Waltersdorff,+Kara

1/21/10: I think it is really interesting that a lot of tattoo ink has metals in it to give it color. You would think that the metals in the inks could be dangerous, and they can be, but the amounts in tattoo ink add color and permanence. I think it is an extremely good idea to have removable tattoo ink because if someone gets a tattoo of something and in 10 years they no longer like it they can have it removed with little to no pain, or if someone decides to tattoo a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife’s name on themselves and later breaks it off there is no more awkward explaining about why you have their name tattooed on their body. Right now laser tattoo removal hurts and takes a long time to do and with the ink there would be less pain and less time spent removing the tattoos.

Kara, Good point about tattoos of boyfriends, etc.! MW

Distillation of Crude Oil: I think it is interesting how crude oil has to be separated many times at many different levels. The process is fractional distillation and after the first carbons are boiled away you can then heat it with an open flame, which is something I didn’t know. It’s also interesting that the liquids that boil at different temperatures are all different colors and textures and that the do different. It's really cool how the big oil companies use the same principal but in a much larger scale to produce the gasoline we use for our cars.

Kara, OK. They are hydrocarbons not carbons but pretty good otherwise. 5 stars. MW

Redefining The Kilogram: It seems a little crazy that there are standards of a specific measurement kept all over the world but at the same time it makes a lot of sense. The kilogram is the last surviving physical standard out there and that is a really important thing. For scientists and people who own the weight kits it's really important to check their weights with the standard to see if they are reading things with accuracy and precision. If the people's weight is even a tiny but off it could mess up a scientific study aProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 oxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 ruin data so the international standard is really important to the scientific community.

Standards of measure go beyond Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 oxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 e scientific community. Think of the Olympics or buying precious metals. 5 stars. MW

Where Do Elements Come From?: I think it is really interesting how the 26 original elements came from stars and the explosion the star released created many of the others. It is so unreal that all of the elements on planet Earth came from stars because there are so many. I also didn't know that stars were composed of mostly hydrogen, in fact I didn't know anything about the chemical make-up of stars until I read this article. It was also interesting to me that hydrogen was caused by The Big Bang.

Kara, Yes. The stars are element factories starting with the element hydrogen. 5 stars. MW

Mole Day!: I think it's really interesting that the mole is used to count things since it is a weight and not just a number like everyone else is. I think it's pointless to abbreviate mole to mol since it is only losing one letter and it doesn't really benefit any. It is also interesting how they don't really know where the name mole came from because Avogadro didn't come up with the term. I also think I wonder why Avogadro decided to use weight to count in chemistry since you'd think it would make everything harder. Fun Stuff: You should buy this to play in class: https://www.orbromart.com/moleday/item_browse.php?item=102

Kara,

OK. Looks good. I'll see what you found. 5 stars. MW

Dust Explosions: I know you demonstrated how combustible plant dust can be in class but it is still really surprising that //sugar// caused a deadly explosion. It's really interesting that you don't need a lot of dust to cause an explosion or fire, the man said about 1/8 to 1/2 inch of dust coating on the floor is enough to cause an explosion which is not much at all but it can cause extreme danger. It will explode when it reaches a god stoichiometric ratio between the air and the dust particles. I'm curious to know what chemicals or elements are in plant dust that make it ignite and explode much easier than anyone realizes. Its really hard to imagine plants causing an explosion anywhere, but as the article clearly shows it can.

Kara, I guess nearly all dust is flammable in the right proportions! 5 stars! MW

Hexaflouride:

Learned: I learned that Sulfur hexaflouride gases don't provide oxygen to keeps us living. I learned that you gasp because of the buld-up of oxygen caused from not exhaling all of the oxygen in your body. THe final thing i learned was that sulfur hexaflouride is a gas even when it is -67 degrees celcius.

Knew Already: I knew that people can pass out from breathing helium. I also knew thet helium balloons decrease in size because the atoms leak out faster. I also knew that the sulfur hexaflouride balloons would grow in size because the atoms move slower.

Kara, OK. MW

Motion Detectors:

Knew Already: I knew that some motion detectors use a light source. I also knew that the eye is like a motion sensor for light. The final thing I already knew/ assumed was that an intense low frequency wave has as much energy as a non-intense high frequency wave.

Learned: I didn't know that different materials have different materials have different thresholds and so sensors can be made for almost every type of light. I also didn't know that a high intensity, low frequency wave would cause no electrons to be ejected but a low intensity, high frequency wave could send alot of them flying. The final thing I learned was that the individual particle that matters when it comes to the photoeletcric effect.

Kara, The last sentence is confusing. 4 stars. MW