Science – Page 4

“Haunted” Houses

The feelings associated with haunted houses can be explained with science.

Chemical Spirits

Fear, the chills, seeing visions that disappear, hearing things without a source – some people also have headaches, nausea, temporary paralysis, a feeling of weakness and or dizziness. These are all classic signs of a haunted house … and carbon monoxide poisoning.

As far back as 1921 there has been a connection between “haunted” houses and carbon monoxide. Dr. William Wilmer published an account of a “haunting” regarding his patient, “Mrs. H.”, in the American Journal of Ophthalmology. Mrs. H., her family, and her servants moved into a large mansion and over time suffered a whole host of paranormal fear-inducing experiences. After months it was discovered that the furnace in the basement was pouring fumes containing carbon monoxide into the house instead of up the chimney. Upon fixing the furnace all symptoms of the “haunting” ended. This is not an isolated incident. As recently as 2005 a woman reported seeing a ghost in her shower, but it turned out that her visions were caused by a newly installed water heater that was leaking carbon monoxide.

When carbon monoxide enters your body it attaches itself to your red blood cells preventing oxygen from attaching to the cells and being delivered to your organs. This lack of oxygen is what affects your brain into seeing & hearing things that aren’t happening (among other effects).

The Fear Frequency

Another feeling in a “haunted” house is an overall sense of dread – a fear with no known source. People say they can feel a presence, that there is something in the room with them but they can’t see it. This too can be explained but instead of an invisible gas it’s invisible sound waves.

Infrasound are sound waves just below the range of human hearing. Even though we can’t hear infrasound we can feel it. The low wave vibrations of infrasound can cause panic, fear, disorientation, and it can even vibrate your eyeballs into seeing something that isn’t there. In 1998 British engineer Vic Tandy was the first to connect infrasound and “hauntings” in his paper Ghosts in the Machine published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. The Warwick lab he was working in at the time was said to be haunted — people would feel uncomfortable, scared, and occasionally see a shape move in the room. It turns out this was all the result of a 19 Hz infrasound wave coming from the lab’s newly installed extractor fan. They fixed the fan and the “haunting” stopped.

So before you call 555-2368 to bust your ghosts, turn to science for a more logical explanation.

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

The witches’ ingredients for the cauldron in Macbeth are mostly coded names for medicinal plants.

Macbeth’s Act 4 opening scene is probably one of the most well known scenes in Shakespeare. The Three Witches (aka the Weird Sisters) are in a dark cave with a boiling cauldron at the center. The witches gather and begin an incantation of dark magic, adding ingredients as they go. “Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” Each witch then lists a series of ingredients that, at face-value, sound disgusting and macabre. But the ingredients are not what they seem.

Witches, like early alchemists, kept their knowledge a closely guarded secret. After putting all of that effort into R&D you didn’t want the competition getting a hold of your findings. But witches had other reasons for secrecy. Unlike the fictional witches in Macbeth, most “witches” were in reality female medical workers using herbs & botanicals to create medicines. In Medieval Europe medicine was a male-dominated profession and women caught practicing medicine were sometimes branded as witches. As such they had to keep their activity, and their recipes, secret. By using alternate names for their ingredients, the contents of one’s “spell book” were kept secret. Also, using alternate names worked as a safe-guard to keep their proprietary medical knowledge out of the hands of the general public who might mistakenly try to prepare these treatments themselves.

Some believe that almost all of the 23 ingredients in the witches’ brew are actually coded plant names, even the problematically named “liver of blaspheming Jew”. How much of this Shakespeare knew is unclear. All the ingredients together would make an unrealistic ridiculous concoction, so they were probably chosen for theatrical shock value. He may have found a list of real “witches” ingredients and used them without knowing they were coded names. Still, if you want improved blood circulation some eye of newt (aka mustard seed) might help.

A list with pictures of the 23 ingredients in the witches' brew in Macbeth — A list of the 23 ingredients in the witches’ brew, and their real world counterparts.
Learn more about these and other alternate ingredients.

Pain Medications: What’s the difference?

Common pain medications are similar but have a few differences, and generic drugs are just as good as brand names.

When looking for pain medication there are more than enough options to induce the paradox of choice. The key is in knowing what active ingredient will treat the problem you have. Most pain medications will treat basic aches and pains but they also have different strengths & weaknesses. The following are an introduction to the four most common active ingredients in most pain medications.

Aspirin is best used for:
• reducing heart-attack risk/severity (by thinning blood)
• mild aches & pains
• headaches

Not great for:
• more severe pain

Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid)

Aspirin was the first modern pain reliever. An example of multiple discovery, both the ancient Sumerians as well as some pre-Colombian Native American tribes used the bark of the willow tree to relieve fevers & pain. Willow tree bark contains salicin which is metabolized into salicylic acid in the human body, something not understood until the early 19th century. Early synthesized versions of salicin were irritating to the stomach. It took until 1897 for the German corporation Bayer to begin mass producing a synthesized version known as acetylsalicylic acid that was kinder on the stomach. Bayer branded their product Aspirin and it quickly became the number one drug in the world.

Aspirin (when spelled with a lowercase “a”) has become the generic name for the active ingredient acetylsalicylic acid. The Bayer corporation “lost” their patent for the drug as a part of the fallout from WWI. Today it is the one of the most widely used medications in the world with about 120 billion tablets consumed each year. While it is used for pain & fever, it’s especially useful for a variety of heart problems.

Aspirin is best used for:

• reducing hear-attack risk / severity (by thinning blood), mild aches & pains, headaches

Aspirin is not great for:

• more severe pain

Ibuprofen

Ibuprofen was developed by Dr. Stewart Adams in the 1960s as an alternative to aspirin for the English company Boots. Adams said he initially tested the drug on his own hangover. Boots sold the drug under the brand name Brufen but today ibuprofen is the active ingredient in a long list of brand name pain reliever drugs. It’s considered the best common pain reliever, better than aspirin.

Ibuprofen is best used for:

• aches & pains, headaches (and hangovers), reduces inflammation and relieves arthritis, reduces fever, relieve menstrual cramps

Ibuprofen is not great for:

• chronic headaches

Naproxen

Naproxen is similar to Ibuprofen. While its effects take longer to kick-in they last longer. The effects of ibuprofen last 4-6 hours, naproxen’s effects last 8-12 hours.

Naproxen is best used for:

• very similar to ibuprofen but its effects last longer

Naproxen is not great for:

• quick relief because it takes longer to kick-in than ibuprofen

Acetaminophen is used for:
• bringing down a fever
• aches & pains
• headaches

Not great for:
• inflammation
and joint pain

Acetaminophen (Paracetamol)

Acetaminophen can help treat pain and reduce fevers on its own, but it is also found in combination with other drugs such as in cold & cough medicines. While aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen are all nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and help treat inflammation, acetaminophen is not an NSAID and so it treats pain but not any underlying inflammation.

Acetaminophen is best used for:

• bringing down a fever, aches & pains, headaches

Acetaminophen is not great for:

• inflammation and joint pain

Go Go Generic

When you have decided which active ingredient you want relieving your pain the next question is if you should buy name brand or generic store brand. In short: buy generic.

When you buy a name brand pain reliever you are largely paying for marketing. In the United States a generic drug’s active ingredient is required by law to have the same strength as the brand name equivalent. It also has to work the same way in your body (it has to be bioequivalent). Also, like many white label goods, generic drugs are frequently made by the same company making the name brand equivalent.

First Sleep & Second Sleep

We sleep in cycles and adult humans aren’t designed for 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep.

Sleep Cycles

When we fall asleep we go from consciousness to unconsciousness, but within unconsciousness there are different stages to sleep. We descend from N1 (which is a very light sleep) to N2 (a restful sleep) down to N3 and sometimes even N4 (which are the deepest and most re-energizing stages). But we don’t just do this once, emerging on the other side wide awake in the morning. More like a roller coaster, we travel down from light sleep to deeper sleep and back up several times throughout the night. Each time we do this is considered a sleep cycle, we have about 5 sleep cycles per night, and each one takes between 60-90 minutes adding up to around 7.5hrs of sleep.

At the end of the each sleep cycle, instead of going back to N1, we enter a very different kind of sleep known as rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep) – from which the band REM is named. REM is so named because our eyes are moving around despite being closed. This is especially interesting because during REM sleep our eyes are on the short list of things that we actually can move. During REM sleep your body becomes paralyzed with the exception of your eyes, heart, and lungs. One potential reason for this is that during REM sleep we dream, and paralyzing our limbs is a safety feature that prevents us from acting out our dreams and possibly punching or kicking in our sleep. When REM sleep ends we either start a new sleep cycle or we wake up, but we don’t just wake up the next morning.

First & Second sleeps

While young children and teenagers can sleep uninterrupted throughout the night (and sleep longer), it is unusual for adults to do the same. We think we’re supposed to because we used to as kids, and society tells you to sleep for 8 straight hours, but to sleep uninterrupted throughout the night as an adult is fairly unusual. For millennia it was common practice to go to bed at sundown, sleep for about 4 hours, wake up for an hour or two, do some activities, and eventually go back to sleep for a few hours until sunrise. So instead of one period of sleep there were two, known as first sleep and second sleep.

What people did in this liminal time between first and second sleeps varied. Some would do the normal things of going to the bathroom or reading, but others might smoke, some might do some light house work, and some even visited neighbors from time to time. This waking period between sleeps was so common there were even special prayer books for these hours.

While in some more primitive tribes this idea of two sleeps is still common (such as in parts of Nigeria), this practice began to die out in the west in the 17th century. As people gradually pushed their bedtime back the time between sleeps grew shorter. At first it was just the wealthy, who could afford to burn more candles and stay up longer. Eventually larger cities began to illuminate some of the streets with lamps which extended waking hours for people of all classes. Coffee houses also became more popular in Europe during the 17th century which kept people wired for longer after the sun went down. But what really killed off first & second sleep was the industrial revolution of the 19th century. Through a combination of increased time spent in factories, gas & electric lighting becoming more prevalent, and a focus on efficiency, it became unfashionable to go to bed so early only to spend the middle of the night awake in activity.

A detail from the late 17th century *Interior of a London coffee-house*. Coffee houses kept people up longer at night, reducing the amount of time people spent between sleeps.

The next time you find yourself frustrated at being awake in the middle of the night when you “should” be asleep, you can reframe the situation knowing that your body might know better. Having a biphasic sleep pattern and waking up during the night is a normal part of human physiology. Choosing to be active in the middle of the night like your ancestors once did, is optional.

Imitation Eyes

Eyespot mimicry is used throughout nature to defend against predators

Mimicry is a useful method of disguise employed by a variety of species for both offensive and defensive reasons. Eyespot mimicry is frequently used defensively where a decoy set of eyes are used to help a vulnerable species. This is especially true of creatures lower down the food chain but you can find it higher up as well. Tigers have spots on their ears that look like eyes when they vulnerably lean over to drink water, giving the appearance that they’re still on the lookout.

Sometimes the decoy eyes serve as a scare tactic, such as in Batesian mimicry. The owl butterfly has owl-like eyes on its wings. It’s believed that in being able to flash the eyes of an owl the owl butterfly is able to scare small predator birds into thinking a large owl (who eats such birds) is present. In other species the eyespots are a distraction. In flashing a set of eyes a species can surprise & confuse a predator just long enough to escape. Some species use eyespots to draw attention away from their more critical body parts. The foureye butterflyfish for example has dark eyespots near its tail (which is less important) which draws attention away from its head (which is very important). When feeling threatened it can even swim backwards making its tail seem more like the head and vice versa.

The owl butterfly whose eyespots mimic that of an owl to frighten away predators.

The foureye butterflyfish, eyespots by its tail.

Eyes looking out, for you

The northern pygmy owl of North America has eyespots on the back of its head, helping to mislead predators into thinking they are being closely watched. In 2016 an experiment was conducted in Botswana of painting eyes on the rumps of cows to prevent lion attacks. The cows with painted eyespots were less susceptible to predation by lion attacks than normal cows, as the lions may have felt they were being watched.

Finally, for those who believe in the supernatural malevolent force of the “evil eye”, you have some options of magical defensive eyespots. The nazar (a blue & white eye-like amulet) has been used for thousands of years from Turkey through to India and elsewhere. Similarly the hamsa (which also features an eye but sitting in the palm of a hand) has been used around the Middle East for a similarly extended period of time.

Both symbols are said to attract the negative energy of evil eye attacks, and destroy/repel them. If your nazar is cracked then it’s “proof” that it has worked, and of course you’re supposed to buy a new one. After all, you have to keep your magical eyespot functional.

Fade to Black … and Blue

Printed materials fade to black and blue because black and cyan ink are more resistant to the sun’s short UV waves

When you have a poster, a newspaper, or some other printed material sit in direct sunlight, the colors fade over time and frequently you are left with a mostly black & blue print. Colors fade for a variety of reasons (humidity, the type of paper, the types of inks, the temperature, etc) but exposure to light, and in particular ultraviolet light, is the primary reason.

The electromagnetic spectrum accounts for photons with a variety of wavelengths – from the very short (gamma waves) to very long (radio waves). The portion of the spectrum we can see with our eyes is known as visible light, which accounts for all the colors of the rainbow. Blues and violets are shorter wavelengths than yellows and reds. Sitting just beyond the blues & violets is ultraviolet (UV). While blue and violet are visible, ultraviolet is invisible. UV wavelengths are just a bit shorter than what our eyes can perceive. UV wavelengths are also dangerous.

When ultraviolet waves from the sun hit printed materials their short wavelengths can break the chemical bonds of the colored inks. The more damage to those chemical bonds the less those printed colors are able to continue reflecting the wavelength of their particular color. The typical printing process uses 4 colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Cyan (blue) reflects the relatively short wavelengths to make the color blue and as such it is better equipped to resist the even shorter wavelengths of UV. What we see as “black” is frequently a dense combination of ink colors (including black ink) and so it takes longer for this combination of inks to fully breakdown (although it will start to shift and lighten in color). Yellow and magenta however are forced to absorb shorter wavelengths and only reflect the longer wavelengths that are their colors. As such, the yellow and magenta in a printed poster tend to fade faster because more ultraviolet light is being absorbed and breaking down the chemical bonds of those inks.

This is why printed materials sitting out in the sun for too long will commonly lose their warmer colors faster than their black and blue colors.

Added bonus: The Earth’s atmosphere blocks a lot of UV waves from the sun, but some still enters our atmosphere. Because the moon’s atmosphere is too weak to block the sun’s ultraviolet waves, the American flags planted on the moon are all white at this point after decades of ultraviolet exposure has faded all of their colors away.

Venomous vs Poisonous

Venomous species are aggressively toxic while poisonous species are defensively toxic.

The difference between venomous and poisonous is a difference of evolutionary strategies. It’s a difference of offense vs. defense, actively toxic vs. passively toxic.

Venomous

Venomous species use an active strategy to inflict toxins. As such they always have some sort of toxin delivery system such as fangs, barbs, stingers, spurs, etc. as a way to inject their venom. They are predators that use venom to incapacitate their prey.

Poisonous

Poisonous species defensively pass on their toxins when they are touched or eaten. This passive approach is why toxic plants are categorized as poisonous because, well, most plants don’t actively move around trying to attack prey.

As for poisonous animals the poison is frequently secreted through their skin as in the case of the poison dart frog (who got their name because their poison was sometimes used by indigenous tribes of Central/South America to make poisonous blow darts).

Poisonous species use their toxin to deter predation. Sometimes a predator only needs to be poisoned once to learn to never attack that poisonous species again. For others, a particular poison doesn’t leave the predator with the option of a second attack as the result is death.

In Short:

Venomous: when something toxic bites/touches you
Poisonous: when you bite/touch something that is toxic

Added info: While generally mutually exclusive, there are a few species that are both venomous and poisonous. One example is the Tiger Keelback snake of East Asia. It has fangs to inject toxin but more frequently it employs a defensive strategy and stores toxin in nuchal glands. Any predator that bites into the snake’s neck will be poisoned. The toxin they use for either strategy is not produced by the snake, but rather it’s acquired by eating poisonous toads.

The Tiger Keelback is a rarity in that it is both venomous and poisonous

Dog Days of Summer

When the dog star Sirius rises with the morning sun, it marks the most uncomfortable time of summer.

The “dog days of summer” are traditionally some of the hottest most uncomfortable days of the year (running more or less from July 3 through August 11 in the northern hemisphere). The ancient Greeks associated this time with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, and bad luck.

They are called the “dog days” because it’s at this time the star Sirius (which is actually a binary two star system) begins to rise at dawn along with the sun. Sirius is known as the “dog star” and is a part of the constellation Canis Majoris (Latin for “Greater Dog)”, all of which puts the “dog” in the “dog days”. It was thought that the morning appearance of Sirius, which is otherwise the brightest star in the night sky, added extra heat to the days making them more uncomfortable.

Potential spoiler: Sirius being the dog star is also the hidden-in-plain-sight reference with the character Sirius Black in Harry Potter, whose animagus ability is to turn himself into a dog.

Lobster Immortality

Lobsters are not immortal, but are still pretty special

To point out that lobsters aren’t immortal may seem unnecessary unless you’ve previously seen internet buzz stories that lobsters might be able to live forever. Different species of lobsters have different lifespans but male European lobsters typically live around 31 years and females live around 54 years. This is far from forever. Aside from being killed by fishing, how do lobsters die?

One of the remarkable things about lobsters is that, unlike humans and most other animals, lobsters continue to get bigger as they get older. Humans get to an adult size and stop getting taller, but for lobsters there is no upper limit on how large they can grow to be. Another remarkable thing about lobsters is that they don’t show many signs of aging like we do. They don’t get weak, or slow down, or stop reproducing as they get older. Part of this longevity is how their cells divide. Unlike humans, lobsters continue to produce an enzyme called telomerase which helps repair damaged chromosomes during cell division. Having undamaged chromosomes allows lobsters to avoid the effects of old age and to keep living normal lives … until they don’t.

Moulting

Lobsters are invertebrates with exoskeletons. In order for a lobster to get larger as it ages it has to shed its current exoskeleton and grow a larger new one. It basically runs out of room in its shell and needs to start a new roomier one. Therein lies the problem. While there may be no physical upper limit as to how large a lobster can get, every moulting takes more energy than the time before and eventually a lobster just doesn’t have the energy to shed its exoskeleton. 10-15% of lobsters die during the moulting process because they run out of energy. For those older lobsters who just stop moulting, they begin to accumulate damage to their shells and eventually die.

An added bonus: Another question the internet seems to ask is if lobsters feel pain. Yes they do, and being boiled alive is not enjoyable for lobsters (it’s illegal to boil a lobster alive in New Zealand, Switzerland, and parts of Italy).

To end on a high note, while most lobsters are typically dark bluish greens and greenish browns, genetic mutations can produce some really spectacular looking lobsters. Similar to most animals, albinos are very rare (1 in 100 million). Unlike most other animals though, lobsters have another extremely rare coloration (1 in 100 million) where the lobster is pastel blues & subtle pinks called “cotton candy”.

Lightning Bugs

Lightning bugs glow for a variety of reasons through a chemical reaction

Lightning bugs, fireflies, glowworms, or whatever else you may call them based on where you live, are beetles (not bugs) known for their summertime bioluminescent light shows. There is a great deal of diversity among lightning bug species. Most are nocturnal (but not all), most can create bioluminescent light (but not all). In some species both the males & females can glow (but in others only one or the other can glow). They also produce different colors (light green, yellow green, red), depending on the species.

Light show

Lightning bugs have a special organ to produce light, which happens when luciferin (a chemical compound) and luciferase (an enzyme) mix. Both luciferin & luciferase are named after Lucifer, which is the Latin name for the planet Venus meaning “light bringer”, because Venus can appear just before dawn in the night sky. Only later did Lucifer also come to mean Satan.

Why lightning bugs glow varies by species as well as age. In larvae they can glow as a warning to predators telling them “I don’t taste good, don’t eat me.” In adults it’s primarily for mating purposes. Adult males puts on a light show to attract females. Females reciprocate with a glow of their own.

It’s worth noting that the females of the Photuris genus of lightning bugs are known as the “femme fatale lightning bugs” because they imitate the light pattern of other species to attract & then eat the males. Of this genus, the species Photuris pensylvanica is the state insect of Pennsylvania.