Monday, July 30, 2018

Biochemistry - 23 July - Cell Biology and Radioactivity

1. Check out the various links on cells in 2. below, and post your impressions:
Well to me we enter the new world of technology, and since that should update ourselves with them. All these subjects I found an interesting among scientists.  I believe they become more popular in the future.


2. Side-effects could be all in mind:
well, depend if it is the real medicine or placebo, I have experienced a lot of side effect about my medication that I am using, and none of them are Placebo, but I believe placebo effect could be all in our mind, and even some people are addicted to the drug.

Biophysics - 23 July - Life and Living Systems

1. I know I’m a “living system” because:
I can respond to heat, cold darkness and other stimulation immediately
2.
TCM and Biophysics:
both them use energy which in Chinese medicine it calls Q

Biology - 23 July - Antioxidants and Free Radicals

"People should still eat healthy food" - do we rely too heavily on supplements to provide antioxidants?

You try to improve your diet before you use supplements. That's because nutrients are most potent when they come from food. "They are accompanied by many nonessential but beneficial nutrients, such as hundreds of carotenoids, flavonoids, minerals, and antioxidants that aren't in most supplements.

"Aspirin a day could dramatically cut cancer risk"  What are your thoughts on this?
base on this research I agree:
More than 130,000 deaths would be avoided over a 20-year period if Britain's 50- to 64-year-olds took a daily aspirin for 10 years, because the beneficial effects continue even when the aspirin is stopped, the authors say.

A research team led by Professor Jack Cuzick, head of the centre for cancer prevention at Queen Mary University of London, concluded that people between 50 and 65 should consider regularly taking the 75mg low-dosage tablets.

Cuzick said that taking aspirin "looks to be the most important thing we can do to reduce cancer after stopping smoking and reducing obesity, and will probably be much easier to implement".

In a briefing to journalists, the scientist added that he had been dosing himself for the last four years, keeping the tablets beside his bed. "I take aspirin as part of a bedtime ritual every day and I can achieve that quite easily," he said.

However, to obtain the newfound benefits of the drug, people would have to take aspirin for at least five years and probably 10, the review said.

Monday, July 23, 2018

Chemistry - 25 June

Post your thoughts on the diet suggestions in pH Balance: Acids &Alkalis & Anti-Oxidants:

As you know, the foods you eat have a powerful impact on your health. Eating foods that are more alkaline can be health-promoting, as we’ll learn below.
But that doesn’t mean you suddenly have to eat a “raw” or “vegan” diet, which is what we tend to think about when we think about eating highly alkaline foods.
The truth is, eating alkaline foods doesn’t require any extreme measures.
Eating high alkaline foods simply means you’re eating more of certain foods to help prevent your blood from becoming too acidic, which promotes your health in endless ways.
In fact, among other things your body has a hard time properly producing energy in an acidic internal environment, as an acidic state leaves less oxygen available to your cells for energy production 

Physic 25 June

Newton’s Three Laws and me:

a truck collides with another truck and the truck stops, but the driver keeps going The rock in this video wont move unless someone moves it. Newtons Second Law Acceleration increases with force and decreases with mass. Two objects of different weights are thrown off of a roof, you may assume that the heavier object will hit the ground first, but according to Newtons Second Law, the heavier objects acceleration decreases because it has more mass. The truth is, both objects will hit the ground at the same time. Another example of Newtons 2nd Law is that it is easier to push an empty shopping cart than a full one. If pushed with the same amount of force, the empty one will go farther while the full one will be harder to stop. Newtons Third Law For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When a rocket blasts off, the thrust produced pushes against the ground, forcing the rocket up When walking, you are actually pushing on the earth, and the earth pushes back, causing you to move.
The same applies to cars, bicycles, and boats.


2.Our “Energy Efficient” Culture:
Change the Culture
Take inventory of your office space. How many employees have space heaters at their desks? Minifridges? Christmas lights still blinking away? It's time to get ruthless. First, create an inviting area for shared microwaves, coffee makers and combination printer-fax-copiers. Then ban cubicle energy hogs and challenge employees to change their culture. Everyone should make a point of turning off lights, shutting down unused appliances and wearing a sweater in lieu of using a heater. Try efficiency contests among departments (with prizes!) to spark interest.





3.Descartes has a lot to answer for!

Descartes believes that his "false opinions" has deceived him. The opinions, he worried about, are the information he learned from the time he is born, such as if the earth is round or flat also Descartes wants to break down his 'house' of knowledge because he thought that all the things he knew he accepted without any proof. He wants to get rid of that information and rebuild his experience based on scientific, proven facts.

Biology week 10

1.How do you feel about western approaches to HIV/AIDS?

Well, I believe that we need western medicine to find out about HIV/AIDS, although that still we have a long way to go the only Chinese medicine cannot be enough to fight with we need both sides.

2.What are your thoughts on the issues around the PrEP treatment?

well I agree with it and believe Daily PrEP reduces the risk of getting HIV from sex by more than 90%

3.Can TCM strengthen our immune systems?

Scientific research shows that acupuncture increases the white blood cells in the body and moderates the immune system allowing it to react swiftly and firmly to threats.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Loafing around without feeling guilty Day7

I was so tired and when I tried to letdown and do nothing ,I slept for almost 3 hours .After I woke up I just make some cold drink and sit and watch TV for almost 4 hours and after that I start to study for my other classes.

Loafing around without feeling guilty Day6

well ,I had a chance to finish my paperworks and take some rest for few hours ,I just lay down and tried not to think about anything for a while and this time I really enjoyed ,because I did not have any stress about it.

Your Biology Take-home Midterm Exam - Biomimicry

Investigate “biomimicry” and report on your findings.
Can you find examples of biomimicry at each of the three levels Janine Benyon describes?











I did some research, and I found interesting examples that we have got from nature, I noticed that biomimicry means getting inspiration from our environment and transfer them to our daily life to solve our problems or even make our world better place to live or make it beautiful. I got different examples from designing a building or even some communication tools that we have used biomimicry on them, but I should say that I found it really hard to find an example about level three that Janine Benyon has described it.here are some examples that I found:

1. Sagrada Familia:
Gaudi’s stunning buildings in Barcelona, Spain, Gaudi took over design in 1883 and the building is due to be finished in 2026, 100 years after his death in June 1926, aged 73. The cathedral ’s interior is inspired by the idea of a forest that invites prayer.

2.Kunsthaus Graz:
Dr. Marcus Cruz, who was involved with planning the Kunsthaus in Austria along with main architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier says" the building took inspiration from natural forms but didn’t mimic them exactly.
Cruz’s own research included looking at microscopic images of sea creatures."

3.National Taichung Theater:

Toyo Ito drew inspiration from the formation of rocks, caves and the transience of water for his design for The National Taichung Theater, which he hoped would provide a soft and mellow respite within the city of Taichung, Taiwan.

Also, I found those examples as well:
1.Firefly Lightbulbs.
2.Candy-Coated Vaccines.
3.A Very Fishy Wind Farm.
4.Spider Web Glass.
5.Watercube.
which we got the idea from them to make new tools but most of those ideas even did not have used level two of biomimicry.they just got the idea by seeing how they are working and have tried to make similar to them.
I found interesting that the idea of the needle is coming from mosquitoes:

A human almost experiences no pain when pricked by a mosquito. The detailed insertion mechanism of the mosquito proboscis was investigated based on the observation of its penetrating motion into a transparent polymer material using a high-speed camera system. Among the parts of the mosquito proboscis, a center labrum and two maxillae beside it were biomimicked, creating the engineering equivalent of three microneedles by using a micromachining process. It was proven that the resistance force during insertion into an artificial skin is markedly reduced by cooperatively moving the three needles in a certain time phase to each other as the mosquito does. It is expected that pain would be reduced using the fabricated microneedles since pain and resistance force have a positive correlation.

“In mosquitoes the proboscis is a marvelously intricate structure…consisting of six different styles, each adapted for a particular purpose–for making the primary incision, inserting anti-coagulant and digestive enzymes contained in the insect’s saliva and, finally, withdrawing the blood itself. All the stylets are secreted within a protective sheath formed by the labium or lower lip, which, during blood extraction, is slid up out of the way into a loop form.” (Wootton 1984:72)

or

“The mouthparts of female mosquitoes have evolved to form a special proboscis, a natural biomicroelectromechanical system (BMEMS), which is used for painlessly penetrating human skin and sucking blood. Scanning electron microscope observations show that the mosquito proboscis consists of a small bundle of long, tapering, and feeding styles that are collectively called the fascicle, and a large scaly outer lower lip called the labium. During blood feeding, only the fascicle penetrates into the skin while the labium buckles back to remain on the surface of the skin…[The mosquito] uses the two maxillas as variable frequency micro saws with nano-sharp teeth to advance into the skin tissue. This elegant BMEMS enables the mosquito to insert its feeding fascicle into human skin using an exceedingly small force (average of 16.5 μN).” (Kong and Wu 2010:1)
Insects of the World
July 1, 2018
Walter Linsenmaier

A needle which mimics the mosquito’s unique “stinger”, making injections painless, has been developed by a team of Japanese microengineering. Contrary to popular belief, a mosquito can stab you with its proboscis without you feeling a thing. It then injects anticoagulant saliva to stop your blood clotting while it feeds, and it is this that carries the bacteria that cause irritation and pain.

Seiji Aoyagi at Kansai University in Osaka and his colleagues concluded that "the initial bite is painless because the mosquito’s proboscis is highly serrated. Unlike the smooth surface of a syringe needle, which leaves a lot of metal in contact with skin tissue, the jagged edge of the proboscis leaves only small points in contact. This greatly reduces stimulation of the nerves, says Aoyagi, causing far less pain."

To mimic this effect, Aoyagi and his engineering team created a needle just one millimeter long and 0.1 millimeters in diameter. They did this by etching slices of silicon dioxide into a jagged shape and then bonding them together. The needle’s walls were just 1.6 micrometers thick.
Then they fitted the needle with a five-millimeter-wide tank, which in future could store blood or fluids collected by the needle. An optical fiber inserted into the tank would allow doctors to analyze samples.

To test the needle’s strength, the researchers pushed the needle into a piece of silicone rubber – which has puncture resistance similar to the skin – wrapped around a vessel containing a red dye. The tank filled with the dye, indicating that the needle is up to the challenge of puncturing the skin.

The inventors hope the microneedle will be the forerunner of small wireless devices for collecting blood that could be permanently attached to the body. Such devices could monitor blood-sugar levels in diabetic people or collect blood samples from patients for diagnosis in a lab.

Aoyagi plans to conduct human trials eventually, but there are still some hurdles to overcome. “It is still a big problem that our needle is brittle,” he says.

“If a piece broke off in a hypodermic injection a blood clot could form.” And if such a clot entered the bloodstream and traveled to the brain or heart it could be lethal. Aoyagi hopes further research will resolve the issue and lead to safer designs.

conclusion:
I believe needle can go to level one and not two or three for now base on our technology but you never know maybe in future we can go to level three by advancing our technology. Right now it is a little bit hard to do it and make it real like mosquitoes are having. Most of my examples are saying that human has intelligence but having intelligence will not enough to save us, we need intelligence to understand and learn from our nature and other animals who also have some intelligence to survive.




Resources:







My Chemistry Take-home Midterm Exam - Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars

Will hydrogen fuel cells prove to be the way forward in car designs?

Investigate Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars and report on your findings.

the governors of eight states—California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont—signed a memorandum of understanding committing to having 3.3 million zero-emission vehicles on the roads in their states by 2025.  FCEVs are an important part of this portfolio. But as of now, fueling stations are definitely not widespread, so automakers are not likely to pursue hydrogen unless they see more investments in infrastructure.

Benefits of Hydrogen fuel cells are:

1. electrically powered vehicles reduce the emissions of pollutants that degrade local air quality as well as carbon dioxide emissions, which raise significant worries about altering the climate.

2. Another reason to favor electrically powered vehicles involves national security. Ample supplies of petroleum are found only in select regions of the world. So countries that lack these natural resources will remain at a political and economic disadvantage if they continue to utilize vehicles that burn gasoline or diesel fuel.

3. The final reason stems from the fact that exploitable sources of petroleum are slowly running out. Once the society reaches the point where production cannot keep up with demand, prices will skyrocket. So it’s no wonder, really, that the transition to electric vehicles is speeding up.

Problems with Hydrogen Fuel Cell:

1. If you have a hydrogen fuel cell car, where do you get your hydrogen gas?Fuel cells are expensive to build, Platinum is the dominant material used in the catalyst of these fuel cells (the cathode and anode portion of the fuel stack).

2.Platinum: as expensive, if not more expensive, than gold.The DOE tells me that over time, they've been able to reduce the amount of platinum required in fuel cells: "DOE(DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY)-funded research has reduced automotive fuel cell cost to $53/kW projected at 500,000 units/year and $60/kW at 100,000 units/year. This is more than a 50% cost reduction since 2006. Cost reductions reflect numerous individual advances in key areas, including a five-fold reduction in the platinum content of fuel cell catalysts and the development of durable membrane electrode assemblies with low platinum group metal content. The DOE says the durability of fuel cells has also been improving.



3: How do you make the hydrogen?

To get hydrogen gas, you have to make it. Right now, the cheapest way to get the gas is by reformulating natural gas. "So right away, you're using a carbon-based fuel to get the stuff - not ideal. If produced at high-volume, the cost of hydrogen from renewables/ electrolyzers could be around $5/gge even using today’s electrolyzer technology. The cost of hydrogen from renewables will decrease even further using longer-term approaches (e.g., direct solar photo-electro chemical conversion)." We’ve also reduced the cost of producing hydrogen from renewables by decreasing the cost of electrolyzers by 80% since 2002. And even if natural gas remains as the cheapest way to get the gas, the DOE contends that "because a fuel cell is more than twice as efficient as an internal combustion engine, an FCEV travels farther on that tank of hydrogen than a traditional car would on a tank of gasoline."
Honda says it's also looking at purchasing the hydrogen by-product from refineries around the U.S.  Another way to get the gas is from the water. Using electrolysis you can capture the gas from water. The question becomes: where do you get your electricity to do this? There's more research being done on how to do this with solar energy.

4.The hydrogen gas tank challenge

To store enough hydrogen on a vehicle to get the 200 to 300-mile ranges we are accustomed to, the gas has to be pressurized. High-pressure tanks that can do the job often end up being quite heavy, which starts to affect the car's fuel economy (the heavier the car, the less efficient it often is).To make a tank that can do the job, carbon fiber is often used, and, once again, we're using an expensive material.

Conclusion:
I believe the future belongs to the hydrogen fuel cell but it will take more time to solve the problems that I have mentioned them in above,human has to and there is not any choice to cut his dependency to oil and gas since they are not there forever and we already have made huge damage to our environment. By getting more knowledge and having advance technology I will see that the future belongs to Hydrogen Fuel cell.

resource:

http://michiganradio.org/post/hydrogen-powered-cars-cant-make-it-without-these-4-miracles

My Physics Take-home Midterm Exam

Carl Jung The term synchronicity is coined by Jung to express a concept that belongs to him: the acausal connection between two or more psychic and physical phenomena. as Carl Jung has said" synchronistic moments don't happen just to inspire wonder, they arrive to force people to reconsider their values. I believe in western view Synchronicity is base on more reality and some events that had happened in past, for example, people think about some friends that they have when they were young and from nowhere they meet them the same day or the other day. Also some of those are in common with eastern view as well ,like when some people are thinking that something will happen for them or they are getting nervous and know something will happen to their family or child but they do not have control over it and again it will happen in the same day or the other day. But this concept was not something new in eastern point of view as we have learned this concept had thousands of years old in an ancient Chinese text used for divination called the" I Ching" or "The Book of Changes, In Chinese view it believes that" just as casualty describes the sequence of events, so synchronicity to the Chinese mind deals with the coincidence of events. the casual point of view tells us a dramatic story about how D came into existence: it took its origin from C, which existed before D, and C in its turn had a father, B,etc.on the other hand tries to produce an equally meaningful picture of coincidence. How does it happen that A, B, C, D, etc appear all at the same moment and in the same place? It happens in the first place because the physical events A and B are of the same quality as the psychic events C and D and further because all are the exponents of one and the same momentary situation. The situation is assumed to represent a legible or understandable picture. in western view it has more base on accident event, but In eastern view, they are looking for the way to make the connection between them and some explanation unlike the western view that just thinking of events match to each other as an accident,Also I believe that in eastern it has more feeling and karma to it compare to the west and people thinking about synchronicity in eastern as a cause and looking for a way to solve it and not just as event that just happened.synchronicity is more like Shen(spirits) in Chinese medicine our spirits is able to find the way to make contact between us and our environment. The word"Shen" has connotations that enable it to be related to both personal and impersonal understandings, I think in eastern people are trying to have an emotional and spiritual connection  instead of just think of it as a something accidentally like the west.

Saturday, July 7, 2018

Loafing around without feeling guilty Day5

I am super busy with my research paper and so far was not able to stop working on them,I will try tomorrow to do it.

Loafing around without feeling guilty Day4

Today I was able to do not do anything only for two hours, still, I was not feeling that I am relaxed, because I am little behind my research papers.

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Loafing around without feeling guilty Day3

well for half a day I just watched TV and did nothing this is the third day that I am doing it and I am scared that I do not have enough time to finish my research paperwork.

Monday, July 2, 2018

Loafing around without feeling guilty Day2

I just woke up but did not do anything the whole day, I got nervous and worried about my research papers but did not want to do anything, I just watched TV and lay down on the sofa all day, but my mind was not with TV and I was thinking only about my Midterm papers.

Sunday, July 1, 2018

Loafing around without feeling guilty Day One

I laid down on my bed for 4 hours and did nothing, which it was little boring:)I just closed my eyes and tried not to think about anything.It is good to do nothing for a while but for me could get boring:)