Archive for 'Science' Category
Physics Legacy: Tribute to Marie Curie
4 March 2007 <Throughout the years physics has left considerable heritage that brought explanations for the mysteries of the universe. What we should remember, apart from the miraculous theories and innovations, are the names of those who wrote the history of physics, because they were the people who dared to elaborate theories and sustain them open-heartedly.
One of such people who made the difference in physics domain is Marie Curie, who is at present the only person who was awarded two Nobel prizes, one in physics and the other one in chemistry. Her marriage to the chemistry specialist Pierre Curie was also famous, given the fact that both Pierre and Marie brought a considerable amount of information in the physics domain. What Marie Curie is most known for is her contribution to radioactivity, a domain which, at the time being, was under-appreciated and lacked any basis. Also, together with her husband, Pierre Curie, she elaborated and included in the physics domain the new chemical substances polonium and radium.
But Marie Curie did not stop here and she wanted more than just being a physics theoretician. During the First World War, Marie contributed greatly to the medical-physics side of the war, by helping the wounded soldiers with treatment based on the radium substance. The “little Curies”, as the physics particles used for X-rays were called, turned out very helpful for the great amount of injured soldiers and, again, reinforced Marie Curie’s valuable contribution to physics.
Unfortunately, Marie Curie’s work turned against her own life, if we come to think about the fact that her death occurred precisely because of over-exposure to radium. She lived to see, and dreaded this fact, that her physics discoveries were used in the cosmetics field, without being completely safe. But, all in all, she was a physics lover and she dedicated her entire life to this scientific research in order to share her knowledge with the rest of the world.
Nanotechnology - What to Do with It
4 March 2007 <Nanotechnology can be explained very easily by the expression “science of small things”, which means that it uses very small particles, called nanoparticles in order to create high-tech and other common use products which are safer and better. You might think that this is just another technological development that can’t really help you very much, but you will be surprised at the large coverage nanotechnology has on the world market.
Nanotechnology has entered the medicine, science, biology and chemistry domain in no time. This way, most of the laboratory utilities, microscopes, X- ray computers we use contain the wonder nanotechnology particles, which ease the work of the specialists and make it more accurate. But did you know that nanotechnology can even be found in your toothpaste? You might not know it, but millions of Japanese do. As the surveys show, many Japanese have bought nanotechnology toothpaste tubes in order to repair damage to tooth enamel.
As you might have already guessed, nanotechnology is a wider domain that you can possibly imagine. It ranges from articles such as toothpaste tubes to advanced micro-cips technologies and microwave food chains. The nanotechnology network tries to conquer any science-related field on the market and this is the best news we can get. Not only will this improve the quality of the daily products we use, but it will also make us appreciate the effects of nanotechnology by adopting the alternative in our lives.
If world’s business leaders have chosen to make nanotechnology part of their business and products, why wouldn’t you do the same? Better equipment and material is something any respectful customer would demand, be that a golf ball, footwarmers or a tennis racquet.
Can Sex Be Quantified Scientifically?
3 March 2007 <An extraordinary study has been made in order to capture as comprehensively as possible the sexual behavior around the Globe. This research tried to determine when the people begin their sexual activity, how many sex partners they have, and if they have protected sex. But the results are a bit frightening.
In an epoch in which there are tons of scary stories about pedophilia and promiscuity, there haven’t been registered any universal tendencies towards premature sexual relations. Another sensational discovery states the fact that the developed countries report higher rates of the multiple partners, and not those African countries in which AIDS is prevalent. The conclusion that was logically drawn from that is that the social factors, such as poverty or the sex equality have a higher importance in the balance between the illness and the health from a sexual viewpoint than promiscuity.
The scientific data states that monogamy is the dominating model in most regions of the world. Despite the substantial regional variations in the prevalence of the multiple partners that is considerably higher in the industrialized countries, most people declared that they had had only one partner lately. Men reported more partners than the women, but in the developed countries, the proportion between men and women that reported multiple partners is more or less equal.
In most cases, the age of the first sexual intercourse was higher for women. When the tendency to get married at a more mature age rose, there appeared a higher degree of the pre-marital sex.
But these statistics, although they have a strong scientific background, are highly generalized since the discrepancies between counties and cultures are extremely accentuated. Not even science can determine an exact percentage of those who are monogamous or the average age at which one has began his/her sexual activity.