Monthly Archives: June 2017

There is overwhelming evidence to support the existence of dark matter, but its existence is still a mystery to physicists. A method called Indirect detection remains one of our best hopes for experimentally detecting particles of the elusive Dark Matter (DM). The idea behind indirect detection is that dark matter particles could be annihilating with each other in outer space, creating high energy particles that  we can detect here on Earth. Even if their annihilation produces exotic particles. Because they are so far away, we can only observe the the stable ones that result from their decay. Stable particles we currently have methods to detect include electrons, protons, neutrinos, their antiparticles, and photons. There are currently experiments that actively look for each of these types of particles, but photons have many advantages over the rest. The paths that electrons and protons travel  bend due to random magnetic fields in space,…

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Aquaponics is a clever combination of aquaculture (raising fish in captivity for food) and hydroponics (growing plants in nutrient enriched water instead of soil). Fish feces are rich in a nitrogen compound called ammonium (NH4) which can build up in ponds and aquariums over time. Ammonium is toxic to fish but useful to plants as a fertilizer. In aquaponics systems, the plants absorb the ammonium to grow and the fish benefit by getting clean water. A win-win! However, nitrate (NO3), another nitrogen-containing molecule, is even better for plants than ammonium. Fish do not produce nitrate, but luckily there are bacteria called nitrifiers that can do it really well. Nitrosomonas converts the ammonium into nitrite (NO2, also toxic to fish) and Nitrobacter finishes the process by turning nitrite into nitrate. Modified from Wikimedia Commons Why does this matter? These bacteria can take toxic ammonium from the fish waste and turn it…

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Cars are everywhere. They are essential for our day to day lives, but these vehicles are a double-edged-sword. Cars emit exhaust gases, and those gases contain hydrocarbons. These molecules, as their name suggests, contain both carbon and hydrogen atoms. Hydrocarbons from cars result from gas that has not been completely burned in the engine, where it would otherwise be converted into CO2. These harsh chemicals become concentrated in our air in situations like traffic, when many cars are driving in a dense area together. This becomes a major public health problem, as air quality is often associated with diseases such as asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke. One way that scientists are able to measure harm from pollution is to look at how it affects DNA, the genetic material in all cells. Cancer, for example, arises because of problems at the genetic level. The cause of many other chronic…

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One of the fundamental questions of cosmology is the nature of life’s origins. Why are we here? A method for attempting to answer that question is to analyze the possible physical parameters that define our universe with the intention of understanding which parameters make the evolution of life possible. In other words, what about our universe makes it able to create life? Multiverse theory suggests that there are infinite universes outside of our own, each existing in a distinct bubble of space-time, and that each one differs in certain parameters like the mass or charges of certain atoms. This research fits into multiverse theory by defining the parameters each parallel universe would potentially differ in. In his recent paper titled “Cosmic Initial Condition for a Habitable Universe” physicist Sohrab Rahvar suggests that the probability of a habitable universe is proportional to the asymmetry of baryons and antibaryons. Baryons and antibaryons…

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Our Sun is the nearest star to us. We have worshipped it, bathed in its light, and, of course, studied it. Scientists regularly use our Sun as a model for how similar stars should work. Thus, scientists develop the theory of stellar evolution (the study of the life cycles of stars) by observing our sun. Curiously, despite the Sun being the most studied of all the stars, scientists have discovered a discrepancy in their models which brings to light some mysteries about how the Sun actually works! The layers of the sun The Sun’s interior has 3 major layers, like an onion. These 3 layers are distinguished by temperature and physics that occurs in each layer. The 3 layers are the core, the radiative zone, and the convection zone. The core is millions of degrees, and this layer is where all nuclear fusion of hydrogen occurs.  The radiative zone makes…

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Our Sun is the nearest star to us. We have worshipped it, bathed in its light, and, of course, studied it. Scientists regularly use our Sun as a model for how similar stars should work. Thus, scientists develop the theory of stellar evolution (the study of the life cycles of stars) by observing our sun. Curiously, despite the Sun being the most studied of all the stars, scientists have discovered a discrepancy in their models which brings to light some mysteries about how the Sun actually works! The layers of the sun The Sun’s interior has 3 major layers, like an onion. These 3 layers are distinguished by temperature and physics that occurs in each layer. The 3 layers are the core, the radiative zone, and the convection zone. The core is millions of degrees, and this layer is where all nuclear fusion of hydrogen occurs.  The radiative zone makes…

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Researchers from the Unconventional Computing Center (I did not make that up) in the UK have figured out, at least theoretically, how to use microbes as computers. Mind you, there won’t be a biological computer sitting on your desk any time soon, but the prospect of finding new computational methods that don’t use the conventional silicon chips is exciting. In fact, in a configuration called a microbial fuel cell (MFC), microbes generate the electricity needed to run the computer that they are part of. A clever arrangement of these MFC cells can become something called a cellular automata, allowing the resulting network of cells to perform computations. Cellular automata is a concept we need to unpack a little bit for all this to make a bit more sense and understand why it’s important. Imagine a black square, representing a cell. Around this square, you could fit eight other square neighbours,…

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Have you ever thought about why is it possible to understand the universe and why are we even here to understand it? Sarah Imari Walker thinks about this question in her philosophical essay entitled “The Descent of Math.” We can make sense of the world via descriptive tools such as mathematics and we can learn how to do math through education. But is this ability a natural product of existence? In physics, we consider things in terms of where they were at the starting point and how much they have changed based on the laws of physics. If there are at least two possible situations that could happen, then we say there is information in that scenario. In non-living systems, given a fixed starting point, we can have only one possibility which is determined by laws. Since laws are deterministic, therefore we can conclude that the future state of the…

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