ScienceIQ.com

An Invasion of Infiltrators

Why might a species be invasive in one country but not a big problem in its native land? As an example, consider a plant that is a major weed in the U.S. but in its native land it may be a minor pest. Many weeds have chemical defense systems that make them taste bad. In the weed's native land the animals that feed on the weed often evolve along ...

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Infiltrators
Astronomy

The Sun, The Mighty Engine Of Our Solar System

Our Sun has inspired mythology in almost all cultures, including ancient Egyptians, Aztecs, Native Americans, and Chinese. We now know that the Sun is a huge, bright sphere of mostly ionized gas, ... Continue reading

SunSolarSystem
Astronomy

Right Ascension & Declination

Right Ascension (abbreviated R.A.) and Declination (abbreviated Dec) are a system of coordinates used by astronomers to keep track of where stars and galaxies are in the sky. They are similar to the ... Continue reading

RightAscensionDeclination
Physics

Galileo Thermometers

Every substance has the property of 'mass', which is the basic physical presence of matter. Matter occupies space. A physical mass contained within a physical space produces the physical property of ... Continue reading

GalileoThermometers
Medicine

Fighting Viruses

Viral diseases can be very difficult to treat because viruses live inside the body's cells where they are protected from medicines in the blood stream. Researchers developed the first antiviral drug ... Continue reading

FightingViruses

The Good, the Bad and the Ozone

TheGoodtheBadandtheOzoneOzone is a big buzz word these days. We mostly hear about the ozone layer, and the importance of protecting it. But if you want to understand what ozone's all about, you need to understand that it can be good, and it can be bad. The stratosphere is the layer of the atmosphere from 10 to 30 miles above sea level. When there's ozone in this layer, it protects us from solar radiation. How? Simple chemistry. Regular oxygen molecules, known to science-types as O2, are made up of two oxygen atoms stuck together. Solar energy shoots in from space and splits that molecule into two atoms. When one of those stray atoms attaches to a full-fledged O2 molecule, you've got, well, O3, otherwise known as ozone. All that action blocks solar radiation, and keeps it from reaching us.

How can solar radiation be harmful to life on Earth? Part of that radiation is ultra-violet, or UV radiation. It's an intense energy from the Sun that can cause a whole lot of damage. Skin cancer is the most dramatic result of a too much UV radiation, but there's a lot more too. Photosynthesis in plants is also affected, and that causes problems for the whole food chain. See where this is headed? We need to protect our ozone shield, and we can do so by decreasing the pollution that our industrial society puts out in large amounts every day.

Let's come down a little closer to Earth. The troposphere is everything below the stratosphere, from sea level to about 10 miles above. It's where everything lives. Things that happen to the troposphere happen to us; there's nothing indirect about it. Put a little ozone in the troposphere and you've got some big problems. Remember those dramatic chemical reactions that happened up in the stratosphere? Living things are made of atoms and molecules too, so when we expose them to ozone, we've got some serious chemical reactions on our hands. In humans, it means lung damage. Small children and people with asthma are especially at risk. Cars, trucks and SUVs are the biggest contributor to this ozone buildup. Engine exhaust creates nitrogen dioxide, so the more you drive, the more your vehicle creates. High gas prices aren't the only reason to leave the car in the garage.