Cupid Shuffle? No! Stingray Shuffle!

Most people know about how Steve Irwin died: a sting to the heart from a stingray. It was, of course, a live stingray. What else could it be? Others wonder, though, about whether a dead stingray could kill you. It still has the stinger, right? It's kind of like falling into a pit with foam blocks and one rock, and falling from a great height. You have the potential to hit that rock, don't you? There's actually been a piece of research done by howstuffworks.com on this.

Let's look at the start, why stingrays sting you in the first place. There are three different reasons why a stingray will put out its stinger in the first place: if it is stepped on, roughly handled, or overall threatened. Because of the possibility of stepping on a stingray, in waters with them you are supposed to do "the stingray shuffle." Few people actually do it, but it's a good precautionary measure. You shuffle your feet along the bottom, where the sand is, instead of walking or hopping. The stingray will feel the sand move, or your feet touch its edge or get near, and will move accordingly.

When a stingray feels in danger, it will whip its tail to its head. There's a stinger that will come out, which breaks through a thin layer of skin to point up, basically perpendicular, from the tail. It sits in the stingray venom so it's constantly "revenomed". The venom is a mucus-like coating on the stinger, which also has little barbs that will stick in your skin and, if you try to pull it out, will pull out a lot of other stuff because of that. Stingray venom is pretty potent stuff. It messes with the heart's electrical function, and can dilate or restrict blood vessels. The venom doesn't usually make it to the heart, though; it will stay by the wound site. On the downside, you're pretty much screwed if you get stung near the heart. Luckily, other than its tail, the stingray is pretty much featureless; no fierce teeth, claws, nothing of that sort. At least we don't have to worry about that...
So can we die from a dead stingray? It's unlikely because the tail whipping up is the main problem. Unfortunately, you can die from a dead stingray (it sounds like a pretty shameful way to go; death by dead stingray.). If the stingray died in the defensive stance, the tail by the head and the stinger sticking out, it can still sting someone. A case where someone died by dead stingray was unable to be found, but it's still a possibility.

On the bright side, it's unlikely you'll die from a dead stingray. On the downside, you overly-worried people out there will now have one more thing to worry about. This doesn't break a lot of new ground, but it's still a good thing to be aware of. There are potential cases of death by dead stingray in the future, but hopefully not. The world isn't exactly going to change from this unless a world leader dies by dead stingray. When I found this, I had a strong compulsion to tell my old friend Andrew, who was a big Steve Irwin fan and as far as I know still hates stingrays. I wanted to tell him that he at least would probably not die by dead stingray (which I'm sure occupies his thoughts daily).

Clark, Josh. "Is a Dead Stingray's Sting Still Lethal?" HowStuffWorks. Discovery, 2 Mar. 2009.
Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

N.d. Photograph. Elasmodiver.com. Elasmodiver. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.

Computing with the Stars

When you look up into the sky at night, you see an innumerable amount of stars. Most people don't know a whole bunch of science behind stars. What if you found out that some of the stars you see could potentially give you easily accessible quantum computers in the next century, or even a few decades to years?

Stars can produce all of the elements we know of when they fuse hydrogen, and when they die. Recently, it has also been found that they can make a third type of chemical bond as well. This bond has never been seen before anywhere else, and is not able to be produced outside of the powerful magnetic fields seen in compact stars (like white dwarf stars). Basic chemistry tells us there are two types of bonds: ionic and covalent. This new discovery disproves that, because of the new bond. It is definitely not ionic or covalent; it acts differently. There is no covalence or scattering of energy among the atoms like there is needed in the other two bonds. The discovery of these bonds could lead to new research in quantum computing, possibly making great strides in having quantum computers useful, and accessible. Right now they are more of a speculation than anything, but this could change it from a speculation into reality.
White dwarf stars can have magnetic fields 1,000 times that which we can make on earth, and other compacts stars even bigger. This magnetic field has produced a bond that will not break off where normal bonds would. Many strange things can happen in magnetic fields of this magnitude, this probably being the strangest. Unfortunately, at the current time we would not be able to make bonds like this on earth. Trying to make a magnetic field of that size would render the instruments used, well, unusable. That kind of power is just currently unharness-able. But someday it could be a possibility, as we learn more about these bonds and how to harness power of that magnitude.

Quantum computing would make equations that take grueling days on normal computers be processed lightning fast, and they would have an insane amount of memory. For a world that is growing ever-hungrier for information, this would definitely be useful. Nothing like this has ever been discovered, so if another discovery like this comes along, there will be leaps and bounds made in science, there already are for this discovery. As time goes on, there will be more use for these new bonds. For complete computer geeks like my step brother (who works in the computer industry for a living), this is a very exciting prospect. This discovery will push the possibility of more quantum computers into reality, which will cause a massive jump in math and science as more equations and other things can be processed and solved faster. Overall, this discovery seems small (as small as atoms to be precise) but will make waves in the science field very quickly.


Boyle, Rebecca. "Unique Chemical Bond Only Seen In Dwarf Stars Could Make Better Computers." Popular
Science. Bonnier Corporation, 23 July 2012. Web. 03 Apr. 2013.

N.d. Photograph. Extreme Tech. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.

Bye Bye, Party Balloons

What is the staple of many parties, besides cake? If you said balloons, you're right.

Sometimes there's simply a lot of people who blow up some balloons. Other times, there will be a helium container and the balloons will be filled with helium, a fun thing to play with when you want to have a funny voice. But these floating balloons and high-pitched voices could become a thing of the past, at least to those who aren't willing to dish out a high amount of cash for it. Yes, we are running out of helium. An article on popsci.com outlines this.

Helium is going to be a lot more expensive soon. Before now, and even now, it's been really cheap. You can buy a whole tank of it at a party store for not too high of a cost, given the circumstances. Needless to say, this is going to change. In 1996, Congress passed an act to have all of our helium supply gone by 2015. This means that we're selling it crazy cheap right now, just to get rid of it. The government just wants the market to control the price. It'll be insanely high prices, but apparently that's worth it.
We have 80% of the helium supply in the world. 80%! That means once we're out, there's not going to be a whole lot left. A tank of helium, which at the moment costs about $50, could have the price jacked up to possibly even $1000, depending on the demand!* And helium does indeed have a demand, not just for parties. Helium is the substance with the lowest boiling point, and it is a great cooling source. It chills the giant magnets in MRI machines, it's used in fiber optics, and LCD, otherwise known as Liquid Crystal Display, which I'm you're familiar with. It's also used in a lot of other things, and is a big help when it comes to quantum computing. Overall, life with little to no helium is going to be difficult.


The only way to get more helium is through tritium. Tritium is a radioisotope of hydrogen, meaning it has too many neutrons to be stable, so it's radioactive. It was used in nuclear warheads during the Cold War, when we were stocking up massive amounts of supplies for nuclear warfare, just in case. The problem is, the US stopped making tritium in 1988. The current helium we're able to get is coming from radioactive material in rocks, a non-surprisingly low amount. If we run out of helium completely, we'll have to salvage it from the air. This will make it 10,000 times more expensive, enough to make the hope of having party balloons a simple dream to all but those with a massive amount of money they're willing to waste.

This could affect our lives in so many ways it's not even amusing. Running out of helium could spell the end, or rocketing prices, of LCD, MRI, squeaky helium volices, and a multitude of other things. I myself have never been able to use helium to make my voice squeaky, and if the price skyrockets very soon I might never get a chance, along with many others. If we had the technology to get it back out of the air easier, this might not be an issue, and I hope one day we will end up with this technology. If the helium keeps going for as cheap as it is now, then in a few years we're going to have to resort to getting it out of the air or from anywhere we can get it. New technology could make this more readily available, but it's still a long way away.

*estimation

Bibliography:
Boyle, Rebecca. "In The Future, This Balloon Will Cost $100." Popular Science. Bonnier     
          Corporation, 20 Aug. 2010. Web. 01 Mar. 2013.

N.d. Photograph. Science for Kids. Web. 04 Mar. 2013.

N.d. Photograph. Wordpress. Web. 04 Mar. 2013.