Potpourri

Hello!

There are a lot of topic I run across that I can't write a whole worthwhile blog post about, but I'd still like to share these little tidbits with you, so I'll try to assemble a few of those here.

Tidbit 1:

There is a bright red star in the constellation Scorpio called "Antares." It is a fascinating star that is 883 times larger than our star by diameter, meaning that if it were in our solar system, it would envelop all four rocky planets.

The fact that it is so red, coupled with the fact that the star is usually visible for most of the year created confusion because astronomers would often mistake the star for Mars, which eventually led to its name:

ant... = not
...ares = Mars

We called the star "not Mars."

Tidbit 2:

I was curious what the name for those coffee cup wraps was, so I looked it up. On the Wikipedia page, I found a whopping 7 "aka's" in the Wikipedia page. One of them was the term "zarf." A zarf is an ornate metal device made to hold a coffee cup. Here is one from the British Museum:

Image: britishmuseum.org

I think I'm going to call those coffee sleeves "zarfs" from now on.

Tidbit 3:

I heard a story about the early space mission Aurora 7, launched with Scott Carpenter inside on May 24th, 1962. The mission went mostly to plan, except for one variable the folks on the ground couldn't control: Scott. Transfixed by the view from the window, Carpenter used attitude control to point the capsule at things he was interested in seeing, and as a result landed 250 miles off course - a fact NASA was not pleased about.

The astronauts got to name their own missions, and Scott Carpenter decided to call his "Aurora." Now, he grew up in Boulder at Aurora and 7th, so many Boulderites (including me) assumed it was a reference to his street corner until I saw the video below. It turns out it was because his orbit would enable him to see the aurora borealis for the first time.

Tidbit 4:

Image: 99percentinvisible.org - check them out if you haven't yet!

You have almost certainly seen these. Paths where people simple cut the corner and trample the grass to get where they are going. As many hours as someone might put into designing walkways in parks or campuses, many a time, people will take the way that best suits them. These paths actually have a name - desire paths. There's even a subreddit for it.

Fairly appropriate, I'd say

Tidbit 5:

Brothers and sisters together are called "siblings," but did you know that you can refer to your nieces and nephews together as your "niblings?" Also - your brother or sister can be called your 0th cousin.

More:

Tidbit 6:

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The tongue twister "She sells sea shells sitting by the seashore" refers to a real person - Mary Anning. Anning lived in England in the early 19th century and was a paleontologist, fossil collector and dealer. Among other accomplishments she was the first to discover complete plesiosaur and ichthyosaur fossils.

Tidbit 7:

If you happen to have a kidney stone the solution for passing it might be in an unexpected place: Frontierland at the Disney World Resort in Orlando. According to this study, kidney stones are passed 63.9% of the time after riding the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Image: AmaryllisGardener

A flight to Orlando and a ticket to Disney World:

Cheaper than some healthcare.

I really suggest reading that paper through. It's full of little gems like this one:

Many people in the United States probably live within a few hours’ drive of an amusement park containing a roller coaster with features capable of dislodging calyceal renal calculi.

Here's a video of the researcher describing his work: 

I love science.

Cheers,

   - Scott

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What Are Coffee Naps?

I recently learned something beautiful. I personally enjoy a fairly irregular sleep schedule, and as a result I'm often tired at inconvenient times.

I'm an avowed coffee addict, but the coffee only goes so far. I could nap, but I don't like taking full-fledged naps in the middle of the day.

The solution I landed on was something called a coffee nap.



If you like videos, here's one that explains it well:

Well, that video explained it really well. I don't have much more to add, and it doesn't seem right to summarize a video that's only 2 1/2 minutes long.


For those of you who don't like videos, or can't play them:

A coffee nap is accomplished by quickly drinking coffee (or some other form of caffeine), followed immediately by a short 20 minute nap. This method turns out to be more effective than either the nap or the coffee on its own. Why does this work? (It does work according to a few studies)

Part of the reason humans begin to feel tired is due to a chemical called adenosine. When this hormone is present in the brain, it binds to adenosine receptors that lie on the cell membrane between adjacent brain cells. When this binding happens across many receptors with millions of molecules, the effect is that you feel tired.

Caffeine, is structurally very similar to adenosine (see picture below), and it can also bind to adenosine receptors. When Caffeine is bonded to adenosine receptors, it physically blocks them them so that any adenosine present cannot bind (Here's some science for nerds). By blocking the adenosine receptor, you 'trick' your brain into not getting as tired. 

Image: ClockworkSoul

The problem with caffeine is that it cannot "kick out" adenosine that is already bound to receptors, so caffeine is limited in its effect. Here's where the nap comes in. Napping naturally clears adenosine out of adenosine receptors. I tried to figure out exactly why this happens, but the science here gets really complicated really fast. Here's a good paper talking about the basics of adenosine regulation of sleep. Suffice it to say that over the course of a 20 minute nap adenosine receptors become available as adenosine concentration decreases.

The process of getting the sweet, sweet caffeine from your stomach to your bloodstream takes about 20 minutes from the time you drink the coffee. You might notice a theme of 20 minutes starting to take form. If you drink coffee, then follow it with a 20 minute nap, the adenosine levels decrease, the receptors become available, and the caffeine enters from the bloodstream, enabling it to bind to a large number of empty adenosine receptors, far more than if the pesky adenosine was still present. This method is much more effective than naps or caffeine alone at achieving the goal of getting as many adenosine receptors bound to caffeine as possible.

Enjoy your scientifically-aided wakefulness!



Cheers,

    - Scott





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