How Does Cream Turn Into Butter

Butter is an ancient product that humans have loved ever since they first started making it. We all know that butter comes from dairy. Actually lots of stuff comes from cows milk. We make cheese, butter, cream and milk all from the original milk product that comes from a cow.

Butter itself is made from cream and it is truly amazing how simple it is to turn cream into a solid and liquid bi-product. All you need to do is a few simple steps and presto you have butter and buttermilk. Butter is the yellow solid that we all know and buttermilk is the thin watery secondary product that is also produced during the process. How does this actually happen?

The thing with cream is that a lot of it is actually water while another portion is protein and fat globules.  Cream is usually about 20% fat globules, which provide a successful suspension together with the water. This suspension is called a colloid. The fat globules are basically little sacs of fat inside a fine membrane. When the cream is agitated by shaking in a jar or being continuously whipped by an electric beater, the fat globules start to smash against each other. When the fat globules break apart the fat molecules start to clump together. Butter has fully formed when all the exposed fat has clumped together in one complete clump and there is a watery and slightly milky looking liquid.

So it really is quite a simple process. Want to see exactly how to do it Check out How To Make Butter.

Enjoy!

Check out these great butter recipes if you are looking for something interesting to do with your new fresh made butter.

   

Flavored Butters: How to Make Them, Shape Them, and Use Them as Spreads, Toppings, and Sauces

Mars Features

Mars is our famous little neighbour, well known for all the rovers and spacecraft that have been sent it's way.
This little red planet is actually mainly red due to the Iron Oxide dust suspended in the atmosphere, Large areas of Mars do actually have red soil to though. Most of Mars is actually more of a butterscotch colour, yet you can also get areas which are more yellow or brown.

Mars is substantially smaller than earth and because of this has much lower gravity and therefore also less atmosphere. The smaller amount of atmosphere makes the surface pressure a lot less than on earth, having such a insubstantial atmosphere also stops the planet from retaining as much heat from the sun which consequently causes Mars to experience very low temperatures.

Mars is home to 2 of our Solar systems Largest features Valles Marineris and Olympus Mons.

Mars (From Space)...

Buy This at Allposters.com

Valles Marineris in Latin or Mariner's Valley in English is the Massive canyon system on Mars. Mariner's Valley is over 4000km long, 200km wide and up to 10km deep. The Rim of this Canyon in places is taller than Mt Everest. The Rift valleys on Earth are longer but not as deep or wide, There is also a Rift Valley on Venus that is comparable to Earth's.

Another cool Feature of Mars also has some spectacular Polar Ice caps that have an awesome spiral shape created by Katabatic winds due to the coriolis effect. The Polar ice caps contain mostly water ice but are also host to dry ice from the freezing Carbon Dioxide. The Southern Polar cap constantly has a layer of dry ice about 8 metres thick, while in the North deposits of dry ice usually only form in winter and get to be about 1 metre thick.
When the dry ice sublimes it creates great winds that gust off the poles up to 400km per hour.

Mars Seen from...
Stocktrek Images
Buy This at Allposters.com

The gravity on Mars is about 38% of the Earth's gravity, basically if you weighed 100kgs on Earth you would only weigh 38kgs on Mars. This could have some really cool effects, first you would have to get use to moving yourself around using less force than you were use to. Once you got use to the lower gravity you would find yourself able to lift massive objects, propel yourself along the ground in longer and faster strides, even jumping a lot higher than you ever had before.

Due to the thin atmosphere on Mars the air pressure at the surface is about 6 or 7 millibars compared to Earths 1000 millibars. Due to the low pressure being on Mars without a pressure suit would be extremely hazardous to say the least.

See Mars For Yourself.
When I first started being interested in space and the planets I thought having my own telescope was way out of my price range. Then I learnt that they aren't. A telescope capable of showing you the rings of Saturn or the galileo moons of Jupiter, even the polar caps of Mars is actually quite affordable.

 

Celestron 127EQ PowerSeeker Telescope

For more cool photos of Mars have a look at Amazing Features of Mars.


Sources: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html

Interesting Facts About The Moon

The moon has a huge effect on this planet and everyone on it. You might be thinking that it is too far away to have that much of an impact. The moon has a direct effect on tides actually to be accurate the moon actually causes the ocean's tides. Just like earth has its own gravity which is what holds us on the ground, the moon also has gravity which although its not as strong as earth's it still has an effect all the way here on earth. It is the moons gravity that causes the tides, basically it pulls at the ocean making more water bulge in the direction of the moon. It is very cool that even though the moon is 384,000 km (238,855 miles) from earth it still has a major impact on our planet.

Full Moon

Mitch Diamond

Buy This at Allposters.com

Have you ever noticed that no matter when you look at the moon the shapes that you can see on its surface always look the same. That is because it is, here on earth we only ever get to see one side of the moon. It is called "Tidally Locked" and is caused again by gravity. The earth's gravity is a lot stronger than the moon's and that is why the moon orbits us instead of the other way around. The moon happens to be slightly egg shaped which is caused by the tidal locking to earth. Earth's gravity exerts a great force on the geology of the moon creating a bulge in the direction of Earth. So unless we are lucky enough to be astronauts we will never get to see the far side of the moon.

What is really interesting about tidal locking is that the attraction is mutual. Just as the Earth's gravity has caused the moon's rotation, the moon is slowly doing the same to Earth. That means that eventually the moon's influence on earth will slow its rotation down so much that the moon will only be seen from one hemisphere and always be fixed in one point of the sky.

As the Moon moves around the Earth not only does it cause the Ocean's water to bulge it also has an effect on the geology of our planet as well. This effect is said to contribute towards the effect that causes our planets tectonic plates.

Moon

Buy This at Allposters.com

The largest most visible crater that you can see on the moon is called Tycho. You can actually see Tycho with the naked eye during a full moon. If you have a look at the picture above you can see Tycho in the top right of the moons surface. This particular crater happens to be the youngest crater on the near side of the moon, it is believed to be about 109 million years old. The crater itself is about 85kms (53 miles) across and is said to be created by a 9-10km (6 miles) asteroid.

Now I should mention the maria which are the dark patches on the moon. The sea of tranquility the landing site of the first manned mission to the moon is not really a sea it is one of these maria. The maria are ancient lava flow basins, these are remnants of a time before the moon cooled down to much for volcanic activity to continue.

If you have any questions about the moon or know of any other facts you would like to share then please leave a comment.  

If you would like to know more about our solar system visit Fun Facts About The Solar System.

Also if you like the pictures posted in this blog post click on the link and you can buy them as posters from Allposters.

Remember; question everything!

Future Medicine

There are so many diseases and cancers and numerous other maladies that can be fatal and so many others that cause us lots of discomfort. What if one day we no longer had to deal with being sick again? No more colds, no more cancers, no more infections of any type! This might all be possible one day and perhaps sooner than we think.

Draco

First we have Draco which is a revolutionary way to rid ourselves of viruses.

Who likes getting a cold? I know your sitting there thinking, that its a silly question because no one likes getting sick. Well your probably right, I don't like getting sick, so why would others. That is where a newly developed treatment will one day help. Draco is an experimental protein developed to fight viruses. So far in medicine there isn't a lot your doctor can do to help you against a virus other than help ease the symptoms.

 

Picture by: George Hodan

First you need to know basically how a virus works. A virus infects a cell with the intention to reproduce, it does this by essentially using its DNA to rewrite the cells DNA which effectively turns the cell into a virus factory. So the cell goes along now building more and more of the virus, until it dies, while all the virus that it produced go and infect surrounding cells. The symptoms that we feel when infected by a virus is often due to our immune system trying to expel the virus. Another reason is that the virus has disrupted the natural function of enough cells that now cause that particular body part to no longer do its job properly. Sounds bad, time for some new medicine.

Now that you basically know what a virus does I can tell you how Draco will solve the problem. Draco basically works by detecting the DNA of a virus and then telling the cell that it has infected to die. When the cell dies the Virus that has already split to turn the cell into a virus factory dies with it. This effectively eliminates the virus and stops it from reproducing. You can learn more about Draco at Amazing New Medicine. An end to viruses is near, we just have to wait a few more years so it can go through further testing. Then we can enjoy not ever having a cold and numerous other illnesses ever again.

http://www.squidoo.com/new-medicine

My source for this was Science Illustrated Magazine and backed up by MIT News.

There also seems to be some serious campaigning to organise futher funding by a group of people that have resulted from an interview of Dr Rider back in 2011.

The Naked Mole Rat

Research on the longevity and amazing health of the Naked Mole Rat is also very promising.

The naked mole rat might hold the key to the fountain of youth so to speak. This ugly little creature although looking old and wrinkly is actually one of the healthiest known animals on the planet. Scientists have discovered that naked mole rats maintain a perfectly healthy body right up until the point they die. In fact scientists don't even know why they die, when there are is no physiological reason for their death, everything in their body still works just fine. Scientists are trying to figure out what keeps a naked mole rat so healthy. We could one day find a treatment being developed that could increase our lifespans by stopping our bodies from ageing and breaking down. Another great thing about this little creature is the lack of cancer found, It is really unusual to find animals that don't die from cancer. So do these little creatures actually fight off cancer too, It is being heavily researched as well.

A great source of information on the subject for further reading. Biologist determine how blind mole rats fight cancer.

Crocodile Immune Systems

Crocodiles have extremely powerful immune systems that save them from all sorts of infections. Crocodiles are frequently getting hurt usually in battles between themselves, often coming out of a fight with deep gashes and missing limbs. With all this bodily damage and also living in bacteria filled water it is a wonder they don't die soon after from serious infection.  Yet almost all crocodiles survive wounds such as this. 

Close-Up of an...

Buy This at Allposters.com

This is due to their strong immune system which literally destroys bacteria as soon as it enters the body. Crocodile blood has been seen to completely destroy golden staff and other antibiotic resistant super bacteria.

Learn more about this here at Wired Science.

So let's all look forward to a very healthy future.

Will The Earth Be Hit By An Asteroid?

Will the Earth be hit by an asteroid?

Meteor Heading...
Panoramic Images...
Buy This at Allposters.com

I certainly hope not, a large asteroid could render Earth unliveable.
Rocks are always entering earth's atmosphere, most of them burn up before hitting the ground, and most of us have seen these in the form of shooting stars.
They are not really shooting stars just a rock moving extremely fast that is burning very brightly as it melts away. Earth has definitely been struck by asteroids before as we can clearly see the evidence all over the globe such as this crater in Arizona. When an asteroid or a meteoroid have hit earth they are then called meteorites.

Meteor Crater,...
Jim Wark
Buy This at Allposters.com

Apparently the asteroid called 99942 Apophis won't hit the Earth in 2036 after some further calculations were made.

This asteroid apparently had a 2.7% chance of hitting earth which seems like small odds but we have a lot less chance of winning the lottery.

In fact even if there was a chance of finding an object that would hit earth in our lifetimes we have ever increasingly sophisticated tracking methods,which would give us well and truly enough time to do something about it.

According to NASA there is only 1 in 1000 chance that we will discover an object that will hit earth in the next hundred years. Furthermore there is only 1 in 10,000 chance of finding an asteroid that will impact earth in the next 10 years.

Asteroid 243 Ida
Stocktrek Images
Buy This at Allposters.com

An asteroid less than 100 metres (328 feet) in diameter would mostly burn up in the atmosphere.

Asteroids 100 metres (328 feet) and larger would cause local devastation, leaving a sizable crater.

The really scary asteroids 2 kilometres (1.25 miles) and more in diameter could cause extinction level events such as the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

It really doesn't seem like something we should be worried about.

If you want to learn more about the groups that are watching and tracking these civilization destroyers then have a look through the links below.

Near Earth Asteroid Tracking

Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazards

Spacewatch

If you are interested in finding some significant impact craters on earth check out this list on Wikipedia. This list tells you how old they are, the name and the coordinates, so you can actually go find them if you want. I would start with Google earth.

List of impact craters on Earth


Want your own piece of Meteorite?

Genuine Meteorite

What Causes Lightning?

What an interesting question, well what do we know about lightning so far, We know that it is Electricity and that it is also shoots from the clouds. Why is this So? I am about to tell you but first we need to understand that we don't actually fully understand this powerful phenomenon, yet we have a fair idea. Want to know all about lightning? We discover the process of lightning creation further down the page.

You can teach your kids about weather and lightning with the lightning lab.

Poof Slinky Lightning Lab

Well the funny thing is lightning is still being heavily studied and at this point in time it is still not completely understood. For the ease of explanation lets look at cloud to ground lightning.

Lightning Storm...
Orien Harvey
Buy This at Allposters.com

What has been figured out so far is that the charge builds up through a process called polarization. This happens in the clouds by another process similar to frictional charging, caused by the collision of water and ice particles.  Now the electrical polarity of the clouds tends to be negative at the bottom and positive towards the top of the clouds.

Now that the clouds have started to polarize it builds an electrical field which in turn affects the charge of the earth in a localised area. The negative charge at the bottom of the clouds repels the electrons in the earth to create a positive charge at the surface. As the charge in the clouds increase it reaches a point where the water vapour can no longer hold any more charge, this is called the dielectric constant. This is the point where the cloud will discharge in the form of a bolt of lightning.

Lightening...
Fadil
Buy This at Allposters.com

Normally air is a great insulator of electricity and it is relatively difficult to get a strong arc through the air, especially when you’re talking about distances that lightning travels. In this case though the air becomes a lot more conductive due to the strong electric field which is strong enough to ionize the air. The lightning bolt starts off as a step leader which is the excess electrons that have built up making their way through the polarised and now conducting air.
The electrons at this stage are travelling at about 95 km (60 miles) per second, which is nothing compared to the speed of the lightning bolt itself. Now is when we start to get a positive charge moving up from the ground to meet the descending leader. Often the positive charge will move up through buildings, trees and even people. When the positive charge starts ascending it is called a streamer. When the Streamer and Leader meet the connection point is normally pretty close to the ground sometimes up to 100 metres (300 foot) high. Now that a complete conductive pathway has been established the discharge starts and you have lightning.

 

Lightning (Nature in Action)

The lightning also superheats the air immediately surrounding the bolt so rapidly that it expands violently and causes large shockwaves which are heard as thunder. The continuous rumbling that can be heard is the shockwave echoing off the ground and clouds as it moves towards you.

Brooklyn Bridge

Buy This at Allposters.com

A few Interesting Facts about Lightning:

- Lightning raises the temperature of the air immediately around it up to 27,000 degrees Celsius (50,000 F). Which is about 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.

- The odds of being struck by a bolt of lightning in your lifetime are approximately 3,000 to 1.

- In the Last 50 years there have been nearly 4,000 people killed by lightning strikes.

- The average lightning bolt has about 10000 Amps at 100 million Volts.

- Normally a bolt of lightning actually consists of 3 - 4 discharges or separate strikes.

- Most lightning strikes are a negative charge discharging to the positive ground.

- There is also positive charge lightning strikes which make up about 10% of all lightning strikes, these positive lightning bolts are also 10 times more powerful than the average negative lightning bolt.
Get your kids into science with the great range of kits from the Magic School Bus.

The Magic School Bus - Jumping Into Electricity

For other fun facts about science visit Fun Science Facts.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments you have here. Remember to never stop asking questions!

Why Do Fingers Wrinkle In Water?

I am sure that you have probably asked why fingers wrinkle in water. I know when I was a kid I asked my parents. I got told that "it is your fingers getting tired of being soaked in water". Even as a kid I wasn't entirely convinced that the answer I was given was correct.

Now I have found out that there are a couple of different theories as to how and why water wrinkles fingers. So let's have a look at two of the more popular theories and perhaps decide which one we think makes more sense.

Theory Number One: Water Absorption.

This theory is the more generally accepted one and looks at the ability of the outer layer of your skin to absorb water. The skin on your body is the thickest on your fingers, palms and feet. The outer layer of skin actually has a protein called Keratin in the form of fibrous filaments which weave in a complex structure with dead cells called corneocytes. This complex structure allows the skin to absorb a lot of water instead of just dissolving. As the skin cells swell the outer layer triples in size and buckles, forming the wrinkles that are so familiar to all of us.

Theory Number Two: Adaptive Evolution.

This theory is relatively new and is all about fingers wrinkling in water for the purpose of increasing our grip on wet and slippery objects. It is theorised that the deep wrinkles on a water soaked finger act as drainage channels to help increase grip on objects when wet. It is said that Primates developed this adaption to help with climbing wet trees. Fingers have been studies and it has been found that the wrinkles that run vertically and stem from the tip of the finger closely resemble drainage networks in mountain ranges. It is said that due to the structure of the wrinkles as a fingertip presses down the water flows along the channels and enables the skin of the finger to fully contact the surface.

Human Skin Anatomy Model

So what do you think the real answer is?

I am a firm believer in evolution and believe that it could be possible that in the past we may have used the wrinkling of our fingers to our advantage. Yet I can't see there being enough selective pressure put on our ancestors to enable something like wrinkly fingers evolve as a necessary feature. The way I see it a bit of extra forearm strength which enhances the gripping power of the hands would be a more likely contender in helping arboreal creatures keep a better grip. For natural selection to work in favour of wrinkly fingers all the ancestors that had non wrinkling fingers would need to be at a significant disadvantage and more likely to come to harm before reaching breeding age. To me something like extra gripping strength would have given a bigger advantage over extra traction, which would have over taken in a selective way and made the wrinkling fingers for traction redundant.

So that is my opinion on the evolution theory and I believe that the fact water is absorbed into our skin and buckles due to extra volume is most accurate and I don't think that our bodies adapted to have wet wrinkly fingers for the specific purpose of better grip in the wet.

The first theory is more of a how fingers go wrinkly in water and the second theory is more of a why they go wrinkly in water. I certainly agree with theory 1 and think theory 2 is theoretically possible but probably not very likely. What do you think?

Be sure to comment and let me know what you think of these two theories.

Understanding Skin Flip Chart

Source for Water Absorption: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/08/20/3570437.htm
Source for Adaptive Evolution: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/07/wrinkled-when-wet-accidental-or-adaptive.html