What causes Sunburn? | Sunburn Causes and Symptoms

Sunburn:

The emergent rays from the sun contain Ultra violet radiations. UV A, UV B, UV C are the types of ultra violet radiation. When our body is exposed to sunlight for a longer period, the UV B radiation fall on our body. Then it causes damage to our DNA which is present inside our cell. This leads to death of cell. As a result, we may suffer with cancer. In order to prevent this, the skin cell itself destroys them and as a result it activates immune response. This programmed cell death is called Apoptosis. This leads to excessive immune response in that area. As a result, the blood flow increases in that area to heal the skin. This leads to red and inflammed skin which we call now sunburn.

Why do dogs lick their wounds?

Licking of wounds by dogs:

Weird, Right? Dogs and other animals do not have 

proper medical treatments for the infections and wounds. Licking helps them cleaning their wounds. The saliva of dogs contains some anti bacterial and antiviral enzymes like lysozyme. When dogs lick their wounds, the lysozyme present in their saliva will break the cell wall of the pathogens and kill them. It's saliva also contains the tissue factor which promotes blood clotting and thus stops bleeding in their wounds. Besides, licking helps to remove the dirt from their wound. But mere licking is harmful because the dogs saliva may also contains small pathogens which aggravate the wounds. Hence, now a days dogs are made to wear elizabethan collar to prevent licking.

Unsolved Ocean Mysteries 2

Mysteries of ocean - 2:

1. 52 Blue:

This 52 blue neither indicates a color nor a place. It indicates mammal, an organism which is similar to the blue whale. Normally blue whale sounds / sings / cries at 15 to 20 hertz. But this mammal cries in 52 hertz. Hence, it named. This whale song was noted by technician on December 7th, 1992 in the North east pacific ocean. There arising a several questions like Why does this whale sounds different? Can other whales able to hear it? If they hear, do they understand? Some researchers say that it was malformation which causes change in their sound and others say it might be a hybrid produced from blue whale and other species. But till now, it's still a mystery.(in video: blue whale sound/ in link: 52 whale sound)

52 Blue sound

   

2. Upsweep:

Acoustics is the branch of physics that deals with the study of sound. Usually NOAA uses hydrophones to record the sounds in oceans in which they predicts earthquakes and record blue whale sounds in ocean. In 1997, the scientist recorded the extremely loud, low frequency sound heard from 5000km apart from the place where they placed hydrophones. Oceanographers recently found that it was the sound of glaciers in Antartica coast. In 1991, there is a different sound recorded in pacific ocean which is seasonal occurs only in spring and fall. Researchers arguing that the sound was from volacanic eruptions and seismic activities in the pacific ocean. But, according to NOAA the orgin of the sound is unresolved.

3. Why are deep sea creatures so huge?

And the answer is unknown. In the deep of the ocean, the organisms go bigger as we go deep in the ocean. This phenomenon is called deep sea gigantism. The polar region sea living organisms are really huge. eg: Colossal squids. According to Bergmann's rule, temperature may influence the gigantism. But it's not sure, only the guess. The reason for this gigantism is still a mystery.(In pic: Colossal squids)

Unbelievable Ocean mysteries

Mysteries in ocean:

1.What's under the sea floor?

Before entering into this question, let's see how the sea floor looks like. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says that 95% of ocean bottoms remain unseen by humans. However, in 2014 using radar altimeters (these instrument precisely measure the distance from the satellite to the surface of the ocean) a group of scientists measured the surface of the ocean. But they measured upto 5 km resolutions only, which is pretty low. 

   Now jump into our question. Scientists have reported that they had drilled down about 2.5km below the seafloor and discovered living microbes. There were only about 10 - 10000 micro organism of cubic cm has been studied. The genome of these micro organisms are similar to the micro organisms present in forest soil. 

2. Brine pools:

In particular parts of the ocean, the salt cocentration is more as compared to others. This area is called brine pools. Here the salt concentration is 7 to 8 times higher than that of remaining areas. The animals are not live there. However, the halophilic (salt loving) animals can fluorish there. The common mystery is how these parts may differ from that of others and what's the reason behind this excessive salt concentration.

3. Milky Seas:

These are milky bluish white colored phenomena formed over 1000 square meters in the ocean. In 2005, a group of scientists found some parts of Indian ocean was glowing bright by using the data recorded by satellite in 1995. It lasts for 3 nights. Some suggested that the glow was due to mass of tiny dinoflagellates which is known as sea sparkles. And some may suggested that it was due to bacteria present on the surface of the algae. But still the actual reason is not found,.

Why we cry when cutting onions?

If we cut onions, automatically tears will come out of our eyes. What's the reason behind these?

 When we cut onions, chemicals such as sulfoxides and enzymes are produced. These may combine and react to form a gas. These gas reacts with lubricating liquid in our eyes. As a result of this, the sulphuric acid is produced which is responsible for the tears. If we store onion in the refrigerator, the temperature of the onion falls down and the reaction between the sulfoxides and enzymes take place slowly and the resultant gas is not so stronger. It is also said that the concentration of  chemicals is more in the bulbs. Hence, in order to avoid crying, we should cut the bulbs first. Also, cutting an onion under the running water washes away the chemicals. Hence we can also use this method to avoid crying. We can also wear tight goggles to avoid the gas to reach our eyes.

Why flamingos are pink?

PINK COLOR BEHIND FLAMINGOS:

Flamingos are wading bird normally looks in pink or orange color. They are usually grey or white colored at the time of emerging or hatching. Later they turn into pink color because they eat shrimps and algae. Usually the shrimps and algae contain carotenoids. Carotenoids are reddish brown color. When the flamingos eat algae, the liver extracts these colored pigments. These colored pigments are then absorbed by fats. The fats, then pass into flamingos growing feathers which eventually turns flamingos pink in color. But, when humans eat carotenoids such as carrot and mango, it may not change our color.

Patina

What is Patina?

When a substance or material is exposed to air for a long time, it shows some changes in the properties. Like rust, as in case of iron. This may be developed due to the absorption of oxygen molecules by these substances through the atmospheric air or moisture. This process is called oxidation. In case of copper, oxidation results in the formation of green color coating in it. This is called patina. This may not damage the copper but formed like a coating on the surface of the copper. This may be classified into two types as acquired patina and applied patina.

Acquired patina:

The green patina that naturally forms on the surface of the material is called Natural / Acquired patina. This may takes place several days to form and the formation is due to weathering processes. This is commonly called Verdigris. The statue of liberty in the USA is the best example of acquired patina.

Applied patina:

Artists and paint workers deliberately add patinas for decoration or to stimulate antiquity in newly made objects. This is called distressing. 

Repatination:

In case of antiques (materials and furnitures of aesthetic value), a range of views are held on the value of the patination and the replacement if damaged, known as repatination.

Science behind Ganesha| Secret of Lord Ganesha

First transplanting:

According to mythology, the transplantation of head from elephant to human is considered as a first ever transplanting. Even though it's still seem to be a mystery, let's see a science behind this transplant. Because of his anger, Shiva choped the head of his son, Ganesha. After hearing this, his wife Parvathy got angry. To control her anger, Shiva asked his fellowmen to bring some head for transplant. They searched all around and bring an elephant for transplanting head but not fish, birds. Why?

                                                                               We already know that our ancient Indians had a great knowledge of surgery from the books of Sushruta. This is because elephant is a mammal. Every mammal has something similar in body parts. So, it does match with human. But it is not matched for fish or birds because they are not mammals.

Tonsil stones

What are tonsil stones?

When we open our mouth and look it in miror, we can see a pair of palatine tonsils in our throat. These tonsils have cravices called  tonsillar crysps. Sometimes the mucus and bacteria are collected in the tonsillar crysps and begin to calcify. Calcification is the accumulation of calcium on a particular part of the body. Usually this happens in the formation of teeth. However, sometimes the accumulation of calcium in the tonsillar crysps may lead to the formation hard structures which are called tonsil stones.

Facts about drugs

10 Interesting facts about drugs:

• Being in love and being high on cocaine activates same portions of brain.
• Breathing air in Delhi is equivalent to smoking 44 cigarettes a day.
• Scientists are claiming that sugar can be used as addictive as cocaine. Consuming sugar produces effects similar to that of cocaine, altering the mood possibly through it"s ability to induce reward and pleasure leading to seeking out sugar.
• Marijuana is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco and it is one of the safest drugs. But it is illegal due to some political reasons.
• Marijuana is considered to be less addictive than coffee.
• Francis crick discovered double helix model of DNA while being high on a drug called LSD.
• Researchers suggest that at any given time, 0.7% of the world population is drunk. It means 50 million people are drunkright now.
• Most vegetables and almost all fruits contain a samll amount of alcohol in them.
• Beer is the third most widely consumed alcoholic drinks in the world.
• Drugs are waste of time. THey destroy your memory and self respect and everything that goes onalong with your self esteem. They are not good at all. So, stay away from drugs.

Hangover

What is a hangover?

Usually when we drink too much of alcohol, it causes headache, vomiting and nausea. This is called hangover. Alcohol is a diuretic and hence it leads to excess of water loss in the form of urine resulting in dehydration and in order to compensate the water loss our body took water from our brain and it causes shrinkage of brain. This gives hangover headache. In our body, when we drink alcohol, our liver breaks down it into toxic acetaldehyde and then into harmless acetate. However when took too much of alcohol, it can't easily convert leading to hangover vomitting and nausea. Moreover different types of alcohol have different types of congeners which are basically impurities. If we drink alcohol with more congeners, it will increase the severity of hangover. Finally

LIQUOR DRINKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH

Blue color of ocean - Scattering

Why does oceans appear blue in color?

The emergent rays from the sun consists of VIBGYOR (violet,indigo,blue,green,yellow,orange,red). These may fall on the ocean containing water molecules. The ocean water readily absorbs red,green,yellow and orange. Violet, Indigo, Blue which are not easily absorbed by the water molecules. Hence, they remain scattered in the ocean and looks blue to our eyes. But as it comes down it becomes lighter and the water molecules absorbs these color and therefore the deep in the ocean looks darker in color.

Pregnancy test kit ~ The working principle

How does pregnancy test kit works?

In early days, women used to urinate in wheat seeds to check whether they conceive or not. When the seeds start to sprout, it confirms their pregnancy. This is because oestrogen contained in their urine responsible for the seed sprout. In 1963, a research conducted to check the accuracy of pregnancy and invented the kit which gives 70% of accuracy but it can't tell the sex. Let's see how it works.

      The mechanism behind these is binding the HCG hormones. HCG stands for Human Chlorionic Gonadotropin which is a hormone supports the formation of placenta. It transfers the nutrients from the mother to fetus. The hormone is secreted in the initial level of pregnancy and the pregnancy test involves in detecting these hormones. The urine is collected and dropped in the fiber. After that it travels through three seperate zones, each carries an important task.

                                                        The three zones are the reaction zone, the test zone and the control zone.

Reaction zone:

When the urine passes through this zone, there is Y Shaped antibodies which involves binding of the HCG hormone present in the urine. The Y shaped antibodies contain handy enzymes which has the ability to turn dye molecules. Then the urine picks up all the AB1 enzymes and travels to the test zone.

Test zone:

This zone also contain more Y shaped antibodies that will also stick to the HCG. As it looks like a sandwhich by binding HCG by Y shaped antibodies(AB1 & AB2) on both sides,it's called sandwhich assay. It sticks to the test zone allowing dye activating enzymes to do it's job and creates a visible pattern. If there is no HCG, the wave of urine just passes on. 

Control zone:

This zone confirms whether the test is worked properly. The unbounded AB1 enzymes in the previous zones are ended here and releasing more dye and make a visible pattern appear. If the visible pattern doesn't appears, it indicates that the test ends faulty.

                             There are several qualitative and quantitative tests available for the identification of pregnancy and it is one among them. It may be advised to go to doctor and check pregnancy for the better identifications and safe results.

The Placebo effect: What is it?

How does placebo effect work?

Placebos are the substances commonly prescribed by psychologists and sometimes by doctors for headache. They are not real medicines but they cure some ill effects. This is because our mind perceives placebos as real pill and release a hormone called endorphine which is normally a plain killer. The response of our body to the placebos are called placebo effect. Sometimes the endorphine hormones reduces stress also.

Music and the brain

Why do humans love music?

When vibrations are produced in solid, liquid and gas, our mind perceive it as a sound. Likewise when such sound vibrations are produced with specific intricate patterns, then it is known as music. By the time we hear music, the neurotransmitter dopamine was released. The same neurotransmitter is also released when we eat food and drink some juices which makes us to feel good. In case if we hear music which are more intense, it will makes us to cry often. This because excessive secretion of dopamine. The less dopamine secretion in human beings may lead to depression and often schizophrenia. Music is also used as a theraphy for autism children.