I recently went to the library and got a bunch of random books on a variety of different topics as part of my “3 digit reading project“. The idea is to learn about different things and see what inspires me. One of the books that I got was on octopi, squid, cuttelfish and other cephalopods. Although I’ve seen these creatures in aquariums, I really didn’t know anything about them. What I learned from this book is that they have a lot of weird traits!

Some of those traits include:

• Ink shooting properties
• Color changing abilities
• Jet propulsion features
• Strange sizes, shapes and proportions

Tags: cephalopod, hubpages, octopus, science

When I first moved to San Francisco, the phrase “hella” was everywhere. It hadn’t yet reached the rest of the nation so it sounded foreign and strange. To be honest, I still think it’s a little bit weird when people use hella (or worse, hecka) to describe something. Nevertheless, I’ve adjusted to the use of the word and there have been times when trying to describe something that the best description that came to mind was that the thing was “hella” whatever it was.

The word doesn’t seem to be used quite as often these days as it was when I first moved here. However, people do still use it to describe a lot of something, a big amount … and one student is really pushing for that to become a permanent thing. UC Davis physics student Austin Sendek is petitioning for hella to become the official word used to describe the number that equals one trillion trillions (or 10 to the 27th power).

Some facts that support his petition:

• Northern California has played an important role in science over the years. This designation of a word unique to this region for such an important scientific indicator would honor that role.
• Right now the largest number that there is a word for is 10 to the 24th power. However, as we begin to learn more and more about the far reaches of the universe, we are going to need to be able to name even greater distances and amounts.
• It might be a weird name for a number but is it really any weirder than some of the existing prefixes which include yocto and zetta? In fact, this five letter word seems to fit right in.

Tags: big numbers, facebook petition, hella, northern california, science, sendek

Before I went to kindergarten I was ambidextrous. I could write fairly well (as well as any five year old anyway) with both my left and right hands. I could do a lot of things with both hands. But then I went to school. When I got there, my teacher told me that I had to choose which hand to write with because I wasn’t going to be able to learn to write really well with both hands. I told her that I didn’t know which hand to choose. She said to be right-handed since that’s what most people are. True story.

These days I can’t write at all with my left hand. Good thing I’ve got a keyboard to keep both hands busy I guess.

What’s got me thinking about all of this is a LiveScience article that I just read about ambidextrous children. It reports on a study that says that ambidextrous kids “may be more likely to have mental health, language and academic problems than their peers”. They do admit, however, that nobody knows what causes people to be ambidextrous and that the small sample of people used for the study means that the results aren’t necessarily accurate.

That said, would things have been any different for me if I’d remained ambidextrous? Would I have found math and language more difficult in school? Would my brain have been struggling to connect the left and right sides and therefore have caused me to struggle in school? This all seems doubtful. It always seemed fairly precocious that I could do things just as well with both hands back then. It goes against that to think it would’ve slowed me down in any way.

But I guess we’ll never know.

Did you have trouble with schoolteachers because you weren’t strictly right-handed? Tell me about it – I’d love to commiserate!

Tags: ambidextrous, science

I just came across a really cool article about some neat stuff that math-loving physicists are doing with light. They’re actually taking math skills and applying them in an artistic way to knot light beams into cool designs. Things I learned from this article:

• Light doesn’t always travel in a straight line. It might also travel in swirls and curlicues. Cool stuff.
• There are dark lines that fill in the space between light. Makes sense but who knew?
• Holograms can be used to alter the shape of light. That’s basically what they did to create these light knots. Basically each point of the hologram is used to shape the light around a dark knot.
• Knots have been made from light before but not like this. Previous attempts to do this have created a series of intertangled knots whereas the knots from this scientific project were all single knots.
• You could do this yourself … if you had a hologram and a laser beam.

Tags: hologram, light knots, livescience, science, science knots

Most people agree that global warming is a serious problem (although some people do say that it doesn’t exist at all. However, people seem to be divided into two major camps regarding this issue. One camp says that it’s a major issue of concern and that we must each devote time and energy to resolving it. The other camp says that science and technology experts are going to find a solution to global warming so the rest of us really don’t need to concern ourselves with it. And of course there’s actually a third camp that believes there’s nothing we can do about it anyway – that we’re just doomed.

So today’s question of the week is:

What should we do about global warming?

Do you think that individuals should be doing anything at all? Do you think we should leave it to the experts? Do you believe that nobody should bother doing anything at all?

To be honest, I don’t have a fully formed opinion on this question yet. I think that global warming appears to be a serious problem and that it’s the responsibility of each individual to do their part to help deal with serious problems on this planet. However, I’m not sure that I have an opinion yet as to what extent we should have to go to as individuals in this area. And there is part of me that believes that we’ll find a scientific solution to the issue even though I worry a little bit that I’m being ignorant or naive in thinking this.

I’d love to hear your thoughts so please do participate in the conversation by leaving your comments answering the question!

Tags: global warming, question of the week, science