the bird on fire

The Bird is the Word: Sophisticated Schoolyard Shenanigans

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MERCURY SEASPIRACY

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By Junior Levi Kassinove

Photo Source: Financial Times

Hey, you. Yeah, you! Put that tuna sandwich down, or tuna sushi, or…whatever you’re eating that includes fish and listen up. There’s an astounding amount of mercury in your seafood. The amount of mercury in bluefin tuna, the fish commonly used in tuna sushi, is around 1 part per million (mercuryfactsandfish.org). To give you an idea of how high that concentration is, the FDA recommends that adults do not eat more than 6-8 ounces of albacore per week. A can of tuna typically holds 3-5 ounces. Albacore, which already contains a relatively high amount of mercury, has 1⁄3 of the mercury concentration of bluefin tuna (edf.org). So, you essentially cannot eat more than ⅓ of a can of bluefin tuna per week. Maybe that isn’t that difficult for you. Maybe you don’t like fish. But, if you often indulge in tuna, you’re probably getting more and more frightened with every line you read. And, I don’t have good news for you. 

Effects of Mercury Poisoning

Let’s say you’re reading this article after you’ve had a nice dinner at a sushi restaurant. You’re not adventurous, so you stayed away from the monkfish liver, the live jumbo shrimp, and the squid balls. You played it safe and went to town on the tuna nigiri. Well, here are the effects of the neurotoxin you just ingested, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. 

-Numb or “pins and needles” sensations
-Cognitive impairment 
-Impairment of speech

-Loss of peripheral vision

-Loss of muscle coordination

-Seizures (my.clevelandclinic.org) 

-Multiple organ failure (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) 

-Death

How did tuna become infested with so much mercury in the first place? Why is your tuna nigiri laced with thermometer juice? The answer lies in the food chain. There is a low level of mercury present in our waters, so many microorganisms contain a small amount of it. The bluefin tuna, being a large fish, is far up on the food chain. A small fish eats tons of microorganisms, gaining their mercury. A larger fish eats many of those small fish, and the level of mercury grows exponentially as you go farther up the food chain. This is why sharks contain the highest concentration of mercury out of all seafood (sharkconservation.org.au). 

The Takeaway

The pescatarians are obviously trying to kill us all! Eat more steak. Eat more plants. But, as we say in Wagyuland, fish is best eaten in moderation. 

The Science of Super-Soldiers

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For this week, blogger Erik decided to write about superpowers and what it would look like if countries had the opportunity to genetically modify their military forces. Erik goes in depth about the pros, and mostly the cons, of global militaries being able to create “super soldiers.”– Editor-in-Chief Roman Rickwood

By Erik Bearman, Science Editor

Surprisingly, not every superpower is ludicrous. The idea of a Captain-America-type-serum-injected man turned into a weapon is actually one of the most accurate superhero-origin stories out there. The technology to achieve this exists today. In the near future, world superpowers such as China and the U.S. may have their own superpowered soldiers.

Steve Rogers Wasn't a Hero for Becoming Captain America – He Was Selfish | HE'SHero.com
A scene from Captain America: The First Avenger

Belgian Blue bull

Myostatin is a biochemical in our DNA that inhibits muscle growth. So, it stands to reason that inhibiting this inhibitor would cause us to bulk up rapidly. We’ve already seen it with the Belgian Blue cattle. Belgian farmers have selectively bred a breed of cow with a depletion of myostatin, causing them to be born with muscles that are nearly twice as developed then normal. 

Occasionally, this also happens in children. Liam Hoekstra, a child from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was born with a mutation to the myostatin gene and “could do a pull-up… [by] 8 months old”(ABC News). I can’t even do eight pull-ups at 18 years of age. If scientists altered the human genome in order to cease myostatin production, we could have our very own army of Belgian Blue Hoekstras.

Speaking of armies, approximately five months ago, NBC News reported that China has used CRISPR to conduct biological experiments in order to engineer their own super soldiers (msnbc.com). If China makes a move towards dominating the world technologically, economically, and now, militarily, who is to say that other countries won’t fight back using their own enhanced armies?

What do you think? If you were offered a super serum, would you take it to impress your friends and partners, or to defend your country?

Third Editor-in-Chief: Roman Rickwood

Sources:

Super Strong Kids May Hold Genetic Secrets – ABC News

DIY: How to Grow Your Own Human

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For this week’s dose of science news, Blogger Erik decided to discuss artificial wombs and what that may mean for the future. 

By Erik Bearman, Science Editor

In a galaxy far, far away, on the ocean world of Kamino, the Kaminoan scientists grew clones using artificial wombs in their laboratories. This may seem like a crazy sci-fi trope, but artificial wombs actually aren’t so crazy. In fact, scientists have already had success in the past.

In 1990, Japanese scientists removed a lamb fetus from its mother and grew it inside a container filled with amniotic fluid for 17 days until it was successfully delivered.

Later, in 2017, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia placed another lamb fetus inside an experimental artificial womb and allowed it to develop until it opened its eyes! Researchers now claim that “Human trials may be possible in a few years” (bbc.com).

Earlier this year, Israeli scientists successfully grew mouse embryos in a mechanical womb (www.technologyreview.com). One day, in the near future, humans could be grown in similar wombs.

mouse embryo ex utero

What Artificial Wombs May Look Like . . . 

Imagine a machine consisting of three parts:

  1. The growth chamber, which replicates the optimal conditions inside a mother’s womb.
  2. The blood container, which supplies the fetus with oxygen-rich blood.
  3. The sensors, which uses an A.I. to scan and monitor the fetus’s health.

This version of the artificial womb is one of the most practical designs as it is simple yet effective. It can also display updates on the fetus’s health in real-time.

Another version of the artificial womb is a giant, red ball that also simulates the natural environment of the organic womb. Tubes are connected to the ball that deliver blood, oxygen, and necessary medication. The womb is not see-through, as the lack of stimulation in darkness is more beneficial to the fetus.

The world's first artificial womb for humans - BBC News

Why Artificial Wombs Can Be Beneficial

According to bbc.com, “Premature birth, before 37 weeks, is globally the biggest cause of death among newborns.” Incubators can help some newborns develop, but they don’t work for all cases. An artificial womb, however, would work in most. Doctors could place the baby in an environment that allows it to continue developing until it is ready for a safe, healthy birth.

Another way artificial wombs can benefit us is by allowing humans to explore the cosmos more effectively. In Interstellar, the scientists in the movie were planning on sending fertilized eggs to a viable planet in order to grow and continue the human race. While it’s certainly a great back-up plan if humans and this planet go extinct, it is also a great way to spread to other planets and start colonizing early, setting up bases where the next generation could develop and build a society for themselves.

Who knows? Perhaps my children will be grown in one of these chambers? Perhaps yours will, too?

Second Editor-in-Chief: Sara Habibipour

Sources:

New Technologies from the COVID Era

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There is no denying that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world forever. Now that we are finally making progress in curbing the severity of the pandemic, let us take a look at possible technological advancements made while responding to COVID-19.

By Erik Bearman, Science Editor

COVID-A.I.

On New Years Eve, 2019, towards the start of the pandemic, BlueDot, a small company that analyzes and predicts outbreaks of disease, detected early signs of a potential pandemic “using data from ‘medical bulletins, even livestock reports, to predict where the virus would go next…And with that data it identified 12 of the 20 cities that would suffer first ‘” (cbsnews.com). Later on, California was able to predict which hospitals would be hit the hardest using BlueDot. 

Outbreak Science: Using artificial intelligence to track the coronavirus pandemic - 60 Minutes - CBS News

Using A.I. to map where infectious diseases may spread has long been a part of outbreak science. As COVID-19 ebbs, artificial intelligences like the ones used at BlueDot will become more widely used and may even help prevent the next pandemic from ruining the senior years of future generations.

COVID-Filter

Coronavirus blood filtration system gets FDA nod for emergency use - SlashGear

In April of 2020, ExThera Medical received Emergency Use Authorization for a Seraph 100 Blood filter. ExThera was given EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) because the filter “showed encouraging preliminary results in critically ill COVID-19 patients at a military hospital in the U.S. and 14 other hospitals in Europe” (mddionline.com). The filter works in a two-step process:

  1. Blood flows from the patient and circulates through the filter. As it does, the blood passes over receptors that imitate the receptors that pathogens target when they enter us.
  2. The infectious material is absorbed by the beads which the receptors are attached to, allowing the filter to remove them from the patient’s bloodstream without adding anything to their blood which is returned to the patient with blood cells and proteins intact. (mddionline.com)

One day, these filters may be an everyday part of hospital equipment and could provide doctors the necessary time to treat patients. With future funding and development, they may be able to filter out harmful materials other than COVID-19.

COVID-Bees

Dutch researchers train honeybees to detect COVID-19 | CBC.ca

Researchers in the Netherlands have trained bees to detect cases of COVID-19. This might seem crazy, but bees actually “have an unusually keen sense of smell” (www.reuters.com). The process used to train the bees was relatively simple: the researchers gave the bees sugar water as a reward after the bees found a sample infected with COVID-19. But, if the bees could not detect a sample of COVID-19, the researchers did not give them a reward.

Now, the bees are used to detect COVID-19 in humans and can “cut waiting times for test results to just seconds” (www.reuters.com). An unBEElievable idea can make way for faster testing in the future for other diseases. Meaning less funding will have to be put into developing testing technologies and more communities will be able to get rapid, accurate results. From bees to filters to A.I., science never lets a catastrophe go to waste.

First Editor-in-Chief: Elizabeth Shay

Sources

Part 2 of The Story

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By Doreen Yuan

A Review of the Urban-Legend storytelling rules:

1. The comment section is part of the story. All comments are ordered by the number.

2. Comments that include a >> and a number (ex: >>1) are replies to the comment with that number.

3. Anonymous users in the comment section are part of the story. There are multiple anonymous accounts.

4. The main characters named No Longer Human and Curry are part of the story in the comments.

5. Readers can leave messages in the comment section but should not intentionally destroy or try to confuse the coherence of the story.

6. Readers can respond to any anonymous character interaction in the comment section–that response may change and contribute to the story.

7. Do not use inappropriate language.

8. The roles and anonymity in the comment section are created by the primary story author himself.

9. The time of all messages is based on the time of writing.

10. Have fun, and enjoy it.

Continued from Part I, posted on October 3 . . . . Note: The story is in the comments. Read them all.

Editor: James Zheng

The Science of Cats

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By Katelin Mei

Katelin shares cat facts with us in honor of James’s Science Theme and NATIONAL CAT DAY, celebrated October 29.

Cats are animals that have been around for a very long time. There has been evidence that cats have been around as long as 9,500 years (7,500 BCE). Some people classify themselves as either cat lover or dog lover. I’m sure this information will make cats seem pretty amazing to you. Let’s start with the basic info.

Cats are animals that have pointy flexible ears, a long flexible tail, and a flexible body. They have sharp teeth, perfect for catching and killing small rodents and small birds. The scientific name for cats is felis catus. Contrary to the legend, cats can’t land on their feet every time. The reason some cats do land on their feet is because they use their tail to balance and twist their body in midair. No cats should be classified as evil, cuddly, or aggressive because of their color.

I know I said that no cat should be categorized based on their color, but there is one thing you need to know. Some all-white cats with blue eyes suffer deafness. The deafness is caused by degeneration in the inner ear and is associated with blue irises. With all-white cats that have mixed eyes, the deafness is found on the blue eye side. However, that is the only thing you should judge cats based on their color.

Cats can jump pretty high. Young, healthy, average-sized cats can jump about six times their length or over eight feet in a single leap, thanks to powerful muscles in their hind legs. Cats use their tail for balance, when they jump up and down, or fall. This is how cats land on their feet. It’s no wonder table and counter tops are a breeze for most cats to jump on.

Cats are extremely heavy sleepers. Their average sleep schedule is 12-16 hours of sleep a day, and some cats sleep up to 20 hours a day. That is a crazy amount of sleep. The reason for the large hours of sleep is that cats are nocturnal. This means they are most active between dusk and dawn. Cats will sleep during the day and become active around twilight. After breakfast, you’ll find that your cat wants to wind down, instead of playing with you. Don’t worry. After dinner, you’ll be able to play with your cat.

Science Editor: James Zheng

10 Weird Science Facts to Keep You Up at Night

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By Renée 

Science is the study of how our world works. This week, thebirdonfire.org is looking at Science. Most of us interact with the world, and science, on a daily basis. The reality of the world can be kinda weird, but you might not be aware how weird it can be. Here are some mind-bendingly weird science facts.

  • Women are less likely to be struck by lightning. It’s just science. A study by the National Weather Service explains that many of the top leisure activities that expose people to lightning strikes feature mostly male participants. 
  • The average human body carries ten times more bacterial cells than human cells. So, you’re never alone!
  • Members of the crow family can recognize human faces and can even hold grudges. Ravens have been shown to share their grudges with subsequent generations of ravens. The crow below remembers. . . .
  • On average, it takes 10g to kill a human. Surprisingly, it’s difficult to calculate the G-force that would kill a human, but the consensus is 10g experienced for at least a sustained minute will kill you.
  • You are better off surviving a grenade on land than underwater. Why? Water is in-compressible. This means not only is the blast wave not dissipated, as it would with the air on land, but the blast pressure also forces itself right through your mostly liquid body. Leaving you thoroughly dead. So, if you must sustain a blast, try to do so on land–not water. 
  • 10kgs of feathers have the same weight as 10kgs of lead. Yes. It’s true. 10 kilograms will always equal 10 kilograms. I know; it’s shocking.
  • Humans and chickens share at least 60 percent of the same DNA. Apparently, we all come from the same place. “The chicken genome fills a crucial gap in our scientific knowledge. Located between mammals and fish on the tree of life, the chicken is well-positioned to provide us with new insights into genome evolution and human biology,” said National Human Genome Research Institute Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
  • If you inject female frogs with the urine of a pregnant woman, they will ovulate within twelve hours. This used to be the only reliable and practical pregnancy test before the 1960s. Prior to using frogs, female mice and rabbits had been used, but these had to be dissected and carefully examined for ovarian changes. Frogs lay eggs, meaning they can be checked for ovulation without killing them. Therefore, frogs were reusable and could be conveniently kept in aquariums, which made pregnancy testing practical on a larger scale than before. What a world.
  • If the world’s spiders took to eating humans rather than insects, they’d consume the world’s human population in about a year. “The total biomass of all adult humans on Earth is estimated to be 287 million tons. Even if you tack on another 70 million-ish tons to account for the weight of kids, it’s still not equal to the total amount of food eaten by spiders in a given year, exceeding the total weight of humanity. In other words, spiders could eat all of us and still be hungry.” People actually calculated this.
  • A liquid can boil and freeze at the same time. Lauren Davis over at the io9 online science journal explains, “As the liquid boils, high energy molecules leave the liquid as gas, lowering the temperature of the liquid left behind and causing it to freeze. This process of boiling and freezing continues while the substance remains at this pressure and temperature.” 

The world is so weird, please don’t go outside!

Sources:

https://weather.com/health/news/lightning-kills-more-men-women-20130805

Bacteria: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

https://www.medicaldaily.com/breaking-point-whats-strongest-g-force-humans-can-tolerate-369246

https://www.sciencealert.com/watch-how-to-survive-a-grenade-blast-according-to-science

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100419074408AAyD6Ie&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9

https://www.genome.gov/12514316/2004-release-researchers-compare-chicken-human-genomes

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/doctors-used-to-use-live-african-frogs-as-pregnancy-tests-64279275/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/28/spiders-could-theoretically-eat-every-human-on-earth-in-one-year/

https://www.sciencealert.com/watch-a-liquid-boil-and-freeze-at-the-same-time

Science Editor: James Zheng

Us

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Editor James assigned us the theme of “Science.” Quintus responded at the pitch meeting, “I’ll write about Chemical Reactions.” Somehow, we knew he wouldn’t be limiting himself to the chemistry of science class.

We’re like bottles of sulfuric acid of different concentrations.

We’re not like noble gases.

We are intoxicated with the neon in the night

Where it’s not so bland.

Life is like a REDOX reaction.

The concentration of sulfuric acid is life.

In this chemical reaction

We’ll meet some tough opponents:

supercilious carbonaceous nitrogen and iron.

At this point, with enough heat and pressure

All can be easily solved.

Behind the spectacular reaction

It’s hard to see our fragile hearts.

Boiling in searing heat,

Flames are burning and water drops are colliding,

Rising fog like silk is confused like feeling.

We’ve been crazy together.

Science Editor: James Zheng

How to Draw Science Tools

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For this week’s “Science” theme, Chelsea teaches us how to draw science tools–may come in handy in Chemistry.

By PROFESSIONAL ARTIST AP ART STUDENT EXTRAORDINAIRE Chelsea Xu

Heyo guys! I’m back with another drawing tutorial. This week we are going to learn how to draw science tools. I’m betting this is going to help you with your scientific diagram.

So follow along, and get started!

This time is a bit different than the last time. I put the steps on the paper since I drew multiple tools at once. 

And ta-da!! If you are satisfied with your drawing, feel free to show off your drawing skills. And if not, try again! Art is about trying, just like doing labs in science class.

I hope this tutorial helps, and have a good day!!

Science Editor: James Zheng

Once in a Lifetime Experience

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This week, James takes his turn as editor. He has assigned the Blog Team the theme of “Science.” When we say “Science,” this is what Luke thinks . . . .

By Luke Langlois

Isn’t it nifty how words on a screen can instantly strike an image into your consciousness? For example, when I say MAD SCIENTIST you see a dimly lit room with a chemical-explosion-covered person laughing maniacally. Typically, there are also steaming Erlenmeyer flasks sitting in the background filled with eye-popping neon pink liquid. Don’t forget the conveniently timed thunderstorms! It is (probably) safe to say that this stereotypical mad scientist does not exist outside of our science fiction. But, we have REAL mad scientists out there who have some pretty “out there” ideas. Then again, most ground-breaking scientists have to be at least a little mad, but that’s a different matter. 

Anyway, this post’s mad scientist is not actually a scientist at all. He’s an artist who used scientific principles in a now-notorious design. In 2010, Lithuanian Ph.D. candidate Julijonas Urbonas from London’s Royal College of Art came up with the “Euthanasia Coaster.” Urbonas had an experience working at an amusement park, and it was such an inspiring tenure that he decided to design a roller coaster that would send twenty-four passengers to the end of the line. His goal, of course, was to elegantly take a human life.

You may be asking yourself how that would work. Anyone, who’s taken their chances with a roller-coaster has imagined typical scenarios that would result in gruesome injuries. Well, maybe it’s just me. What if a piece of the track mysteriously disappeared? What if we started going backward on that steep hill the coaster climbs? Certainly, the result of those mechanical failures would be no fun, but Urbonas’s coaster design has no dramatic collisions. The coaster would instead use the power of the gravitational force equivalent, more commonly known as g-force, to reach its terminal point. The coaster’s track would take its passengers on a brisk climb to 1,670 feet. Once there, the coaster would take a 1,600-foot plunge, accelerating the coaster to 220 miles per hour. For reference, Splash Mountain at Disneyland has a drop of 49 feet. After reaching this speed, the coaster would make its way through seven clothoid inversions, which is commonly known as a corkscrew loop in the typical amusement park world. Does it sound fun, you DAREDEVIL? I’m sure it would be a blast if you could withstand the lethal 10 g. The coaster’s speed and inversions would make its passengers suffer from an insufficient amount of oxygen to the brain (cerebral hypoxia). The passengers would quickly experience symptoms of g-force induced loss of consciousness. The seven loops ensure that they permanently remain in this state. 

Researching the “Euthanasia Coaster” has made me realize a couple of things. For one, I have another layer of respect for the team of engineers and designers that build our roller coasters. Thank you for making them fun and not lethal. More importantly, though, just how amazing is the human mind for coming up with this! I defined it as “mad science,” but it is BRILLIANT science. At the end of the day, all I have to say is be mindful of your amusement park choices. 

Sources

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/human-plus-science-gallery
http://julijonasurbonas.lt/euthanasia-coaster/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_Coaster
A rendered concept of Urbonas’s “Euthanasia Coaster”

Editor: James Zheng