Blood types!!

For simplicity purposes the fundamental blood types (without accounting for positive or negative) are:

A

B

AB

O

What distinguishes the different types of erythrocytes (red blood cells) is the "protein markers" or agglutinogens as they're specifically known.

So A type has A markers and so on.

However, O type has no markers at all.

This is important to your body because if you're type A then you cannot accept a donor with B or AB blood as your body will literally attack it (with your white blood cells) as it won't recognise or accept the blood and it'll deem it as an invader!

However, your body will accept O because O has NO protein markers, meaning your body can't distinguish the differentiation due to the fact that there are no markers to distinguish, so O is determined as being the "universal donor" because anybody can receive type O blood.

Type AB blood is therefore determined as being the "universal recipient" as it has both A and B protein markers so it will accept A, B, AB and O without any issue.

Here is a screen shot of an image from a YouTube video:

Why salt dissolves in water

Why does any substance DISSOLVE into another?!

In the case of SALT and quite possibly most other cases, the water molecule (H2O) literally pulls apart the sugar molecule (NaCl).

POLARITY! Some molecules have a greater POLARITY than others and H2O is a prime example, the Oxygen atom is HOLDING the bulk of the ELECTRONS within the molecule so we'd say that the Oxygen is the NEGATIVE end (because Electrons are NEGATIVELY charged), therefore the Hydrogen ends are POSITIVELY charged because there are LESS Electrons present.

An NaCl molecule is the same, the negative end is the Chlorine and the positive end is the Sodium.

Due to the fact that there's typically more water (water could dissolve into salt if there was more salt than water), we'll look at it from the this perspective.

The positive Sodium is ATTRACTED to the negative Oxygen and the negative Chlorine is attracted to the positive Hydrogen.

That's fundamentally it, the polar forces of the water molecule, due to strength and volume, rip apart the salt molecules.

Thanks

Adam X

Why blowing on soup cools it down

Lets take it to the molecular level!

You pour your soup into a bowl, chuck it in the microwave for 2-3 mins, wait for the ping then you take it out.

It's HOT!

It's too hot for you to eat immediately but you have 2 choices:

Wait for it to cool

Blow on it

Blowing on soup works in a similar way to an air-con system. 

The molecules that comprise the soup are JIGGLING because they're HOT and have lots of ENERGY. Some molecules will have EVAPORATED because they had enough energy to escape the liquid state. 

There comes a point where the molecules stop evaporating but they're still hot, too hot for you to consume even. We've reached a point of zero evaporation. Therefore we need evaporation to start again so we need to ENCOURAGE these hot molecules to leave the soup by literally blowing them away!

The HOT MOLECULES are taking away the HEAT with them, leaving behind a COOLER and more edible soup.

The AIR-CON reference is fundamentally because that works by BLOWING sweat off your skin, cooling you down :-)

Thanks

Adam X

Lack of posts

I fully aim to get posting again ASAP, I've set myself a 2 minute challenge to write as many new facts as I can remember! Here goes:

Snakes "use" only 1 lung, saves space when eating!

The Moon was only 14,000 miles from Earth when it first formed.

There is 400 million litres of WATER on our Moon!

A distance further away from you is easier to get to the LONGER it takes - SPECIAL RELATIVITY

Oil companies spend 1/2 a TRILLION DOLLARS every 2 years looking for OIL. If we harnessed he Suns energy, eventually we wouldn't have to spend anything.

Why wood rots

Wood, or rather the inside of wood, is a bit like tonnes of tubes that are attached via "doors" which are spaced-out amongst the tubes.

These tubes are are actually the walls of living cells, they have however been dead for a long time and literally only the skeleton remains. The hollow tubes, the cell walls, are the skeleton of those cells.

Fungi, attach themselves to wood and secrete enzymes which literally eat their way through the wood. As they eat they destroy the "doors" between the tubes and this creates vast open gaps in the wood, making it POROUS!

This allows water to invade the open spaces of the wood as it is absorbed through the pores that have been made by the fungi.

This makes the wood HUMID which actually helps fungal growth, which in-turn makes the wood decay quicker.

As the wood becomes more porous it also starts supporting bacterial growth aswell as they too favour these conditions. Fungi and bacteria team-up and eat through the soft SUMMER growth rings and then the harder WINTER growth rings until there's no more wood!

Thanks

Adam :-) X

Time really does fly when you're having fun!

Yes it's true! When you're care-free and happy, life seems to fly-by!

Your brain typically transposes 30 images a second - this is standard and allows you to digest info and go about your daily business.

However, when you are stressed or under pressure, your brain THINKS more, which makes sense as often you are searching for an answer to a predicament that you have or worrying yourself over something.

Now, because the brain is more ACTIVE in these cases it is digesting MORE info!! You are making your brain WORK harder, giving it more information.

This actually makes TIME seem to SLOW down!! SEEM is a strong word.

In many cases, this is how your BRAIN literally saves you from making a bad decision, if you are given a short time-span to make a decision.

Being trapped in an inferno, averting a collision, catching something are all examples of where your BRAIN appears to slow time down, thus you feeling like you're given extra-time to make a decision.

Your BRAIN is definitely transposing way more than 30 images a second in these cases. More images = more frames of reference = more decision opportunities.

Many thanks

Adam :-) X

Colour

The human eye can only perceive a small section of the electromagnetic spectrum. We call this section "VISIBLE LIGHT". Different colours across the spectrum correspond to different WAVELENGTHS of light.

Our eyes contain cells called CONES, which are sensitive to these different types of wavelength and allow us to see in COLOUR. Three different types of cone are affected by light in the RED, GREEN AND BLUE parts of the spectrum. These correspond to the PRIMARY COLOURS. Different light sources give out different parts of the spectrum, which appear as different colours. When combined, coloured lights appear as different colours. This is called the ADDITIVE PROCESS. Adding primary light sources in the correct proportions can produce the sensation of other colours in our eyes.

When light hits a pigment in an object, only some colours are reflected. Which colours are REFLECTED and which are ABSORBED depends on the pigment. This is the SUBTRACTIVE PROCESS. Looking at a coloured object in coloured light may make it appear different. This is because pigments can ONLY reflect colours that are PRESENT in the oncoming light.

Many thanks, much love, ADAM! :-) X