Do farts carry germs? Depends... Do farts carry germs? It’s probably something you’ve never thought about, but now that you’ve heard the question, we bet you’re sort of curious. But be warned, this isn’t going to be pretty. Image: lineartestpilot/Shutterstock “It all started with an enquiry from a nurse,” said Dr Karl Kruszelnicki during his science show on the Triple J radio station in Brisbane, Australia. According to the Seriously, Science blog at Discover Magazine, Kruszelnicki investigated the question by getting in contact with Canberra-based microbiologist, Luke Tennent, who helped him design and carry out an experiment.
Kruszelnicki explained what happened next: “[Tennent] asked a colleague to break wind directly onto two Petri dishes from a distance of 5 centimetres, first fully clothed, then with his trousers down. The good news? 6 Bizarre Ways Funerals Will Change in Your Lifetime. While it might seem like the task of burying human remains hasn't changed much in the past 100,000 years, the funeral process has actually evolved quite a bit since our ancestors first invented the concept of "put a body in a hole before the hyenas get here. " For example, it wasn't until the Civil War that making a corpse look pretty via embalming became popular, and cremation wasn't even legal in the Western world until 1884. By the time you attend your last funeral (we're going to go ahead and assume it will probably be your own), the ceremony won't look anything like what we do now. In other words, these aren't your grandma's funeral plans.
Unless your grandma is from the future? #6. Digital Vision. While many companies are concentrating on the fun, technological, and futuristic innovations for the mortuary industry, the real money might be in finding a way to deal with our rapidly expanding waistlines. Ben SutherlandAnd gilded. Nikada/Vetta/Getty ImagesMoney is notoriously slimming. 5 People Who Survived Certain Death (Using Cartoon Physics) Survival stories are big news ... if being featured on a morning talk show qualifies as "big news. " But sometimes the circumstances are seemingly so impossible that they skip right over Good Morning America and launch themselves straight into Looney Tunes territory. Take, for example, the time when ... #5. A Baby Survived a Six-Story Fall -- Right into a Doctor's Arms Erik Snyder/Photodisc/Getty Images Babies can barely defend themselves against a cushy blanket during a vigorous game of peek-a-boo, let alone the forces of gravity.
Michael Blann/Digital Vision/Getty ImagesWhich means they always miss the part where the baby turns out to be a full-grown grizzly bear. But it's all true: It happened to a particularly rubberlike youngster in Paris who flopped right into the arms of Dr. According to witnesses in a neighboring building, the miniature daredevil was playing near the window with his older sister moments before he fell from his apartment. . #4. Rocsprod/istockphoto #3. Larry D. Superhero Science. Image credit: iStockphoto Comic book writers are indebted to scientists, and they demonstrate their gratitude by giving these real life mega-minds special places in the pantheon of superhero mythologies.
Bruce Banner, who goes Hulk when angered, developed the Gamma Bomb for the US government. Susan Storm, also known as the Invisible Woman, holds four doctorates in biochemistry and still finds time to save the world. Even the X-Men's Beast is a much-lauded biochemist. Close study of comic book universes and the science concepts upon which they are founded can be enlightening for students and teachers alike. Boys and girls are riveted by the unique powers and compelling personalities and histories of superheroes. Living Organisms and Superhero Origin Stories My third grade science students need super-heroic intervention.
Begin this lesson by showing your scholars covers from comic books whose characters borrow their powers from the animal kingdom. The Making of a Hero Super Science Teachers. Why Fire Makes Us Human.
Vaccines. Cholera. 12 Early Uses of Electricity That Proves History Was F#@%ed. When mankind first figured out how this mysterious thing called electricity worked, everyone went a little crazy for a while there. Electricity was given diverse and often unbelievably ridiculous uses that ranged from the stupid to the cruel to the perverted ... you know, kind of like what we're doing with the Internet today.
Turns out people in the "Age of Enlightenment" weren't as smart or classy as their mustaches would seem to suggest. Let us introduce you to the most surprising trends stemming from early electricity, like ... #12. Hanging Electrified Orphans from the Ceiling William Watson If you ever wondered how the morbidly curious entertained themselves 250 years before Honey Boo Boo was on TV, here's your answer: They paid to watch orphaned children being hung from ceilings and charged with electricity.
Stephen Gray's "Hanging Boy" experiment required a kid (preferably one with no parents), two planks, a silk rope, and an electrified glass tube. . #11. New-York tribune #10. . #9. . #8. 6 'Harmless' Fads That Caused Widespread Destruction. #3. The Worldwide Love of Jeans Dyes China Blue Ciaran Griffin/Stockbyte/Getty Images The market for denim is absurd -- in 2006, over $15 billion was spent on jeans alone, and that's not even factoring in jackets, skirts, accessories, or acid wash (which, while technically just a style of jeans, presumably occupies its own wedge on the pie chart). Like many commodities, denim production is outsourced to China -- specifically Xintang, which makes around 200 million pairs of jeans every year.
And the combination of bleach and indigo dye used in the manufacturing process is poisoning the ballshits out of China's Pearl River, a 1,500-mile waterway that supplies drinking water to over 12 million people in Guangzhou. Imaginechina via AP ImagesBlue water is normally a good thing. Unless it looks like this, in which case it is a bad thing. You see, the waste runoff from denim factories contains heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and selenium. Greenpeace"You're welcome.
" #2. Photos.com. 5 Real-Life Stories of Twins Creepier Than Any Horror Movie. Twins get a bad reputation from movies: They are shown as either satanic beings or parent-trapping little brats. Well, this reputation may not be completely unfounded. If you feel bad for being so creeped out by twins, let us share with you some true stories that range from merely weird to downright bone-chilling. #5. Swedish Twins Inexplicably Go Insane at the Same Time Photos.com Swedish twins Ursula and Sabina Eriksson had no history of mental illness and lived normal, happy lives with their respective families.
Then, one day, Ursula traveled from the U.S. to Ireland to visit her sister ... and what followed was a spree of violence and shared madness that resulted in several traffic accidents, one murder victim, and a whole bunch of baffled cops. Sabina and Ursula were in Ireland when, for unknown reasons, they hopped on a bus to London without telling anyone. At this point they ran into a group of officers who were being filmed for a COPS-like show for the BBC. Sorry, a lorry. #4. . #3. 5 People Who Turned Awful Disabilities Into Superpowers. The next time you're ready to call in sick because you got a paper cut on that really painful place between your thumb and pointer finger, you might want to consider the following stories.
These folks not only didn't let horrific injuries and life destroying disabilities get them down, they actually turned them into superpowers. Douglas Bader, Alexey Maresyev, Colin "Hoppy" Hodgkinson Who? Three of the Allied Forces best fighter pilots in WWII. The Condition: We've mentioned Bader and Maresyev before; Bader for his uncanny ability to flirt his way out of multiple Nazi prison camps and Maresyev for his awesome inability to die.
That's right. Maresyev could probably have frowned an enemy pilot to death. The explanation lies with Hodgkinson, our third Ace of WWII, who lost his legs while practicing an aerial exercise blindfolded. How It's An Advantage: Bader, sitting on his awesome secret weapons: Nothing. And ass they did kick. Archery puns are always on target. Love is a crazy thing. ...Mrs. Diphtheria. Diphtheria is an infectious disease spread by direct physical contact or breathing the aerosolized secretions of infected individuals. Historically quite common, diphtheria has largely been eradicated in developed nations through widespread vaccination. In the United States, for example, there were 53 reported cases of diphtheria between 1980 and 2000,[6] but in the 21st century only two cases of diphtheria have been reported, the last of which was in 2003.[7] The diphtheria–pertussis–tetanus (DPT) vaccine is recommended for all school-age children in the U.S., and boosters of the vaccine are recommended for adults, since the benefits of the vaccine decrease with age without constant re-exposure; they are particularly recommended for those traveling to areas where the disease has not been eradicated.
Signs and symptoms[edit] An adherent, dense, grey pseudomembrane covering the tonsils is classically seen in diphtheria A diphtheria skin lesion on the leg Diphtheritic croup[edit] no data. Chemistry & Civil Disobedience. Discovery of Argon & Scientific Method. Carmen J. Giunta, Department of Chemistry, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY 13214 Presented at the 211th ACS National Meeting, New Orleans, LA, March 24, 1996. Copyright © 1996 Abstract The history of science is full of stories which exhibit scientific methodology to an exemplary degree. Such stories can be vehicles for the teaching of scientific thought to non-science majors in general education science courses, particularly if they do not involve much technical background and are told in ordinary language. Introduction and Outline Good morning. Pedagogical Background: Le Moyne College CHM 203, "Scientific Thought" Le Moyne College is a small, undergraduate-oriented institution with a Core curriculum founded on the liberal arts.
The goal of the class is to teach non-science majors how scientists thin--and also some content if I'm lucky! Scripture says there is no new thing under the sun, and that is certainly true of the idea of using case histories to teach scientific method. Notes. Louis Pasteur Controversies. Rabies Vaccination Controversy. Rabies vaccinationHans Ruesch (Slaughter of the Innocent) Robert Koch was the first to obtain a pure culture of anthrax germs, responsible for the cattle and sheep disease, and Pasteur made a vaccine from it by reducing the power of germs.
Many historians call that the first vaccine in history, as if Jenner and the Orientals had never existed. At any rate, an immediate controversy between Pasteur and Koch ensued, each one accusing the other of plagiarism. Pasteur then proceeded to develop a vaccine against rabies, or hydrophobia, which may represent the most disconcerting case in the entire disconcerting field of vaccines. Only an infinitesimal percentage of people bitten by a rabid animal catch the infection. In his best-selling Microbe Hunters,, (Harcourt, Brace, 1926/1953) Paul de Kruif gave a highly fanciful account of 19 Russian peasants who, bitten by an allegedly rabid wolf, traveled to Paris in order to receive the newly announced Pasteur treatment from the old master himself. Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness.
Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,” their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all. The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis—which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. Using Human Beings as Laboratory Animals The true nature of the experiment had to be kept from the subjects to ensure their cooperation.
Although the PHS touted the study as one of great scientific merit, from the outset its actual benefits were hazy. A Heavy Price in the Name of Bad Science 1.