Posts

Showing posts from 2014

Gene Therapy- Why is it important ?

Gene therapy is used to help cure  cancer and other disorders caused genetically. It's possible to do this because gene therapy can replace the disordered gene or a missing gene. This process has been used before and it helped not just people with cancer but also people with disorders like hemophilia and immune deficiencies. You may ask "how do you take the gene to the cells?". Well, scientists use vectors as carriers of the new gene. There are many types of vectors. One of many is a viral vector. Viral vectors are viruses that have the new gene implanted and these vectors do not contain the gene that cause the sickeness. Once the vector injects this new gene into a cell then the cell would start making the protein that previously wasn't made. Since, every somatic (body) cell goes through mitosis (cellular replication), this cell would replicate itself with the new gene creating another generation of cells with this gene. Therefore, this process is very significant

Facts about Laser

Image

Ever wondered why alcohol and coffee make you pee more?

Image
Besides the fact that the person drank to much of either of these substances, there are natural reasons why this is the cause. When a person intakes alcohol they deactivate hormones in their body. This hormone is known as anti diuretic hormone (ADH) which is released from the pituitary gland. This gland resides at the base of the brain; these hormones are circulated all over body. ADH is responsible for the in take of water to the body from the kidneys.When they reach the kidney, the hormones create aquaporins in the kidney's cell membrane. Aquaporins are proteins that creates pores in the cell membrane; these pores help absorb the water back to the body instead of being excreted. Therefore, when people drink these substances they excrete all the body's water instead of reabsorbing some of it back to the body.This is the cause that makes people pee more. This is also the reason why  coffee or alcohol  makes people  dehydrated.

4th state of matter???

Image
Plasma is the fourth state of matter. This is basically gas particles that are ionized. This happens when the temperature goes up, the atoms collide knocking out the electrons which creates free and excited (high energy) electrons. This temperature is reached by the stars. Therefore stars are surrounded and made by plasma making it the largest amount of matter in the universe which is 99%of the whole universe. Plasma can be classified thermal or non thermal. Thermal plasma have the same high temperature, which means they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. In  non thermal plasma the heavy particles have much lower temperature as low as the room temperature, however, the electron has very high temperature. Plasma also has a magnetic field and is highly conductive to electricity. Plasma is all around us such as lightning, fire, citrus in a microwave. :-)

What is Alzheimer?

Image
Alzheimer's disease was first found in 1901 by Mr. Alzheimer when a patient had the symptoms of this disease. This disease is caused by a change in the brain. When the patient's nerve tissues in the brain seemed to affected by irregular folded protein called plaques and tangles in the neurons, it will break down the brain structure. Now you might wonder where the plaques came from. The fatty protein surrounding the nerve cells get cut of by certain enzymes. These proteins are called beta-amyloid, they stick together forming plaques, however, vaccines can prevent the forming of plaques by informing the immune system about the plaques. Certainly, if we are too late we can only slow down the progress by giving treatments. Clumps, also known as tangles, are dangerous because they disrupt the communication between the nerves, disabling a lot of neuron cells. These tangles created are called neurofibrillary tangles caused by the protein that makes the pathway for food molecules. This

How do pain relievers work? What is pain?

Image
A normal and healthy person would feel pain. To alert the person that he is in pain there are special pain alerters which are nerves called nociceptors. When we feel pain, we hit our nociceptors alerting us to do something about the pain . Sometimes when cells get damages they give out certain chemicals tune your pain threshold. One of the chemicals is arachidonic acid this acid gets reacted with two enzymes produced in the body COX1 and COX2 creating prostaglandins. Prostaglandins give out some other enzymes which increase body temperature, cause inflammation, and decrease the pain threshold. This would mean when a person just touching something would feel pain. Aspirin, a pain reliever, blocks and prevents the reaction of arachidonic acid by blocking the active site of the enzymes also known as the reaction center. Aspirin is a permanent pain reliever whereas ibuprofen is a temporary pain reliever as it can be thrown away by the enzymes. But it can hold the arachidonic acid for a whi

Cow's four chambers

Image
Cow's have 4 chambers to help them in digestion of the food they intake. The chambers are   rumen ,  reticulum ,  omasum , and  abomasum. Rumen and Reticulum- rumen is the first chamber where the food goes into after it's taken. This chamber ferments the food that is mixed with saliva.  Both have the same objective through a different function, this is often call the reticulorumen. The food that is mixed with saliva gets turned into solid clumps to form bolus. The bolus is then regurgitated (bringing the food back to the mouth) for breaking down the food using saliva. Reticulum also has another job, cow's sometimes eat foreign materials such as nails, plastic, and other indigestible objects, this makes the cow sick so the reticulum has hexagonal honeycombed type of layer to trap the objects. Omasum- is the 3 chamber. This helps  water and many of the inorganic mineral elements to be absorbed into the blood stream. It also absorbs some of the nutrients produced in the ru

What are neutron stars and can they create black holes?

Image
Neutron stars are one of the small stars created through particles. Neutron stars are created through gravitational collapsing in which gravity's force overpowers the internal pressure given by the fusion particles in a star this collapses the star creating a dense star, which seems to be the densest star in the universe. This appears to be white in color to the naked eyes of humans. Neutron stars are not able create black due to the neutron degeneracy as they get affected by the thermal effect by which fusion stops at oxygen because of its low mass therefor e cannot create a black hole.

How do black holes form?

Image
Black holes are basically a region of space time where gravity pulls anything towards the black hole even light can't escape therefore to be able escape it we have to be faster than light. Well lets get to the point, black holes are initially formed through stars which have a mass 5 times more than the sun. New born stars have a core of the particle hydrogen which gets fused with other hydrogen particles creating helium and helium fuse to an other element as they go through the periodic table. This continues till iron becomes the core. Since, iron can't fuse they instead collide with each other and gravity also helps iron particles compress and create a black hole.

Radar-Absorbent-Material

Image
Radar-Absorbent-Material or RAM is a stealth technology used when radars are used by enemies. This absorbs a particular amount of the frequencies used making it unable to figure out an exact location. However, this cannot make the plane invisible in the radar, as the frequencies differ in each radar and there are no universal absorbent for the RAM. Bad weather also affects RAM. RAM's mainly used type is Iron Paint Ball. This a sphere coated in carbonyl iron or ferrite which induces molecular oscillation in the radar frequency causing heat, later the heat is dissipated.

Atmosphere's of the earth

Image
Troposphere is the first layer extends to 30,000 feet from the ground. This is layer is where most clouds are located. Stratosphere is the second layer which has no clouds and it also has the ozone layer which extends from the tropopause for 12 km to 170 km. Since the ozone  absorbs UV radiation its temperature is high. Mesosphere is the next  layer extending from 50 km to 80 km this is where meteors burn up and the temperature decreases with higher height.  Thermosphere is the next layer with the higher temperature that can be up to 1500 C this is caused by high density molecules rubbing against each other. This layer extends from 80 km to 350 km till the exobase. Exosphere extends from 350 km to 800 km it usually contains hydrogen and helium in its layer as they are the lightest gas found in the periodic table so they are found exosphere.