Ocean Acidification is The Evil Twin of Climate Change

Posted on October 28, 2017 by | 1 comment

Have you ever wondered where does our carbon dioxide emission end up?. It turns out that oceans absorb 25% of our carbon emission.

As carbon dioxide enters the seawater, it reacts with water and carbonate ions, which decreases both the pH and carbonate ions concentration (Figure 1). This is known as ocean acidification. 

Figure 1. The chemical process of ocean acidification. Source: PMEL Carbon Program

Dr. Trional McGrath is a Chemical oceanographer from National University of Ireland. She has investigated ocean climate change since 2008 and she believes that the ocean acidification will increase by 170% in 2100!.

Why do we care about ocean acidification and how it will affect humans and living species in the water?. To test the consequence of this issue, researchers have placed a sea butterfly, which is an essential food source for many marine species, in a water with the expected pH of 2100 (Figure 2). They found that the sea butterfly’s shell dissolves in 45 days (Figure 3). Not only sea butterfly, but also many marine species, such as crabs, oysters, and corals need carbonate ions to build their shells. So, if the concentration of carbonate ions is decreasing, these species can no longer build their shells and they dissolve!.

 

Figure 2. Sea butterfly. Source: TED

Figure 3: The shell of the sea butterfly dissolves in the expected 2100 pH. Source: TED

In addition, researches have also tested the effect of ocean acidification on tropical corals, which support a quarter of marine animals that are reef dependent. They found that they will dissolve in 6 months by the 2100. If the coral disappears, these reef dependant animals might not survive. 

Figure 4: Tropical corals dissolve in a period of 6 months in the expected 2100 pH. Source: TED

Ocean acidification is a serious issue and it is directly affecting our ecosystem and our marine food chain. if we don’t reduce our carbon emissions, most of the marine species will extinct in the next century.

 

Renad Aldebasi

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Toxicity in Chocolate

Posted on October 23, 2017 by | 5 comments

If you own or plan to own a dog, you may have heard the horror stories about dogs accidentally eating chocolate. How can something so delicious be so harmful to dogs?

One can only imagine that dogs crave chocolate as much as we do. Photo Credits: Dr. Mark

The toxic component of chocolate is cocoa powder, processed from cocoa beans. Cocoa powder contains theobromine, a compound which stimulates the nervous system and increases feelings of arousal. Whereas theobromine has no adverse side effects to humans, it can cause discomfort to dogs; over-consumption of chocolate can lead to vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, and sudden death.

Breaking down the components of chocolate.
Photo Credits: Andy Brunning

Chocolate is known for its euphoric and addictive qualities, even becoming comparable to that of a drug. Although most people recognize chocolate as a harmless sweet, ‘the dose makes the poison‘ is crucial to evaluate when chocolate consumption becomes toxic. Canine digestive systems can only process theobromine in small amounts.

There are two main factors influencing the toxicity of chocolate to dogs: chocolate type and dog size.

Baking chocolate and chocolate chips contain the highest milligrams of theobromine per kilogram of chocolate than other chocolate types. The whiter the chocolate, the less theobromine is present, so white chocolate causes the least amount of internal damage per ounce.

Average theobromine levels in different types of chocolates. Photo Credits: PetPlan

In terms of dog sizes, larger dogs can consume more chocolate compared to small dogs because they weigh more. For example, a 75 lb golden retriever will reach the theobromine limit at after 15 ounces of milk chocolate (roughly 10 Hershey bars), whereas a 5lb pomeranian will reach the theobromine limit at 2.5 ounces of milk chocolate (roughly 1.5 Hershey bars).

There is an algorithm to determine the amount of theobromine a dog can safely consume. Photo Credits: PetPlan

Unfortunately white chocolate is not completely safe for dogs. Although it contains the lowest level of theobromine, white chocolate contains high fat and sugar levels since it uses cocoa butter instead of cocoa powder. Dogs do not process sugar or fat easily, and overconsumption of white chocolate could result in enteritis or pancreatitis!

As long as this dog does not consume the entire box, he or she will be alright. Photo Credits: dogsaholic.com

The most important fact is that chocolate consumption, like all food in life, is dose-dependent. There is no need to panic if your dog breaks into the snack cupboard and gobbles down a small chocolate bar.

Jessica Shi

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Concussions – Not Just a Knock on the Head

Posted on October 23, 2017 by | 1 comment

One in five Canadians have been concussed from playing a sport according to a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute.

1 in 5 Canadians have had a concussion from playing a sport. Source: Twitter – Healthy Minds Canada

Within the last 4 years, I have had 3 concussions from playing soccer, making me one of five Canadians to get concussed from a sport.  My most recent concussion happened last October and I still have symptoms including: light sensitivity, headaches and trouble focusing.  I saw a neurologist during the summer and he explained how chemical influxes of potassium and calcium are the major causes of these concussive symptoms, especially for the first few weeks or even months after.

A concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury from a blow to the head, that causes the brain to move around in the skull.  This short video by Smithsonian, describes a concussion in simple terms.

What most of you might not know, is that concussive symptoms are not just from the brain being shaken and bruised.  Secondary symptoms, which increase a concussion’s effect, are from the chemical imbalances released when the brain is hit.  Free-radical overproduction and ion imbalances decrease the energy that nerves use to function.  The ion imbalance prevents the nerve cells from generating energy to recover from the injuries.

A paper by Christoper Giza and David Howa describes how neuronal depolarization and neurotransmitter release delays recovery from concussions and causes secondary symptoms.

Right after the blow to the head, neurotransmitters and ions like potassium and calcium are released in large quantities.  Neuronal depolarization, when positively charged ions enter the cell, occurs when potassium ions flow out and calcium ions flow into the cell disrupting the normal concentrations.

The figure below shows the overall trends of these ions during a concussion.

Potassium and calcium levels in the brain after a concussion. Data source: National Athletic Trainers’ Association

The influx of calcium ions disrupt neuron connections, slowing brain processes, causing confusion and trouble focusing.  Calcium build-up also prevents mitochondria from making energy, causing headaches.

The potassium ions pushed out of the cells cannot be balanced by the cell’s normal processes.  The excess potassium increases depolarization, creating a positive feedback cycle that suppresses the neuron, and significantly slows neuron activity, causing slower thinking and trouble formulating thoughts.

Lastly, neurotransmitter influxes inhibit neuron activity causing temporary memory loss and learning difficulties, for a week up until even 8 weeks after.  This release of neurotransmitters in higher amounts causes the initial potassium and calcium ions influx.

Currently, the scientific knowledge available about concussions is limited, so researchers have been looking at the biochemical changes that occur in the brain after a concussion happens.  By understanding the biochemical processes of concussions and how long these effects last, researchers can make a positive impact on athletes’ health and well-being.

-Jessica Hasker

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SI Units Are Changing, But Will We Have To As Well?

Posted on October 22, 2017 by | 2 comments

The SI units that we know and love today were first published in 1960, but they will be undergoing redefinition in the next few years. But don’t panic just yet!

First, a little history. The International System of Units is the metric system. The abbreviation SI stems from Système international (d’unités) in French. It is based on the metre-kilogram-second (MKS) system of units, in which meters, kilograms, and seconds were the base units.

The SI units are founded on seven base units for seven independent quantities. These units are the meter (m), kilogram (kg), second (s), kelvin (K), mole (mol), ampere (A), and candela (cd). All other units are derived from these seven. For example, the unit of force is a Newton (N), which is equal to 1 m×kg×s-2 in base units.

The SI base units. Depiep: Wikimedia Commons

Metrology is “the science of measurement, embracing both experimental and theoretical determinations at any level of uncertainty”, as defined by the Bureau international des poids et mesures (BIPM).

Changes are made to SI units to ensure stability over the long-term by linking the definitions to invariable constants.

Currently, the kilogram is defined by “the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram”, kept in a vault in Paris. If this sounds vague to you, you’re in agreement with the BIPM and metrologists around the world.

The international prototype of the kilogram is a block of platinum-iridium. However, objects like this one can easily lose or gain atoms or molecules from the surrounding air. In comparison to the prototype, official copies may no longer have the same weight. The prototype has an uncertainty of zero for now, but this is expected to rise.

Official copies of the kilogram are changing. Elizabeth Gibney Nature

SI was designed to be able to evolve as new derivative units are added and old definitions redefined. These changes are discussed at the General Conference on Weights and Measures held by the BIPM. The next conference will be held in Versailles in November 2018.

The latest revision was discussed October 16th-20th 2017 in Paris. In this new system, the base units will be defined in relation to a fundamental physical constant such as the speed of light c or the Planck constant h.

The new, revised SI units. Elizabeth Gibney Nature

These changes won’t affect the way we measure or the measurements we make in our everyday experiments, so we can continue on the way we did before. However, those operating at the absolute highest precision can now rest a little easier.

-May Constabel

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Lignin: using the whole plant

Posted on October 18, 2017 by | 1 comment

 Lignin is one of the most abundant materials on Earth but it is still painfully difficult to work with. Lignin is the name we give to a group of polymers that make plants stiff and somewhat waterproof. It is made of many aromatic groups that could be useful but its structure is so unpredictable that it ends up being an obstacle in processes like biofuel synthesis.

Location of lignin in a primitive plant: Sleaginella
National Science Foundation https://nsf.gov/news/mmg/mmg_disp.jsp?med_id=62375&f

So, the problem with lignin is that we don’t know how it will break down until it has been broken down. Many studies have tried and failed to use oxidation-reduction reactions and electrochemical processes to break lignin down into useful components. The processes are long, complicated, dependant on high temperatures and nothing seems to work well enough.

Researchers at the University of Michigan  published a paper for a one pot, room temperature method to break down lignin. To do so they combined electricity and a relatively common compound for catalysis NHPI. The advantage of this approach is they knew how the NHPI would react with a C-O bond in the pine lignin they studied. The known process told them how the reaction would start and what to expect if it worked. This catalyst is also cheaper than metal catalysts.

Then, they needed to keep the reaction going to prevent a small amount of lignin pieces from reattaching to the larger pieces. To do this, they tested many solvents and used known electrochemical conditions until they found evidence of lignin monomers and dimers (pieces of one or two molecules broken from the lignin polymer).

Polymer-dimer-monomer relation
http://www.webassign.net/question_assets/wertzcams3/ch_13/manual.html

However, all this work was done with very small amounts of material. To make the reaction work at a larger scale they used a modern technique called photocatalysis.

An example of a photocatalysis reaction
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jnm/2012/624520/fig2/

The team found that lignin was also breaking down at the larger scale and the yield was pretty good for a lignin experiment. The study showed a hopeful future for lignin research and application as well as for electrochemistry and photocatalysis processes.

Isabella Correa

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Vitamin supplementation can actually be harmful for your health.

Posted on October 17, 2017 by | 4 comments

Vitamin Supplements Source: Flickr

I bet you have taken vitamin supplementation at some point in your life. Why not? It can only be good for you, since all we hear about is how taking vitamins is good for your health, right? Wrong. Turns out there is a big misconception and that overdosing your body with vitamin intake can actually have detrimental effects for your body, even to the point to even increase the risk of getting cancer.

There is such thing as vitamin overdose which is toxic for your body. You might think that the more the better, right? Turns out excess of certain types of vitamins are not simply excreted by your body as one might think, but they rather build up in your organism and negatively affect your health. Specifically, the vitamins that negatively impact your health in excess are vitamins A, D, E and B. 

Different vitamin excess causes different symptoms. For vitamin A, some symptoms include: headaches, irritability, abdominal pain, nausea, renal stones, anorexia, etc. for vitamin D, they include: anorexia, constipation, depression, hypertension, seizures, etc. For vitamin E: fatigue, weakness, hemorrhage, affected inmune system, etc. Lastly symptoms for vitamin B include: paralysis, convulsions, fatigue, light sensibility, liver damage, insomnia, skin lesions, etc. And this are just a few out of a longer list of the symptoms for each type of vitamin.

This excess is rarely due to overconsumption of vitamins through food, since vitamin content in fruits and vegetables is not as high as in supplements. Vitamin intake through a healthy and balanced diet is usually enough to be good for our health without having the risk exceeding and get to toxic levels. These excess are mainly due to vitamin supplement intake. Furthermore, there are several studies that indicate that taking vitamin supplementation for a long period of time might increase the risk of cancer. For example, long term use of vitamin A and vitamin E supplementation have been linked with incidence of lung cancer.

This is not say vitamin supplementation is always bad for your health. There are many studies about all the positive effects of vitamins. We need vitamins for our body to function optimally. However, dietitians suggest to take vitamin supplementation in specific cases were intake of certain vitamins is crucial, for example vitamin B9 during pregnancy. If not required for a specific medical reason, people should aim to obtain vitamins from food sources rather than by supplements to avoid toxic levels that can affect your health negatively. Sometimes more does not necessarily means better, but rather the oposite.

-Andrea Olaizola.

 

 

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Consider Third Hand Smoke When Choosing a Home

Posted on October 16, 2017 by | 4 comments

Are you planning to move into a new home? Most people have heard about second hand smoke being bad for your health, but have you ever heard about third hand smoke? Third hand smoke is residual tobacco smoke pollutants that can remain in an environment up to months after the last use of tobacco. These pollutants settle on dust and surfaces such as carpets and fabrics. They can be reemitted into the air and inhaled, ingested, and absorbed through the skin. When choosing a home, is third hand smoke important enough of a factor to affect your decision?

Smoke Lingering in an Indoor Environment Credit to Wikipedia Commons

Researchers at the San Diego State University found third hand smoke to be very persistent, with significant levels remaining in homes vacant for 2 months even after they were cleaned and prepared for new occupants.

Third hand smoke levels were measured in 100 homes of smokers and in 50 homes of non smokers before and after the occupants of the homes changed. With the original occupants of the homes still present, the homes of smokers were detected to have levels of third hand smoke around seven times higher on living room surfaces and on living room dust when compared to the homes of non smokers. Levels of third hand smoke were measured again two months after these original occupants moved out and new non-smokers moved in.  The levels of third hand smoke on dust and on surfaces still exceeded health thresholds in more than half of these homes.

Urine samples for the new occupants in former homes of smokers and in former homes of non-smokers were analyzed, and the new occupants in homes of former smokers had an astonishing 3 to 5 times higher levels of tobacco pollutants present in their urine.

They found that third hand smoke levels in the air in homes of former smokers decreased after the change of occupancy, since polluted air can easily be recycled through air circulation and ventilation, but levels of third hand smoke on dust and surfaces remained high. So if you are planning to move into a new home especially with a newborn child, you should take care in choosing a home since infants and young children exhibit behaviours such as crawling and hand to mouth contact which exposes them to the high levels of third hand smoke found on dust and surfaces.

When choosing a new home, definitely try to avoid homes with excess levels of third hand smoke by knowing the history of the recent previous occupants. Knowing about the presence of third hand smoke can protect you and your family from the negative health effects of third hand smoke!

-Gareth Lee

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Silk: Real or Fake?

Posted on October 16, 2017 by | 1 comment

Do you have traditional dress or clothing item  handed down you from past generations? You may think that it is made of a special fabric or thread but imagine finding out, even though it has been kept safe for hundreds of years, it is actually made of a fake material.

 

That is what researchers at the University of Washington have recently discovered for “Buyid silks” thought to be from the Buyid period. They tested the many of the silks using various methods to determine the authenticity.

Buyid Silks. Source: Wikimedia Commons

By amino acid racemization (AAR), which is a recently discovered technique to date silks, that out of the 13 different specimens tested, only one was truly from the Buyid Dynasty. Other techniques that were used were iconography, weaving patterns and radio carbon dating. It was also found that the other 12 specimens showed high levels of AAC for other chemicals that are not consistent with the historical dating of the Buyid Dynasty. By using the other chemicals it was seen that “The result is a silk fabric that looks very similar to a historical silk…”. They concluded that AAC can be used as a biomarker to determine the authenticity of silks and if they date back to their historical time.

Amino Acid Racemization. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Keeping personal artifacts from your family is always an exciting thing however being able to test whether or not the piece is really from the said period can be beneficial for insurance or personal reasons. The next time you are handed a piece of ancient fabric, it is best to ask if it has been tested to determine its authenticity.

-Harjot Gill

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The ultimate stress-reliever

Posted on October 16, 2017 by | 1 comment

Scientists at Princeton University discovered that exercising stimulates the growth of new brain cells that makes us relaxed. However, this only occurs after three to six weeks of working out. Therefore, we must keep exercising to trigger these positive biochemical changes.

People always knew that exercising is beneficial in many ways, such as improving moods, boosting confidence, and preventing some diseases. But, no one explained this phenomenon scientifically. Thanks to researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder who picked up on what their fellow scientists at Princeton University discovered, these researchers learned that exercising remodels the brain. With exercising, the brain does not need to express a certain neurotransmitter to make us less anxious upon stressful conditions.

Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that help brain cells send signals to specific cells. One type of neurotransmitter is serotonin, it relieves us when the brain feels like the body is overstressed. The researchers at University of Colorado Boulder decided to target serotonin to see how exercising affects its activity. To do so, they conducted an experiment on rats.

Serotonin maintains mood balance, credit to Flickr

In the experiment, the rats who did not exercise was the control group and the rats who exercised for a few weeks was the experimental group. Both groups were exposed to a stressful stimuli and results showed that control group expressed more serotonin and rats who exercised had minimal serotonin activity. Therefore, this explains how exercising causes people to be less stressed despite facing tough situations, where serotonin is not needed to counter the stress.

Anxiety and stress can lead to oxidative stress, which is the overproduction of harmful free radicals in our body. Free radicals are chemical species that have unpaired electrons. This makes them highly reactive and can lead to cell death if they wrongly react with chemicals that are essential for life. While exercising, our body creates chemicals called antioxidants to counteract these free radicals by donating its electrons.

Oxidative Stress can lead to terrible consequences, credit to Flickr

In an experiment conducted on rats, there were two groups; those who exercised and those who did not. Then, both groups were exposed to an artificial chemical that induced anxiety. Unsurprisingly, the group of rats who exercised were unaffected by the chemical at all.

Exercising does wonders by improving both our physical and mental health at the same time. All we need to do is implement a bit of physical activity into our daily routine and we will feel the effects within a few weeks. From a young child to an elderly, the benefits of exercising do not discriminate. So, what are we waiting for? We should all stop whatever we’re doing right now and go for a run!

-Emily Lui

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The Future of Invisibility

Posted on October 16, 2017 by | Leave a comment

 

Credit: Lynn B

Practical cloaking technology is a long sought-after tool that has yet to be obtained. However, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy and UC Berkeley claim that this might not be true for much longer. In a recent paper, they explained that they had created a thin, flexible “skin” cloak that could hide an object from sight by channelling visible light around it. From the military to the civilian sector, disappearing from vision is undeniably desirable, leaving many eagerly waiting for new developments.

At the core of invisibility technology are metamaterials: Materials that are engineered to exhibit properties not found in nature. By designing nanostructures of a specific size, shape and orientation, electromagnetic waves can be controlled; To render an object invisible, visible light must be bent, curved, and scattered. Previous attempts at manifesting the phenomenon resulted in clumsy and easily detectable “blankets” that bent light sequentially at each layer of the material. Their key flaw was that they created a phase shift in the waves of reflected light, making them fairly noticeable under any degree of scrutiny. On the other hand, The efficacy of the “skin” cloak is in its relative simplicity, as the cloak is only 80 nanometers in thickness; instead of a thick blanket, the new technology consists of an impossibly-thin sheet. It is comprised of microscopic gold antennas, brick-like in shape and proportion, that are capable of reflecting light without changing its phase or frequency. In other words, light reflecting off of the sheet appears identical to light reflecting off of the background. This is because both reflections are of the same light: Incoming waves pass around the cloak, hit the background, and reflect back to the observer, all the while passing around (or seemingly “through”) the cloaked article. In a short video, the researchers demonstrated their ability to cause a microscopic object to completely disappear.

However, the deception doesn’t stop there; In addition to perfectly redirecting light, the cloak can be tuned in a way that one could create images that aren’t actually there. According to the researchers, “you could cover a tank with it, and make it look like a bicycle”. Despite these exciting accomplishments, it is important to remember that the technology is very much a work in progress. As such, certain flaws are still present in the design: For one, the covered object must be completely still, since the tuning of the cloak must be matched to the background. Also, the current sheet is only capable of reflecting light at one wavelength, 730 nanometers. In order to be applicable to the real-world, it would have to reflect light across the visible spectrum.

Despite these flaws, the results are promising; Real, practical invisibility technology could be right around the corner. At the turn of the 21st century, such a thing would have been relegated to the pages of sci-fi and fantasy novels, never to see (and bend) the light of day. Knowing how close we are to seeing invisibility leap from fiction to reality, you have to ask: What are other products of an over-active imagination could one day become an actuality?

 

Arjun Thomson-Kahlon

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