Tag: science

you can help us prevent hurricanes

A while back I wrote an article about how to prevent hurricanes.  It’s been a really popular post lately, and for good reason — Hurricane Isaac was recently causing a swath of destruction along its path through the southern U.S.

Hurricane Isaac in 2012

The article explained some ways to prevent hurricanes, but there has been a noticeable lack of funds coming in.  So obviously investors either haven’t found it, or they didn’t take it seriously.  I realize the presentation could’ve been made in a more “professional” manner.  It started off with some rambling (also known as digressing), and some of the ideas were intentionally over-the-top for fun.  But I make no apologies for the format — this is a humor blog, after all.  Even when legitimate ideas are released into the blogosphere, they are accompanied with humor.  That’s just how I roll.  (Well, I do have a serious blog, and it could’ve went there, but then I would’ve had to edit out the randomness, and what’s the fun in that?)

The last idea was actually somewhat viable, though.  It could make a difference in so many ways.  Obviously we wouldn’t cover the entire Sahara desert with solar panels, but we’d have to make only a something-eight percent difference to improve the current status quo.  And as the post explains, this would reduce global warming AND save money from hurricane damages AND be a clean, green, unlimited, renewable energy solution.  So what’s the problem?  All we need is appropriate funding (and by appropriate I mean a LOT, like billions of dollars), but it would pay for itself many times over.

There may be some people who worry about tampering with Mother Nature, and there are valid concerns to address, but we’ve been doing it for years already.  If things do change for the negative somehow, people will just blame labels like “Global Warming” and “Climate Change” (partly because it gives them political power and enables them to raise taxes with the cleverly named “Cap and Trade”, but I’d better not rant on that or I will surely digress).  Besides, there are solar panels already installed in the southwest U.S., and nobody complains about that changing the weather.

It’s important that we focus on the key initiative here, and that is to solve numerous global problems at once.  Well, that and make billions of dollars in profit.  But as the saying goes, it takes money to make money.  And it takes money to save the world, unless you’ve got super powers like Superman.  However none of us are Superman, and as far as I know, no one on the Buffet o’ Blog staff has any of the super powers of Superman (or we’d know, because it would be awesome to use them).  So we need investment funding, which is another way of saying “send us your money”.  We’ll send you an official certificate saying you contributed to saving the world.  Plus you’ll feel all warm and toasty inside, and you’ll help extend the life of the Earth, and you can’t put a dollar value on that.

Are dinosaurs extinct because of their farting?

In the news recently, British scientists (“boffins”) have announced that dinosaurs’ reckless farting might have led to their extinction.  Read for yourself:

Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction, according to a new study from British scientists.

The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beasts pumped out more than 520 million tons (472 million tonnes) of methane a year — enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise.

Until now, an asteroid strike and volcanic activity around 65 million years ago had seemed the most likely cause of their extinction. …

“Our calculations suggest these dinosaurs may have produced more methane than all the modern sources, natural and human, put together.”

“Not the momma!”

Yeah, I called it reckless farting.  (Have you ever heard those two words together before?)  It’s bad enough to just fart whenever you want, but when the air becomes unsuitable for life, it’s time to change policy.  I realize they’re just animals, but you’d think they could’ve figured it out.  Even animals can learn by conditioning (like Pavlov’s dogs).  Here, you’d think after millions of years, they’d figure out a disturbing pattern.  Por ejemplo: [fart]  “Whew, that stinks.”  [fart again]  “That’s some stank-terribleness.”  [fart again]  “I can hardly breathe…”  [fart again]  “I’m about to die!”  The pattern is obvious.

Doesn’t it seem odd that there are people who get paid to calculate how much dinosaurs passed gas?  Imagine meeting new people and they ask you what you do — “I study dinosaur farts.”  You’d get some weird reactions, I’m sure.  But you’d be a hit at the elementary school on bring-your-parent-to-school day.  🙂

boiling water, freezing air, & thundersnow

If you take boiling water and toss it into the air when it’s -22 degrees outside, it evaporates into steam before it hits the ground.  Here’s a video of it.  Looks neat. At first it looks like it’s instantly turning into snow, but it’s in fact steam.

I remember hearing that hot water can actually freeze faster than cold water.  Turns out that’s only sometimes true — according to science, water at 100 degrees C will freeze before water warmer than 60 degrees C but not before water cooler than 60 degrees C.  Although if you put hot water and cold water in the freezer at the same time, the hot water can freeze faster because the bottom part of the hot water can start freezing while the top is still warm (and no convection is occurring).  Further explanation is beyond the scope of this article, but you can read more here if you’re feeling particularly nerdy today.  (It’s actually called the Mpemba effect.)

Also on the page right now is a video of Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel getting surprised by “thundersnow“.  It’s basically just thunder and lightning, but it’s more rare in a snowstorm.  His reaction is interesting, which is why this video has been making the rounds on TV.

bacon adds to life

I was watching a science program on TV the other night, and they were discussing how life might have begun on Earth.  (It’s funny to me that I know, yet so many scientists still don’t know.)  There are numerous theories / hypotheses, and one of the main ones is that life started by accident.  Supposedly amino acids in primordial soup collided with each other many times, until the right combination was formed to produce life.  (And I have to wonder — who was first, male or female?)  Amino acids are part of the building blocks of life.

The second widely-held theory / hypothesis is that an asteroid with frozen organisms deep inside crashed into Earth.  This would mean that we’re all aliens, and that life as we know it came from another planet.  But even if life came from another planet, it still had to start somewhere, somehow, since the Universe was formed by the Big Bang.

So let’s go back to the first theory.  Life had to start somewhere, obviously.  If colliding amino acids can create life, then you could create life by slapping pieces of bacon together enough times.  (You may think I’m being silly, but hold on.)  Bacon contains amino acids.  Actually, science explains that part of the reason we are attracted to the smell of bacon cooking is because of the chemical reaction of amino acids and reducing sugars.   (It’s called a Maillard reaction, if you wish to do further study.  That reaction also contributes to the taste of seared meat and roasted coffee.)  Of course, another reason we’re attracted to the smell of bacon cooking is because it smells awesome.

So since bacon contains amino acids that are essential to life, and life can supposedly start from the random collision of amino acids, then a simple formulaic proof could be constructed proving that slapping strips of bacon together can create life.  (Perhaps that Abstract Algebra class in college could be useful after all…)

Wow… the power of bacon!

Obviously a corollary to this new theory would be that eating bacon adds to your life.