Hybrid Solar Eclipse of 2013 and the Element Coronium

Here's a picture I took of the hybrid solar eclipse from Uganda on November 3, 2013. Just what is a hybrid solar eclipse? It's a rare type of solar eclipse consists of an annular eclipse that transitions into a total solar eclipse. The eclipse looks like a ring of fire, sparkling with colored beads and jets, that becomes a total solar eclipse, where the sun's corona fans out around a black disc. This happens when the curvature of the Earth intercepts the moon's umbra (shadow), blocking out the entire disc of the sun. The hybrid eclipse was visible in the Atlantic ocean, while I saw a total solar eclipse in Africa.

Scientists observe the solar corona during an eclipse to analyze the chemical composition of the sun. Did you know at one time the sun's corona was believed to contain an element called coronium or newtonium?... Read more

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Make Your Own Guy Fawkes Night Fireworks

Happy Guy Fawkes Night! November 5th is Guy Fawkes Night, an annual celebration in the UK commemorating the day that Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives hidden beneath the House of Lords. People lit bonfires to celebrate King James I survival of the plot, eventually leading to a public day of thanksgiving, which of course, is celebrated by lighting FIRE, usually in the form of bonfires and fireworks.

Alas, I am American, but I support my friends across the pond in their evening of burnination. Here are some fun projects for you:

Make Homemade Fireworks
Apply the Thermite Reaction to Light a Bonfire
How To Color Fire
How To Breathe Fire
Gunpowder Facts and History

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On This Day in Science History - November 4 - X-10 Reactor

On November 4, 1943, the X-10 nuclear reactor began operations. This reactor was the first reactor built to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project. The reactor consisted of a 24 foot cube of graphite slabs surrounded by a thick concrete radiation shield. There were 1,248 horizontal holes drilled into the graphite to hold slugs of uranium fuel. These slugs would remain in the reactor to emit and absorb neutrons to convert uranium-238 into plutonium-239. After a period of time, operators would push an new uranium slug into the hole and shove the plutonium rich slug out the back for processing. The plutonium would be extracted and sent on to the Los Alamos facility.

The X-10 reactor was shut down in 1963 and declared a National Historical Landmark in 1965. The reactor face is still open to the public and a must see to anyone who visits Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

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On This Day in Science History - November 5 - Léon Teisserenc de Bort

November 5th is L?on Teisserenc de Bort's birthday. He was a French meteorologist best known for the discovery of the layer in the atmosphere known as the stratosphere. He was a pioneer of the unmanned weather balloons carrying instruments to collect and record data such as temperature, pressure and wind speed. Typically, as you increase altitude, the temperature falls rather quickly. He discovered a boundary layer of the atmosphere approximately 7 miles up where the temperature would stop decreasing and would remain constant as the altitude increased. He concluded there were two regions of the atmosphere. The first 7 miles was called the troposphere ("sphere of change" in Greek) where the weather was constantly changing and stirring up the different gases in air because of the temperature differences in the air. After 7 miles, he reasoned the gases in the air would layer themselves, heaviest to lightest in strata. He named this section the stratosphere.

Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

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On This Day in Science History - November 6 - Yeast Fermentation

November 7th marks the passing of Swedish biochemist, Hans von Euler-Chelpin. He was awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Arthur Harden for their investigations into the process of fermentation and yeast enzymes.

Brewers use yeast to convert glucose (sugar) into carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol. People have been using yeast for centuries for fermentation but the process was not fully understood. Eduard Buchner identified the yeast enzyme called zymase when he removed all cells from the yeast and still managed to produce fermentation. He would win the 1907 Nobel Prize for this discovery. Harden later showed zymase was made up of two different varieties and Euler-Chelpin discovered the complementary enzyme, cozymase that was responsible for the production of carbon dioxide in the process.

Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.

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On This Day in Science History - November 7 - Tacoma Narrows Bridge

On November 7, 1940, the bridge spanning Puget Sound across the Tacoma Narrows in Washington state dramatically collapsed. The bridge opened on July 1, 1940 as the third longest suspension bridge in the world. Almost immediately, the bridge was nicknamed "Gallopin' Gertie" because of its sway due to the wind. The state hired an engineer to propose methods to settle Gertie's galloping tendencies. They concluded their study on November 2, 1940 and recommended a couple of options to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the bridge didn't wait for the repairs.

On the morning of November 7, the winds were pretty strong and the bridge swayed more than usual. As the wind speed built up during the morning, the swaying approached the resonant frequency of the bridge itself. The bridge span began to jump and sway until it ripped itself apart at 11:00. Because of the long period of time it took to reach the breaking point, local camera shop owner Barney Elliott was able to film the collapse. This film is still shown to students of architecture, physics and engineering.

There was only one casualty to the collapse. The man in the film running from his car was named Leonard Coatsworth. Mr. Coatsworth attempted to cross the bridge but abandoned his car and daughter's cocker spaniel Tubby. Tubby would not leave the car even when others attempted to rescue him and went down with the bridge.

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Why Is Water a Polar Molecule?

Water (H2O) is a polar solvent and each water molecule exhibits polarity. Do you know why?

Water is polar because of the difference in electronegativity between hydrogen and oxygen. The highly electronegative oxygen atom attracts electrons or negative charge to it, making the region around the oxygen more negative than the areas around the two hydrogen atoms.

However, the molecule would not be polar if H2O was linear like, for example, carbon dioxide, CO2. Each water molecule is bent so that the positive portions of the molecule (the hydrogen atoms) are flexed away from the two filled orbitals of the oxygen.

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