No better day to start something new and exciting like TODAY

Although this is not the first time I keep a public blog, the thought of starting something new, especially a scientific blog, is still super exciting, maybe a bit nervous. That said, I should start documenting my daily discoveries right NOW!

It's been a while since I last checked out Science Friday, so when I refreshed my iTune video podcast today I saw two very cool clips.

One is a rap song about what Large Hadron Collider does. Even though it does a very good job in explaining some complicated terms and concepts in limited words and keeps them cool, fun, and rhymes at the same time, I still couldn't claim I understand fully or at least enough to rephrase what have been said. So I'll let you be the judge or you may simply enjoy the music and their goofy geeky dance ;P



The second one is an animation called what is flame. Since it's a longer video and a relatively simpler (but equally interesting) phenomenon, I felt I truly grasp how flame works at the end (now that I think about it, maybe I SHOULD have known all these ages ago??? Oh well... never too late to learn). The video started out by noting what we can see and feel about fire: the colors, blue-ish, red-ish, orange-ish, and yellow-ish from the core to the outer layer, and the heat. It went on to present the three components of any fire, H, C, and O, with the first two stack neatly like brick wall and the last ingredient floating in the atmosphere (Oh did I mention they use lego to illustrate all these atoms? Smart, right?). The first layer is the blue light when fuel turns into flame. The atoms rearrange and produce CO2 and H2O. The interesting and counter intuitive part is that the blue light itself is not hot but the flame is, and that is because the newly formed compounds are still very active and they can shake anything nearby, like the atoms of your fingertip which gives you the sensation of burning. The other colors in a flame are the results of burning when there's not enough O. The products are extra C. They together form a thing called soot which suck up heat and glow brighter and brighter. I know, I know, what I've just said would put you to sleep! What makes this video interesting is their use of animation, cartoon analogies, and funny sound and visual effects. You can check it out yourself:



Well, it's late, I should resume shortly when I see/learn anything new and interesting, until then, love and peace :D