How Curious

Today I saw the movie Interstellar which was incredible by the way if you haven’t seen it and in the movie they send human to explore other planets suitable for human life. In the movie the astronauts must make a two year journey to multiple planets but since time is all relative two years in space could equal fifty years on earth. If that doesn’t make sense to you read my article about time travel and time dilation. So in order for the astronauts to live long enough to make the journey they must go into a sort of hibernation where they will sleep for the entirety of the time, but is this a real thing?

First off, to make things clear this is hibernation like what bears do in the winter, not freezing people and then thawing them out whenever we like.

Second, a coma-like sleep state could be the answer to many space travel problems. According to Space.com, astronauts would “sleep” in a capsule in which a computer would monitor their health and feed them through tubes. Since the astronauts would be sleeping the ship would not need artificial gravity or excersize equipment to keep the crew from experiencing muscle loss from the lack of gravity.

Although not yet possible the European Space Agency (ESA) has been conducting experiment to see if this science fiction could ever become reality. But hibernation can not be used during any old space mission. A mission using human hibernation would need to be more than a 3 year journey.

NASA’s Human Outer Planet Exploration campaign or HOPE might fit that description. By the year 2045 NASA hopes to send a ship manned with six humans to explore the surface of Jupiter’s moon. The spokeswoman from NASA says that they have not conducted any research related to space hibernation yet. Darn.

Maybe one day this will be possible and human will be able to effortlessly fly through the solar system. But until then I’ll just stick to taking my 30 minute power naps and watching Interstellar on repeat.

Women love makeup, it makes us feel pretty. So naturally we just assume that make up is also made of the things that are well, pretty. But ohhhhhh no are we wrong on that one..

Lipstick

A bold red lip is a timeless look but what exactly are we smearing onto our lips that makes us look so “vavavoom”?

The Cochineal Beetle is a parasitic bug that lives in South America. The female beetle eats the red cactus berry which give the beetle a rosy red color. When that beetle is crushed a deep red dye is produced. That is the red dye used in most cosmetics and food colorings. Ewwww.

Moisturizer

This one has multiple gross factors… yay. Both men and women love moisturizers because they keep us looking young and our skin refreshed but if we actually knew what went into our beloved creams we might rethink our decisions.

“Snail Ooze” is exactly what it sounds like, that slime that covers snails. It is high in glycolic acid which protects the snail from cuts and bacteria . On humans however, it shields our skin from harmful UV rays and makes our skin more elastic and youthful looking. So go on slather your face with snails, you’ll love the results.

Perfume

Perfume and cologne is essential and we don’t mind paying top dollar for it. But if you want to save a few bucks by avoiding the department store counters and going straight to the source you’ll find yourself at the south end of a sperm whale. Ambergris a component of whale feces in found in most expensive perfumes. Just one pound of this smelly stuff can cost up to $10,000! Yikes! I think I’ll stick to store bought.

As I sit here and indulge in a wonderful Saturday of The Walking Dead marathon and PJ’s, I wonder about the possibility of this ever actually happening. With zombies taking over our entertainment world with movies, tv shows and even events like the zombie crawl 5K race, there must be a real fear of these brain dead peeps.

So I decided to do my homework on the undead and see what all the fuss is about.

Turns out zombies are a real thing. According the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency (yes that is a real thing) zombism is cause by the Human Zombism Virus or HZV. This disease can be carried by brown rats or hard-shelled ticks and has similar effects to those in the movies.

The first phase of the process occurs when the victim is infected. This can occur through a bite or contact with an open wound. Once infected the victim can experience:

• Headache
• Extreme Thirst
• Sever fever
• itching
• Elevated heart rate and metabolism

In the second phase of the change process the victim will slip into a coma lasting approximately 4-6 hours. During this coma the victim will go into cardiac arrest and die.

The final stage is the most terrifying. In this stage the body reawakens in a catatonic state.

Although this information is very informative perhaps the world’s zombie apocalypse  will come from a different source. We all remember the infamous “bath salts” case where a homeless man smoked or inhaled bath salts as a way of getting high. Instead of a high the man became so feverish that he took off all his clothes and then attacked a man and began eating his face

For me, the fear is real. I will admit to an irrational fear of zombies. But with as much speculation as we have today I am confident that if THAT day ever comes the world will be ready. But just in case you might want to read this book.

As I’m sure everyone has seen and heard, right now its all about the Anaconda. The worlds largest snake that managed to slithered under the radar until recently thanks to Nicki Minaj. But what is it about the Anaconda that has us singing and dancing to its name?

While Nicki Minaj did a great job of bringing this massive beast to the forefront of the media she did fail to inform the public about the wonders of a reptile that can weight over 500 pounds. So let me help fill you in on some of the things Miss Minaj forgot to tell you besides the fact that Anacondas “don’t want none unless you got buns hon'”.

The green anaconda can be found in South America in swamps, marshes and slow-moving streams. These reptiles are completely adapted to aquatic life and can most likely be found swimming through marsh lands.

These snakes belong to the boa constrictor family meaning that they kill their pray by squeezing them until the animal suffocates. They use this tactic to kill deer, pig, caiman, capybara and just about anything that they can get they’re enormous bodies around. Once the Anaconda finds a large meal, like any of the choices listed above, they can go weeks and even months without eating again due to the long period of time it takes to digest such a feast.

Anacondas can grow over 30 feet in length and more that a foot around in diameter. With bodies this large, they do not move very fast on land but in the water they are swift and agile. The largest anaconda ever reported was said to be roughly 43 feet long and over 2,000 pounds! Unlike most cold-blooded reptiles, Anacondas give birth to live you and can produce anywhere from 20 to 30 babies at time. Most likely related to all the buzz about Nicki Minaj’s newest hit, the Discovery channel has set out to get a piece of the action too. On Sunday November,16th they plan on airing a special where a very brave man will dare to be swallowed whole by a live anaconda. The man will be wearing a special suit to prevent the anaconda from crushing him and claims that the snake will not be hurt but only time will tell but I am definitely tuning in.

College Humor also did a nice rendition of Nicki’s popular song that could answer anything you could ever want to know about the snake in question and they even do it to the catchy beat!

Alright so here’s a wild medical story…

According to the Metro, an online news source, a man in central-south China named Xiao Wei accidentally severed his hand in an industrial accident. Severed limbs and extremities are tough to reattach especially when there are so many tendons and bones that need to match up with those in the damaged arm. Doctors were optimistic that they could be successful reattaching Wei’s hand but not right after the accident happened. Wei’s doctors decided to attach the hand to his ankle in order to keep the hand from dying before going into surgery. The hands remained on the mans ankle for a whole month before they were able to connect it to this arm and wrist. Crazy!

 

Usually when people see an animal no matter what it is their first reaction is “awwww” but behind their cute, adorable facades their can be something more sinister. Muahaha.

Margay 

A margay is a small cat that lives in the trees. They make look cute but oh no this sneaky actors of the jungle hide and make noises similar to those of a baby monkey in distress. Then when a monkey comes along to see what all the commotion is about the margay pounces and eat the monkey.

Chimpanzees

Chimps are practically our cousins but even they can commit crimes that would be deemed vicious in the human world. Some chimps will steal a females baby and tear it limb by limb right in front of its mother.On some occasions the criminal chimps will even eat the babies lifeless body while the mother watches.

Penguins

We all love penguins and their cute little tuxedos but there is something not so cuddly about these little guys. Male penguins have been documented abusing their chicks sexually and physically. George Levick, a scientist studied penguins in the 1930’s, couldn’t even publish some of the dirty, dirty, sexual things that the penguins were doing to each other. Naughty naughty.

The meaning and traditions of Halloween seem to be fading as every year passes. Halloween can mean different things to different people and different cultures. For little kids its about getting free candy, for college girls it about dressing up as the slutty version of virtually anything, and for adults it means shelling out cash for your kids costume. But underneath all that there are original traditions and customs that built up this fun holiday.

The Halloween that we in the States are used to is based off the Celtic holiday, Samhain. This was a time were people would stock up for winter and hoard food. Samhain was celebrated at the end of the harvest on October 31. During this time the Gaelics believed that the worlds of the death and alive overlapped and the dead could walk among the living.

The tradition of dressing up and going trick or treating started out much differently than how its practiced today. Dressing up in costumes or masks started out as ways to disguise the living from the dead as not not upset the dead. Trick or treating was originally practiced in the middle ages and was called “souling”, homeless beggars would go door to door asking for food in exchange for prayers.

 

 

To learn more on Halloween go to:

http://www.halloweenhistory.org

 

Imagine living your whole entire life inside a plastic bubble, no human contact, no swimming in the ocean, no playing in the rain. Moments like that are the kind of normal childhood memories that David Vetter had to miss out on. You see, David  was born with a rare condition that weakens the immune system to the point where any average germ that the human body would easily fend off could be deadly. His disease call sever combined immunodeficiency or SCID.

At birth David was put into a sterilized plastic bubble that he would call home for the rest of his life. Doctors never expected the little boy to make it past his first weeks of  life but David proved them wrong.

Everything that bubble boy came in contact with had to be sterilized through a process of placing the object in a container with ehtelyn oxide gas for four house at temperature of over 200 degrees. The little boy could only get a hug from his mother via gloves attached to the outside of his bubble. In order to try and give David the most normal life possible a tv was placed inside his sterile container.

NASA created a sort of “space suit” that would allow young Vetter to walk outside his bubble for short periods of time. The bubble and suit were both kept inflated by air compressors that were so loud that talking with David was often difficult.

At the very young age of 12, David passed away of natural causes due to his disease. But his legacy lived on through pop-culture refferences in TV and movies.

The act of crying tears from our eyes is a trait completely unique to the human species. No other animals and obviously, plants, do that when they are feeling a certain emotion. But not only are tears specific to human kind but the type of tear is specific to each emotion and they all look completely different under a microscope.

According to the Smithsonian Collage of Arts and Science’s Joseph Stromberg, there are three types of tears.

• Basal
• Reflex
• Psychic

Basal Tears

Basal tears are the type of tears that we do not really cry. These are the lubricants that constantly cover the surface of our eyes and keep all kinds of gunk out of them. There is not a whole lot to say about these because there is nothing very special about them. Everybody, even animals have these tears because they are not the kind that you would cry out. Here is an example of what a basal tear would look like under a microscope.

Reflex Tears

Reflex tears are what your eyes produce when when that pesky grain of sand somehow made its way from the ground all they way into your eyeball or when that bit of mascara falls into your eye and burns like hell. As stated in its name reflex tears are the bodies natural reflexes to irritants. So these are the tears that are produced when you chop an onion or eat a spicy pepper or even when you choke and vomit. So yes ladies that is why your makeup is running down your face after a long night at the bar. Under the microscope these tears look like this.

Psychic Tears

This last type of tear is what we women first think of when we read the word cry and what men swear they never do, this is the weeping crying. Psychic crying is triggered by emotions, stress, and physical pain. But within those categories there are hundreds of different reasons to cry.

• Because you are happy
• Because you are physically in pain
• Because you are emotionally in pain
• Because you are laughing so hard

The list could go on and on…

But the crazy part is that each different emotion or reason for crying has a different pattern under the microscope. Here are a few examples:

Tears of Grief

Tears of Laughter

Tears of Remembrance

It is absolutely amazing that our bodies can tell the difference between tears of pain from ramming your hip into the corner of the kitchen counter and tears of joy from seeing your grandmother after a successful surgery.

Quick men, now is your chance! Invest in a microscope so you can tell the difference between your girlfriend/wife’s fake and real tears. Science saves the day again. Sorry Kim.