Angles, Stars, Owls

Langley's Adventitious Angles

I came across this puzzle a couple of days ago. It's incredibly hard yet it only needs a bit of basic geometry to solve. The trick to solving it is rather clever and I enjoyed it tremendously.

Missing Star

A star has disappeared! It was imaged by Hubble, but now it's not there any more. There was no supernova, so maybe this means that a massive star can turn into a blackhole without turning supernova first. More information can be found at the Astronomy image of the day for a couple of days ago.

Owls and Lemmings

Snowy owls feed on lemmings. Lemmings have good years every 4 years. In one of these good years, a snowy owl built its nest from 70 dead lemmings!

Hand Washing, Polio

Hand Washing

I score for cricket and sometimes the grounds don't have hot water in the wash basins, or maybe no soap. Does this matter? Sometimes there are no towels and no hand drier, so is it ok to not dry your hands?

If you used water hot enough to kill bacteria such as salmonella, you would scald your hands in just 30 seconds whereas the bacteria would survive more than 10 minutes, so you can't get the water hot enough to matter. I also can't imagine anyone standing there washing their hands for 10 minutes even if the water wasn't too hot! What matters is soap, rather than the temperature of the water. Anti-bacterial hand-washes are no better than soap, and can give rise to resistant bacteria.

As for drying your hands, it's ok not to if you aren't going to touch anything until they are dry which can be a bit difficult when you have to open the door to get out! If your hands are wet and you do touch something, the bacteria will have an easier time transferring to your hands than if you hands had been dry.

For more information see the BBC article Does it matter how you wash and dry your hands?

Polio

I've written about polio before on my other blog as we're so tantalisingly close to wiping it out completely. According to the NHS on polio, 95% of people who get polio don't even know they've had it, but 0.5% get permanent paralysis, which can be life-threatening. Because so few get symptoms, the WHO considers one confirmed case of polio paralysis to be evidence an epidemic. 5-10% of those who are paralysed die. Of those who survive, 40% get post polio syndrome 15–40 years after they first got polio. The symptoms of this include progressive muscle weakness, severe fatigue, and muscle and joint pain.

There are three types of wild polio virus. The last case of type II was in 1999, and in 2015 it was declared eradicated; the last case of type III was in September 2012. Type I is still indigenous in three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. The are also occasional cases of vaccine derived polio outbreaks. This is when the live weakened virus in the oral vaccine mutates and causes polio in an under-vaccinated population. However, the vaccine derived outbreaks don't seem to be easier to contain than the wild ones.

For up-to-date information, see the Polio Global Eradication Initiative site which is updated weekly.

Commas, Aluminium Pots

Using Commas to Change Meaning

In some cases, I was aware of commas changing meanings. "Panda eats, shoots and leaves" has a very different meaning from "Panda eats shoots and leaves." However, there are cases where I was not conscious of there being a difference. In the sentence "I fed the dogs which looked hungry" I picked out the hungry dogs and fed them whereas in the sentence "I fed the dogs, which looked hungry" I feed all the dogs and they happened to look hungry.

Using Aluminium Pots

When dyeing, using an aluminium pot can cause unexpected results as there is always some aluminium dissolved in the liquid in an equilibrium with the solid pot. Aluminium salts are mordants.

Tattoos, Chimera, Toff's Error

Just a few odds and ends today.

Tattoos

Don't swim in open water for two weeks after having a tattoo as it could kill you! Since tattooing breaks the skin, there is a chance of infection. This has led to ,a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/02/health/tattoo-infected-sepsis-death-vibrio-study/index.html">death in a man who swam in the Gulf of Mexico a five days after getting a tattoo.

Chimera

A chimera is caused by embryos merging in the first 24-48 hours after conception. One embryo could be male and the other female making an xx/xy person.

The Toff's Error

Using 'I' instead of 'me' such as in "They invited the wife and I" is incorrect and is called the Toff's error as some people who do it think it sounds posh. (Source: My Grammar and I (or should that be 'Me'?) by Caroline Taggart and J. A. Wines)

Hammerum Girl's Dress, Pointing and Calling

Hammerum Girl's Dress

In 1993, some late Roman Iron Age (AD 200-400 AD) graves were discovered. In one of them, there were textiles. The video below shows how the dress of the so called Hammerum Girl was created and would have looked. It includes shearing the sheep, making a spindle, spinning the yarn, making the loom weights, setting up the loom, weaving the fabric, card weaving the trim, sewing the dress up, and finally how to wear it.

Hammerum Girl from Ole Malling on Vimeo.

Japanese Pointing and Calling

In order to cut down mistakes, a practice in Japan is to point and call when doing a task. Instead of just looking at a dial to check it, say speed, you point at it and say the speed. If you are checking a train track for obstacles, you point up and down the track and follow the pointing with your eyes. This technique had cut down errors by 85%. It seems crazy that this is not done elsewhere, but apparently people are too embarrassed. It's tragic that embarrassment is more important that reducing mistakes and improving safety.

GMOs, Owls, Cockroaches

GMOs

GMOs have the potential to save lives, such as with golden rice, enriched with vitamins. Another way in which GMOs can change lives, and even protect the environment is through pest-resistant crops. Here's a video on how farmers in Bangladesh are finding growing GMO aubergines. They use 80% less insecticide (which must be good for the eco-system) and get higher yields.

Tawny Owls

Tawny owls hunt at night so they need to be able to see. Their eyes are about 2.5 times more sensitive in low light than our eyes, and take up 70% of their skull compared with just 5% for ours. (Source: BBC TV Springwatch)

Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches

We know that most mammals give birth to live young and birds lay eggs, but is there something in between?

The Madagascan hissing cockroach – they're huge and kind of cool for a cockroach, but I digress – lays eggs which is covers in a hard case before retracting them back into its body. The eggs develop within this casing and when they're ready to hatch, the casing is pushed out of the body again and the fully developed cockroaches hatch. It's an evolutionary stage between egg laying and live birth with a placenta and is called ovoviviparity.

oviparous

egg-laying such as birds, some snakes

viviparous

producing living young which develop within the body such as humans, some snakes, Madagsacan Hissing Coackroach

ovoviviparous

This is a subdivision of the viviparous reproductive strategy, where live offspring which hatch from eggs within the body of the parent. This offspring are nourished from an egg yolk rather than from the parent directly. The Madagascan hissing cockroaches mentioned above are one example, and another is the slow worm.

Cleaning Fleeces

One of the things I'm interested in is traditional crafts so learning about how fleeces can be cleaned is something that peaked my interest. A method for cleaning several fleeces is called the Fermented suint method. It involved soaking a fleece for a week in rain water. The sheep's sweat (suint) and lanolin form a sort of soap which cleans the fleece as it soaks. The resulting liquid is then used to clean further fleeces which don't need as long as the liquid becomes more effective the more fleeces are cleaned in it.

Mary, Queen of Scots

I've always been terribly confused about Mary Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots. Finally I have it straight and understand how the family tree fits together.

Henry VII had eight children of whom only three survived to adulthood.

1. Margaret (1489-1541) married James IV, King of Scotland becoming Queen of Scotland, then Archibald Douglas and finally Henry Stewart,
2. Henry (1491-1547) became King Henry VIII,
3. Mary (1496-1533), became Queen of France.

Margaret had four children by James VI of Scotland, one of whom was James V of Scotland. She also had a daughter, Margaret Douglas by Archibald Douglas, and finally a daughter by Henry Stewart.

King James V of Scotland had a daughter, Mary who became Queen of Scots. This means the lineage was: Henry VII -> Margaret -> James V of Scotland -> Mary, Queen of Scots, making her the great granddaughter of Henry VII.

Mary Tudor was the daughter of Henry VIII, and thus the granddaughter of Henry VII. This means that Mary, Queen of Scots was the first cousin once removed of Mary Tudor.

Caterpillars eating plastic, cats and dogs

Caterpillars Eating Plastic

There is a type of caterpillar which eats plastic. Although much more research is needed this might mean that some currently non-biodegradable plastics are actually biodegradable. It is currently unknown if the faeces of the caterpillar are toxic.

Socialising Cats and Dogs

I've just started a MOOC about cats and dogs. One thing that surprised me is that there is a window of socialisation for cats and dogs. For dogs, this is 6-14 weeks. Everything during that time span will be treated as normal by the puppy so it's important to introduce them to different experiences at this age.

Sling shots, New Hall Mill

Slingshots

I've had an article about Ancient Slingshots chilling in my browser for a few days now. It's fascinating. The Romans used lead bullets and could hit a target smaller than a human at about 120m. The force of a 10g bullet was almost that of a .44 magnum cartridge fired from a handgun! When the Romans attacked a fort in Scotland in around C.E. 140, they used bullets with small holes in which made a wailing sound. Can you imagine the fear that eerie sound instilled in the hearts of the Scottish tribes?

New Hall Mill

Today is one of the seven times New Hall Mill opens to the public. There's probably been a mill on the site since the 1500s with records from 1706. There were probably originally 4 mill stones but just one remains today. Because the ground floor of the mill was damp, the flour had to be stored higher up the mill. The green door visible in the photograph was used to load the flour onto carts.

Plate Tectonics, Ammonites, Caterpillars

Plate Tectonics

The rocks at the bottom of the ocean tend to be younger than the rocks on the land masses. This is because the plates which form the earth's crush are pulling apart, and new rock forms between. At the boundaries of these plates, three different things can happen. These are constructive, destructive, and conservative.

Constructive

This is when the plates pull apart and new rock is formed between them. Here, in some rocks, the changing magnetic field of the earth can be seen as in some places in ocean rocks where the field points north and in others it points south in a symmetrical pattern around the fault line.

Destructive

In other places, rocks are destroyed as plates push against each other, and one is buried under the other.

Conservative

This is when plates slide along each other. An example of where this happens is on the west coast of the USA where the Pacific plate slides alongside the North American plate at the San Andreas Fault.

Ammonites

Today I bought a cross section of an ammonite. It's at least 75 million years old. Let that sink in. 75 million years. This beautiful spiral shell once housed a squid-like creature which lived only in the outer chamber. Maybe this is the shell it died in, or perhaps it shed it and became one of the metre wide ones before finally expiring.

Caterpillars and Trees

In our walk today at Kingsbury Waterpark, we saw some strange lines hanging down across the road. They were white with wider black sections. When we got closer we saw that this black sections were hordes of caterpillars hanging in groups from threads from the trees above. The trees were covered in white webs, with very few leaves left. A quick google informs me that these are the caterpillars of ermine moths. I think they are spindle ermine moths which grow on the spindle tree. Spindle trees are so named because their wood used to be used to make spindles for spinning.

Carpel Tunnel, HIV

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

The median nerve in the arm is the only nerve which goes through the carpal tunnel, so carpal tunnel syndrome is caused by pressure on the median nerve.

HIV

Not so long ago, if you got cancer, there wasn't much hope of surviving. Now that's all changed with new treatments being developed all the time. Many people go on to live a normal full lifespan after cancer treatment with no sign of the disease.

In the 1980s, I remember the adverts about AIDS and how scary it was. I spent some time in New Year City. The neighbour of a friend there had died from AIDS and while I was there, I saw the pain and exhaustion on the face of a friend of someone dying from AIDS. It suddenly became something very real.

As with many cancers, things are now very different, and an HIV diagnosis isn't the death sentence is once was. There are now drugs which not only treat the patient with HIV but reduce the risk of them passing it on to someone else to almost zero! (Source: The Truth About... HIV, BBC TV) Not only that, but there is a drug called PrEP which prevents the person taking it from contracting HIV in the first place. It's currently available on the NHS in Scotland, and is being tested in England and Wales.

In South Africa, to defeat HIV, their is a goal that ninety percent of people with HIV will be diagnosed, ninety percent of those with HIV will be on antivirals, and ninety percent of those on antivirals will have the disease suppressed which means there is no detectable viral load in their body. There are enough drugs, medical staff are going door-to-door to diagnose people, but sadly social stigma is standing in the way of people getting treatment.

Struck by Lightning

It's been way too hot for me today. It's been around 27C and it's only May. I don't do well in this sort of temperature and consequently my concentration is poor and it's hard for me to focus on learning.

I read an article today about people being hit by lightning. Surprisingly, to me anyway, 9 out of 10 people survive a lightning strike! Very few are direct hits (3-5%). It's more likely to jump to someone when something else like a tree is hit (20-30%), but by first the most common is the lightning coursing through the ground.

Apparently only some of the charge goes through the body and the rest forms a kind of halo around the body. The resulting injuries to the skin depend on the clothes worn. The charge heats the sweat, so if the sweat can't escape, the skin gets burnt. Some material melt, some hold the heat in.

What should you do when lightning strikes? Get inside a building or car, but if you can't then there is no foolproof survival method. You should avoiding trees, tall objects, and water. Try to find a low area, spread out (at least 6 metres to the next person). Don't lie down since that increases your contact with the ground, but try crouching on the balls of your feet, feet close together and making yourself as low as possible. Don't be too eager to get up as lightning can strike after the threat appears to have passed. Wait half an hour after the storm has moved on.

Falling Bridges, Dress Codes and Bats

Bridge Collapse

Today I read an article about how the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses in 1940. This was not due to resonance. Resonance is what causes a glass to shatter at the right pitch, and what enables you to be able to swing high on a swing by pumping at the right rate. The reason the bridge collapsed was to do with vortices that formed as the wind passed over the bridge. Over time, these vortices caused the bridge to oscillate, like a leaf fluttering in the wind. A cable snapped, enabling the flutter effect to increase, and become more and more violent until the whole thing collapsed.

The article: The Strangest, Most Spectacular Bridge Collapse (And How We Got It Wrong) is a longer read on the topic.

Meeting the Pope Dress Code

I saw a picture of the Trumps meeting the pope in the Vatican. They look like they're at a funeral and so I wondered why. I looked for pictures of the Obamas meeting the pope, and Mrs Obama was again wearing black with her hair covered. I then looked for Queen Elizabeth II and she was wearing a black long dress and veil too. So what are the rules?

Checking on the etiquette at the Vatican website, it seems that women must wear at least short sleeves and the knees should be covered, and men must wear trousers and at least short sleeves. So why are so many wearing black?

For papal hearings, the dress code is stricter. Women are required to cover their heads and wear mourning clothes, and men weara tailcoat, although the dress code has been relaxed somewhat since the 1980s, as we can see since the men are not wearing tailcoats. Further, Prince Philip seems to always wear his military uniform. In 2014, Queen Elizabeth did not wear black for her meeting with Pope Francis, and nor did the Duchess of Cornwall when she met him this year, although she did when she met Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.

Hijabs and the Police

I saw an article about an American policewoman wearing a hijab, and a discussion about whether the hijab should be allowed. My immediate thought was that it should, because to disallow it would create an extra barrier for muslim women to join the police, and I'm sure muslim women are underrepresented in the police force. My only concern is safety and whether it could be used to strangle the officer in the same way that a non-clip-on tie could be used.

In 2016, the Scottish police introduced an optional hijab as part of the official uniform. It's black with a black and white chequered band on the edges. The Metropolitan Police have allowed hijabs since about 2001.

Bats

There are 18 species of bat in the UK. The tiny common pipistrelle bat, weighing around 5g, with a body little more than the size of a fifty pence piece, can eat up to 3000 small insects in one night!

Saving Babies, Children, and Sheep

It's been a while but now it's time to get back to trying to learn three (or more) new things per day.

Babies and Children

Today I went through a course on FutureLearn called First Aid for Babies and Children. It's an introduction to first aid for the younger members of society and covers CPR, bleeding, and burns. I have done several first aid courses before but it's always good to get a refresher and make sure I'm up-to-date on the protocols. There were a few things I didn't know from the course.

CPR for Babies and Children

In CPR for babies and children, start with 5 rescue breaths, which I didn't know. This is followed by repeating 30 chest compressions and 2 rescue breaths.

Recovery Position for Babies

There is a recovery position for babies which is different from the recovery position for children and adults. You hold the baby in your arms on its side, with the head supported and lower than the stomach, and continue to monitor its breathing. You don't put the baby on its tummy as the body weight is then pressing on the lungs making it harder to breathe.

Stopping a Nose Bleed

It's a common error to hold the head back during a nose bleed. This can lead to the swallowing of blood. The correct procedure is to lean forwards, pinching the soft part of the nose for 10 minutes. If bleeding does not stop after 30 minutes, seek medical advice.

Sheep

While we're on the topic of saving lives, I came across a post about saving a sheep's life today. If you see a sheep on its back, it's going to die soon but you can easily save it! All you need to do to save it is to roll it over, back onto its feet!