Note (12/2015): Hi there! I'm taking some time off here to focus on other projects for a bit. As of October 2016, those other projects include a science book series for kids titled Things That Make You Go Yuck! -- available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and (hopefully) a bookstore near you!

Co-author Jenn Dlugos and I are also doing some extremely ridiculous things over at Drinkstorm Studios, including our award-winning webseries, Magicland.

There are also a full 100 posts right here in the archives, and feel free to drop me a line at secondhandscience@gmail.com with comments, suggestions or wacky cold fusion ideas. Cheers!

Transactinides


· Categories: Chemistry, Physics
What I’ve Learned:

Transactinides: They're not heavy. They're your metals.
“Transactinides: They’re not heavy. They’re your metals.”

The transactinides are a group of fifteen elements — fundamental building blocks of matter, like carbon or hydrogen or double-sided duct tape. But transactinides are pretty special elements, in a number of ways.

First, the transactinide elements are all radioactive, which means they spontaneously split apart into other elements, releasing energy in the process. What’s more, these elements are highly volatile — even the most stable break down within about twenty-eight hours. Much like that drama major you dated back in college.

Transactinides are also the heaviest elements known to exist — and none have ever been detected in nature. We’ve only found them in the laboratory, by cramming atoms of smaller elements together until they stick for a few seconds, like some kind of chemically-unstable PB&J.

(I don’t know what a PB&J decays into, exactly. Strawberry Pop-Tarts? A jelly doughnut? Uncrustables?

This is why you don’t see many snack-related analogies in chemistry textbooks. Clearly, sandwich science is still in its infancy.)

These elements are so bleeding-edge, they don’t even get real names until they’ve been produced in a lab and the results tested and repeated. At that point, a newly “confirmed” transactinide is usually named in honor of someone important to science. Like Rutherfordium was named after physicist Ernest Rutherford, or Seaborgium for a race of Doctor Who villains, I think, or Livermorium, which was named after something a bird said in an Edgar Allen Poe poem. Science is all over the map sometimes.

But before those fancy names, the more theoretical transactinides get systematic titles to identify them. These provisional names are built from Greek and Latin roots for numbers, smooshed together like the ephemeral atomic phenomena they describe. So the element with atomic number 113, for instance, is currently called ununtrium, while the heaviest transactinide, with atomic number 118, is ununoctium.

(Nobody in science really uses these names, for two reasons. First, it’s simpler to just say “element 118”. And second, nobody wants to spend their career trying to produce something that sounds like a disease you get from licking raw chicken meat.)

While most of the periodic table is well established at this point, physical chemists still work on transactinide elements — usually trying to produce the ones not yet confirmed. Just this week, element 117 — or ununseptium, if you prefer your science Gregorian chant-style — was confirmed by a lab in Germany. It was first synthesized by a joint American-Russian team in 2010, who fired a beam of heavy calcium isotopes into a bunch of berkelium atoms to get the job done.

That was a challenge in itself. Berkelium currently only exists on this planet as the result of synthesis experiments and “nuclear incidents” — like an H-bomb test, or Chernobyl disaster.

Also, berkelium’s half life is less than a year, so if the scientists couldn’t agree quickly about how to do the experiment, the berkelium they made for it would have already turned into something else.

So basically, this marks the only time in recorded history when Americans and Russians have gotten their shit together in short order to produce something good. From sammiches to glasnost, is there anything transactinides can’t do?

Actual Science:
SciTopics – The superheavy elements
Compound Interest – Element infographics – the transactinides
Scientific American – Superheavy element “ununbium” has ordinary chemistry
Motherboard – Element 117 may finally get a real name
Phys.org – Modern-day alchemy: a recipe for a new superheavy element

Image sources: Chemicool (ununseptium), Wikipedia and Philica and Smuckers and StarTribune.com and SodaHead (PB&J decay), What Culture (Cybermen/”Seaborgmen”), GlobalResearch (Putin/Obama)

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Quantum Entanglement


· Categories: Physics
What I’ve Learned:

Quantum entanglement: It may be spooky -- but at least it won't stink up your ride.
“Quantum entanglement: It may be spooky — but at least it won’t stink up your ride.”

At first, quantum entanglement sounds a little complicated. Entanglement occurs when two elementary particles — electrons or photons, for instance — interact in a way that links some property of those particles together. So if you measure the spin, say, of one electron, you also know the spin of the second, no matter where in the universe that other electron has gotten itself off to. It could still be in the same test chamber. It could be in Hoboken, New Jersey. It doesn’t matter.

There’s a way of thinking about this that makes quantum entanglement seem much simpler. Like all good scientific analogies, it involves Seinfeld.

Imagine the two electrons ride together to the laboratory in Jerry’s car. Specifically, the car parked by that valet who had the really terrible B.O. The kind of funk that couldn’t be cleaned out, and attached itself to everything that came near it — like Jerry’s jacket, or Elaine’s hair.

In this scenario, you clearly only need to measure one electron. If the first particle stinks, and you know they were both in the B.O.-mobile, then the second particle is going to stink, too. Maybe the second particle took a shower. Or sprayed on Old Spice. Or flew to Paris to bathe in perfume. It doesn’t matter. You don’t escape the B.O. car stench.

The key here is that the fates of the electrons were sealed at the time they interacted. If that’s the case, the distance between the two when they’re measured isn’t relevant — they were funkified together, back on the ride to work. This idea is called a “hidden variable” theory, and it makes quantum entanglement much, much easier to understand.

It’s also completely wrong. Which is a shame, because I’ve always thought science could use more Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Using large-scale experiments and lots of complicated Greek-letter math, physicists have proven (or nearly proven, depending on who you ask) that hidden variables are not involved in quantum entanglement. For either particle, it’s impossible to know or predict the entangled property before it’s measured. But once it’s known, the corresponding property of the other particle somehow “knows” about this measurement, and locks into place. This happens immediately — or at least, thousands of times faster than the speed of light, which is theoretically impossible.

Or was, until bizarro quantum entanglement concepts were first debated back in the ’30s by scientists like Erwin Schrodinger, Boris Podolsky, Nathan Rosen and Albert Einstein.

(Incidentally, Einstein in particular rejected the idea of quantum entanglement, calling it “spooky action at a distance”.

I’m no particle physicist, but any time you describe a theory the same way you would a guy who touches himself while he watches you across the subway car, you’re probably not a fan.)

Besides being wicked weird, quantum entanglement is a hot topic in physics these days. Entanglement is the key to quantum computing, may unlock virtually unbreakable cryptography, could be the secret to photosynthesis and might even be responsible for why time flows in one direction.

Not bad for a phenomenon that’s spookier than subway creeps, and more confusing than permanent automotive armpit stank.

Actual Science:
LiveScience – How quantum entanglement works
National Geographic – Teleportation: behind the science of quantum computing
Wired – New quantum theory could explain the flow of time
Planetsave – Quantum entanglement experiment proves non-locality for first time
io9 – New evidence that plants get their energy using quantum entanglement

Image sources: NASA Science (entangled cartoon), Abnormal Use (smelly car), Popsugar and Brookhaven National Lab (Julia Scientist-Dreyfus), Live NY Now (subway creep)

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DNA Polymerase


· Categories: Biology
What I’ve Learned:

DNA polymerase: come with me if you want to replicate.
“DNA polymerase: come with me if you want to replicate.”

DNA polymerase is an enzyme present in every living cell. Hay cells, jay cells, even George Takei cells. Oh, my.

In these cells, DNA polymerase has one job — just one job — and it’s both the easiest and hardest job on Earth. Biology textbooks would tell you that job is to “replicate” the cell’s genetic material, reading and copying DNA so when the cell splits, both new cells contain a full set of genes.

And that’s true, in the same way it’s true that Tito Jackson recorded twenty Jackson 5 records. He did — but he had a hell of a lot of help.

It’s the same with DNA polymerase. It plays an important role in replicating DNA, sure, but it’s led to the job site by an entourage of support proteins, propped into place, and prompted for its lines. Each bit (or “base”) of DNA to be copied is a cue, and it’s DNA polymerase’s job to add the right complementary base in response. There are four different kinds of bases, so it only has four lines to remember.

This is why DNA polymerase’s job is the easiest in the world. It’s treated like a star. It gets driven to the set, carried to the stage, and it barely has to study a script. It just reads a cue and delivers the right line, out of four choices. It’s the gig of a lifetime.

Actually, I imagine it’s a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s life these days. He probably does the odd public appearance for pocket change, followed around by a gaggle of handlers. They’d behave like the DNA replication helpers — getting him to the podium, making his hair look nice and prompting him for the appropriate line:

If it’s a Terminator convention, he’ll say: “I’ll be back!”

At a children’s event: “It’s not a tumah!”

At a GOP fundraiser: “I’m the Governator!”

For a crowd of Predator fans worried about Anna: “Get to da choppa!”

So wherever he goes, a flunky whispers into his ear: “Terminator”, “children”, “GOP” or “Anna”. And Arnold gives the proper response.

(Maybe the flunky even shortens it to one-letter codes: T, C, G and A.

Aw, yeah. You biochemical geneticists see what I did there.)

So DNA polymerase’s job is simple — as easy as a T-800 following a four-path if-then logic loop. Which is to say, it’s easy to do once. Even a few times a week, a la the former-Governator.

But there’s the rub. Human DNA polymerase reads and matches a DNA base about fifty times per second.

(E. coli polymerase is even faster, around one thousand matches per second. If you can picture a bacterial Arnold Schwarzenegger, moving at twenty times the speed. Hasta la nightmare, baby.)

That’s why DNA polymerase has the hardest job in the world. Our genomes are three billion bases long, and in rapidly-dividing cells like skin or hair or stomach lining, the replication never stops. One mismatch could create a mutation that kills the cell, or cause out-of-control growth into cancer. (“Then it IS a tumah!”) Yet our DNA polymerases are extremely accurate, mismatching less than once every ten million bases — and they can even correct their occasional mistakes.

Which is good news for us. It’s no big deal if an aging actor accidentally tells a bunch of six-year-olds to “get to da choppa!“. But our inner Ahhhnolds get their lines right — all the time, nearly every time, and without the help of cue cards. That’s why if it bleeds… we can find DNA polymerase inside it.

Actual Science:
How Stuff Works – DNA replication
The Oncologist – The molecular perspective: DNA polymerase
Wiley – DNA replication
Asian Scientist – Demystifying Rule-Defying DNA Polymerases

Image sources: Vanderbilt University (DNA replication), Fanpop / Michael Jackson (Jackson 5), Screening Notes (“Tumah!”), New England Biolabs and TalkBacker (polymerase T-800)

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Absolute Zero


· Categories: Chemistry, Physics
What I’ve Learned:

Absolute zero: where the temperature itself is strange and unusual.
“Absolute zero: where the temperature itself is strange and unusual.”

You may think you’ve experienced extreme cold. Maybe you accidentally swallowed a whole popsicle once. Or walked into a blizzard with your fly unzipped. Maybe you have a regular bridge game with Betty Draper, April Ludgate and Cruella de Vil.

That’s super. But none of those things compare with absolute zero.

Absolute zero is a theoretical state of matter in which the enthalpy and entropy of a gas are at their lowest possible values. This sounds complicated, but “entropy” and “enthalpy” just mean the amount of energy in the system, and the disorder of that system.

(I can never remember which is which, because the words sound too much alike.

I also mix up Mindy Kaling with Michael Keaton. Which makes reruns of The Office pretty confusing — and Beetlejuice ten times scarier.)

In more familiar terms, absolute zero would be -273.15° Celsius, or -459.67° Fahrenheit, either of which will shrink it right up inside you in a hurry. It’s also zero Kelvin, which is a lot easier to remember. On the other hand, it’s 288 Kelvins outside right now, which is approximately zero help in telling me whether or not I need a coat. Or to zip up my fly.

(Notice that in the Kelvin scale, there are no degrees. That’s because in extremely cold temperatures, that little circle thingy folds completely in on itself and disappears.

See? When you’re flirting with absolute zero, even the measurement units get shrinkage.)

While absolute zero isn’t physically possible to achieve — stupid sexy laws of thermodynamics — you can get pretty close. As in, trillionths of a Kelvin close. Scientists can do amazing things with window fans and ice cubes, apparently.

And when they do, spooky quantum mechanical things start happening.

One of these is superconduction, where electrical resistance in supercooled materials suddenly drops to zero. Another is superfluidity, where viscosity gives up in the cold and goes home. Weirdest of all (and sometimes superfluid) are Bose-Einstein condensates, an entirely distinct state of matter which was first predicted by Albert Einstein and a pair of surround-sound speakers.

(I kid, I kid. Bose was an amazing guy — self-taught, genius and deservedly celebrated. Maybe I should have said “first predicted by Satyendra Nath Bose and a subpar bagel chain”.

Or neither? Probably neither. Moving on.)

Oddly, it’s possible to create a system with a temperature below absolute zero. Oddlier, this system is not only “hotter” than it was before, it’s also hotter than anything else in the universe, based on the physics of heat transfer.

I’d like to tell you this is just like freezer burn. I would. But I don’t think it’s anything like freezer burn, and I have no idea how it works. (And some scientists challenge whether it’s true at all.)

Maybe science thermometers are circular, so the bottom of the scale connects back to the top? Like how some people are so ugly, they’re attractive? I don’t know. Ask an ugly quantum physicist.

So the next time you find yourself trapped in a walk-in freezer (244 Kelvins), sunbathing in Antarctica (190 Kelvins) or drifting in the cold vacuum of space (2.73 Kelvins), just remember that it could be worse. It could be absolute zero.

Well, not quite absolute zero. But really, really close.

Actual Science:
PBS / Nova – Absolute zero
New Scientist – What happens at absolute zero?
UColorado Boulder / The Atomic Lab – Temperature and Absolute Zero
Science News – Hottest temperature ever measured is a negative one
MIT News – It’s a negative on negative absolute temperatures

Image sources: French Tribune (freezy zero), Betty Draper Looking Pissed (just what it says), Candy-Coated Razor Blades and FanPop / The Office (Mindyjuice! Mindyjuice! Mindyjuice!) and Business Insider (“Shrinkage!”)

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Scanning Electron Microscopy


· Categories: Biology, Physics
What I’ve Learned:

Scanning electron microscopy - almost as exciting as... well, you know.
“Scanning electron microscopy – almost as exciting as… well, you know.”

“Scanning electron microscopy” is one of those sciency terms that looks a lot scarier than it actually is. To make sense of it, you just have to break it down, word-by-word. I start at the end and work my way backwards.

(Science is usually more fun that way. Like Harry Potter novels. Or nine-layer dips.)

So, start with “microscopy”. This is just “microscope” with a fancy-sounding “y” glommed on the end. Scientists sometimes add “y” to words to make them sound more impressive — like oncolog or rhinoplast or chemistr, for instance. But don’t be fooled; “microscopy” just means “doing stuff with a microscope”. And “microscope” means “machine that makes tiny things look bigger”.

And if you ask what “tiny things” means, we’re going to talk about your sex life. Don’t be a smartass.

Next is “electron”, which is an especially tiny thing that zips around atoms. Electrons have other properties, of course, like spin and charge and favorite How I Met Your Mother episode, but the important things right now are these: electrons are fast, unbelievably tiny — like, seriously, sextillions of the things in a grain of sand tiny — and can be shot in a tight beam like a skinnier, less murderous laser.

That just leaves “scanning”, which brings everything together. The beam of electrons is shot at the sample inside the microscope.

(Technically speaking, these electrons are said to “bombard” the target. Or in the words of one esteemed science educator:

“Bombardment! Life is pain, son! Bombardment!! My post-doc lasted seventeen years! Bombardment!! Science is a cruel and less-lucrative-than-anticipated mistress! Bombardment! BOMBARDMENT!! BOMBARDMENT!!!”

Yes. “Bombardment”. Thanks.)

Then the beam scans back and forth across the surface, like a printer over a piece of paper. Only instead of shooting ink (or dodgeballs), it’s electrons. These electrons excite the atoms they hit, which sends other electrons pinging off the surface. Scientists detect these “secondary” electron signals to determine the contours of whatever’s being scanned.

Sort of like a hot blind girl feeling your face to figure out what you look like, only with electrons instead of fingers. Also, most microscopic targets are more attractive than Kenneth Parcell. Which is probably good.

This technique is often used to view fixed biological samples (think “teeny critters in formaldehyde”) or the surfaces of materials like crystals or computer chips. But you can see almost anything in a scanning electron microscope, provided you can suck all the water out of it and, if needed, micro-coat it with a conductive material to provide lots of surface electrons.

(For instance, some scientists want to look at spiders. And gold is conductive and easy to layer on. So our universe now contains an actual, once-living gold-plated spider, like a villain in some arachnoid James Bond flick.

Science says, “you’re welcome“.)

By using electrons instead of light, scanning electron microscopes can magnify up to 500,000 times. So you can view bacteria and snowflakes and insect feet and grains of rice in stunning detail, down to a scale of one nanometer.

Which is a little better resolution than the monitor you’re reading this on. Yes, even if it has that “retina thingy”. Trust me.

So don’t get tripped up by the long words and fancy syllables. “Scanning electron microscopy” isn’t something frightening. After all, who’s afraid of a little bombardment?

Bombardment! Bombardment!! BOMBARDMENT!!!

Actual Science:
NanoScience Instruments – Scanning electron microscopy
How Stuff Works – How scanning electron microscopes work
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History – SEM Lab gallery
Wired – Absurd creature of the week (tardigrade [w/SEM images])

Image sources: NPR (sperm and egg), Kissing Suzy Kolber (“Bombardment!!”), 30 Rock / NBC (via Netflix) (Kenneth face), Wikipedia (Goldspider)

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