still want to get rid of the overwhelming job of being at edge of the droplet, when the drop rolls down the surface all the tiny particles like soot or pollen found on its path get picked up by it. The water surface then becomes covered with a layer of dirt. This is the way self-cleaning occurs and in the end the leaf and water droplet are happy.

So therefore, self-cleaning is possible when water does not stick to the substrate and retains a spherical configuration. But how does the Lotus achieve this? Using highly sophisticated microscopes, a technique called Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), researchers have shown that the Lotus’ surface is not smooth at all and in addition to its waxy layer it possesses a well organized structure. It is widely recognized now by scientists that nearly all super-hydrophobic and self-cleaning leaves consist of an intrinsic hierarchical structure where pillars of micrometric size (just millionths of a meter) arrange to form a forest of columns made of water repellent wax. If Lotus’ surface were waxy, but not smooth, it would repel water; water would not acquire a well-defined sphere-like shape and therefore would not pick up the dirt particles.

This knowledge from the Lotus plant has provided the secret to developing many products available today which produce well structured surfaces (Lotus-like). Some self-cleaning paints, which are used in exterior wall coatings (i.e. Lotusan ®) will self-clean a surface when it rains. Can you image your house having a fresh look just after a summer storm? There are water-repellent fabrics that never get dirty (i.e. Nanotex ®) and are used to manufacture outdoors furniture and clothes that very seldom need to get laundered. General Motors is currently working on developing a Lotus-like metal surface to be incorporated within aircraft-technology that avoids the formation of ice, simply because water won’t stick to this kind of surface. These technologies are not just providing comfort; they help in reducing water consumption too, which in the end turns into environmental gain. The human imagination is unlimited and hopefully new technological applications for the lotus effect are still to come. By the way….have you seen a gecko climbing a wall lately?

References and links:

Bhushan, B., Jung C. Y., Koch K., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 2009 367, 1631-1672

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFHcSrNRU5E

Could the oil spill reach Virginia?

2010-05-26T16:04:00.000-04:00

As officials make another attempt to cap the well spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Virginians might be asking, “Could oil show up here?” As of now, it appears a large oil slick on Virginia waterways is unlikely, but oil residue in the form of tar balls could wash up on local beaches. How could oil that’s currently in the Gulf of Mexico end up in Virginia?
The Earth’s oceans are always on the move, their motion influenced by atmospheric circulation patterns, water temperature and salinity, ocean floor topography, and the Earth’s rotation. These ocean currents can occur both at the surface and deep in the ocean; they often travel great distances and have an enormous effect on regional climates.
As far as the oil spill goes, the Loop Current is the first culprit that could carry oil toward the East Coast. This current flows north between the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico, loops east and then south along the west coast of Florida. The Florida Current would take up where the Loop Current left off, carrying the oil around Florida. Then the Gulf Stream would take over and carry it up the southeast coast.
The Gulf Stream is an enormous river of warm water averaging 60 miles in width and 3000 feet in depth. At Cape Hatteras, the current’s flow rate is an incredible 85 million cubic meters per second, equivalent to over 1 billion fire hoses! (By comparison, the Mississippi River moves water at roughly 0.6 million cubic meters per second.) A major influence on East Coast weather, the Gulf Stream sometimes breeds Nor’easters in the winter and intensifies hurricanes in the summer, as happened with Hurricane Hugo off the coast of South Carolina in 1989.
At present, disruptions in the Loop Current appear to be keeping oil away from Florida and the Gulf Stream. Eddies often form and then break off from the main body of the current; the majority of the oil that had drifted into the Loop Current in recent weeks appears to be caught in an eddy and cut off from the main body of the current. Satellite pictures even suggest that the current itself may soon sever entirely, lessening the imminent threat of oil coming ashore in Florida and beyond.
This afternoon BP began an attempt to plug the leak with a method called top kill, an ambitious procedure intended to clog the well with thousands of pounds of heavy fluids pumped through extremely long pipes. This procedure has never been attempted so far beneath the surface; it could take several days to determine if it was successful. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope they succeed.

Satellite image courtesy of NASA. Colors indicate water temperature: darker colors = cooler temperatures, lighter colors = warmer temperatures.

Why Hot Sauce is Hot…..

2010-05-05T14:24:00.000-04:00

By Fernando Luna Vera

Ph.D. Candidate, Chemistry Department, VCU

Science Museum of Virginia Volunteer

“Can you please pass me the hot sauce?” a friend of mine asked. “This one?” I replied, holding up and showing him a warm spinach dip cup. “No! The spicy one,” he said. As I passed it to him, I mentally wondered an almost childish question, “Why do we call it hot sauce if it is not really hot…nor is it even served warm!” Appreciating and feeling the taste of food involves a complex mechanism that uses the sense of taste, smell and touch. This rise of sensations and perceptions sparked by food requires hundreds of chemical signals and our brain acting as traffic officer to control them.

After you bite a spicy taco your body can recognize that familiar, pungency sensation thanks to a well equipped network of sensors called neurons. Neurons, as do all animal cells, contain a boundary layer called a membrane, where specific receptors are allocated. These receptors are like the geometric figures on the surface of a shape sorter toy which recognizes specific shapes. Certain neurons, called nociceptors, have the specialized job of sensing pain. These kinds of neurons contain a specific receptor for capsaicin, the molecule found in high concentration within chili peppers. One can image then, capsaicin molecules traveling to the tongue and getting caught later by the nociceptors, which immediately after recognizing them, trigger an electrical signal that travels to the brain and makes us aware of the irritating sensation of the hot sauce. That specific capsaicin receptor is called TRPV-1.

But why does our brain read the signal produced by capsaicin as an increment in temperature? An experiment performed in 2000 by scientist of UCLA helped us to better understand this outcome. By using genetic techniques, they “knocked out” the gene that produces the capsaicin receptor (TRPV-1) from a group of mice and compared it with other group that still had the TRPV-1. After exposing the two groups to capsaicin, the one lacking TRPV-1 showed to be insensitive to the irritant substance, as expected. However, surprisingly the same group showed a high insensibility to temperatures above 43ºC, which is when pain is normally sensed. This result implied that the same receptor for the chili peppers irritant molecule is the same receptor for sensing high temperature. So when neurons bind capsaicin, the brain interprets the signal produced as an increase in temperature, like something “hot” is touching your tongue.

Additionally, neurons possess certain receptors called TRM8, which are activated by low temperatures (> 12 ºC). These receptors also happen to be sensitive to menthol, the compound found in high concentration within peppermint and used in products like mouthwashes and toothpaste. By then using the same mechanism for associating capsaicin and hot temperatures, the menthol bond to a TRM8 receptor sends a signal that tricks the brain; therefore, by just the taste of mint, makes you feel cool!

References:

http://student.biology.arizona.edu/honors2007/group12/home12.html

Sven-Eric Jordt, David D McKemy and David Julius, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2003, 13:487–492.

M. J. Caterina, A. Lefßer, A. B. Malmberg, W. J. Martin, J. Trafton, K. R. Petersen-Zeitz, M. Koltzenburg, A. I. Basbaum, D. Julius, Science, 2000, 288, 306-313

Eyjafjallajökull: “the little volcano that could”

2010-04-22T15:38:00.000-04:00

Eyjafjallajökull? Can you pronounce it? Apparently, it’s: “AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl(-uh).” If that helps, good for you! Even after hearing an Iceland native pronounce it, I still can’t manage to wrap my tongue around that many syllables.
First, a little geography – Iceland, sometimes called the land of fire and ice, is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean between Greenland and northern Europe. It’s about the size of Virginia with a population slightly less than that of Virginia Beach. At 65°N latitude, the subpolar climate would be brutally cold if the Gulf Stream ocean current did not moderate temperatures somewhat; Iceland's average July high is around 57°F and its average January high is around 34°F.
So why does Iceland have so many active volcanoes? Two factors. First, the island is bisected by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the boundary between the North American plate and the Eurasian plate. The two plates diverge along this boundary, forming new crust along the ridge; therefore, Iceland is continually getting bigger. In addition, geologists believe Iceland is over a hot spot, an area of rising lava below the earth’s crust. Hot spots often breed volcanoes and sometimes new islands; the islands of Hawaii were formed over a hot spot in the Pacific. However, the Hawaiian Islands are in the middle of a drifting tectonic plate, rather than between plates, so an island in the Hawaiian chain will eventually drift away from the hot spot and a new island will begin to form over the hot spot. As long as Iceland straddles the mid-ocean ridge and the hot spot remains under the ridge, Iceland will remain one of the most active volcanic regions on earth.
Eyjafjallajökull may have cooled slightly, but today’s strong tremors indicate that the eruption is not over yet. Also scientists are concerned that Katla, a much bigger and more active volcano, may erupt next. Past evidence indicates that when Eyjafjallajökull erupts, Katla follows. Katla’s eruption could be much more explosive, and Katla is overdue. Explosive eruptions often send ash and other matter into the upper atmosphere where they stay for long periods often causing dramatic global climate change.
Now that Eyjafjallajökull has calmed somewhat, we can take a look at the impact and subsequent ripple effect this eruption caused around the globe. The most obvious: Eyjafjallajökull’s ash cloud grounded planes all over Europe, inconveniencing travelers who were stranded in airports for days and costing the airline industry over $1 billion in lost revenue. In addition, the eruption affected the economy and citizens of countries near and not-so-near the island of Iceland.
Kenya - thousands of laborers are out of work; flowers and produce cannot be shipped to Europe. 10 million flowers, mostly roses, have been thrown away.
Ghana – pineapple and pawpaw farmers’ incomes are suffering due to lack of refrigeration at Ghana’s capital airport.
Japan – Nissan stopped production at two of its plants on Wednesday because they ran out of tire pressure sensors due in from Ireland.
Australia – a family from Britain saved for two years to make a trip to Australia, then the hotel more than doubled the rates (because they could). The frustrated family moved to a hostel.
Iraq and Afghanistan – medical evacuation flights are taking up to 8 hours longer than usual because they cannot fly back to the US out of Germany but instead must fly out of Spain.
United States – the airline slowdown cost the US economy $650 million and affected about 6000 American jobs. BMW reduced production at its Spartanburg, SC plant due to lack of supplies from Germany. Brides in New York had no Dutch flowers (tulips, peonies, or daffodils) for their weddings. Marathoner David Gray missed his second consecutive Boston marathon while stuck in a hotel in Brussels (the first was due to injury).
If Katla erupts, the impacts could be even greater…

Thanks to CBS News for the international anecdotes and to the Associated Press for the photo.
For more info, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/apr/20/iceland-volcano-your-questions-answered
And for great volcano pix, go to - http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/icelands_disruptive_volcano.html

Flying Squirrels Play Baseball?

2010-04-15T11:56:00.000-04:00

Play ball! It’s Opening Day at the Diamond! Today Richmond welcomes its new baseball team, the Richmond Flying Squirrels, with a sold-out Diamond! So why Flying Squirrels???
Well, flying squirrels are rather cute! And Virginia boasts 2 species: the Northern Flying Squirrel, whose range includes a few isolated high altitude locations (it is more common in states farther north) and the Southern Flying Squirrel, whose range includes the entire state except its westernmost tip.
Flying squirrels are nocturnal so they are rarely seen by humans. Their eyes are quite large to help them see in the dark. They spend most of their time high up in trees but come to the ground occasionally to hunt for food. Their predators are creatures of the night, including owls, raccoons, weasels, coyotes and domestic cats.
Flying squirrels do not actually fly but glide. Gliding is facilitated by the patagium, a flap of skin between the front and hind legs, which acts as a sort of parachute when the squirrel jumps from a tree. The patagium contains muscles that hold it taut while gliding and keep it close to the body while at rest. The fur on the patagium is short to reduce air flow resistance or drag.
A flying squirrel’s diet includes mast crops (acorns, hickory nuts, pecans, walnuts), seeds, insects, snails, plant buds and flowers, fruit, fungi, tree bark and sap. Flying squirrels are “scatter hoarders,” often stashing small quantities of nuts in tree notches and in shallow digs under leaf litter and logs. Southern Flying Squirrels are also known to store larger quantities of nuts and other “goodies” in "larder cavities."
For shelter, flying squirrels use several types of nests. The most common nest type is the cavity nest, often a natural tree cavity or a tree cavity made and then abandoned by another animal. In summer, flying squirrels often use outside nests called “dreys,” which are usually made of plant material. Aggregate nests are often used in winter. Flying squirrels are the most social of all squirrel species and they do not hibernate; therefore, to keep warm in winter, they will gather in a communal or aggregate nest for warmth. Other nesting sites may include birdhouses, stacked firewood and attics. We had flying squirrels living in our attic for a couple of winters until we figured out how to humanely “evict” them, but that is a story for another day…

Most of this material came from http://www.flyingsquirrels.com/ , an excellent source for almost anything you’d like to know about flying squirrels. Information more specific to Virginia can be found at http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/information/?s=050068 and http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/information/?s=050065.

Pizza Garden

2010-03-24T14:33:00.001-04:00

I've just returned from visiting our first two of five Richmond Public Schools participating in the Science Museum of Virginia's pizza garden. Today, John B. Cary Elementary and Maymont Elementary planted basil in their classrooms. When they've finished their SOL testing in early June, they'll visit the museum to transplant their seedlings into our on-site pizza garden. Bellevue Elementary, William Fox Elementary and Linwood Holton Elementary will also participate in this endeavor. Third grade students from these schools will be planting hot peppers, tomatoes and green peppers respectively.

It is the museum's hope that this project will inspire a new generation of gardeners. This project will hopefully allow kids to see where everday food items (such as pizza) come from. Perhaps it will even inspire some of them to pay more attention to their diet as well! I had several students tell me today that they had never grown anything from seed, so it's very exciting to be a part of that "first" in their lives.

Why are we having so many earthquakes?

2010-03-08T16:25:00.000-05:00

Another earthquake – this time in Turkey. Earthquakes are certainly in the news. Fortunately, earthquakes are not a frequent occurrence in Virginia, but they do happen. Do you remember the one on December 9, 2003? It measured 4.5 on the Richter scale; its epicenter was just south of the James River in Powhatan County. I remember it well; it was quite an experience!
With all the recent reported earthquakes, you might wonder if they are related; that is, could the earthquake in Haiti cause the one in Chile, which might then cause the one in Turkey and so on? Here are some frequently-asked earthquake questions and their “myth-busting” answers:
1. Why are we having so many earthquakes?
Although it may seem like it, we are not having more earthquakes than usual. Earthquakes do occur in clusters, though, but clusters are predicted by statistics and do not mean the quakes are related. (Also, there are long periods when earthquakes are not in the news, but that is not considered unusual.) Several factors make it appear earthquake frequency has increased:
(a) Better reporting – in 1931 there were 350 stations reporting earthquakes; now there are 4000. Current stations locate an average of 50 quakes per day. In general, there are about 18 major quakes per year (7.0-7.9) and one great one (8.0+).
(b) Increasing global population makes for more casualties and thus more reporting.
(c) Better communication around the globe allows us to know about earthquakes quickly so it’s timely and newsworthy.
2. Can scientists predict earthquakes?
Unfortunately, they do not know how. However, using scientific data, they can calculate the probability one will strike in the future.
3. Can animals predict earthquakes?
From the days of ancient Greece, there have been reports of animals behaving strangely just before an earthquake. Scientists have investigated and cannot find consistent and reliable animal behavior prior to an earthquake.
4. Is there a particular time of day that earthquakes tend to occur? Do they occur more often at certain time of the month or year?
Earthquakes are equally probable at all times of the day, month or year.
5. Can the ground open up during an earthquake?
In an earthquake, the earth moves along a fault not perpendicular to it, so the ground would not open up. If it did, there would be no friction, thus no quake. Landslides and other ground failures caused by earthquakes can cause crevasses and depressions to form, however.
6. Will California eventually fall into the ocean?
No. The Pacific Plate runs into the North American Plate at the San Andreas Fault. The Pacific Plate is moving northwest relative to the North American Plate at a rate of 46 mm/year (about the rate your fingernails grow). California will not fall into the ocean, but LA may one day have a very cold climate – it is heading toward Alaska.
The above information came from the US Geological Survey. Want to know more? Go to http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes.

Something From Nothing

2010-02-11T09:51:00.000-05:00

This spring, I've been tasked with creating a one-acre farm for the Science Museum of Virginia. Ever since I was a child, I've been fascinated with growing plants. I still remember growing a bean in a wet paper towel wadded up into a baby food jar when I was in third grade. I remember my fourth grade teacher taking us to her parents' farm to visit on a field trip. It's experiences like these that I hope to be able to pass on to a new generation of students.

I'm excited and lucky that Richmond Public Schools will be growing plants for our garden. I'm still hammering out the details about which grade level to focus on and how many schools we'll have participate. I have, howevver, developed a proposal of what I'd like them to do. I'm hoping to do a small-ish demonstration "pizza garden" as part of our acre. They've been done before. I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel. It would be a 15- to 20-foot round bed divided into slices. Each slice would be an ingredient found on pizza. A slice of tomato plants, a slice of pepper plants, a slice of jalapeno pepper plants, a slice of onions, a slice of basil and a slice of oregano. There are 29 elementary schools in Richmond. I'd like to cover every third grade class in every school. We'll see what happens!

We've partnered with Tricycle Gardens to make this farm happen. Check them out at www.tricyclegardens.org. They're doing some pretty cool stuff throughout the city. I spoke with Lisa Taranto, our Tricycle Gardens contact, about what types of growing experiments we could potentially do in our garden. There was a brief discussion of permaculture gardening, which is similar to companion planting, but focuses more on planting some items that serve only to enrich the soil and cause a different crop to grow better (I think!). It sounds quite interesting.

So what does someone need to do to get an idea like this off the ground? Well money doesn't hurt! The museum has been lucky to receive a grant from the Gwathmey Trust for $30,000. We're hoping to build a small greenhouse onsite. We'll also need to purchase all the tools necessary to maintain a farm, as well as topsoil, manure, etc. For irrigation, we're using a rainwater harvesting cistern that will be constructed onsite thanks to a separate National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant. This system will harvest rainwater from the IMAX Dome and pump it out to the farm. I'm not sure of the date of completion for this system, so we may need to figure another watering system out in the meantime. I believe the first item on my plate, however, will be soil testing.

Today I bought a small "greenhouse" kit, some potting soil and seeds. Tomorrow I plan to get those started just to get myself in a growing frame of mind. This will also allow me to see how long it will take to germinate the various plants I hope the RPS kids will grow for us.

Guess that's all for now!

National Geographic’s Maps: Tools for Adventure - Now open!

2010-01-28T13:42:00.000-05:00

Maps are invaluable tools whether you are looking for adventure or just trying to find the nearest fast food. Many of our original maps were produced by brave explorers who ventured beyond their known world. Think about it: would you want to board a small ship to sail across an ocean when you had no idea how big the ocean was, how dangerous the journey would be, how long it might take or what you might find? In honor of these intrepid explorers, let’s look at some adventurous Virginians who challenged the unknown and explored the world.
Alexander Spotswood – born circa 1676 in Morocco
· Appointed Lt. Governor of Virginia colony; first to occupy Governor’s Mansion in Williamsburg
· Led Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition into Shenandoah Valley
· Founded German settlements to establish mining industry in Virginia
· Operated what was possibly the first colonial iron works
Meriwether Lewis – born August 18, 1774 in Albemarle County
· Part of Lewis and Clark team - made first US overland expedition to the Pacific Coast and back
· Expedition goal to get a sense of the Louisiana Purchase; US did not know what it was buying and France did not know what it was selling
· Produced the first accurate maps of Northwest US; brought back approximately 140 maps
· Collected information on natural resources; established relations with Native Americans
· Expedition laid the groundwork for US westward expansion
William Clark – born August 1, 1770 in Caroline County
· Part of Lewis and Clark team (see above)
Matthew Fontaine Maury – born January 14, 1806 in Spotsylvania County
· Nicknamed Pathfinder of the Seas and Father of Modern Oceanography
· US Naval career cut short by injury; became first superintendent of US Naval Observatory
· Studied ships’ logs and collected data on winds, calms, and ocean currents
· Convinced that ocean knowledge would improve only with international cooperation
· Advocated international system of land weather stations
· Launched American Association for the Advancement of Science
Richard Evelyn Byrd – born October 25, 1888 in Winchester
· First to fly over North Pole in 1926
· Made 5 expeditions to Antarctica
· First to fly over South Pole in 1929
· Did extensive exploration and mapping of Antarctica
· A plane from first Antarctic expedition displayed at Va. Aviation Museum

History of Broad Street Station

2009-12-30T09:40:00.000-05:00

The story of Broad Street Station began in 1836 when the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad opened its first Richmond station at Eighth and Broad Streets. Almost immediately, the Railroad and the City of Richmond found themselves at odds. The locomotives entering and leaving what was becoming a busy business district frightened horses and residents, trains blocked cross-streets, and when it rained, increased traffic turned the dirt thoroughfare to mud. Later that year, to mollify City officials, RF&P agreed to pay half the cost for the first paving of Broad Street.

In 1838, the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad, later named the Atlantic Coast Line, opened its first station at Eighth and Canal Streets, and a new controversy arose. To make north-south connections, passengers had to either walk or pay expensive taxi and freight fares to transport themselves and their baggage from the R&P station at the bottom of the steep Eighth Street hill to the RF&P station at the top.

Over the years, as business grew, the Railroads cooperated to build a variety of connecting rail lines between them and ever bigger stations, but despite their efforts, controversies and inefficiencies continued. In 1880, RF&P finally gave up on its East Broad station and opened a new station just west of Belvidere. It was named Elba Station after a nearby estate, but its popular name quickly became "Elbow" Station. In 1887, both railroads combined to build the new "Byrd" Station at the corner of Seventh and Byrd Streets.

Still, controversies continued. Neither station was big enough to handle long trains, necessitating they be broken into shorter segments to reach the stations. In addition, their cars still blocked city streets, north-south connections were still difficult, and passengers had to walk across the tracks to get to their cars. By the turn of the century, the Railroads were tired of the inefficiencies, and City officials were once again demanding that something be done.

Broad Street Station

In 1904, RF&P's real estate division purchased the old Fair Grounds at Broad and Davis Streets in the city's rapidly growing West End. As Richmond grew, RF&P hoped to convert the property into a residential neighborhood much like the new "Fan District" being developed south of Broad Street. However, increasing friction between the Railroads and the City and concerns about the excessive costs of operating two stations prompted RF&P to change its plans.

In 1913, RF&P and R&P held an international competition for the design of a new "Union" Station, and later that year, announced that New York architect John Russell Pope’s design had been chosen. Pope was well-known as an architect of government buildings, monuments, and private homes. Although he had never before designed a commercial structure, his plans for the new station were well received.

The Railroads proposed locating the new station at the Fair Grounds site which set off a new storm of controversy. For the next three years the City and the Railroads carried on a heated and frequently inconsistent debate featured in the pages of Richmond's newspapers. While the controversy raged, the Railroads proceeded with their plans. In April 1916, they publicly presented their final plans for the station, which included an innovative rail yard and track system designed by Harry Frazier. Pope's and Frazier's designs greatly improved the efficiency of station operations and also resolved most of the City's complaints.

On January 6, 1917 ground was broken. The projected construction time was 18 months with a projected cost of just over one million dollars. Almost immediately, due to World War I, the contractor ran into problems finding skilled workers, and costs for labor and materials soared. Eventually, the contractor declared bankruptcy. A new contractor was found, plans were altered, and Richmond's Union Station finally opened six months late and nearly two million over budget. The first train pulled out at 1:07 pm on January 6, 1919, the second anniversary of the Station's groundbreaking.

Richmonders quickly embraced what they came to call "Broad Street" Station. Over the next 25 years, the number of passengers and trains grew steadily. At its peak during World War II, the Station averaged 57 trains a day. Following World War II, however, passenger rail traffic steadily decreased, and railroad stations began to close. In 1971, Amtrak took over the remaining passenger trains, and at 4:58am, November 15, 1975, the last passenger train departed Broad Street Station.

Note: History of Broad Street Station is courtesy of Tom Driscoll. He used “One Hundred Fifty Years of History along the RF&P” by William Griffin as a reference.

For more historical photos of Broad Street Station, visit our Facebook photo album.

Winter Solstice *

2009-12-22T12:04:00.001-05:00

At 12:47 pm today, December 21, 2009, winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere. The first day of winter is called the Winter Solstice; likewise, the first day of summer is the Summer Solstice. The word solstice is derived from Latin and means “sun standing still.” On these two days of the year, the sun’s apparent position in the sky has reached its most southern or northern extreme. Today there will only be 9 hours and 33 minutes of daylight in Richmond, but tomorrow the number of daylight hours will once again begin to increase.
The solstices and the seasons occur because the Earth’s axis is tilted 23.5° relative to its plane of revolution around the sun (see illustration). In the Northern Hemisphere winter, the northern half of the globe is tilted away from the sun; therefore, the sun is low in the sky giving us shorter days and longer nights. At this oblique angle, the sun’s energy is spread over a larger area of the Earth’s surface and thus is weaker than if it was hitting the surface more directly. Also, the sun’s rays must travel through more atmosphere before they reach the Earth’s surface, and some of the solar energy is reflected back into space. In addition, there are less daylight hours to warm the Earth. With all these factors combined, is it any wonder that we have winter weather?
Contrary to what many believe, the Earth is not farther from the sun during the winter. Actually, the Earth is almost at its closest point to the sun at the time of the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice. This variation in the Earth’s distance from the sun is small and does not greatly affect the weather; however it does slightly modify the severity of the Northern Hemisphere winters and summers.
While we are experiencing winter, the southern hemisphere is experiencing summer. Our Winter Solstice is the southern hemisphere’s Summer Solstice. If you lived in Rio or Sydney, the winter months would be June through August and the summer months would be December through February.
Here’s some food for thought: what if the Earth’s axis was not tilted? Would we have seasons? What if the axis was tilted more than 23.5°? Or less than 23.5°? What would our seasons be like? How did the Earth get its tilt? All the planets in our solar system have some axial tilt, but they are all different. Why?

*Technical difficulties delayed the posting of this blog entry.

2009-12-22T08:18:00.001-05:00

Tis the Season… for Nor’easters?

What will this winter be like? If the current weather pattern continues, the East Coast will certainly be stormy. Friday night through Saturday (December 18-19), Virginia experienced yet another intense Nor’easter (see blog of November 12). This one dumped huge amounts of snow over the central and western parts of the state.
Whether Virginia gets rain or snow from a winter Nor’easter depends largely on the track of the storm. A more westerly inland track will pull in warmer ocean air and Virginia will usually get rain. If the center of the storm stays just off the coast, cold air is often pulled in behind the storm and Virginia can get snow, sometimes lots of it. Nor’easters can intensify to hurricane strength and bring extremely high winds, coastal flooding, beach erosion, and heavy rain or snow to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast states. In the satellite picture above, note the hurricane-like eye in the center of this intense storm.
In addition to the heavy snow and gusty winds, this storm also included thundersnow. Thundersnow occurs only rarely and is basically a winter thunderstorm with falling snow instead of the usual rain. The lightning is nearly blinding due to its reflection off the white snowflakes, and the sound of the thunder is acoustically suppressed by the snowfall. Normally, thunder can be heard many kilometers away from a thunderstorm, but the thunder from thundersnow can only be heard 2 or 3 kilometers away. We had thundersnow at my house just after midnight on the 19th with at least two very bright lightning strikes and accompanying thunder.
How much snow did you get from this storm? I had 1 foot at my house in Midlothian, about 15 miles west of Richmond.

Turkey daze...

2009-11-13T15:38:00.001-05:00

Do you fall into a satiated stupor after Thanksgiving dinner? Have you heard that eating turkey makes you sleepy? Turkey contains tryptophan, an amino acid often blamed for the post-meal lethargy. The human body uses tryptophan to make serotonin. Studies have shown that serotonin, a type of neurotransmitter, induces sleep in nonhuman mammals and scientists believe it may do the same in humans. But don’t blame the turkey for your drowsy state. To enter the brain, tryptophan must hitch a ride through the blood-brain barrier on specialized protein transporters. Turkey contains five other amino acids in addition to tryptophan, all vying for a ride. Since tryptophan is the scarcest of the amino acids in turkey, it usually loses out in the competition.
What probably makes you sleepy after Thanksgiving dinner is dessert. Carbohydrates increase brain serotonin even though carbs contain no tryptophan. Here’s how: sweet desserts trigger your pancreas to produce insulin, a hormone that helps cells absorb glucose and amino acids. Insulin has little effect on tryptophan, but it does allow your cells to absorb other amino acids. With the others out of the way, tryptophan catches a ride into the brain and steps up the brain’s production of serotonin. Hence, the urge to snooze…
Even in the absence of dessert, you may find yourself nodding off after Thanksgiving dinner. Loading the stomach with food stretches the small intestine, causing sleepiness. All that blood going to the stomach and intestines means less blood for the brain and muscles. And then there are the beverages. Do you enjoy wine or beer with your meal? Drinks containing alcohol can also cause drowsiness. So enjoy Thanksgiving dinner but please don’t blame the bird for your turkey daze!

Turkey Trivia

2009-11-13T15:37:00.000-05:00

1. Top 5 turkey-producing states: Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri and Virginia.
2. The average American consumed 13.8 pounds of turkey in 2007.
3. Turkey sales are estimated to be $3.8 billion in 2009.
4. Towns named for the bird: Turkey, TX (2008 pop. 456), Turkey Creek, LA (361) and Turkey, NC (272)

Data from the US Census Bureau.

Another helping of cranberries, please...

2009-11-13T15:36:00.001-05:00

Did you know, of all fresh fruits, cranberries contain the most phenols, a type of disease-fighting antioxidant? Phenols and polyphenols are strong antioxidants and many scientists believe antioxidants protect the heart. Uncooked berries, dried berries and pure juice are best because processing, storage and heating reduces antioxidant levels, but cranberry sauce still contains lots of antioxidants. So enjoy your extra serving of cranberry sauce…

Which vegetable is #1?

2009-11-13T15:35:00.001-05:00

Would you believe it’s the sweet potato? According to nutritionists at the Center for Science and Public Interest, the sweet potato ranked #1 in nutrition when compared to other vegetables. Foods were given points for their content of dietary fiber, naturally occurring sugars and complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron and calcium. Points were deducted for fat content, sodium, cholesterol, added refined sugars and caffeine. The sweet potato, with a score of 184, easily beat out the second place vegetable, the white potato, by more than 100 points. It’s easy to see why: sweet potatoes have twice the daily allowance of vitamin A, 42% of the vitamin C recommendation and 4 times the RDA of beta carotene. So this Thanksgiving Day, enjoy this yummy and good-for-you treat!

2009-11-12T13:27:00.000-05:00

What do you think of this storm? Virginia and much of the mid-Atlantic coast is experiencing a Nor'easter today: heavy rain, gale force winds, coastal flooding, downed trees, power outages, beach erosion... well, you catch my drift. The storm gets the name Nor'easter because the wind blows primarily from the northeast. A Nor'easter is a cyclone, or low pressure system, whose center stays just off the coast. Nor'easters can have winds of hurricane force and can sometimes intensify very quickly.

This particular storm began as hurricane Ida, a tropical cyclone. Tropical cyclones form over very warm ocean waters and get their energy from the release of latent heat when water vapor condenses into water droplets. They have a warm core, no fronts associated with them and have their strongest winds near the surface. Extra-tropical cyclones get their energy from temperature gradients, such as when a warm air mass collides with a cold air mass. They have a cold core, usually both warm and cold fronts associated with them and have their strongest winds in the upper atmosphere. Tropical cyclones can "morph" into extra-tropical cyclones and vice versa, although the latter is more rare.

Many of the worst blizzards in the Northeast US were Nor’easters. Extreme cold often follows in the wake of a Nor’easter, due to cold air being dragged out of Canada by strong northwest winds behind the storm.

The book and movie The Perfect Storm was about an actual 1991 Nor’easter that absorbed Hurricane Grace and later moved far enough south to become a hurricane itself. Unlike most hurricanes, this storm was never named, and New Englanders still refer to it as the No-Name storm.

Did you know surfers love Nor'easters? Waves can be very high during these storms. Even though it is cold, they just don their wet suits and head out.

Do you have a Nor'easter experience? Here's one of mine: my brother had rented a house in the Outer Banks one spring when a Nor'easter hit. Large quantities of sand blew onto and covered the road near Rodanthe. The highway department managed to open a one-lane track for cars to pass, necessitating a wait for oncoming traffic to clear. In the 30 minutes we were waiting, huge hunks of wet sand were raining down on our car. By the time we arrived at the house, the entire left side of the car was caked in sand. That night the house rocked us like we were in a cradle. It was an experience I will never forget.

Our last day... all business

2009-08-15T11:39:00.000-04:00

Welllll.... mostly business.

We began firming up plans for our grant proposals: Fauzia and Steve's ideas for stream monitoring projects; Terry and Deborah's plans for baseline surveys to use in planning for school construction; Bryan's thoughts on doing a stream restoration; Amy and Dana's desires to do something more with conservation gardens; Lee's plans to build a nature trail; Eric and Jeanine's different ideas for using real data from from their studies in math classes....

It wasn't all work; we ate ice cream (thank you, Lee!) and fooled around with hissing roaches... Bryan thinned his herd, so Lee's kids will have some creepy classroom pets this year! And Gene and I were ambushed by everyone... thanks for the presents and the sweet card (sniff...)

So, where are we now? We have a big list of "to-dos" for the next months! We'll be contacting local government offices to get information on existing monitoring stations and projects. We'll be looking at how our projects fit in with bigger school and community plans, and begin writing lessons that will cover standards and use best practices. We'll begin to decide what new equipment we'll need to do our projects. And I'll be here at the Museum, your "go-to" girl, helping with resources as we start writing proposals.

Just not this week. I'm on vacation!