This Blog's History: What is Hydrogen?

In case you missed it the first time, for This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to the post I wrote on hydrogen, the most important element in the Universe!

What is Hydrogen?

Your Universe Series - Charles W. Brown Planetarium

Social distancing and stay at home orders have shut down most planetariums across the country, but several are continuing to offer cool programs online. The Charles W. Brown Planetarium on the campus of Ball State University is offering for free a very cool online educational series titled "Your Universe".

Each week the planetarium's director, Danya Thompson starts a new series on an astronomical object. The Sun was discussed the first week and Mercury the second. The videos are short, but packed full of information for kids! To access the videos and learn more, here are a couple of links:

Charles W. Brown Planetarium

Charles W. Brown Planetarium - Facebook Page

Both links will take you to the Your Universe video series.

Lightspeed Magazine

Last week I shared my discovery and enjoyment of The Dark magazine, an e-magazine filled with short science fiction and horror stories. This week I share my discovery of Lightspeed magazine, an e-magazine filled with short science fiction and fantasy stories. Each issue is filled with several short stories from various authors, including some well-known authors. The first story I read in the first issue I received (April 2020) was written by Veronica Roth.

For what you get in each issue, the price is very reasonable. You can purchase from the website below or subscribe through Amazon for just $3 an issue. If you have some cash to spend, you can buy a lifetime membership for $500. Although to gain monetarily from the lifetime membership, you'd have to plan on subscribing for 14 years. :-) So I stuck with the $3/month subscription.

Similar to The Dark magazine, if you enjoy, or you know someone who enjoys science fiction and fantasy, Lightspeed magazine is a great gift idea!

Lightspeed Magazine

What is #43: Iron?

The last two elements discussed in this series were hydrogen and helium, the two most abundant elements in the Universe, and building blocks to the other elements through star formation and other energetic events in space. Iron is the 26th element on the periodic table but is interesting in that it is the last element that can be produced in the core of a star. Given there are more than 100 known elements, less than a quarter are produced through fusion.

In the core of stars, hydrogen fuses to helium for most of a star's life. Near the end, helium can fuse to carbon in low mass stars. In high mass stars, carbon and oxygen can fuse into heavier elements through several steps, all the way up to iron. Iron cannot fuse into a heavier element. Why not?

Iron has the lowest mass per nuclear particle, meaning it can't fuse into a heavier element. For fusion to release energy, the product must have a greater mass per nuclear particle, and that isn't possible if iron is the lowest.

So how do we get elements heavier than iron? Where do silver and gold come from? The heavier elements come from even more energetic events such as a supernova explosion. But even that may not be enough energy for the heavier elements. It's thought the collision of two neutron stars is needed to produce the heaviest elements.

Cool stuff!

Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe Podcast

Another great astronomy-themed podcast to add to your list is the Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe podcast. A great podcast hosted by two guys named Daniel and Jorge.

Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe

Some of you may be familiar with Jorge. Jorge is the creator of PHD (Piled Higher and Deeper) Comics. This comic stripped helped me through grad school about 15 years ago. Anyone who goes through grad school knows of the stress and unknown future, and this comic was a great stress reliever!

Daniel is a physics professor at UC Irvine.

Together Daniel and Jorge talk about the Universe and interview people on the streets. This is an informative, humorous, and very interesting podcast about the Universe. Good stuff. Check it out!

This Blog's History: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

I love books, so For This Friday in This Blog's History I point you back to the post I wrote after reading the first book in the Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin (@nkjemisin on Twitter), titled The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. A fantastic book and a fantastic start to this trilogy. A great book to add to your to-read list if you are a fan of fantasy books or know someone who is.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Our Sourdough Starter

We finally did it. We started a sourdough starter. I didn't even know what a sourdough starter was a few weeks ago and now we have one in the house! My kids have done a lot of baking over the last several weeks during stay-at-home orders that continue. We've had no problem finding bread in the stores, but my oldest daughter has enjoyed trying out new bread recipes and she certainly has the time to do more cooking. Although most ingredients have been easy to find in stores, yeast hasn't. Yeast is sold out everywhere. And I mean everywhere! This means the typical bread recipe is not possible because yeast is needed for the bread to rise. What is one to do without yeast?

My daughter found a bagel recipe that used Greek yogurt instead of yeast and the bagels turned out very well! But most bread requires yeast. So we started a sourdough starter to create our own yeast! The process is very simple, in theory. There are several recipes, some of which use fruit. We decided to use the simplest recipe possible: flour and water. Take equal parts flour and water (start with a quarter to a half-cup each) and thoroughly mix. Place a towel over the bowl and let sit at room temperature. Each day, both morning and night, add another tablespoon or two of flour and an equal amount of water and stir. This feeds the yeast. After five days, you have a yeast mixture that you can use in baking. Here is our starter on day one.

Now we wait 5 days! After 5 days the recipe said we can store it in the fridge, covered, and add a bit of flour and equal water once a week to keep feeding it. I'll let you know when it's done and we make some bread with it! I'm told it is really hard to screw this up, but that doesn't mean I'm not worried we found some way to mess it up!

The Importance of Paying for Your News

I categorized this post as 'Newsletters' but its more about news in general. There are hundreds to thousands of places you can get news today, many of which are misleading, false, and outright lying. Others are less investigative journalism and more opinion pieces. The point is that you have many, many places to get news and there are a great number of high-quality news sources out there. Right now times are tough with tens of millions of Americans losing their jobs due to the economic impact of COVID-19. Money is tight. If you have the means, however, please, please, please pay for your news.

The major network news sources, such as MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC, all get their money from their wide reach of sponsors and advertisements. Are they great news sources? Not in my opinion. Sure, there's some news that comes through, but so much of it is opinion pieces that offer no real input to everyday Americans. These sources have drastically cut and scaled back their investigative journalists to save money and build profit. The major source of investigative journalism in this country used to be the local TV channels and local newspapers. But so many of these have shuttered in the last few years that investigative journalism has suffered a steep decline.

Why? Why the deep decline in local news? High-quality, real local news requires money. Journalists need to be paid. When people stop their newspaper subscriptions in favor of free online "news", newspapers and local TV stations are forced to layoff journalists. If you want a country with high-quality journalism, you must contribute. Stop heading to the free opinion channels and websites that have the ability to receive vast amounts of money through advertising. Stop using browser tricks to read more than the "3 free articles per month" you are allowed by the paywall. Quality journalism requires your contributions and if you have that ability to contribute, please do so!

The Dark Magazine

I'm always looking for new books to read, even though I own more books (physical and e-book) that I could acquire zero books for the remainder of my life and it will take many years, if not my whole life, to finish reading what I already own. I've picked up many, many free e-books over the years that I keep adding to my collection.

Since I've "purchased" so many free books, most of my Amazon recommended reading options include fantasy and science fiction books. The other day a recommendation for The Dark Magazine appeared, at a cost of $1.99 a month. It looked interesting so I dug into it a bit more and it's a pretty cool magazine! Every month an issue is released containing several short science fiction and horror stories by various authors. After reading the first few stories in the first issue I signed up for, I was very pleased with the quality of the stories. And $1.99 is pretty cheap for the number of stories you get each month.

There are a couple of ways to sign up for a subscription. You can join by Patreon.

The Dark Magazine - Patreon

Or you can order by Amazon. With Amazon you get the first 30 days free, equivalent to the first monthly issue, to check it out before paying.

The Dark Magazine - Amazon

If you like science fiction and horror reading, this is a great, cheap option for some great stories!

Our Silly Cat

Since I've started working at home starting in March, I've had many opportunities to watch our cat, Newton, out the window. He always wants outside and we let him because our backyard is fenced in and he can't get out anywhere. He usually just slinks around and lays down under a tree or the trampoline. Nothing too exciting. The other day though I look up from my laptop and see him sprinting back and forth across the yard, very unlike him. I look around and finally notice why he is running. He's chasing a bird that is flying back and forth across the yard and perching on the fence for a few seconds before flying to the other side. LOL! The bird is flying no closer than 10 feet to the ground and our cat has no chance at ever catching the bird. But that's not stopping him. Then later after a few sprints across the yard, here is Newton:

He was worn out! :-)

This Blog's History: HEATED Podcast

In case you missed it last time, For This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to the post I wrote on the new podcast, HEATED. This is a short, 6 episode podcast special devoted to climate change and hosted by Emily Atkin (@emorwee on Twitter). She is the author of the HEATED newsletter, a great climate change newsletter delivered to your inbox! Don't miss out on either the newsletter of the podcast!

HEATED Podcast

Burn It All Down Podcast

For those of you needing a live sports fix, but can't get it, I encourage you to check out the Burn It All Down podcast. This podcast is hosted by Shireen Ahmed, Amira Rose Davis, Brenda Elsey, Lindsay Gibbs, and Jessica Luther.  Lindsay Gibbs is the author of the PowerPlays! newsletter I subscribe to and previously wrote about on this blog.

The Burn It All Down podcast releases a new issue approximately once each week and each episode focuses on women in sports and the inequalities women too often face compared to men's sports. This is a much needed podcast and I was thrilled to find it through the PowerPlays! newsletter. Recent episodes have focused on bargaining agreements in women's sports, the effect of COVID-19 on women's sports, the inequities in pay to women in sports, along with interviews of many female athletes. A fantastic podcast! I encourage you to check it out and listen to a few episodes. I don't think you'll be disappointed!

Burn It All Down Podcast

What Is #42: Helium?

The last post in this series took a look at hydrogen, the element on the periodic table with the lowest mass and the most abundant element in the Universe. Today we take a look at helium, the element with the second-lowest mass and the second most abundant element in the Universe. So what is helium?

Bensaccount at English Wikipedia / Public domain

A helium atom, by definition, has two protons. It normally has two neutrons in the nucleus, unless it is an isotope with a different number of neutrons. If neutral in charge, there are two electrons orbiting the nucleus in an electron cloud.

Astronomically speaking, helium came into being just after the Big Bang, along with hydrogen, although not nearly in the same quantities. Helium makes up about 10% of the Universe by number and 25% by mass. Since a helium atom has more mass than a hydrogen atom, the percentage by mass is higher than by number.

In stars, hydrogen fuses into helium, releasing energy in the core of a star. This is how stars produce energy. Without this process, Earth would not receive the needed energy from the Sun to harbor life. Stars will then fuse helium into carbon in their cores. Well, not every star as the lowest mass stars will not have a high enough core temperature to do this.

Helium on Earth? Helium balloons of course! Helium balloons float because helium has a lower density than the surrounding air, so it rises. Helium is used in many other places, including scientific research, coolants, medical equipment, etc. Needless to say, helium is very important to our daily lives!

House - TV Series

When the stay at home orders started in March, I started watching the TV series, House. I've been wanting to watch this for some time but never had the time. Coronavirus gave me that time. :-) I've through the first season and into the second season and love this show! This doesn't surprise me, I was a huge fan of ER in the 90s and first half of the 2000s. I really enjoy Hugh Laurie as Gregory House.

Now, is this show medically accurate? BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I don't have a medical degree and obviously this show is not medically accurate. But it's interesting, funny, and draws me in for 42 minutes at a time as an escape from a world filled with panic and anxiety over coronaviurs. Check it out. Right now it streams on Amazon Prime.

Forge - Book Review

My latest book read is Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson. This is the second book in a trilogy that is a historical fiction that looks at slavery during the Revolutionary War. The first book is titled "Chains" which I read last year. Chains focused on the story of Isabel, as she was sold from one slave master to another, losing her sister in the process. Along the way, she met Curzon, also a slave. Although not a true story, it is based on the truth of how slaves were used by white men during the Revolutionary War.

Forge continues the story, but the focus shifts from Isabel to Curzon. Curzon has escaped and joins the forces in the war, only to have his slave master find and recapture him. Toward the end of the book, Curzon meets Isabel again and they plot their next moves in an attempt to seek freedom.

In school, students learn about the Revolutionary War, but the focus is on the ways in which the colonists were heroes as they sought freedom from the restrictions of the British. There is far less focus on how, while seeking their own freedom, white colonists enslaved blacks. The Revolutionary War was built in part on the backs of black slaves.

Chains, Forge, and the third book, Ashes, are all must-reads. Not just for your home, but they should be required books read in school for various classes. So grab a copy of these books and sit down for a high quality, educational read.

This Blog's History: Betrayal at House on the Hill

In case you missed it last time, for This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to the post I wrote on a super cool board game called Betrayal at House on the Hill. Strategy, haunted house, monsters, heroes, and villains. A different game every time! What more could you ask for!?!?!

Betrayal at House on the Hill

Box of Lies - Board Game

We've been playing a lot of board games during stay at home orders due to coronavirus. One of the more recent games we played, that my oldest daughter received for Christmas, was Box of Lies, from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. I don't even know how to describe this game because I still do not understand the point of it.

To play you need four players, although there are modifications for two or three players. The four players are paired on two teams and each team has to determine which player on the other team is telling the truth or lying about the description of an image they have in front of them.

Don't get me wrong, we had some good laughs, but there's no strategy in this game other than guessing who is telling the truth or lying. It was fun, but not really my type of game, LOL! But it's a cheap board game that will get you some laughs and kill some time while you are still in a stay at home order. You can get it at Target for $12. :-)

Box of Lies

Once Upon a Time - TV Series

Over the past several months, starting in 2019, we've been watching the now completed TV series, Once Upon a Time. It is both addicting and infuriating. The show takes characters from common Disney movies such as Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Tangled, Mulan, etc. and moves them to a small town in Maine. The evil queen in Snow White places a curse on the land and transports everyone to this town in Maine, but no one remembers anything. They slowly regain their memories and the fun begins.

It's an interesting series that we've enjoyed watching as a family, but it is infuriating at times. For example, there are several times when the evil queen starts to turn good, but then there's a story twist and she's back to being evil. ARG!!!! I know plot twists keep an audience attracted, but at times it makes it difficult to watch. We've watched the first three seasons, but have delayed in watching the fourth. We'll watch the fourth, but the plot twist at the end of season three left us wanting a bit of time off before continuing. LOL!

If you need a good, fantasy-based TV series to watch as a family, Once Upon a Time is a good option. Oh, and just ignore all science. This is a story of fantasy and magic, so don't expect anything to be scientifically accurate. :-)

Sign of the Unicorn - Book Review

I continue to stay ahead of my pace of 45 books read in 2020. My latest book read was Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny. This is the third book in the Chronicles of Amber series. It's a good series that is quite different from your typical fantasy series. The best way to describe it is the description I gave in my review of the first book in the series.

It's a story that switches back and forth from a land of normal humans to a land of fantasy and magic. It sets up a unique story, but at times I find it hard to follow. The third book in the series, Sign of the Unicorn, was a decent book, but in my view did not hold up to the level of the first two. The story moves slowly. It's not a long book, at just over 150 standard book pages, but there isn't too much that happens. It picks up a bit in the last 20-30 pages and there are some interesting storylines, but overall it's a bit slow.

I encourage you to read it, however. There are very few books I read that I don't recommend others read. In a series of books, one book has to be the best and one book has to be the worst. It doesn't mean the worst book is horrible, it just means it isn't as good as the others. Now that I'm three books into this series, the third book currently holds the title of worst in the series. 

Uranus is Odd

Uranus is an odd planet, partly because we are all juvenile at heart and chuckle at its name. Yes, I may be 40 years old, but Uranus jokes are still fair game! Uranus is odd because it is tipped over on its side. Every planet has what is defined as an orbital tilt. Earth, for example, has an orbital tilt of 23.5 degrees. Venus has a tilt of 3 degrees but rotates in the opposite direction. Most of the planets have a relatively small orbital tilt, except for Uranus. Uranus has a tilt of 82 degrees, meaning it is nearly tipped over on its side.

NASA Hubble / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Why is Uranus titled onto its side? The most likely explanation is an impact with a large object early on in the formation of the Solar System. This is difficult to determine, however, because the evidence for that collision is long gone. Astronomers in Japan have recently modeled the tilt of Uranus and determined it is consistent with an impact by an object one to three times the size of Earth. That's a pretty large impact! For more details on this, the link to the article is below.

Origins of Uranus' oddities explained by Japanese astronomers

It's cool when the power of science helps provide evidence for events that took place 4.5 billion years ago!!!

This Blog's History: What is Triton?

In case you missed it last time, For This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to the post I wrote on Triton. What is Triton? A super cool (pun intended) moon orbiting Neptune. For more details on this moon, the original post is linked below.

What is Triton?