The Science of Life

Suddenly, there is silence. It's been quiet for a while now, but now that the rounds are complete, it is complete silence, here on the surface of Mars. Not that this is really Mars. In the deserts of Southern Utah, there is a crew at the Mars Desert Research Station, running simulations for a trip to Mars. There are strict protocols for such things. Ideas accumulated on the ground put into place by The Mars Society. So simple are these ideas that most people – and even higher percent of scientists – would not think of them. Like, for instance, keeping a comp notebook at each piece of equipment to track use and maintenance. Keeping a log on the computer for suggested SOP for the crew who takes over on the next cycle change. In the isolation of the desert, these people can teach us a few things about how to do what we do as Environmental Scientists. For one, it is alright to be a nerd and proud of it. In fact, it is the preferred state of mind for us....

I apologize for a longer-than-acceptable absence. My academic progress is getting in the way of so much of my life right now, including but not limited to this blog. I will, however, persevere in continuing with it – both the academics as well as the blog. I have also been working on a few projects outside of academia and outside of this blog. This includes a new website which incorporates poetry, chemistry, undergraduate papers, ACS news, and my tutoring in chemistry. For those of you curious, it can be found at http://poetchem.alexandersdesigns.net/ .  Over the course of the next few months, I will be transitioning this blog over there. For this blog entry, I will detail how one of my classes – in particular, Calculus III – relates to the real world. This is one project I have been working on for the past few semesters.  This will also be my final extra credit project for that course. There is something you have to understand about the realm of mathematics,...

The fashion industry is being affected by Global Climate Change. This is one of the lesser noticeable pieces of evidence of the environment changing around us. The opposite is also true; the fashion industry is also affecting the state of the environment. I will input my sources at the end. Recently, I wrote a paper for my environmental studies course on this very topic. Here I will adapt the paper for this blog. I feel the need, however, to differentiate between “Environment” and “Climate”. When I use the term “Environment”, I mean to use the scope of the entire planet, while when I use “Climate”, I mean to use a local scope. It's like differentiating between the global economy vs. the economy of the American state of Nevada, respectively. The fashion industry will be affected (and in fact already has begun being affected) by global environmental and climate changes on many fronts. For example, there is a far lower differential between the extrem...

In the United States, the main culture is that of willing and happy ignorance and intellectual laziness. In this culture, intellectual curiosity and contemplating knowledge is shunned as “nerdy”, a term used as a negative term to denote someone who is somehow lesser than themselves, because of that intrinsic curiosity and need to figure everything out. The modern American “major-cultures” think of themselves as superior to that of the “sub-culture” of “nerd”, the prior having the God Complex about being part of the crowd, the latter not really caring about how they are labeled by the rest of society, so long as they are left to their intellectual devices. In the intellectual development of any individual, I see four necessary legs; the household, the community, the educational system, and finally the individual. Any one of these four legs fail, the intellectual development of the individual fails. Here I will concentrate on the educational system. I am sad to say I am mor...

First, I would like to apologize for my longer than acceptable absence. Both from this blog as well as my YouTube channel. My academic world has been consuming all of my time. Life, getting in the way of so much, you know? Yeah, you know. Also, as a side note, I recently received a comment from an anonymous user which was very non-productive and non-constructive. This person apparently removed it in short order, but I still have an e-mail copy of it. This person appears to be a troll. I would like to request not only that you critique my blog, but also that all comments critiquing my blogs be constructive in nature. I am open to criticism, so long as I can actually take something productive out of it. Another note on the comment section; I would like to encourage conversations in the comments section. This will help in reduction in errors on everyone's part. This is always something I am looking to improve upon, including but not limited to in myself. This al...

This post will be predominately geared towards two groups of people; those who are presently in college or those who are looking to go to college. I have the people that have been in my study groups in chemistry, math, and physics in mind, but this applies to everyone going to college. With all degree programs, there are two important mentalities to have while going through with it: You have to have insatiable curiosity for the subject, and you have to love the subject. Without these two frames of thought, you will make your academic and professional careers a living nightmare. The vast majority of the students in all of my classes – this semester and in every semester for the past couple of years – have not had the curiosity required to be actually successful in these classes. Now let me stop here to explain what I mean by successful. In my mind, successful is more than merely the grade, though don't get me wrong; the grade is a part of it. A bigger part of success in ...

I apologize for taking so long with this entry of my blog. I have been abnormally busy lately with my academics and poetry. Today, I am writing on how all of the sciences are related to one another, in the hopes that you will come to realize that the sciences are not as separate as popular culture and news has us believe. This blog will be geared to those individuals – weather you're the average person or a student of science, or a full blown scientist – who have the opinion that the different fields of science are completely isolated from one another. This sentiment is not true, and I hope to show the false-hood of this concept here. In physics, we have the concept of “The Right-Hand-Rule”. This pretty much determines whether the a force perpendicular to two vectors is “positive” or “negative”. Torque is a good example of this. The amount of torque placed on, say, a bolt by a crescent wrench is perpendicular to the position vector and the fo...

I have had insufficient time to write a full-blown blog this week-end, so I will leave you with a poem. It seems appropriate, since this is a science poem on a science blog, and it ties in with next weeks blog topic, which is the interconnectivity of two particular branches of sciences. I hope you enjoy this. Two Two years. Two groups. One constant. The only person in either group who isn’t going for the “American Dream”, whose primary goal does not involve retiring wealthy. The only one who never did understand this whole war between them, at any level much less this one, seeing as how this peace will save humanity time and time and time again. Two years. Two fields of science . The only constant is the only poet. The only one of either group that realizes that science, too, is a kind of art. After all, Mother Nature is the most intrinsic, the fullest, and best poet in the...

To begin, I would like to thank my biochemistry Professor, MaryKay Orgill, Ph. D., for fact checking this post, despite her busy schedule, and despite today being her birthday. Happy birthday Captain! Before I begin my topic today, I want to clear up some confusion the general population has about homonyms . The confusion is that the general use of a word is perceived to also be the scientific use of the same word. With the exception of the vast majority of astronomical terms (because astronomy, for the most part, has the capacity to be an exception), this is not true. These are homonyms, which are words in English which are spelled the same, sound the same, and have different definitions. In engineering, the term moment means to apply a force in a circular fashion, not a general short period of time. In biology, a Calorie is a specific unit of energy in chemical reactions, not merely something you have to consume. In chemistry, reactions are transfer of electrons ...

In this weeks blog, I will describe the second law of thermodynamics and how it applies to biochemical mechanisms. There seems to be a lot of confusion, misunderstanding, and downright misrepresentation of this topic, so the intent here is to clarify everything. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy always increases for spontaneous processes. Notice here that the reference frame is not specified. This is because, in most scientific realms, the context is assumed to either be an isolated system or the universe as a whole. Also notice that I said entropy always increases for a spontaneous process. For non-spontaneous processes, the entropy decreases. I will talk about spontaneous thermodynamic processes in this blog. Later today, I will post a an entry in my other blog talking about non-spontaneous thermal processes. The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us whether a process is spontaneous or not. This is based on the h...

In the past few days, I had to switch classes. I had to drop Biology, but I have picked up Biochemistry to take its place, which is vital to my degree program. I bring this up because, seeing as how I want to have parallels between this blog and what I am learning in academia with an emphasis on the chemical, I view this as a more chemical outlook on biology, which is logical, seeing as how the name of the course is “Biochemistry”. With that in mind, let me begin with the meat of the blog. For those of you pre-medical students reading this blog who are taking organic chemistry and wondering why you need to take organic chemistry, this blog entry is one of many examples of why pre-meds need chemistry. There are also reasons why you should take physics, but that will be for future blog entries. All of us are made of chemicals. Stomach acid is a mixture of acids which are used for reacting with the food and drink we consume, to produce compounds which our intestines c...