MAKE A ELECTROMAGNET

You will need:

1. A large iron nail (about 3 inches)
2. About 3 feet of THIN COATED copper wire
3. A fresh D size battery
4. Some paper clips or other small magnetic objects

What to do?

• Leave about 8 inches of wire loose at one end and wrap most of the rest of the wire around the nail. Try not to overlap the wires.
• Cut the wire (if needed) so that there are about another 8 inches loose at the other end too.
• Now remove about an inch of the plastic coating from both ends of the wire and attach the one wire to one end of a battery and the other wire to the other end of the battery. See picture below. (It is best to tape the wires to the battery – be careful, though, the wire could get very hot!)
• Now you have an ELECTROMAGNET! Put the point of the nail near a few paper clips and it should pick them up!

NOTE: Making an electromagnet uses up the battery somewhat quickly which is why the battery may get warm, so disconnect the wires when you are done exploring.

How does it work?

Most magnets, like the ones on many refrigerators, cannot be turned off, they are called permanent magnets. Magnets like the one you made that can be turned on and off, are called ELECTROMAGNETS. They run on electricity and are only magnetic when the electricity is flowing. The electricity flowing through the wire arranges the molecules in the nail so that they are attracted to certain metals. NEVER get the wires of the electromagnet near at household outlet! Be safe – have fun!

MAKE IT AN EXPERIMENT

The project above is a DEMONSTRATION. To make it a true experiment, you can try to answer these questions:

1.  Does the number of times you wrap the wire around the nail affect the strength of the nail?
2.  Does the thickness or length of the nail affect the electromagnets strength?
3.  Does the thickness of the wire affect the power of the electromagnet?

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION

Hello and welcome to my blog about all things science! The aim of this blog is to describe interesting and fundamental aspects of science to anyone and everyone who would like to learn more about it, regardless of their scientific background. No previous knowledge of science is required!

I hope that you will find my articles interesting and they will entice you to learn more about the incredible world in which we live. I will write about topics that I find interesting in the hope that you will too. I am hoping to do justice to the incredible, immeasurable, yet very understandable, world of science. For more regular updates, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Google+.

BUILD A FIZZ INFLATOR

You will need:

1. One small empty plastic soda or water bottle
2. 1/2 cup of vinegar
3. Small balloon
4. Baking soda
5. Funnel or piece of paper.

What to do?

• Carefully pour the vinegar into the bottle.
• This is the tricky part: Loosen up the balloon by stretching it a few times and then use the funnel to fill it a bit more than halfway with baking soda. If you don’t have a funnel you can make one using the paper and some tape.
• Now carefully put the neck of the balloon all the way over the neck of the bottle without letting any baking soda into the bottle.
• Ready? Lift the balloon up so that the baking soda falls from the balloon into the bottle and mixes with the vinegar. Watch the fizz-inflator at work!

How does it work?

• The baking soda and the vinegar create an ACID-BASE reaction and the two chemicals work together to create a gas, (carbon dioxide) Gasses need a lot of room to spread out and the carbon dioxide starts to fill the bottle and then moves into the balloon to inflate it.

MAKE IT AN EXPERIMENT

The project above is a DEMONSTRATION. To make it a true experiment, you can try to answer these questions:

1. Does water temperature affect how fast the balloon fills up?
2. Does the size of the bottle affect how much the balloon fills?
3. Can the amount the balloon fills up to be controlled by the amount of vinegar or baking soda?

5. ENERGY

In physics, energy is a property of objects which can be transferred to other objects or converted into different forms. The "ability of a system to perform work" is a common description, but it is misleading because energy is not necessarily available to do work. For instance, in SI units, energy is measured in joules, and one joule is defined "mechanically", being the energy transferred to an object by the mechanical work of moving it a distance of 1 meter against a force of 1 newton. However, there are many other definitions of energy, depending on the context, such as thermal energy, radiant energy, electromagnetic, nuclear, etc., where definitions are derived that are the most convenient.

Common energy forms include the kinetic energy of a moving object, the potential energy stored by an object's position in a force field (gravitational, electric or magnetic), the elastic energy stored by stretching solid objects, the chemical energy released when a fuel burns, the radiant energy carried by light, and the thermal energy due to an object's temperature. All of the many forms of energy are convertible to other kinds of energy. In Newtonian physics, there is a universal law of conservation of energy which says that energy can be neither created nor be destroyed; however, it can change from one form to another.

The sun is the source of energy for life on the Earth. 

Living organisms require available energy to stay alive, such as the energy humans get from food. Civilization gets the energy it needs from energy resources such as fossil fuels, nuclear fuel, or renewable energy. The processes of Earth's climate and ecosystem are driven by the radiant energy Earth receives from the sun and the geothermal energy contained within the earth.

In biology, energy can be thought of as what's needed to keep entropy low.

4. MATTER

In the classical physics observed in everyday life, matter can be defined as any substance that has mass and takes up space, or as any substance made up of atoms, thus excluding other energy phenomena or waves such as light or sound. Observable physical objects are said to be composed of matter. More generally, in (modern) physics, matter is not a fundamental concept because a universal definition of it is elusive: elementary constituents may not take up space per se, and individually-massless particles may be composed to form objects that have mass (even when at rest).

All the everyday objects that we can bump into, touch or squeeze are composed of atoms. This ordinary atomic matter is in turn made up of interacting subatomic particles—usually a nucleus of protons and neutrons, and a cloud of orbiting electrons. Typically, science considers these composite particles matter because they have both rest mass and volume. By contrast, massless particles, such as photons, are not considered matter, because they have neither rest mass nor volume. However, not all particles with rest mass have a classical volume, since fundamental particles such as quarks and leptons (sometimes equated with matter) are considered "point particles" with no effective size or volume. Nevertheless, quarks and leptons together make up "ordinary matter", and their interactions contribute to the effective volume of the composite particles that make up ordinary matter.

Matter exists in states (or phases): the classical solid, liquid, and gas; as well as the more exotic plasma, Bose–Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates, and quark–gluon plasma

*Based on mass, volume, and space:

The common definition of matter is anything that has mass and volume (occupies space). For example, a car would be said to be made of matter, as it has mass and volume (occupies space).

The observation that matter occupies space goes back to antiquity. However, an explanation for why matter occupies space is recent and is argued to be a result of the phenomenon described in the Pauli exclusion principle. Two particular examples where the exclusion principle clearly relates matter to the occupation of space are white dwarf stars and neutron stars, discussed further below.

Solids
The matter that is composed of atoms packed tightly together is known as solids. You cannot walk through a solid wall. The matter is packed so tight that it prevents you from moving through it. Solids hold their shape at room temperature. The pencil that you left on the desk at school will still be the same shape when you return tomorrow.
Even in solids, there is a small space between the atoms. Depending on how tight the atoms are packed determines the density of matter. This means that a one-inch block of wood is not as dense as a one-inch block of gold. There is more space between the atoms of the wood than the atoms of the gold

Liquids
Liquids do not hold their shape at room temperature. There is space between the atoms of a liquid and they move slightly all of the time. This allows you to stick your finger into water and pull it back out, letting the water fill back in where your finger once was. But when walking through the water in the swimming pool, you have to push the water out of the way ‐ this means that you feel the heaviness of the water. Liquids flow or pour and can take on the shape of a container. If the liquid is poured into a wider or narrower container, the liquid will take on that new shape. Liquids are affected by gravity. If you pour only half a cup of milk, the top half of the container would have no milk. Liquids cannot be handed to another person well without the container. Imagine going to a restaurant and asking for lemonade. What if the waiter just put the lemonade into your hands ‐ no glass or cup? Could you lay the lemonade on the table to drink in a few minutes? Even water in a river or a lake has a container ‐ the banks, the bottom, the shore ‐ they form the container.

Gases
Gases not only do not hold their shape at room temperature, they don't even stay put. Gasses are always moving. There is so much space between the atoms in gas that you can move around in them easily. When you walk from one side of the room to the other, you have walked through a bunch of gases that make up our air. You barely even know they are there. Gases will take on the shape of their container and can be compressed into a smaller space. Like when we compress air into a balloon ‐ it fills out the balloon shape. Gases will fill up space too. You don't see only half of the balloon filled with air ‐ the air is not as influenced by gravity as a liquid or a solid would be.

 

3. GROWTH

Growth refers to a positive change in size, and/or maturation, often over a period of time. Growth can occur as a stage of maturation or a process toward fullness or fulfillment. It can also perpetuate endlessly, for example, as detailed by some theories of the ultimate fate of the universe.

Different Stages of the Living Things: 

1. Infancy (Ages 0-3): Vitality – The infant is a vibrant and seemingly unlimited source of energy.  Babies thus represent the inner dynamo of humanity, ever fueling the fires of the human life cycle with new channels of psychic power.
2. Early Childhood (Ages 3-6):  Playfulness – When young children play, they recreate the world anew.  They take what is and combine it with the what is possible to fashion events that have never been seen before in the history of the world.  As such, they embody the principle of innovation and transformation that underlies every single creative act that has occurred in the course of civilization.
3. Middle Childhood (Ages 6-8):  Imagination – In middle childhood, the sense of an inner subjective self-develops for the first time, and this self is alive with images taken in from the outer world, and brought up from the depths of the unconscious.  This imagination serves as a source of creative inspiration in later life for artists, writers, scientists, and anyone else who finds their days and nights enriched for having nurtured a deep inner life.
4. Late Childhood (Ages 9-11):  Ingenuity – Older children have acquired a wide range of social and technical skills that enable them to come up with marvelous strategies and inventive solutions for dealing with the increasing pressures that society places on them.  This principle of ingenuity lives on in that part of ourselves that ever seeks new ways to solve practical problems and cope with everyday responsibilities.
5. Adolescence (Ages 12-20):  Passion -  The biological event of puberty unleashes a powerful set of changes in the adolescent body that reflect themselves in a teenager’s sexual, emotional, cultural, and/or spiritual passion.  Adolescence passion thus represents a significant touchstone for anyone who is seeking to reconnect with their deepest inner zeal for life.
6. Early Adulthood (Ages 20-35):  Enterprise –  It takes enterprise for young adults to accomplish their many responsibilities, including finding a home and mate, establishing a family or circle of friends, and/or getting a good job.  This principle of enterprise thus serves us at any stage of life when we need to go out into the world and make our mark.
7. Midlife (Ages 35-50):  Contemplation – After many years in young adulthood of following society’s scripts for creating a life, people in midlife often take a break from worldly responsibilities to reflect upon the deeper meaning of their lives, the better to forge ahead with new understanding.  This element of contemplation represents an important resource that we can all draw upon to deepen and enrich our lives at any age.
8. Mature Adulthood (Ages 50-80): Benevolence – Those in mature adulthood have raised families, established themselves in their work life, and become contributors to the betterment of society through volunteerism, mentorships, and other forms of philanthropy.  All of the humanity benefits from their benevolence.  Moreover, we all can learn from their example to give more of ourselves to others.
9. Late Adulthood (Age 80+):  Wisdom – Those with long lives have acquired a rich repository of experiences that they can use to help guide others.  Elders thus represent the source of wisdom that exists in each of us, helping us to avoid the mistakes of the past while reaping the benefits of life’s lessons.
10. Death & Dying:  Life – Those in our lives who are dying, or who have died, teach us about the value of living.  They remind us not to take our lives for granted, but to live each moment of life to its fullest, and to remember that our own small lives form of a part of a greater whole.

Since each stage of life has its own unique gift to give to humanity, we need to do whatever we can to support each stage, and to protect each stage from attempts to suppress its individual contribution to the human life cycle.  Thus, we need to be wary, for example, of attempts to thwart a young child’s need to play through the establishment high-pressure formal academic preschools.  We should protect the wisdom of aged from elder abuse.  We need to do what we can to help our adolescents at risk.  We need to advocate for prenatal education and services for poor mothers and support safe and healthy birthing methods in third world countries. We ought to take the same attitude toward nurturing the human life cycle as we do toward saving the environment from global warming and industrial pollutants.  For by supporting each stage of the human lifecycle, we will help to ensure that all of its members are given care and helped to blossom to their fullest degree.

2. HUMAN REPRODUCTION

Human reproduction is any form of sexual reproduction resulting in human fertilization, typically involving sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. During sexual intercourse, the interaction between the male and female reproductive systems results in fertilization of the woman's ovum by the man's sperm. These are specialized reproductive cells called gametes, created in a process called meiosis. While normal cells contain 46 chromosomes, 23 pairs, gamete cells only contain 23 chromosomes, and it is when these two cells merge into one zygote cell that genetic recombination occurs and the new zygote contains 23 chromosomes from each parent, giving them 23 pairs. After a gestation period, typically for nine months, is followed by childbirth. The fertilization of the ovum may be achieved by artificial insemination methods, which do not involve sexual intercourse.

Human Male

The male reproductive system contains two main divisions: the testes where sperm are produced, and the penis. In humans, both of these organs are outside the abdominal cavity. Having the tests outside the abdomen facilitates temperature regulation of the sperm, which require specific temperatures to survive about 2-3 °C less than the normal body temperature i.e. 37 °C. In particular, the extraperitoneal location of the testes may result in a 2-fold reduction in the heat-induced contribution to the spontaneous mutation rate in male germinal tissues compared to tissues at 37 °C.[1] If the testicles remain too close to the body, it is likely that the increase in temperature will harm the spermatozoa formation, making conception more difficult. This is why the tests are carried in an external pouch viz. scrotum rather than within the abdomen; they normally remain slightly cooler than body temperature, facilitating sperm production.

Human Female

The female reproductive system likewise contains two main divisions: the vagina and uterus, which will receive the semen, and the ovaries, which produces the ova. The vagina is attached to the uterus through the cervix, while the uterus is attached to the ovaries via the Fallopian tubes. At certain intervals, the ovaries release an ovum, which passes through the fallopian tube into the uterus.

The fertilization of the ovum with the sperm occurs at the ampullary-isthmic junction only. That is why not all intercourse results in pregnancy. The ovum meets with Spermatozoon, a sperm may penetrate and merge with the egg, fertilizing it with the help of certain hydrolytic enzymes present in the acrosome. The fertilization usually occurs in the oviducts, but can happen in the uterus itself. The zygote then becomes implanted in the lining of the uterus, where it begins the processes of embryogenesis and morphogenesis. When the fetus is developed enough to survive outside the womb, the cervix dilates and contractions of the uterus propel it through the birth canal, which is the vagina.

The ova, which are the female sex cells, are much larger than the spermatozoon and are normally formed within the ovaries of the female fetus before its birth. They are mostly fixed in location within the ovary until their transit to the uterus and contain nutrients for the later zygote and embryo. Over a regular interval, in response to hormonal signals, a process of oogenesis matures one ovum which is released and sent down the Fallopian tube. If not fertilized, this egg is flushed out of the system through menstruation.