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Carbon Dating From The Skies

Determining the age of relatively recent fossils, those of plants and animals that lived tens of thousands of years ago, is not a guessing game but an exact science. By using carbon dating we can determine their age to within few years. Carbon dating is a technique where by measuring the residual carbon-14 concentration of the fossil and comparing ...

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CarbonDatingFromTheSkies
Physics

The Weakest Force

Did you know that gravity is the weakest force in the universe? Well, it's true! There are four fundamental forces (that we know of) in our universe: Strong Nuclear, Electromagnetic, Weak Nuclear ... Continue reading

WeakForce
Chemistry

What Are Isotopes?

Many of the known elements from which our universe is constructed exist in various isotopic forms. The identity of any particular element is defined by the number of protons within the nuclei of its ... Continue reading

WhatAreIsotopes
Biology

Vibrational Energy

Why is hearing such a rich and powerful sense? Maybe because it alone of all the senses has the power to fill our entire body with vibrational energy. We sometimes think of hearing as one of the ... Continue reading

VibrationalEnergy
Astronomy

The Constellations

The random arrangement of the stars visible to the naked eye has remained essentially unchanged since the time of the first written records. One of the earliest complete lists we have was compiled in ... Continue reading

TheConstellations

Fahrenheit 98.6

Fahrenheit986When you're well, your body temperature stays very close to 37o C. (98.6o F.), whether you're playing basketball in an overheated gym or sleeping in the stands at an ice hockey game in a snowstorm. Your body temperature is controlled by an area of the brain called the hypothalamus. It's about the size of the tip of your thumb and weighs a little more than a penny.

The hypothalamus is much like the thermostat attached to a furnace. Just as a thermostat senses temperature and turns the furnace on or off, the hypothalamus regulates the body's energy use and keeps temperature very near the norm. The hypothalamus can sense the temperature of the blood. If the blood becomes too cool, the hypothalamus causes the pituitary, a gland at the base of the brain, to release a hormone called TSH. (Hormones are chemicals made in one organ that travel through the blood and affect other organs.)

TSH travels through the blood and reaches the thyroid gland in the neck. There, it stimulates the thyroid to make another hormone, thyroxine. Thyroxine travels to all the cells of the body through the blood stream. It makes the cells burn food faster, generating more heat. If the blood is too warm, the reverse occurs. TSH production decreases, thyroxine levels decrease, and body cells release energy more slowly.