Home visit, in installments: Installment I

We shall forgo the science today and fill you in on our summer a bit. First part of our homebase visit was spent at the Provo house. We had a great time swimming in the kid pool, playing badminton, and having some barbeque. Too bad I didn't get a photo of the spoils. We had grilled fennel (a new favorite), pineapple, and of course some burgers. There's nothing like barbeque that declares "It's summer!"

It was great to see (almost) everyone. And I can't get enough of the porch swing.



clockwise: kiddie pool fun :: sunglasses and stuff :: summer fun :: waiting for the serve

bp's science: how does bleach work? (v.1)

So how does chlorine bleach get out nasty stains? Hmm, well we've got to do a bit of chemistry to explain it. Well we don't have to, but how long has it been since you've dabbled in chemical equations? That's what I thought.

Chlorine gas is made easily from table salt. You heard me, table salt. Table salt is sodium chloride (NaCl) and when it reacts with water (H₂O), it creates chlorine gas (Cl₂). Now if you put salt in water and stirred it, this reaction would not occur. If it did, none of us would be swimming in the ocean. You need electric energy for the following reaction to happen:

2NaCl + H₂O Cl₂ + H₂ + 2NaOH

To make bleach, the stuff you buy and the compound in bold letters, you must use the stuff you made above and:

NaOH + Cl₂ NaOCl + HCl

Now, once you pour that stuff in your washer or put it on a cloth and scrub your striped shirt with it to get out ink (thereby ruining your shirt - we've had that happen in our household) the chlorine is reacting to create atomic oxygen.

NaOCl + H₂O HCl + NaOH + O

**By the way, cheers to those of you who have had the patience and made it this far.**

Apparently, atomic oxygen is highly corrosive and it changes the molecular structure of a chromophore, the chemical compound that creates color. When the molecular structure is changed, the chromophore no longer reflects color. Good bye stain.

see here and here for a discussion on bleach, and blame me for the final reaction...

And we're back

Hello all!

We are back from our extended vacation of the homebase. We had a wonderful time. So wonderful that I'll be posting about it via pictures and words in the days to follow. Keep in mind, we are in the process of getting a new computer so until that process is complete, you can still come here to read about stuff I've been thinking about, science, and the like.

And can everyone believe it's 30 August? Remember to take those "last day of summer" walks and enjoy a popsicle, sno cone, or cup of lemonade. Summer's been great, hasn't it.

That's six years

A worthy interruption to my blogging MIA.

Today we celebrate six years of married goodness.
This is the most recent photo I could find of just Jess and I. My face says it all. I dig this guy.

visiting the homebase

Might I take a moment and tell you just how much I enjoy going back to the place where I grew up? Thanks.

Seeing family is the best, hands down. Then there's the dry heat and the cool nights which are wonderful. The grass that's barefeet worthy, the beautiful mountain view, and the highway traffic that moves fast are definite pluses. I took my dad's truck to run an errand the other day. Both windows were down, my hair was blowing everywhere, ahhhh. Then we went down to visit Jess' family's place. There I sat in a lawn chair and watched as Oliver played in a kiddie pool, Jess got in too, and then his brother turned on the hose and sprayed cold water on him. Good times.

So much good times, not much time to get to the blog. That's probably a good thing. For all of you out there that are saddened that bp's science was missed this week and may be missed again (I'm guessing that's about 2, maybe 2.4, of you), it will be here when I return from my visit.

And apologies for the lack of photos, said computer is broken and we've yet to get a new one.

bp's science: how do painkillers work? (v.1)

I was talking with my sister the other day and we were discussing headaches. Nauseating headaches. We both get them. And frequently. We're trying to figure out why we get them and how we can prevent them. I'm always coming up with theories about my headaches. As for treatment: I drink water, try to sleep consistently, attempt to be knot-free; but when that's not working I do something that seems to work and that I'm comfortable with. I take one (1) ibuprofen (Advil) or acetaminophen (Tylenol) within the first 1/2 hour of feeling the headache and I am usually in the clear. Sometimes the pain is not fully alleviated from this treatment but the edge is taken off. Good enough for someone who is not a big fan of taking painkiller.

The question is, how do painkillers work? There are several out there, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, aspirin and they all work using a similar mechanism. When you experience pain (say a headache), a protein in your body makes chemicals that tell your nerves to send a signal of pain. What a painkiller does is bind onto the protein which stops it from making chemicals that would send a pain message.

Think of it this way: say you're at a party and you don't want to talk to your ex-boyfriend (bear with me here). You represent your head, your ex-boyfriend represents the protein, his voice the pain chemical. If your ex-boyfriend sees you at the party and starts talking with you, you will hear his voice and thus experience pain. But, your good friend (who represents the painkiller) intercepts your ex-boyfriend before he can get to you, and ties him up with conversation where he can't get a word in edgewise. Thus you never hear his voice and you won't experience pain.

Quick review:
head = you
pain chemical-producing protein = ex-boyfriend
pain chemical = ex-boyfriend's voice
painkiller = good friend

See, it's always nice to have a good friend around.

Good old swiss army

My dad always carries lose change, his keys, chapstick, and a swiss army knife in his pocket. When I was younger, this pocket knife came in handy more often then you'd suppose. We'd use the scissors, knife, twissors, and file to open, cut, and pull the usual suspects (a bag of salami, a thread on your pants, a sliver, an apple).

In church the other day, an older man offered Oliver an apple because he was eyeing it and looked pretty hungry. As I took the apple the man also offered me his pocket knife. It was warm and reminded me of my dad's pocket knife. I used it to peel the apple and give Oliver a bite. I was taken aback to all of the summer picnics with family up in the canyon on a Sunday afternoon. Ahhhh.

bp's science: cool bio facts (v.1)

The body has 206 bones. Babies are born with 270 bones. Almost half of your bones are in your hands and feet.

Your face has 80 muscles in it. 17 are used when you smile. 43 are used when you frown.

Take a cross section of straight hair, it's round. Wavey hair is oval. Curly or frizzy hair is kidney-shaped.

on both sides

Did you know that peanut butter and jam sandwiches are so much better when the peanut butter is spread on both sides of the bread? It's true. It makes the classic lunch fare that much better.

bp's science: computer science sort of (v.1)

What is in the air that is making computers go haywire? I mean, first my sister tells me that her computer crashed and her family has to get a new one, then my brother-in-law gets a virus and has to restore his, and the next thing you know, ours is on the fritz. (Can you believe I just used "haywire" and "on the fritz" in one paragraph?)

On the fritz got me to go buy an external hard drive. When I went to backup our hard drive, I got a "unmountable_boot_volume" error. After a little google computer science class, I am attempting to fix the problem. Jess taught me about the blessing of google computer science (i.e. search for problem and troubleshoot) and it has worked for us before, but we shall see. Right now I am at 61% completion of the "chkdsk /r" function. Let's hope this works.

Apologies, this post has nothing really to do with science, except for the fact that I feel like I'm completing a computer science final or something (I'm just guessing this is what it feels like).

So, cross your fingers my friends and backup the precious files on your computer today. You won't regret it.

p.s. to write this post I am using an old iMac my sister gave me a while back. Thanks iMac and thanks for the hand-me-down sister. We really do appreciate it around here.